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DeShon Tolbert
Professor Jon Beadle
English 115
2 November 2016
Men are Under Attack Through The Media
Violence occurs a lot in society, but who do we point our fingers at for all the crimes
happening? Violent masculinity is huge in our society because men are supposedly the huge
criminals in society that everyone blames men for everything bad that goes on. The media is
always showing statistics of men and women that commit crimes and the difference is huge
between the two. The image from 300 the movie shows violent masculinity with the the men
covered in blood and have weapons in their hands.Also the men have their abs out like any other
male on a cover of a movie. It is important to take a look at the situation of violent masculinity
because society is looking at men as dangerous, men are committing violent crimes, and men are
seen as fighters.
Society tends to look down at men and see them as dangerous, but people need to look at
how it is going all down by looking at violent masculinity to see what can be fixed. In the image
used is from a movie called 300 and the picture is showing that men are very bloody and gory.
Also the main character is holding weapons and showing off his abs while hes yelling. This
shows how men are seen in covers in movies nowadays. Movies would not put a man without the
physical appearance of a strong man. Also movies would not put a man on a cover if he was
holding flowers. In the article, Why Performing Conventional Masculinity is Bad for Men by
Benjamin Spoer states, Ninety three percent of people killed in fatal workplace accidents in

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2013 were men. "Men overwhelmingly participate in the jobs that are more dangerous. Soldiers,
miners, workers on an oil platform tend to be men..." He talked about how men are the ones
doing all the dangerous jobs out there like being a soldier or working in the mines.That is why
men have to sign up for the draft once they turn eighteen. It is not required for women to do it so
you know all the men have to fill those spots if we were to go into a war. In the article,
Fashioning Children: Gender Restrictive Dress Codes As an Entry Point For The Trans *
School to Prison Pipeline by Deanna J. Glickman says, A cynic may point out that dress codes
as a solution for gang violence merely target clothing as window dressing, leaving the underlying
problems that cause students to join gangs in the first place untouched. She talks about how
boys dress in school can influence what they do after school like affiliating with gangs and
violence. Glickman is trying to say that boys that are influenced in bad activities after school can
be influenced to join gangs depending the area. Girls would not do something like this because
girls do not wear baggy clothes and chains. That is what girls do not do and that is why men are
getting blamed at for violence like this. In the article, Becoming Members of Society: The
Social Meanings of Gender by Aaron Devor states, The ideology which the schema grows out
of postulates that the cultural superiority of males is a natural outgrowth of the innate
predisposition of males toward aggression and dominance, which is assumed to flow inevitably
from evolutionary and biological sources(Devor 40). men do all the dangerous activities
because men are born like this with all the superiority in them. Tying back to the image, the
media puts men in all these bloody movie covers is because everyone knows that men are meant
to fight and kill. Men are not seen that way because that is how society sees men as the bad
guys.

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Take a look at violent masculinity to see that it is important to take action because men
are committing violent crimes. In the article, Why Performing Conventional Masculinity is Bad
for Men, Spoer talked about how men are usually the ones smoking, using alcohol, or driving
recklessly. This is true because men are the ones always that act out and you would not see
women doing this because that is not how women act. In the article, Fashioning Children:
Gender Restrictive Dress Codes As an Entry Point For The Trans * School to Prison Pipeline
Glickman states, For many students, the days of school missed, lack of safety or comfort in the
school environment, and inability to meet increasingly high standardized test expectations push
them out of the school system entirely prior to graduation. She talks about how boys should
follow the rules and go to class because them not going then that can influence into making bad
decisions like not passing their classes. All the things boys do that is not school related is usually
bad and can make these stupid decisions like not going to class or not doing their school work.
In the image from 300, it has those men on the movie cover with weapons so the people that
have not seen the movie probably are going to think that there is killing involved. That is why we
have to look at the situation of violent masculinity because men are committing violent crimes.
Men are seen as fighters and it is cautious to look at the situation of violent masculinity to
see the problem. In the image from 300 the cover has men with weapons so society will
assume that they are going to be fighting/killing and doing that would be considered crimes. This
is showing that supposedly men do all the fighting and the killing in the world while women are
looking pretty all the time. In the article, From Women, Men, and Society by Renzetti and
Curran states, boys play involves competition and conflict, good guys versus bad
guys(Renzetti and Curran 83). Renzetti and Curran are saying that boys always have that

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competitive mindset because they all want to win, but most of the time with all that competition
can lead to fighting. You always have that sore loser that hates to lose and those fights are
always going down. That is why we have to look at the situation of violent masculinity because
men are seen as fighters.
It is true that men tend to be the ones that usually commit crimes, murders, and rapes in
our society. However, Women can commit those same crimes and the media puts them on blast
for what they have done because they arewomen. Women are not suppose to be doing
ridiculous things like that because it is not lady like. The media always makes the biggest scene
when women commits a crime or murders someone and tries to make it the biggest scene on the
news. If it were to be men that commits those things then the media would not go crazy because
society makes it look like men do this type of activities all the time. The media always showing
the statistics of the men and women committing all these violent crimes; it seems like men are
doing more than half of the crimes. Also men in covers of movies are showing their abs and
holding a type of weapon, but you will not see a women doing that on a cover because it is not
lady like It looks like society is out to get men by using the media because they are making up
a random number for statistics for men committing all the violent crimes.
The image from the movie 300 shows all the attributes of violent masculinity with all
the blood and weapons being held. It is important to take action on this violent masculinity
because men tend to do violent activities to get themselves in trouble, men get into many fights,
and society start to point fingers at men for the reasoning of seeing them as dangerous. Feeling
like this will go on for a long time because men do all these things all the time. There has to be a
way to figure out how to even out the blaming because it is not just men doing all the violent

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crimes. If we get society to lay down on making men so violent then the media will make men
more mellowed out as a whole.

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Work Cited
Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender.Composing
Gender, Edited by Rachel Groner and John F. OHara, 1st Edition, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014,
PP. 35-43
Glickman, Deanna J. "Fashioning Children: Gender Restrictive Dress Codes As an Entry
Point For The Trans * School to Prison Pipeline."The American University Journal of Gender,
Social Policy & the Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2016., pp. 263-284
libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.csun.edu/docview/1788300542
?accountid=7285.
Renzetti, Claire and Curran, Daniel. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing
Gender, Edited by Rachel Groner and John F. OHara, 1st Edition, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014,
PP. 76-84.
Spoer, Benjamin. "Why Performing Conventional Masculinity is Bad for Men." Voice
Male, vol. 20, no. 68, 2016., pp. 18-19
libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.csun.edu/docview/1787915851
?accountid=7285.
300 DVD Release Date July 31, 2007. DVDs Release Dates, Gianni Nunnari, 9 Mar.
2007, www.dvdsreleasedates.com/movies/33/300-(2006).html.