Since the day we are born both genders experiences the pressure to follow their so-called scripts in a myriad of ways. I am fascinated by the way in which we are so adamant in encouraging boys to “act like a boy,” and girls to “act like a girl;” and I cannot help but see how detrimental this is in early childhood development and socialization.
In this photograph, I wanted to examine that stigma against boys acting in any way feminine, whether this is watching “girl shows” or playing dress up. In the photograph I used the idea of two young boys stealing their moms make up and clothes in order to play dress up. Because they clearly know that this is something that does not fall into their gender roles, they feel the need to be hiding behind the door; this symbolizes many ideas about mens sexuality and not feeling free to express themselves. In addition, you notice in the bottom left corner, someone about to walk into the room and discover this “wrong” behavior. Through the framing of this photograph we can venture to guess that these boys will be punished for stepping outside of the confines of their gender roles once the door is opened and someone walks in. There are also a number of odd angles going on which suggest the confusion associated with men exploring their femininity. The most important details about the photograph in my opinion are the perspective and the staging of the photograph. Note the fact that the dress are placed below the boys, in a way symbolizing that feminine things are “beneath” males. Then most importantly note the angle and perspective, I purposely shot the photograph from above in order to symbolize that society looks down on boys or men that behave in this manner.
We all know that there are so many issues for young girls growing up, but as a woman myself, I want to push myself to look further into masculinity and how we socialize young boys. “The ‘Two Cultures’ of Childhood” discusses the way in which we segregate boys and girls, while telling them what toys and activities are appropriate for members of each gender.
Our society in many ways relates femininity to weakness, and masculinity to toughness, which we saw in “Tough Guise” by Jackson Katz. By restricting men from exploring their femininity, I believe that we enable a culture of both misogynistic behaviors and violence in men.
2 comments:
All the staging in this photograph makes the message very clear. Young boys do get more scrutiny for doing "feminine" things than girls would for doing "masculine" things. I like how the dresses were placed under the boys to show that girly things are "beneath them". I also liked how the boys felt the need to play dress up in secret too show how they know it is something abnormal to do.
I love the way the picture was angled to specifically make the viewer feel disoriented, or as if they were hiding along with the young boys. The face the boy makes as if he knows he’s about to get in trouble really captured me. He looks genuinely frightened because they both know that boys should not wear make up or play dress up. And the other child is almost absorbed in the make up box as if it is a treasure box, which it may seem to him. They are practically forbidden, untouchable things that the two young boys know they should not be anywhere near. This speaks to me as though exploring all possible interests for an individual is fenced off starting from the time a person is born. If they were to cross these gender norms they would be punished, so they hide.
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