Essay on "Michael Kimmel's "Transforming a Rape Culture"

Essay 5 pages (2314 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Michael Kimmel's "Transforming a Rape Culture," Kimmel cites Brannon's four rules of masculinity. Define at least three of these rules and explain how this construction of masculinity contributes to rape culture.

Brannon's four rules of masculinity are: (1) no sissy stuff; (2) be a big wheel; (3) be a sturdy oak; and (4) give 'em hell (Kimmel, p.142). By no sissy stuff, Brannon means that men cannot do anything that could be construed as feminine; instead, men are expected to devalue femininity. By be a big wheel, Brannon means that manhood is measured by outward accomplishments, like "power, wealth, and success" (Kimmel, p.142). By being a sturdy oak, Brannon means that manhood is defined by emotional dependability, which really means that men are discouraged from showing their true feelings, especially in a crises (Kimmel, p.l42). By give 'em hell, Brannon means that men are expected to be daring and aggressive.

This construction of masculinity contributes to a rape culture in a several different ways. First, the idea that men are supposed to be sturdy oaks means that they are not expected to show emotion, even during sexual encounters. Instead, even in their sexuality, men are expected to be daring and aggressive, which translates into risk-taking. Historically, this meant that women were expected to be the gatekeepers of sexual pleasure. Oddly enough, this role stripped women of their own sexual power, because their role was reduced to the person who either fulfilled or denied sexual fantasies. The traditional male sexual role was to coerce sex, whether through force of lesser forms of persuasion. While women have objected to this traditional male sexual etiquette, the four rules of masculinity have not changed. Even if individual men show an awareness and concern for women, particularly women who have been or may be victimized by sexual violence, they are discouraged from showing that same concern in a group. To do so is to somehow embrace the feminine, which violates the rule of no sissy stuff. Furthermore, while women have fears of violence, male fears have to do with being laughed at or stigmatized, and much of what is stigmatizing in modern society is the idea that a man is somehow not male enough. Therefore, men use sexual conquests as a way of proving their maleness to other men. The woman becomes inconsequential in the interaction. Obviously, when sex becomes about comparisons with other men, the idea of what rape is and does to a woman becomes secondary in the eyes of men. Therefore, the risk of violence increases.

2. In "Playboy Joins the Battle of the Sexes" Barbara Ehrenreich argues that Playboy magazine reflected male rebellion, not sexual revolution. To explain this, describe the new model of masculinity that the magazine introduced, and identify what men were rebelling against.

The new model of masculinity that Playboy introduced was a model of masculinity in which women were considered peripheral to life. While the magazine theoretically celebrated women, it did so only in the sense that women were sexually available for men's enjoyment. It lambasted women in other areas, particularly wives. Moreover, Playboy had a desire to reconquer the indoors for men, whom, it postulated, had been driven outdoors by women. The magazine was, in a sense, rebelling against the feminist movement, which was, of course, indivisible from the sexual revolution. Because of that, it would be impossible to suggest that the magazine was celebrating a sexual revolution. After all, there is nothing revolutionary in viewing women solely as sexual objects; the only thing revolutionary would be the ability to do so without the concern of fathering children with that woman.

However, it would be reductionist to suggest that men were only rebelling against the feminist movement. One must consider when Playboy was first published: the 1950s. The 1950s were an incredibly conservative time in America. Men were expected to be upright examples of a certain type of morality which had probably never existed. Moreover, coming after World War II, the men of the 1950s were expected to exhibit a type of austere conservativeness which did not jive with the actual prosperity that people were experiencing during that time. Hefner's goal was to challenge the strict conformity of the 1950s. In Ehrenhreich's words, he was embracing the idea of a "fun morality" that spoke of the idea that hedonism could be moral (p.45). Playboy suggested that men should embrace some parts of adulthood, such as having a job, but reject other conventional aspects of American life, like marriage. Moreover, Playboy realized that money was one of the great dividing lines between men and women, and suggested that men would be endangering their financial power with marriage. It was almost as if men should resist the feminist movement because it gave women power while putting male financial dominance at risk. Playboy was about escaping financial responsibility for another, while still enjoying the traditional benefits of marriage (ready access to sex).

3. Contrasting an article with a film: Connect and elaborate upon an element discussed in either Tone's "The Pill in Practice" or Koedt's "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" to the film Orgasm, Inc.

In Koedt's "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm," she discusses the fact that there is no such thing as a vaginal orgasm, because all sexual climax comes from the clitoris. She does discuss the fact that sexual stimulation is possible in other regions, both physically and mentally, but clarifies that the clitoris is the organ responsible for climax. She then expands upon this idea to question the traditional female role in sexual intercourse, because vaginal intercourse is unlikely to provide the clitoral stimulation that many women need to reach orgasm. Despite that, sexuality and sexual intercourse have often been defined along the lines of vaginal intercourse. In other words, what pleases men has come to define heterosexual sexual contact (Koedt, p.336). She also discusses women who fake vaginal orgasms, and discovered several reasons that they might do so, including the desire to "catch" a man, the fear of acknowledging that they did not have vaginal orgasms and might be labeled frigid, or simply being unable to assert their rights to equal enjoyment (Koedt, p.339). She concludes with six reasons that men might perpetuate the myth of the vaginal orgasm: a preference for vaginal penetration, a lack of caring about women, the equation of the penis with masculinity, the fear that men will become sexually expendable, as a means of controlling women, and the fear that women will become lesbians (Koedt, p.340-342).

The film Orgasm, Inc. builds upon the ideas of female sexuality that Koedt discussed. Perhaps the only serious documentary film to investigate the female orgasm, the filmmaker was inspired to make the film after editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company hoping to develop a sexual arousal drug for women to treat Female Sexual Dysfunction. This is a new diseases, but one that certainly harkens back to Freudian ideas of the vaginal orgasm and frigidity. The movie looks at the medical industry and at marketing and how they focus on orgasm as the only element of sexuality. Although the biology of the female reproductive system is better understood, and researchers are very aware of a connection between the mind and body that could prevent healthy women from achieving arousal and climax, there is still a focus on the idea that somehow women who are not sexually available and immediately responsive to men are somehow frigid. It is an interesting juxtaposition to see the film and realize that much of the medical industry, despite its biological knowledge to the contrary, continues to push ideas that go back to the idea of the frigid, non-responsive woman.

4. In chapter 6 of Traister's book "Big Girls Don't Cry" there is a discussion of the sometimes-combative exchanges that occur between second and third wave feminists. In this chapter, what generational arguments and perspectives emerged between second and third wave feminists? And how did this relate to the Presidential election of the time (and the candidates of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama)?

There is a tendency to lump feminists together, without acknowledging that the different generations of feminists have different experiences and desires, and thus may different goals for the movement. Traister acknowledges that feminists of different generations can have different ideas of what it means to be a feminist. Second-wave feminists grew up in an era when women did not even have legally equal rights. While the promise of actual equality has yet-to-be-fulfilled, third wave feminists have grown up in an era when women have equal legal rights to men. Moreover, third-wave feminists have had access to educational and employment opportunities that the vast majority of second-wave feminists did not enjoy. This has led many third-wave feminists to believe that equality is on the horizon, and that the hard-won gains that women have experienced are not transitory, but permanent. Second-wave feminists, who grew up in an era where equality was not even a legal… READ MORE

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