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The Characters of Masculinities in Light of Gender Relations

In: Film and Music

Submitted By RomanSch
Words 810
Pages 4
Gender is a common topic in society, it has essential role in people’s lives. The word gender can relate to sex, but sex is biological differences between men and women while gender refers to cultural and social differences between men and women. Masculinity is a part of gender, it is a set of qualities, characteristics or roles generally considered typical of a man. There are many different kinds of masculinities, each one can represent a group of man. This essay will critically analyze the characters of masculinities in light of gender relations, and use the film, Billy Elliot to support the argument.

In this film, Billy’s father, Jackie is a traditional man. He had traditional thought of the society and could not accept some new ideas. He thought a real man should do football or boxing rather than ballet, so he objected Billy to learn ballet. (Billy Elliot, 2000). Not Billy’s father, but also his brother Tony, has the traditional thought as his father. The important reason is that both Tony and Jackie are miners, they should take responsibility of the family. They had heavy pressure from their works, so they became more aggressive and are more close to macho. Coal-mining is essentially based on physical strength, coal-mining community can be seen as patriarchal society. So they had power to make decisions in family.

Patriarchy is a social system in which the male is the primary authority figure central to social organization and father hold authority over women and children (Wikipedia, n.d.). Father can do the choices for their children, such as education and work. Obviously, men play a crucial role in economic position of society, this system allows men to dominate, oppress women and it will affect the society. For instance, it is useful for capitalism through the sexual division of labor, which can make the work more efficient. But there are still some

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