Men as Gendered Beings

This text by Kimmel and Messner, while short raised so many important questions and new ideas. They took a new look on gender conflict. Their thesis was that men's public image is all that is seen, but beyond that there is a lot more to be seen and understood. When gender is brought up the word female or feminism is instantly thought of, men often define themselves in a negative way with female traits. However, Kimmel and Messner argue that gender is not a lense in which men view themselves through. Our society is flooded with gender organizing jargon that has become invisible to us yet, it is how we live our day to day lives.

Kimmel and Messner argue that to men gender is invisible, men simply see themselves as human beings or generic people. Whereas women define themselves as women. But even women all can't unite under one umbrella of womanhood. There is a portion of the text that displays how race can be seen as invisible to white women just as gender can be seen as invisible to men. So does that mean white men are struggling with an identity crisis?

In class we discussed how you know that you are a woman because you aren't a man. Wouldn't that be gendering men and giving them the authority and control over gender?

Another notion brought up in this text is the idea of male public roles and how society views men only through those roles. If they were seen through the private roles in the home what impact would that have on they way we view masculinity and men in general?