Based on all the readings, videos, and discussions we've had in class, I've realized that there are a number of problems and questions within our culture that need to be addressed. Before taking this course, I believed that a major problem in our society related to gender, sex, and sexuality was that women were still treated unequally. However, women are not the only victims forced to adopt stereotypical ideologies: men are too. I believe men face just as much pressure to be a “man”. That being said, a key issue within our culture that we need to address is the sexist norms and expectations that men are held accountable for in order to be seen as men. In general, people associate masculinity with a quality that a person either possesses or does not possess. have and the ability to prove their masculinity. Men constantly test themselves, perform heroic feats, take enormous risks just so other men can grant them their manhood (Kimmel 129). This ongoing battle to prove their masculinity drives a number of men to do so, so that when they don't, they feel like they have failed in their quest to be a man. Thus, men use their masculinity as a defense mechanism against the threat of humiliation in the eyes of other men (Kimmel 135). In other words, they are afraid of admitting their fragility and being seen as a wimp due to the repercussions they might face from their peers and society at large. To help change this state of mind, we must allow everyone, men and women, to freely express who they are. We need to teach our children that it is okay if they do not meet the expectations set by society. We also need to address and discourage the repercussions men face for teasing,...... middle of paper...... Law Review. 38 (2004): 345-350. Print.Gerson, Kathleen. No Man's Land: Men's Changing Commitments to Family and Work. New York, New York: Basic Books, 1993. 325-334. Print.Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Theorizing masculinities. By Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994. 119-41. Print.Lorber, Judith. “From night to day: the social construction of gender. » Gender paradoxes. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995. 13-36. Print.Shaw, Susan M. and Janet Lee. “Learning gender”. Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 105-21. Print.Rutter, Virginia and Pepper Schwartz. The gender of sexuality: exploring sexual possibilities. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012. 1-44. Print.