policing of masculinity in hip hop...

For today’s entry I was asked to explore how we, as a society, police masculinity.  However, to understand how we police it, we must first understand our definition of masculine.  In American culture, boys are ingrained from a very young age on what is and isn’t “manly.”  We construct a “box” that defines our view of what is masculine and attempt to fit men in that box.   

When a man acts to “feminine” society is allowed to ridicule that individual until they conform to our rigid views.  When doing this, we expose our own motivations as to why we devalue certain groups.  Boys will call each other “fag,” “sissy,” “girly,” and “retarded,” just to name a few.  In doing so, they are devaluing entire segments of our society; whether intentional or not.  This creates a “ranking system” about masculinity that we put far too much value in. 

At the top of the list is the idea of “hegemonic masculinity.”  This is our ideal man.  He is white, heterosexual, strong, holds influence over others and is able to control his emotions.  But why are we putting such definitions on what it is to be a man?  Is masculinity merely black and white?  Or is it possibly a spectrum on which all people can be placed?

Based on these ideas, gay men, the disabled and women are the furthest things from “masculine.”  Hence, why we degrade those we don’t feel are being manly enough by using these insults.  But these insults do not only affect males, they affect the entire population that we degrade by using terms like this.

 

This weekend, as I was riding around in my car, I thought about the policing of masculinity while listen to rappers “diss” one another.  Over various songs, it was clear to me that this is a very clear form of policing one another.  Each verse was used only to degrade one another through the use of sexist and homophobic comments.  Here are two videos to help illustrate my point:

 

Both of these songs use incredibly graphic and vulgar language to ridicule and emasculate each other.  The constant use of sexist and homophobic imagery helps to show that being masculine is a more desirable trait than femininity.  Using this type of language further propagates the marginalization of other groups of society.  This only helps to reinforce the idealized version of masculinity that society begs us to uphold.  The only question is, why?  Why do we hold ourselves up to an image that can neither be attained, nor even existed in the first place?