Masculinity Romanticized Ideal And Reality - 3052 Words

Kwang Lee Instructor Cardona Humanities Core 1C 27 May, 2015 Masculinity: Romanticized Ideal and Reality Patriarchy, a system in which the father or eldest male is head of the family, has defined manhood ever since the American Revolution. Men were socialized to think of themselves as breadwinners,† providing for the family’s physical, and financial needs and â€Å"women with the round of cooking, house cleaning, and mending,† performing all the domestic chores, including child-care. This difference was essential in creating an image of the Ideal American man. However, the Great Depression heavily challenged and complicated this culture of masculinity. The stock market crash wiped investments clean, businesses failed to function and†¦show more content†¦These analyses, however, consisted of merely idealized images that often were not representative of the actual reality of men’s behaviors. The Great Depression mandated the refocus of cultural masculine ideals, which were revealed through the recruitment posters during WWII, but these idealized beliefs often did not reflect the non-virtuous racism and misogyny of American men portrayed by the historical records of their behavior in the immense automobile industry. To grasp the entirety of the ideal wartime manhood, one must understand the cost and context of the reshaping process. The demand for soldiers was consistently high, and tremendous advancements in weaponry resulted in an incredibly high number of deaths and casualties. The war totaled over 72 million civilian and military deaths, and an evermore number of casualties worldwide. In addition, over three million tons of explosives were dropped by the allies alone, not to mention the tremendous consequential infrastructural damages worldwide. If soldiers survived, they often returned with permanent scars and were seldom given the proper treatment they needed. Many of them lived with amputations, suffering abnormal facial and bodily deformities, and struggling through PTSD, causing harm not only to themselves, but to the wives, children, and society as a whole. Furthermore, the