IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT THE WHOLE ESSAY. THE AUTHOR IS AWARE THAT IN REALITY WOMEN ARE THE 'FAMILY' BREAD WINNERS THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME AND THAT WOMEN DO THE VAST MAJORITY OF ALL WORK IN THIS WORLD. HOWEVER, THIS PORTION SPEAKS SPECIFICALLY TO GLOBALIZATION AS IT RELATES TO THE MALE GENDER.
Gender and Globalization Essay (some of the intro)
by JR
SECTION 1: Globalization and the American Male
The makers of 'Merchants of Cool' present profiles of the modern American male and female archetype. The behavioral and beauty standards of the female 'midriff', simply put, are submitted as detrimental to the young female psyche not only because they represent corporate ideals that demand more and more of young women in terms their own self-perception with respect to issues of body image, but because the 'hot' look or clothes or style is constantly changing, prompting trends that in turn catalyze rampant, wasteful, and unhealthy consumerism and identity alteration.
The idea is put forward that professional wrestlers like Steve Austin and movie stars like Sylvester Stalone represent the same daunting and detrimental standards to men as 'midriffs' like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears do to women. We hear often of how and why men supposedly live vicariously through the exploits of their favorite sports stars or TV icons, keeping them glued to televised corporate spectacles, and buying the products stars and icons pitch at them.
But does this phenomenon exist at the beginning or the end of the modern American man's dilemma? Where in the modern cycle of insecurity, obesity, violence, and depression, a cycle that comes to bear more and more on the majority of American males, does this vaunting of the hyper-masculine corporate-engineered hero occur?
Perhaps it does not begin with the worshipping of heroes or the aspirations they set forth of grandiose lifestyles. To say men are depressed, self-destructive, and scornful of themselves or of women and women's rights, simply because they cannot live or look like Vin Diesel, is a vast generalization similar to the popular American assertion that terrorist fanaticism is rooted in the 'jealousy of our freedom'.
The true catalyst is something much simpler and familiar. One gender role attributed to men across the world and across time is that of the provider - to provide for himself, his wife, and his family. Somewhere between John Wayne and The Terminator, the expansion of corporate power in the television age has greatly disempowered American men with respect to achieving this simple goal while maintaining dignity and a sense of personal fulfillment.
The increasing amount of young American men who 'voluntarily' join the military primarily because they lack employment or educational opportunities serves to demonstrate this pattern of degradation. In the new American service economy, a loosening of labor regulations has sent many decent jobs that previously paid a decent wage far away to places where corporations can more easily exploit workers and persecute unionization efforts.
The military option fills the void left by the exit of the industrial jobs our fathers and grandfathers occupied through which they participated in the 'building of America'. Now that the roads have been paved, the telephone wires have been laid, and the great towers have been built, the corporate interests that bankrolled these endeavors have taken to bankrolling American politics, creating a state that has turned it's friendliest face to American bosses, and it's back to the American working man.
Young men aspire to be enforcers of the new corporate order, not only to fulfill subconscious desires to play Rambo, but because we are taught by a corporate media to blame our personal and economic struggles on many sources other then the corporate state. Popular scapegoats include 'welfare cheats' (when the reality is corporations receive more tax money in 'welfare' and bailouts then individual citizens), immigrants, global terrorists, and very often women, sometimes on account of their own aspirations for equality and opportunity.
(more. . .)
Gender and Globalization Essay (some of the intro)
by JR
SECTION 1: Globalization and the American Male
The makers of 'Merchants of Cool' present profiles of the modern American male and female archetype. The behavioral and beauty standards of the female 'midriff', simply put, are submitted as detrimental to the young female psyche not only because they represent corporate ideals that demand more and more of young women in terms their own self-perception with respect to issues of body image, but because the 'hot' look or clothes or style is constantly changing, prompting trends that in turn catalyze rampant, wasteful, and unhealthy consumerism and identity alteration.
The idea is put forward that professional wrestlers like Steve Austin and movie stars like Sylvester Stalone represent the same daunting and detrimental standards to men as 'midriffs' like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears do to women. We hear often of how and why men supposedly live vicariously through the exploits of their favorite sports stars or TV icons, keeping them glued to televised corporate spectacles, and buying the products stars and icons pitch at them.
But does this phenomenon exist at the beginning or the end of the modern American man's dilemma? Where in the modern cycle of insecurity, obesity, violence, and depression, a cycle that comes to bear more and more on the majority of American males, does this vaunting of the hyper-masculine corporate-engineered hero occur?
Perhaps it does not begin with the worshipping of heroes or the aspirations they set forth of grandiose lifestyles. To say men are depressed, self-destructive, and scornful of themselves or of women and women's rights, simply because they cannot live or look like Vin Diesel, is a vast generalization similar to the popular American assertion that terrorist fanaticism is rooted in the 'jealousy of our freedom'.
The true catalyst is something much simpler and familiar. One gender role attributed to men across the world and across time is that of the provider - to provide for himself, his wife, and his family. Somewhere between John Wayne and The Terminator, the expansion of corporate power in the television age has greatly disempowered American men with respect to achieving this simple goal while maintaining dignity and a sense of personal fulfillment.
The increasing amount of young American men who 'voluntarily' join the military primarily because they lack employment or educational opportunities serves to demonstrate this pattern of degradation. In the new American service economy, a loosening of labor regulations has sent many decent jobs that previously paid a decent wage far away to places where corporations can more easily exploit workers and persecute unionization efforts.
The military option fills the void left by the exit of the industrial jobs our fathers and grandfathers occupied through which they participated in the 'building of America'. Now that the roads have been paved, the telephone wires have been laid, and the great towers have been built, the corporate interests that bankrolled these endeavors have taken to bankrolling American politics, creating a state that has turned it's friendliest face to American bosses, and it's back to the American working man.
Young men aspire to be enforcers of the new corporate order, not only to fulfill subconscious desires to play Rambo, but because we are taught by a corporate media to blame our personal and economic struggles on many sources other then the corporate state. Popular scapegoats include 'welfare cheats' (when the reality is corporations receive more tax money in 'welfare' and bailouts then individual citizens), immigrants, global terrorists, and very often women, sometimes on account of their own aspirations for equality and opportunity.
(more. . .)