Talk:Muscles Defining Masculinity

Hi, thank you for your page. Being a male that once dedicated his life to bodybuilding, I was instantly drawn to your topic. A couple points I strongly agreed with is how masculinity is portrayed regionally. More specifically, how the desire for greater masculinity through muscularity differs from places such as Australia, United States and Sweden. I think something important to note is that despite the common consensus of bigger muscles = more masculine, this form if masculinity is not always desired and is quite dependent on the individual and his culture. Just as you provided the example of Swedish men in comparison to American and Australian men, (from my experience) muscularity is not as glorified in places like Asia. I say this, because I would often be criticised by parents about looking "freaky" and "too big".

In terms of suggestions, I think you could delve deeper into the use of anabolic steroids as that in itself has many facets from - performance enhancing drugs in sport to general muscle size gain and steroids that assist in getting to extremely low body fat levels. Overall, I think you did a great job on mentioning all the key points.

Hello,

I found this topic extremely interesting! The only suggestion I would make is to comment on the culture of sport. So many teams that I played on male athletes who appear to lack aggressiveness or not very big, intestinal fortitude may find themselves labeled a "pansy" or a "queer" from their coaches and teammates. A man, after all, is inherently aggressive yet cool under pressure, leads others by example, and is strictly heterosexual. This effects everything from team selections, playing time, and even culture or roles within a team.

Hello, I liked your discussion about the negative body impressions the average man will have on their own outlook because of the way media has shaped men. Similar to the discussion regarding unachievable female body standards, in order to achieve the ideal masculine body, men are expected to, as you mentioned, exercise, diet and push themselves into unhealthy lifestyles simply just to develop that kind of body. In your introduction, you mentioned that "The desire to be more muscular stems from numerous motives such as the feeling of being more attractive to women, feeling stronger, feeling more confident and feeling healthier." However, I think you could go deeper into the analysis of body building and discuss men's desire to 'work out' as a way of conforming to traits of hegemonic masculinity and their fear of deviating and being considered too feminine. It would be interesting for you to delve into the discussion of men who don't comply to these traits and what the outlook on them is like in a society where muscles define masculinity.

Interesting topic of choice considering many conversations around body image typically involve women. I really like the idea of this wiki page. At the beginning of your page you briefly discuss “Furthermore, men used to be the breadwinner but since women can now easily take on this role, muscularity becomes more important as an indication of masculinity.[1]" I think developing this using an intersectional lens would really benefit your piece. Also, I would consider steroid use and dieting under one heading to make the point of what men are willing to do to achieve the desired body type. Keep up the good work!

Hi!

Great wiki page so far. I like the several directions you considered in how having muscles defines being masculine. One aspect I think you could add to the media influence section is to include examples of what society considers as a hyper-masculine man, such as Dwayne Johnson, and compare it to what society considers as a hypo-masculine man, such as Jim Parsons. These two actors are seemed as on opposite ends of the masculinity spectrum, and to no surprise, so are their body shapes. I think this comparison could help bring a good visual and example to your page.

Hi there,

Being a psychology student myself, I found your article particularly interesting because it ties in the psychological disorder of "muscle dysmorphia" and the ways that some men try to remedy this unknowingly through various means. The intersectional analysis was spot on as you pointed out that it was a very western view to be muscular. Yet it was surprising to me that America turned out to have very high rates of body dissatisfaction! With the gym culture ever growing, I think that this topic will continue to expand. Thanks for your work!

Wow, I thought this was a real wikipedia page. The layout and display of the page is excellent. I would suggest adding images of some sort. As you are describing something to do with physical appearance and visual traits, I think that images of the things you describe could only enhance your work.

Great job! Krysten

Hello,

Thank you for writing about muscularity and masculinity! I find this topic very interesting ever since I watched the documentary "Tough Guise 2" by Katz. I highly recommend the documentary as it has an immense amount of information for this exact topic. I have a few comments on the matter that I hope might be useful to you. What I find most interesting about muscularity and media is that muscles were not as important, say, 10 years ago as it is today. In present time, actors are EXPECTED to have chiseled abs, which, from my own experience, is incredibly difficult to achieve. One must cut out sugar, simple carbs, high fat foods, etc. in order to achieve such a physique. In addition, the time one must spend in the gym is completely incompatible for non-actors who have full time jobs and outside work chores and errands. I think that we forget that actors are paid to look the way they look and thus, men in society have a lot of pressure to look a certain way, even if it is unattainable for the average human without supplements, steroids, and crazy dedication to the gym. Again, I highly recommend Tough Guise and Tough Guise 2 for your research! Lastly, If I were to offer any advice (other than the two documentaries) I would like to know how certain racial groups are more effected than others or how those with low socio-economic status are at a disadvantage and essentially cannot attain such a goal. Another thought is, how does this effect those with physical disabilities, does it create more discrimination than already exists?

Hello,

I really like your topic as it is closely related to our everyday lives. It is evident that the “ideal” male physique is continuously being reinforced on different media platforms and many of my males friends like hitting the gym to gain muscles. It would be a good idea to include similar studies done on other cultures as masculinity could be defined differently in different settings. Also, it would be interesting to explore commercial interests as one of the possible driver of the threat to masculinity. Good work !

Hi there,

I think that your work brought into discussion a serious problem of the stereotyping of body images. It happens everywhere around us yet not many people are aware of the significant consequences it has on men's self-esteem, self-image,... It is great that you mentioned the definition of masculinity from different countries, however, I think that you can bring in more intersectionality into your argument by incorporating dimensions of identities such as culture, gender, age... and how these factors affect the relationship between masculinity and body image.