Homophobia In Society

Explain and critique masculinity as homophobia.

Homophobia: -noun

irrational fear of, aversion to, hatred of, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.

According to Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, that is the definition of homophobia. Interesting isn't it? to see homophobia on the same page as hepatitis, herpes, and HIV among others. Before this class I wouldn't have expected to find it there. I mean honestly, what significance could homophobia have in comparison to those other three seriously-taken "real" medical terms? Despite homophobia being a matter of life and death as well, probably the most serious aspect of the disease of homophobia is that it infects a larger number in population than hepatitis, herpes, and HIV combined. Homophobia is probably the most widespread disease on the planet, but why is this so? The dictionary definition describes it as irrational. How can it be that the infected majority of men suffer from a disease akin to other irrational fears that send patients to psychiatric institutions?

Masculinity is the characteristic of men that defines them amongst themselves and to women. It is socially defined as how "manly" a male is seen as but in our society "the birthright of every American male is a chronic sense of personal inadequacy," and this inadequacy leads us to counteract weakness and sense of failure with a faux display of masculinity. (Kimmel, CP pp. 218)

As stated in class discussion, men "do masculinity" not for women, but for other men, who are always watching and evaluating us. From the day of birth, a male is being constantly evaluated in terms of his masculinity, at first from his father, whose eyes will follow him through life, and then from every other male figure in one's life; teachers, coaches, bosses, coworkers, friends, and all other men in society. (Kimmel, CP Page 217) These ever-watching eyes are quick to pounce on any behavior that may be characterized as "sissy, untough, or uncool." The resulting emotion experienced from those labels is a sense of humiliation and of failure. "Homophobia is the fear that other men will unmask us, emasculate us, reveal to us and the world that we do not measure up, that we are not real men." (Kimmel, CP Page 218)

In being exposed like that, a man's masculinity is shattered and destroyed, he is shown as a failure, and his credibility is undermined. The faÐ"§ade we put up as men is a barrier against being labeled as gay, or what we perceive as the opposite to being manly.

"What we call masculinity is often a hedge against being revealed as a fraud," and this "fraud" mentioned is a man's act to show he's as far from weak or feminine as possible.

The image of a homosexual in the mind of the homophobic heterosexual man is that of an emasculated man, an "exposed" effeminate man and a "failure" who strays from the norm and is a "sissy" or "faggot." If a heterosexual "manly" man is stripped of his masculinity and exposed as being less of a man, he is shown as a total failure in all men's judging eyes and this failure is put on homosexuals in the eyes of the individual homophobe. It is this failure that men grow to fear, and in turn hate more and more. Hate stems from fear and "our fear is the fear of humiliation." Masculinity is a man's only barrier against humiliation since masculinity is a social construct that we evaluate a man through. "Our efforts to maintain a manly front cover everything we do. Every moment contains a coded gendered language." (Kimmel CP pp. 219)

Humiliation of a man is caused by exposure of weakness. If a man loses his money, job, and status, he will most certainly become depressed, sometimes suicidal, and the driving force isn't the loss of material or job, rather, it is the perceived social humiliation felt by the individual. Traits of masculinity would be the possession of power, status, money, wealth, strength, consistency, and dominance among other things. The loss of any one of those characteristics is deemed as humiliating to a man, and a man will go on the line and do almost anything to prove and maintain his masculinity.

"Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood." In our very own male children, if you go to a playground and ask 6-year old boys "Who's the sissy here?" they will most likely begin to fight or expose one of themselves as the sissy of the group. (Kimmel CP pp. 218)

In our society masculinity is overdone and exaggerated and this is due to the feeling most men experience of a lack of power. In observing