In this short section from his book Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, published in 2008, Michael Kimmel would like to highlight how masculinity is brought about in a male through fear and not as a natural behavior. He introduces by talking about what women feel about being a woman. He emphasizes that men are more conscious about their behavior because they do not want to be noticed as having feminine characteristics. After researching through a bunch of languages focused on criticizing men as not masculine, Kimmel concludes that all of them aim at men being unemotional and strong. He tries to show how the idea of masculine behavior hasn’t changed much in successive generations of schools and college men. He shows how different people get the idea of masculinity and the different aspects of it from other male members they are related to in some way or another. The motivation behind being masculine is more to get the approval of other men then to impress women. Kimmel heavily emphasizes on how our peers are like our evaluators that keep us from crossing the line of masculinity. Working very close to that idea is homophobia, where men try to be more masculine to prove they are not gay. This is where Kimmel shows that our fear of being non-masculine is more of our fear of other men than anything else. And this idea of manhood is introduced into the mind when a boy is so young that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to overcome that thought. The idea has settled itself so deeply in the society that it has become challenging for men who want to be different. They risk almost every aspect of their life to be different, to be free. 

 
                 This written piece, taken from the 1999 publication of Jean Kilbourne’s book Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel” is a deep analytical piece on the effects of modern advertisements. The author would like to show us that although we might realize that advertisements are put up just with the intention of attracting customers, it affects us much deeper than we think. The first point that Kilbourne emphasizes on is how pornographic advertisements objectifies living beings, especially woman. With various examples of different posters and advertisements, she tries to prove how advertisements have shaped the way people think about females in a society. It also falsifies the image of a man by showing him as someone that is strong, arrogant and dominant over women. The ads of some alcoholic beverages results in people causing harm to others and to themselves. She proves this by showing how one-third to three-quarters of sexual assault cases results from alcohol consumption by either the suspect or the victim. She takes it further by mentioning that in a sexual assault, it is women who are hurt more than men and they are the ones who are blamed at the end too. She tries to engage readers by asking them to imagine a picture in these advertisements, where the genders were interchanged. She then moves on to how ads now a day is moving towards targeting men’s body. But she believes that this is different because there are no consequences for men. They are not to be afraid of being raped, harassed or beaten. Later, she shows how some companies moved onto child pornography ads with the intent of being publicized to gain attention of people through legal issues. Children are often exploited for their innocence and girls feel powerless in front of men. She concludes by mentioning that advertisement in this form is a method of violence which is oppressive and racist. Having analyzed its deep effects on culture, she wants us to realize the importance of how it affects people, especially females.

                I felt that this written piece was a good analytical piece that makes me think about the various aspects that Kilbourne covers. For the first time I see how advertisements may affect a society deeply. Further, I feel that today’s beliefs on what is “normal” may be the result of what the ads portray in people’s minds. The author does give credible citations for her thesis and makes it clear that she hasn’t arrived at this conclusion without research. The best part about this piece is the various examples that she explains in detail. Each one gave a different angle to the situation that the author was trying to show to the reader. Overall, it was an article that would be well appreciated for the information it gave.