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"We get a little further from perfection"
Feb. 11th, 2007 03:17 amJust finished Young Masculinities - it's a challenging book and the topic (how do boys construct their identity as boys / men, how do they juggle with contradicting ideals of masculinty?) is fascinating but also terribly complex. I came out of this book wanting to interview more boys, in particular gay teenagers or teenagers raised by gay parents (on top of single parents and couples of parents), to see how it would complete that research, maybe help us get some answers or just draw a more comprehensive picture of how boys and men struggle with their identity nowadays.
In the end you realize how difficult it is to definite mascuilinity (or feminity for that matter). What makes you a man? If it's not specific tastes, abilities, a certain perception, an essence, then what is it? Is it solely physical? How can you then explain that people can be born in the wrong body? How do you know that you're a man? We were talking in class of how identities are defined in opposition - that's always how we define ourselves - in contrast with something else. In a world that assumes (and legitimately, I believe) that there is no fundamental difference between boys and girls, it becomes all the more difficult to construct your identity. Are you less of a man because you have what we still call "feminine" qualities? Of course not. But what, then, makes you a man?
On a less philosophical level, I had a wonderful time with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moimoietmoi this afternoon. She brought her polaroid and it was so much fun to use it - my last memories of a polaroid go back at least 12 years, my grandpa used to have one. And since I've got a whole new series of pictures to work on, I also finally kick my own ass and posted the rest of the previous series of pictures I took along the banks of the Seine and at Les Tuileries.
Go to my
photo LJ to see the last two batches I posted (specifically here and here). A couple of teasers :
And finally, recc'd bywoodsong_1978 and with good reason, Like Water is an excellent Torchwood fic. It's Jack/Tosh and it's very quiet and bittersweet, exactly what I love in my TW fics.
In the end you realize how difficult it is to definite mascuilinity (or feminity for that matter). What makes you a man? If it's not specific tastes, abilities, a certain perception, an essence, then what is it? Is it solely physical? How can you then explain that people can be born in the wrong body? How do you know that you're a man? We were talking in class of how identities are defined in opposition - that's always how we define ourselves - in contrast with something else. In a world that assumes (and legitimately, I believe) that there is no fundamental difference between boys and girls, it becomes all the more difficult to construct your identity. Are you less of a man because you have what we still call "feminine" qualities? Of course not. But what, then, makes you a man?
On a less philosophical level, I had a wonderful time with
moimoietmoi this afternoon. She brought her polaroid and it was so much fun to use it - my last memories of a polaroid go back at least 12 years, my grandpa used to have one. And since I've got a whole new series of pictures to work on, I also finally kick my own ass and posted the rest of the previous series of pictures I took along the banks of the Seine and at Les Tuileries.Go to my
photo LJ to see the last two batches I posted (specifically here and here). A couple of teasers :And finally, recc'd by
woodsong_1978 and with good reason, Like Water is an excellent Torchwood fic. It's Jack/Tosh and it's very quiet and bittersweet, exactly what I love in my TW fics.
