Masculinity Argumentative Essay

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Almost every week, the news covers a story involving sexual harassment or sexual assault. Whether it is a group of fraternity members yelling slurs at a homosexual couple, President Donald Trump talking about the power he had over females because of his celebrity status, or a college athlete that rapes an unconscious girl at a party, these types of stories seem to have one one commonality: men are the perpetrators. Not to say that females do not participate in actions of sexual violence, just recognizing the fact that the majority of perpetrators of sexual assault are male (Greenfeld, 1997). In order to get a better understanding of why males tend to participate in sexual violence, this essay will examine the pressures put on males to prove their masculinity. This essay will detail the ways in which I have witnessed and even committed acts of sexual violence to prove masculinity; it will also display how I intend on erasing the idea that participating in sexual violence …show more content…

Yes, there is something very primal about a man proving his worth for a women, in order to win her over; but what men fear the most is having our masculinity being questioned by other men. In my own experiences, I found that men are more likely to try to prove their masculinity to a room full of men, than a room full of women. This can be seen in the form of sexual harassment coined as “locker room talk.” Locker room talk is term developed to justify the extremely offensive and inappropriate way men communicate to other men when women are not present. Hence the name, referring to a men’s locker room. Most of the dialogue consists of sexualizing women in a way that shows males how masculine you are. I have been on many sports teams and in a large number of clubs that consist of only men; speaking this way has been accepted as a part of male dominated

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