“IT HAPPENS TO MEN TOO!” How The World Has Made A HabIt Of Quietly Sexualizing Men

These Are My Top 3 Examples of Misogynistic Problems That Effect Men Every Day:

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Let me start this Listicle by clarifying one thing. Saying the phrase “It happens to men too!” only when arguing with a woman about her trauma, is a terrible thing to do. Especially when you don't have any logical reason to put a woman on the spot that way. We see it far too often that this phrase is thrown around off-handedly, and it is not only bad for women around the world, but it also invalidates the struggles that men are facing because of deeply rooted misogyny. By only saying this to make women feel bad, and never again after that point, just makes mens’ issues into a comeback line. This leads us into the first number on my list:

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1. Men Aren’t Able To Talk About Their Feelings

We live in a world where misogyny is very deeply rooted into our every day lives. The dictionary definition of misogyny is: the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. The biggest and most well known effect of this is the idea for men is that men cant have feelings. Or if they do have feelings they need to be bottled up because its too feminine and makes them seem like “less of a man.”

The biggest piece of evidence I have for this is the fact that 20-25% of Americans who are 18+ have depression (half of which are men), and male suicide is 4 times as common compared to that of women. In fact, 79% of all US suicides are from men. Studies have shown that this is hugely connected to the idea that men can’t show their emotions socially in the same way that women can. So they bottle it up and hide it the best they can until they no longer have the strength to continue living.

2. Sexualizing Men In The Media

Lets talk about the idea of sexualization and objectification in the media. Gender identity/sex aside, non consensual sexualization is the worst. The act of taking someone innocently minding their own business, and then taking them into your mind to make the situation something it isn’t, is one of the worst things you can do to a person. It is degrading, dehumanizing, and down right offensive to any party concerned. Now lets take a look into some examples of sexual harassment to men in the media.

The first instance I want you to think about, is a moment in the first Twilight movie. The movie Twilight came out in 2008 and took the world by storm. Of course we all know the plot to the

movie so I wont go much into the meaning of the movie itself. All you need to know is that the movie centers around vampires and werewolves. Now—we learn that the way you can tell that a person is a vampire is by the way their skin sparkles in the sunlight. When we are introduced to Edward Cullen, he is mysterious and charming. But I would like to focus not on the character himself, but rather on what the character does throughout most of the saga. About a third of the way into the movie, Bella figures out that Edward is a vampire and confronts him. During this confrontation, we are met with this scene where Edward takes off his shirt and shows his skin glistening in the morning light.

The problem that we see here is that there is no logical reason for Edward to take his shirt off aside from the female gaze. He has skin on his face, so why not just leave it at seeing his face glow? Why must he show his entire bare torso to make his point? He doesn’t. This is just directors and producers feeding into the female gaze because “sex sells.” We see this sexualization of Edward and most of the other male cast members for most of the saga, all the way until the last movie.

Another big instance that I have come cross is a scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from 2005. The scene takes place in the prefects bathroom in Hogwarts while Harry is trying to solve a riddle surrounding a golden siren egg. He receives a tip from a fellow student that you need to submerge the egg in water to hear the message inside; so he goes to the bathroom and is met by Moaning Myrtle, a ghost trapped in the Hogwarts bathrooms. While Harry is in the bath, trying to put the pieces together and solve the riddle, Myrtle is seen constantly tying to get a peek at Harry naked under the bath water. He keeps moving aside and trying to get more bubbles to cover him so that she cant see, yet she persists in trying to see a nude Harry Potter. This scene of the movie is blatant sexual harassment and borderline assault. Let’s just ask this one question to ourselves. If this was happening to a woman, this would be outrageous news. We would be freaking out about how unprofessional and disgusting it is to see this form of representation in movies so often. But since it is a man receiving the maltreatment, it goes unnoticed and is used as a punch line.

The last thing I want to talk about is the sexualization of gay men/MLM. We see this a lot in anime and writing sites such as Wattpad where straight women write stories about MLM and make it all about the sex. Lets take the anime DAKAICHI -I’m Being Harassed By The Sexiest Man of the Year- for example. This anime is about the top 2 sexiest men of the year. When one passes the other up, a vicious rivalry starts, and not long after it becomes a steamy “romance.” The reason I put it in quotes is because it really isn’t a romance at all. It is just a series of sexual assaults until one of the men finally complies as has “consensual” sex with the other. It is terrible. Another example of this exact same scenario is Yarichin Bitch Club, a manga/anime series about a group of boys who have sex with each other. Do I even have to explain this one? It’s always the same idea. Make gay sex appealing to straight people so that they don’t hate it. But all you do in the process is fetishize it and turn it into something that feels dirty and straight-washed.

3. Stereotyping Men

We have now discussed the idea of sexualization and stripping men of their emotions. Now lets talk about the umbrella that ties the two together. Stereotyping men is one of the most common types of (mis)representation in the media to this day. When we see men in movies we see the same cardboard cutout of a human: cold, jock like, rudely funny, strong, etc. the problem here is that we’ve made a very unrealistic bar to reach for the men of our world.

We see superhero movies where the hero is big and muscly, and is able to save the world with a charming wink of an eye. But what we don’t see, is the way bodies are edited to look “better,” the way people learn learn lines on a script, and are told exactly what to do to fit the part. Because thats all this is: a part to play. But this unrealistic standard has made it impossible for men to feel good about themselves unless they really do fit this impossible standard. Women have been lied to and trained to believe that men need to look a certain way to be worth anything. We’ve been tricked into doing the same thing to men as they have done to us for so many years. And we aren’t even holding ourselves accountable.

Another big part of stereotyping men in the media is with men in the LGBTQIA+ community. I’ve already discussed the sexualization of Gay men, but I also want to do a shallow dive into the stereotypes as well. One of the most common misconceptions about queer people is the idea that there is a man and woman in the relationship. The whole idea is that its 2 men. So why do straight people try to force this idea on them, that one needs to be the “woman” of the relationship? Why can’t you just accept that there are 2 men, living functionally without the idea of a woman being involved? Another very big issue is the idea that gay men have to be feminine and “woman like.” We see this when MLM in movies dress a certain way or speak in a valley girl accent. The way they make these men wear pinks and violets, while being called “bitch” or “girl” or “queen” by the girls that pass him, etc. The last idea I will discuss is that of the GBF. This is one of the most backwards ideas I have ever heard about LGBTQIA+ people in my life. In movies gay men are seen with his group of girlfriends where he is given makeovers and speaks very feminine, and is basically just a pretty little toy used to make cis-het people look less homophobic. When in reality— it would be more accurate to have one straight best friend in a group of gays rather than the other way around.

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Now that we’ve gone through all of this I want to end this listicle with one last statement. I am not writing this to invalidate the struggles of women. I am not writing this to make men’s struggles more valued than women’s. I am writing this to shed light on what men go through in every day life. As a feminist, I want to kill the double standard that women need to be appreciated and forget about what men need. I want real equality and that starts with acknowledging the issues on both sides of the street. If we can all hold ourselves accountable and use these ideas to change for the better, we might have ourselves a pretty good start at something better. Thank you for reading, I love you all!