Media Analysis | Masculinity

This article, from the site Total Frat Move, depicts the importance of sexual relations in masculinity. This site is aimed at portraying typical actions or characteristics of stereotypical men in greek life. This article outlines steps in order to partake in sexual relations when they return home for spring break. The tips include using tinder and swiping right in order to retain the largest amount of matches and lowering their standards. This emphasizes the importance for males to engage in sexual relation in order to be masculine. The tips in the article outline the importance of finding any girl in order to have sexual relations and using that girl as an object to achieve the goal of sexual relations. 


This post idealizes consuming enough alcohol to the point in which one 'blacks out' and does not remember the night. This is very dangerous and is a sign of too much alcohol being consumed, but posts like this one make it into a joke or something that is a right of passage for manliness. 


TFM Babe of the Day

These posts occur every day and feature a different girl from school's across the country. The posts attach pictures of this 'babe' usually wearing slim fitting clothing or bathing suits. Posts like this put emphasis on manliness and relations with females. Males are supposed to have a strong focus on finding girls attractive and are supposed to show interest in looking at posts like this. If they don't, they risk being labeled as 'gay' or unmasculine. 

 Advertisement for Chubbies (Swim shorts) 
This advertisement for swim shorts (which are popular among college age boys) is selling a lifestyle. This is a lifestyle of drinking and wealth; the male pictured looks as if he is standing above everyone else which shows power. He is also drinking a beer and standing in a dominant position. The male's face cannot be seen which would cause the viewer to consider that they could be the male in this photo. Overall this add is selling the view of masculinity as someone that drinks and has wealth. 

ImShmacked Video

This video idealizes a lifestyle of fraternity life. It shows crazy party scenes with lots of alcohol, drugs and girls. It creates an 'ideal' lifestyle where college age boys are expected to live a crazy party lifestyle. This shows the expectations of masculinity in fraternity life as one that is highly focused on alcohol, drugs and female attention. 
This photo is a classic TFM instagram post, slightly offensive and aimed towards the sexual pursuits of males. This post, though it is in bad taste, gives a glimpse into hook-up culture and that in “fraternity life” it is prioritized over being monogamous.

This post from TFM Girls is probably the most clothed female of all of their posts. The instagram page features a different college girl daily who conforms to traditional standards of beauty (skinny, typically tan, caucasian, and usually blonde). This page serves no purpose other than to show off different females to the fraternity community.


This is another post from a fraternity site called Old Row, which references the old southern fraternities. This picture depicts a bunch of fraternity men with alcohol and features the hashtag: #saftb. This hashtag stands for “Saturday’s are for the boys” and implies that fraternity males are supposed to do things with and for their fraternity on Saturday’s (a day that is notorious for partying).

Popular posts from this blog

Conclusion

Change. expand, or apply? Greek life & Masculinity: I think that my study could've been more effective if the interviews for the males had been done by a male. I think their responses were biased because they knew it would be presented and because the interviewees did not want to be seen in a negative light. I think this study could also be expanded to understand the root of different pressures to be masculine; some might find pressures for varying masculine qualities from different sources. Greek life & Background : We definitely in the future would try and expand the pool from which we gathered respondents. While Facebook is a great tool to efficiently distribute a survey, we both found it much easier to access Greek students than non-Greek. It would have been beneficial to not only have more respondents, but many more who were not involved in Greek life, as well as more diversity in identified ethnicity/race. With expansion of the survey, it would also be more easi
Keep reading

Introduction

Why is this topic important to anthropology? Social groups are frequently studied in cultural anthropology and fraternities and sororities are often used as examples of social groups. At Emory, 30% of the student body participates in in greek life and is an active part of the social scene; this makes it an extremely relevant social group. Masculinity and backgrounds inform the way in which people interact in social groups; through looking into people's backgrounds we can gain knowledge about the way in which social groups are formed and the values that social groups hold. What previous research has been done in this place or in similar questions of anthropological interest?  Masculinity In a study by Metzger, Williams, Chen, and Chartier, they examined the relationship between masculine and feminine looking individuals and their likeliness to accept them into an in-group. The researchers showed photos to undergraduate students (who were either Greek or non-Greek affiliate
Keep reading