American Ideals of Real Men
“Wealthy, Handsome, Strong, Packing Endless Hard-Ons: The Impossible Ideals Men Are Expected to Meet” is quite a title. Greta Christina explains about the expectations of Masculinity and Feminism in America. Her stance is made clear in the title. It’s impossible for men to meet these American Ideals. One of the sources she uses is from Express.co.uk. This is article is surprising in that male fitness models are not as healthy as we think. Christina says, “The image being sold is an exaggerated, idealized, impossible extreme of hyper-masculinity. They use a regime… to make their muscles pop that involves starvation, dehydration, excessive consumption of alcohol and sugar right before a shoot, and more…the magazines use lighting tricks, posture tricks, flat-out deceptions, even Photoshop, to exaggerate this illusion of masculinity even further.”
She further explains that men try to attain this type of ideal. I see bodybuilders at Lexington (LAC) all the time. I regularly see them carry huge bags of supplements and work-out with extremely heavy weights. What I didn’t know was that models of some fitness magazines would actually try to do dangerous habits routinely and that guys want to attain that type of goal. “And we're not just talking about physical ideals of masculinity. We're talking about cultural ideals. Sexual ideals. Economic ideals. Emotional ideals.” Christina elaborates. Christina says that ideals of men contradict each other like “being a mechanic and a CEO. I've talked with men who are convinced they're not Real Men because they aren't rich and I've talked with men who are convinced they aren't Real Men because they don’t work with their hands." Bottom line-It’s Impossible to attain these manly ideals. Not only does Christina talk about men, but she shifts into women ideals. In conclusion, she believes everyone should just be themselves.
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