Doing Time Doing Masculinity Don Sabo Analysis

In “Doing Time, Doing Masculinity”, the author begins narrating his experiences as a teacher for correctional facilities in prison. The time in prison has allowed him to focus on how the prison system has deeply impacted the lives of men specifically and how the periods they stay in, force them to show their natural masculinity. The author makes an attempt to identify the way masculinity circulates in prison and how there is a social system that is integratedly established. You have only two sides: the abuser and the abused. He further explains this concept by saying that men are either shown “hard” or “soft”, throughout their time spent in prison. In this social spectrum, in prisons it's always best to show that you are tough and hard or else you will be “at the bottom of the barrel” as some would say.

The author, Don Sabo identifies gender as something that is deeply entitled to how we present ourselves and where on the spectrum do we fall under.

In prisons, being masculine is highly essential and anyone who shows signs of weakness or softness, such as being feminine, is either mistreated or falls at the lowest level of being respected. Prisons are filled of activities for pure masculine to flourish such as: weight lifting, both playing and watching sports. Sports and fitness activities work to help men express themselves while also allowing their time due in prison to be bearable. In everything men do, the primary objective is to be bad, show toughness and establish an entitlement of sheer bruteness. It has deeply evoked practices of manhood such as being a bad ass, raping or beating others up, that it contradicts itself. The men placed there were arrested for doing such crimes and inside the prisons, they are forced to practice these social expressions. The culture of being hard and tough prevails and stays with them after their time has been payed

off.
One quote that really made me feel unpleasant was that “Rape-based relationships between prisoners are often described as relationships between “men” and “girls” who are, in effect, thought of as “master” and “slave”, victor and vanquished. What I understood is that rape is indeed common and serves to promote a clear message that their is only one dominant male. Especially in prisons, it is a sign of true submission or oppression that labels women or “soft” people in a state of victimization. This ideal is truly a let-down and I wouldn’t be able to live my life as someone who has been raped.
In conclusion, I found Sabo’s article to be clear and fascinating. The author is inclined to see prisons as institutions that work to emasculate inmates as well as promoting the ideal of manhood. Society has become wrong in the sense that the definition manhood is now defined as an oppressing force for not just women, but also men. Men who live by this cultural ideal, who end up going behind bars because of it, are only endorsed to continue living this way even after spending time in correctional facilities.