Saturday, February 15, 2020

Masculinity, Mateship and Men's Lives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Masculinity, Mateship and Men's Lives - Essay Example While maleness refers to the biological aspect, masculine refers to the fullest will of a man to live in a certain way and it’s a matter of choice to do so and not simply having a male body. It deals with the behaviour, mental quality and personality. It can also be the sexual behaviour for a man to desire heterosexual behaviour. The Mighty Boosh is a television series that tries to express masculinity in its broader perspective from the social, historical and cultural representations. It has brought about surreal representation of humour with the protagonists in the limelight to have failed in their character as men. In this case, they have been brought about to have fallen in their endeavours to become great boxers, musicians, novelists. Howard T.J Moon and Vince Noir have been brought about as Barrat and Fielding as the protagonists. They are a male couple with Barratt considering himself as very intelligent and a lover of jazz (Frank 2000). On the other hand, Vince has bee n portrayed as a lover electro and a staunch follower of fashion. His is contradiction of the character expected in the male gender. Men are not to known to follow fashion as such. This is seen as a feminine character. The show depicts the two protagonists as a couple, something that is socially and culturally backward. This shows that he is the married playing the part of the wife here. His way of handling himself and his adoration of Howard is in way very demining. Men are known to own the lead and not to be dragged into issues that primarily do not concern them of which Vince has completely denied to follow. Vince is deeply obsessed with his appearance. He takes too long to prepare himself or to leave the house. His time in resetting the hair and his concentration leaves a lot to be desired. As a matter of fact, he takes too much time in the performance of make upon himself just as the ladies do. The overall result is that he owns up to it that he has to do it to please the one h e is married to. To add insult to injury, he wears a combination of men’s attire and that of women. This allows him to be mistaken for a woman (Horrocks, 1994). His appearance does not so much differ from other women and the pretext form of Vince is much higher in favour of the weaker gender. This therefore renders him to be considered as the wife or the girlfriend of Howard or is otherwise the subject of the unwanted affection. In times when there arises a controversy, he is continuously abused or referred to in derogatory terms which are female in nature, like, bitch, tramp with a fringe and futuristic prostitute. The further brings in the confusion of identity. In the context of this, Vince is notably not annoyed by these as much as one would expect a normal man to react. In fact, he considers what he has done and apologizes or gives an excuse or flatters to show that these dint hit him hard on who he really pretends to be. In addition to this terms, his masculinity has be en undermined through the labels that he has been given like the ‘French duke’, ‘rock ponse’, ‘cockney bitch’, ‘trendy modern wanker’ and ‘electro ponse’ after his love for that electro music. It is arguably notable that all these labels are not just for a mere female, but for one who has involved herself into immorality and sex as well as to music which is mostly identified with clubs, crazy parties and the like. On his own account,

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Femininity within and outside Greek System Term Paper

Femininity within and outside Greek System - Term Paper Example The way of living and even the surroundings did not provide much scope for people to improve. Women in Greece were not given much freedom. They were allowed to talk only with female. Their main work was to take care of their home and children. Women did not have much influence and were not considered in any decision making process. Women did not have a major role to play, as men dominated them. (Paulos 2008). They had to depend on their husband. In ancient times there were statues of goddess which were sculptured keeping Greek women in mind. Since it was a male-dominated system, women were considered powerless. Later in the 19th century, consciousness about feminism came into existence. Greek women were good at singing and dancing and they composed many songs. They were not allowed to pursue their education. The school system did not allow girls to get admission. They were considered fit only for domestic affairs. Women were used in demotic songs in rural areas as they were not strong economically. During marriage their opinion was not important. The girl's father will decide a man and they will get married. Dowry played a vital part in those marriages. (Martin 1996). For a woman to divorce her husband, she had to go through a lot of legal procedures which were not as easy as compared to that of a man divorcing his wife. In ancient Greece, most divorces were by the husband. In such cases, the man would directly reject his wife in front of everyone and just drive her out of his home. Status of Women Once divorced, the woman can get back her dowry that was given to her husband .But the worst part was the practice of retaining the children with the father itself. Thus no rights can be claimed by a lovable mother on her children. Such simple was the procedure for a man to divorce a woman. Whereas if a woman likes to get divorced, she has to go in search of a legal support to enlist the grounds on which she would want to get divorced. This can easily be stopped by the male community by making the woman to sit at home confined to four walls. There was an option in ancient Greek system which permitted the marriage to be called off if the woman had no children. In that situation, the marriage can be broken up which would give way for the female community to get married to some other person. Ancient practices In ancient times religion was the driving force which kept the Greeks to move forward in the march towards development. They practiced idol worship and hence they strongly believed that humans were none other than the incarnation of God in various other forms. Thus they possessed the right to be bestowed with everlasting charm and supernatural powers. As time progressed, there was a change in the nature and character of the god whom the ancient Greeks worshipped. They replicated the gods by themselves or by using the traditional methods which enabled them to communicate people. The ancient practices were such that when a woman gets married to a person, all of her property and assets would be under the control of her husband. Women were not allowed to step out of their house unless and until they had a valid reason. They were under the belief that a woman who had a respect in the society would never appear