Reference no: EM133618119

Assignment:

Watch: "The Mask You Live In"

Answer the following questions

1. What are your impressions of the film?
2. What resonated most with you? What did you learn? What parts made you sit back and say "Wow, I never thought about that"?
3. Is there anything specific you learned from some of the boys and men in the film that you wish to apply to your own life?
4. What does it mean to model healthy masculinity? What does it mean for men? For women, how can we support men in staying true to their whole selves?
5. Joe Ehrmann argues that there are three lies that every boy is taught in American society: that the road to successful masculinity is achieved through athletic ability, economic success, and sexual conquest. How have you encountered these ideas in your own life and what was your reaction?
6. How can we set new "rules" about what it means to be a successful man? What qualities or practices come to mind when you think about expanding what it means to be a man in this culture?
7. Niobe Way states that boys "really buy into a culture that doesn't value what we've feminized... and so boys begin to devalue their relational parts to themselves, their relational needs, their relational desires." What can we as a society do to place more value on these traits?
8. Michael Kimmel argues, "That idea of being seen as weak, as a sissy, in the eyes of other guys, starts in our earliest moments of boyhood and it follows us all the way through our lives." Can you think of a time where you experienced or witnessed this teaching? How can we do a different narrative for boys today?
9. Terry Kupers describes our cultures as promoting "a dominance hierarchy: there are tough guys who are on the top and there are weaklings, girls, who are at the bottom." What are ways that we might work to eliminate this hierarchy?
10. What are some specific actions we can take in our lives, families, schools, communities, work, etc. to help expand what it means to "Be a Man"?