Dave Barry Guys Vs Men Analysis

Male vs. Male

There are often many stereotypes in a society. The most common are the stereotypes that compare women and men. For example, women are thought of to cook, clean, and take care of the children in a family. On the contrary, men are supposedly the working, dominant, money-makers within a household. In a reflection titled “Guys vs. Men,” humorist, Dave Barry, strays away from those stereotypes, not completely, but to instead compare the stereotypes of “guys” and the stereotypes of “men.” Barry’s purpose is to prove that people think of men to have more of a serious, mature, and responsible nature. On the other hand, guys have a more playful nature and a less serious side to them, which shows that they are young at heart. He addresses the stereotype in a humorous tone, as well as strategically formatting it with multiple comparisons, in order to keep the atmosphere light and friendly

and not to target one group.
Barry begins his reflection by defining the meaning of a “man” to qualify his argument that men are often times misinterpreted. He intrigues the reader by beginning with a statement of “man itself is a serious word” (915), then continuing on to say that this word, as well as “manhood and manly” (915), makes “being a male sound like a very important activity” (915). By doing so, Barry portrays the effect that the word “man” not only involves a gender, but the gender’s characteristics. It arouses the reader to ask themselves: what defines a man? Then, qualities such as strength, vigor, possessiveness, and respect come to mind. This reminds the audience that men are, indeed, stereotyped as “aggressive macho dominators” (915).
Following Barry’s interpretation of men, he structures the remaining segments of the reflection into subtitles as he explains what makes a “guy” different than a man. He titles the sections “Guys Like Neat Stuff” (916), “Guys Like a Really Pointless Challenge”(918), and “Guys Do Not Have a Rigid and Well-Defined Moral Code”(919). He models the reflection this way to classify all the different points he believes need to be addressed. Each section gives a specific reason as to what makes a guy so simple and playful compared to a man, making it easy for the reader to understand the points trying to be made.
By breaking the reflection into subtitles, Barry strategically gives coherent examples of guys to identify the contrasting characteristics between men and guys. In the first section, “Guys Like Neat Stuff,” Barry describes guys as people who like “mechanical and unnecessarily complex” (916) toys per se. Which he then continued on to talk about himself saying how he was “typing these words on an extremely powerful computer” (916), a computer that was “in a line of maybe ten computers [he’s] owned” (916). He used this example to show that guys have very meaningless wants or needs, portraying the idea that guys would drop whatever they had for something better. Along with these meaningless needs, they care about meaningless things such as their “loyalty to the Detroit Tigers” (916). Obviously, the Detroit Tigers are not the most important thing that guys should have loyalty to. So, he then goes more in depth about where guys’ loyalty falls when he talks about guys unloyal motives in the section titled “Guys Do Not Have a Rigid and Well-Defined Moral Code.” He touches on the idea that “guys are scum” (920) and they will “stray away from their marriages if they are confronted with overwhelming temptation” (920). Applying a serious matter such as cheating on your wife helps Barry to show that guys do not have their morals set straight. Each of these examples of loyalty show the lack of maturity that guys have compared to men. The concepts are simple and comprehendible to make the reflection easy to follow. He strategically made it like this so that whoever would read it would understand his perspective and be able to relate it to their own lives.
Not only does Barry use relative scenarios to portray the differences between men and guys, he uses them towards women, too.

As mentioned before, Barry doesn’t completely stray away from stereotyping women as well. He stereotypes women in a manner that compares them to men, and the comparisons are amusing as well as critically thought about. He correlates the paragraph about his “absurdly overqualified” (916) computer that he will soon replace with an “even more powerful one” (916) to the fact that “a woman who could cheerfully use the same computer for fifty-three years will rearrange her furniture on almost a weekly basis” (917). This is humorous because women do not care to buy the new gadgets, but would rather find enjoyment in rearranging furniture or basically making good use of something she already has. Barry is very consistent throughout this piece when generalizing these stereotypes. This was an efficient technique he used because it prevented him from targeting a certain gender group. Thus, he was able to create an entertaining piece for all types of people to

read.
In relation to the entertainment of the piece, Barry used humor to create an overall tone within the selection to relax the interpreter. Adopting a comparison between his “small auxiliary dog, Zippy” (919), who is a male, and guys, was an enjoyable way to understand the thought process that guys have. Barry states that “there [are] certain rules that they [are] expected to follow unless they [want] to get in Big Trouble” (919), and they are similar to Zippy because they have “never internalized these rules” (919). Rules such as, Zippy is “not supposed to get into the kitchen garbage or poop on the floor” (919) and he “knows these are the rules” (919), but he has “never really understood why” (919). The only thing that both, Zippy and guys, know is that these rules are “not meant to apply when there are certain extenuating circumstances” (919). Employing a dog as a tool to compare these two very different mammals really aided Barry in using his ludicrous technique. It shows that guys and dogs do, undoubtedly, have a lot in common. Because this comparison is towards the end, it also ploys the reader to want to keep reading and stay interested in the topic.
Additionally, Barry not only stereotypes human men and women, but he uses his female dog as an example to back up his earlier allegations that women are very different than men or guys. In a side note, Barry explains that he also has a “female dog, Earnest” (919). Comparing Zippy who “never really understood” (919) the rules, and Earnest who “never breaks the rules” (919), he was able to draw another line of difference between men and women. These differences help him to qualify his gender based stereotypes. Again, continually mentioning women helps to keep him away from targeting one group of people. Not to mention, putting this statement in a side note gave the reader a chuckle because of its apparent irony.
Altogether, Barry compared all genders from the different angles of males, females, and even dogs, in order for the reflection to maintain its humorous tone. The various perspectives added a depth to the piece that it wouldn’t have found if it only talked about the male culture. It is apparent that guys and men are the same gender, but it was important for Barry to remind the audience that each of those words mean different things when they are truly reflected upon. Although, the term “guys” makes the male population seem more immature or young, the big picture is that men and guys are realistically the same at heart and they are only given titles for classification purposes.