Tough Guise

What was the main thesis of the film?

Gender is a social construct. Society classifies what is considered masculine and feminine, but the operationalization of what makes up gender is not based on reality, rather it is what our own particular society has decided to be 'true'. Furthermore, our designation of masculinity and femininity cannot be fully realized by anyone. No one fits in the ideal male or female model, which causes a lot of people to be insecure about the areas where they don't meet the ideal standard. The way we hide our insufficiency is to put on a 'guise' which masks our true identity and replaces it with something that is closer to the ideal. We

What were the main arguments in support of this thesis?

Masculinity has changed throughout time. To be a guy you need to be 'tough', and in the last 40-50 years what is considered tough has risen exponentially. In order to affirm our ability to fit with the ideal, we seem to be progressively upping the ante. This is in direct contrast to what Moynihan (1992) says about deviance, “We have been redefining deviancy…. And also quietly raising the “normal” level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard”. For example, the muscles on action figures get bigger, the guns tough guys use in movies get larger, and slowly but surely we are defining deviance up, not down. The reason this is happening is because the behaviors and traits associated with masculine and feminine ideals are inflated in order for us to be more masculine/feminine then our predecessors. If big muscles display the ideal masculinity, why not bigger muscles? If being tough is good, then tougher is better.

Which arguments/points did you find the most convincing?

One of the big points of the movie is that we fail to notice dominant groups. We only gender violence when the subordinate group, women, commit it. If a woman commits a crime we might consider how her gender may have contributed. If a male commits a crime we typically degender the crime completely, and fail to analyze how male gender roles (particularly that of males and violence) could have contributed. What is really interesting is this is a counterargument to many types of crime theory. According to control theory (Hirschi, 1969), people commit crime when their ‘bond to society is weak’ but did anyone ever wonder if it sometimes maybe just the opposite? Some people commit violent acts precisely because they’re trying to fit in with societies masculine ideal. This makes it hard to find ways to lower violence, when male violence is already considered normal by society.

Which arguments/points did you find the least convincing?

I think some of Katz’s attempts at correlations were a little weak, and unlikely. He tries to show a correlation between the behavior of the Italian mafia, black gang members, and then white suburban kids. He believes the mafia inspired black gang members, which in turn has inspired white suburban youth to ‘act black’. While I would agree that the inner city community may operate in similar ways to the mafia, I think these connections are probably more analogous (similar but evolving separately) rather than homologous. I find it slightly hard to believe that the original inspiration to inner city gangs was The God Father, although I certainly could be wrong.

Choose one argument, point or question that most stands out for you from the film. How would you study this point? Briefly design a research study around that point.

I think it would be interesting to study how people react to similar acts of violence by different gender groups. In the study, half the participants would read a story where the perpetrator is a woman and half would see the perpetrator as a male. People would then rate how they regarded the perpetrator (on a scale of 1 being “I find the person very disagreeable” to 10 “I find the person very agreeable”). We could do a number of different tests, one with low level crimes that are more closely associated with women (shoplifting) and then make the crime incrementally more violent. This study would help us understand how society differentiates what level of violence is considered acceptable by the two gender groups.

Hirschi, Travis. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Moynihan, Daniel. 1992. Defining Deviancy Down. The American Scholar. Vol. 62, no. 1.