BRIDGE 3 MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES TRIGGER GENDER AS A TOOL AND AS A WEAPON

In Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s piece “Gosh, Boy George. You Must Be Awfully Secure in Your Masculinity!”, she features several points about the ways that sex, gender, masculinity, and femininity are misconstrued. The most compelling of the ideas she proposes is one through which she questions masculinity and its effects on society. Sedgwick asks that people “strongly resist, then, the presupposition that what women have to do with masculinity is mainly to be treated less or more oppressively by the men to whom masculinity more directly pertains.”(1) This idea particularly interested me due to the way it presents masculinity. Prior to reading this piece, I had never pictured masculinity in this way. Being male, I think it took an educated, female perspective to help me empathize with victims of masculine suppression. The idea of masculinity, in essence, pertains to men. In reality, that is not the case at all. Masculinity is an idea constructed through the perpetuation and continuation of actions of people who feel they have the rights to “masculinity.” Sedgwick sheds light on the point that women have been systematically oppressed by masculinity and all that it entails. She argues against the point that women only have to do with masculinity to the degree that they are oppressed by the men who try to reserve the idea of masculinity for themselves. This interests me because I realize that she is completely right; men, sometimes even unintentionally, oppress women just through their display of masculinity. It is this concept that Sedgwick aims to deplete, and I agree full heartedly with her. This implicit oppression occurs often unintentionally, yet it still must be avoided completely. Sedgwick explains that, “as a woman, I am a consumer of masculinities, but I am not more so than men are; and, like men, I as a woman am also a producer of masculinities and a performer of them.” (2) She here exemplifies the overlying message of her piece, that masculinity is a social construct and most definitely does not only pertain to men. This idea interested me a lot because it made me think. It made me think about the actions I perform, watch, and listen to. By reading Sedgwick’s piece, I helped myself understand the world I live in and how actions affect others. The idea of masculinity that Sedgwick proposes is one that I agree with completely, and I will carry her ideas with me in my lifestyle.