Gender Roles During The Flapper's Movement

Gender roles are the prescribed behaviors of what is expected of males and females; in modern day societies males are given certain rights as are females. The feminist movement aims to equalize the rights amongst males and females. To exemplify, females protested and fought for the right to vote in the United States in 1920. During this very decade, females started the Flapper’s Movement in order to obtain social equality with men. During the Flapper’s Movement, young women, in a group known as “Flappers” asserted their social rights by doing the opposite of what society expected from females; wear short skirts, consume alcohol, smoking, driving and partaking in sexual norms. Additionally, there have been three major waves of the feminist movement

in history; the first-wave movement granted political rights to upper-class women, the second-wave broadened the rights to other social classes and cultures, and the current third-wave movement is fighting for further female empowerment. Given all of the rights women have gained throughout history and during modern day, I ask what feminism has done for men. The movement evidently aids female victimization to gender inequality. What about males being victims to gender inequality? Males are victims of gender inequality too; predating to history males were expected to be hunters regardless of how strong they were. Emotionally, men are expected to hide their feelings in order to be “stronger” regardless of how much internal pain they feel. The goal of feminism, to obtain gender equality, isn’t progressing due to a lack of focus on the idea that males are victims to gender inequality.
Starting at an early age, males are encouraged to be tough and not to cry because it’s what males are supposed to do; this encouragement has an influence on tragic experiences of sexual assault.

Holding back tears takes a lot out of any persons’ emotions. University of Manchester’s Billie Andrews reveals that the constant force for a boy to be emotionally repressed, hiding any emotions that negatively impact the boy, eventually leads to boys keeping events of sexual abuse to themselves (“Boys Don’t Cry”). After being consistently told to be “tough”, boys tend to ignore the magnitude of how much danger they are in for the sake of “being a man”. For example, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center of the University of Michigan provides statistics on male sexual assault encounters; roughly 16% of males have reported sexual assault according to the US Centers for Disease control in 2005 however, there are estimations that declare males report sexual assault even less than females (. A contributing factor to males not reporting sexual assault is because it is hard for society to believe males can be victim to assault because males are always “tough”. Masculinity implies that a male should repress any negative emotions and being a victim is a negative emotion. The fact that the idea of masculinity is so powerful it can force a boy to hide events of sexual assault spells that the male gender role is in need of attention; regardless of gender, sexual assault victimizes

and inevitably damages a person psychologically if they don’t seek professional help. Additionally, Andrews points out “. . . there is no doubt feminism massively helped women to be heard and put sexual abuse on the agenda. However, men are also victims of patriarchal society-we often ignore their emotions and encourage them to ‘take it like a man’” (“Boys Don’t Cry”). The feminist movement allows women today to express their traumatic experiences on sexual assault and fight against it so they don’t have to deal with it alone. However, there isn’t much focus on males and a leading contributor is because males are expected to “take” the blow of abuse and get back up. Masculinity creates an ideology of an all-powerful human and in reality males aren’t so invincible. Sexual assault can happen to males and they are victims; males need attention just as females do in such hostile situations.
Growing up with the idea that they need to be strong and keep to themselves, males limit their acceptance to seek help and it is unhealthy. Eva E. Reed, a professor in the School of Counseling and Social Services at Walden University, conducts a study on masculinity in her article “Man up: young men’s lived experience and reflections on counseling”. In the study, six males are interviewed about their opinions on what it essentially means to be a man and what type of counselor would be ideal for them. As a result, “There was an agreement among participants about avoiding emotional confrontations may reveal vulnerability” (Reed). Counseling is a form of emotional confrontation, so men were reluctant towards counseling due to the fact that they believed it would make them look weak. The constant need to mask their emotions prevents males from opening up about their feelings with loved ones and even trained professionals because they need to follow their gender role. Reed emphasizes “Reasons for engaging in mental health services included depression, grief and loss, and drug use. All participants were referred for mental health or pastoral services by teachers, parents or law enforcement officials, and none sought out services independently” (Reed). Masculinity implies sacrificing everything down to ones’ own feelings, regardless of whether it’s recommended for one’s mental health, in order to remain in power. Neglecting help from depression, grief and drug abuse takes a toll on a person’s body both mentally and physically. Depressed people can suffer from loss of appetite, sleep or even the need to be alive. Drug abuse, depending on the drug, can damage certain internal organs and slowly kill a person. This excess amount of masculinity is unhealthy and is in need of focus with gender equality in order to establish a form of masculinity that doesn’t harm males.
In the workforce, the feminist movement focuses too much on female discrimination.

In the working environment, there is focus on females having unequal salaries with males or where women are lacking. Sociology Professor of University of British Columbia, Neil Guppy, reveals statistics that point out males are more likely to become engineers; “. . .men with lower mathematics test scores are significantly more likely to enter and graduate from STEM degree fields” (Guppy 248). Additionally, “. . . domestic labor continues to be segregated into blue and pink jobs, with women disproportionately doing routine housework and childcare, and men concentrating most on non-routine domestic labor (e.g. fixing things)” (Guppy 251). Feminists have every right to argue for female inequality in the working environment; if women are able to score higher mathematics scores than males then they should have every right to obtain a STEM degree and enter fields of engineering. If women are able to prove throughout the course of the feminist movement that they are strong, they should be able to perform careers when they fix things. However, the perspective this writing takes doesn’t address how males fall victim to such careers; males are discriminated into performing non-routine domestic labor because they are supposed to be the “breadwinners” or perform physically demanding jobs. Just as females are disproportionately forced into domestic labor, so are males in STEM and engineering fields; if

females with higher mathematic grades aren’t accepted into such fields while males with lower grades are, then it is inarguable it is a matter of forcing males into these types of demanding labor.
Evidently, even outside of the workforce, the feminist movement has a history of reforms for female gender flaws yet the male counterpart is untouched. Rita M. Gross, an American Buddhist feminist, writes in her article, published in the Cross Currents magazine, “What Went Wrong? Feminism and Freedom from the Gender Roles”, “Instead of freedom from the prison of gender roles, we have gained freedom from both the virtues and the defects of the female gender role while we-both women and men as well as the entire culture-have become ever more enamored of the male gender role” (Gross 9). Gross expresses females have leveled their equality by disproving females being associated with weakness, females have revealed they are strong enough to do what men can. These actions reveal there are faults in the female gender role. However, both men and women redirect themselves to following the masculine role. Therefore, the progression of feminism is only halfway complete because the masculine role is in need of reform. Without an evaluation of the male gender role there is “. . .confusion between maleness and the human norm has limited men from understanding their experiences specifically as men” (Gross 20). Before feminism, men have always held the burden of having an excess amount of power. Today while the movement is intact, women are asserting this “masculinity”, so the movement is currently a fight for power rather than purging both genders from societal expectations and creating a common ground. The fight for power blinds feminists from the fact that the excess of power males hold provide a burden to them. In theory, until there is an evaluation and separation of what defines power is and what it essentially means to be a male, the gap on gender equality will continue to exist. The only way to eliminate this gap and to re-evaluate what it is to be man is to shine light on the major flaw of masculinity, too much power.