During
our talk in last week's lecture, we discussed how masculinity is drawn from
cultural construct, which then made me think about my personal experience with
"masculinity" and expectations. A lot of us were told to wear pink
and dresses that matched the expected image of girls and feminism, while boys
were told to play sports, be athletic, and tough. Girls who broke this
expectation were described as masculine and called a "boy's girl",
and boys the opposite - feminine, or a "girl's boy" if they got along
with more girls over boys. This then made me reflect about today's culture and
the terms we use to describe similar situations. Especially for me, I realized
that when describing myself to others, I tell them I'm a "bro"
because I get along with guys more than I do with girls. This shift in
terminology from masculine to being bro-y became a recent realization and one I
think is very interesting to think about. Why is it that this term,
"bro" is so commonly used to describe the "bro/bro" culture
one is involved in, rather than being described as having more guy friends,
thus, being more masculine? This is relevant even for girls who are interested
in sports, video games, engineering or anything that is tied with being a more
"masculine" topic as they are called "bros" and not true
"girls". Also, having interest in basketball and being a NBA fan, I
try to talk to my guy friends about this sport to learn more about the topic
and to simply discuss what's been happening in the season. There have been
multiple times, however, when I am shut down while also being accused of being
a "fake fan" or just a "fake" in general because I was
apparently not genuinely interested in the sport. Thing like this happen so
often in our daily lives that we just brush it off like a joke, but sometimes
it really does shock me that despite the advancing time we are in now, things
like this still are present in society, since, like I mentioned in the
beginning, the definition of masculinity is learned from cultural construct.
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