Masculine and Feminine Qualities in Each Individual - Research Paper Example

 SpongeBob and Patrick found a clam, depicted as an infant, and nurtured it together. Well, it wouldn’t have created such an outrage except that SpongeBob acted as the doting, stay at home housewife while Patrick pretended to go to work to be the breadwinner for the family. The supposed couple quarreled on their roles in rearing the baby with SpongeBob nagging away on the toll of doing every single household chore while Patrick asserts the workload he had to endure (“Rock-a-Bye Bivalve”). Needless to say, this episode enraged certain groups, especially religious ones, claiming that it promotes homosexuality and advocated for the boycott of the Nickelodeon staple. The show’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, was quick to answer that SpongeBob is asexual. The show’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, was quick to answer that SpongeBob is asexual (The Week Staff, para.2). What exactly that meant? It leaves much to the imagination, but, simply that he is neither male nor female. Hillenburg may as well just have found a way to get out of the mess but the androgynous quality of his characters resonates to reflect the blurring of the lines of gender identity. When you think about it, this cartoon is able to encompass a wide audience that does not limit according to sex. It is entertaining to both girls and boys where even the age brackets are often irrelevant. Strauss found that its viewing audience includes ages between 5-49 (qtd. in Tarr and Brown 21). The main character, despite his name being Bob, is a yellow sponge who has pretty straightforward goals in life. His best friend is a pink starfish named Patrick whose gender we could only assume as leaning more toward male identification despite his skin color. “SpongeBob SquarePants offers an imaginary, humorous alternative to the world in which we live” (Tarr and Brown 29). SpongeBob Squarepants is not the kind of children’s fixation that focuses on love interests and damsel in distress plots. Unlike what Susan Brownmiller spoke of as “the fairy tales that were read to me at night” that conditioned her to declare, “I loved being a little girl, or rather I loved being a fairy princess, for that was who I thought I was” (205). Diffendal comments and cites, “Whether or not SpongeBob has a crush on his starfish pal — the BBC claimed that SpongeBob ‘is seen as an icon for adult gay men in the U.S., apparently because he regularly holds hand with his [starfish] sidekick Patrick’” (47). The standards of masculinity and femininity are notions inculcated to us from childhood. The standard of how one should act, dress, and present themselves is always in accordance with perceptions of gender. JeongMee Yoon’s portrait project entitled The Pink and Blue Project, she photographed children’s rooms over a period of years. In half of the portraits, little girls, just a few years old, pose in the middle of their bedrooms. Nearly everything around them is bathed in pink, from the furniture to books to the walls. In the other half, where there are boys, there is blue. (MacDonald para.5). Early on from our mother’s womb, the assignment of certain things according to sex is immediate. When a family finds out the gender of the child then it is just a matter of time before the house becomes bombarded with either pink or blue stuff that ranges from wall color to clothes to toys. Even when the mother gives birth, the hospital room becomes filled with pink or blue balloons and gift cards with the common ‘it’s a boy’ or ‘it’s a girl’ statement. Toys, being the definitive statement of dissimilarity between boys and girls are the most fundamental foundation of formative development. “These color-coordinated lives are comfortable, to say the least” (MacDonald para.12). Gender formation is difficult and it is everywhere. It supports a person’s decisions in life and it comes from the romanticizing of what a man or a woman should be as culture dictates. “Femininity, in essence, is a romantic sentiment, a nostalgic tradition of imposed limitations” (Brownmiller 206). But this is not exclusive to the female figure. Even masculinity has limitations unto itself. Gretel Ehrlich’s About Men also emphasizes on the boxing up of an individual based on gender. She explores the characteristics of the manly cowboy that is made most famous by advertisements of the Marlboro Man. She writes, “In our hellbent earnestness to romanticize the cowboy we’ve ironically disesteemed his true character…Instead of the macho, trigger-happy man…the cowboy is more apt to be convivial, quirky and softhearted” (251-252). The strict standard of gender identification is a double-edged sword that comprises both femininity and masculinity. Women have to be soft and warm much like Brownmiller’s metaphor of females as spoon while men have to be edgy and aloof like forks (205). The era of androgyny shows, in reference to Brownmiller’s symbolism, puts to mind the emergence of a spork. Spoon and fork combined in one personality where rounded curves could co-exist with sharp edges or vice versa. Today’s somewhat cultural leeway has allowed for a more fluid definition of what it takes to be a man or a woman without adherence to the strictest dictates of gender identities as compared to decades earlier. In fashion, an aspect that had always been identified as a female interest, more and more heterosexual men are seen to be absorbed and participatory in relation to their own lifestyle choices. This is a preoccupation common to women who are used to “buying a new eyeliner, experimenting with the latest shade of nail color, or bursting into tears at the outcome of a popular romance novel” (Brownmiller 208). Perhaps the metrosexual man would not go as far as changing nail colors on a whim or that he will be wearing a skirt anytime soon similar to women’s conventional wearing of pants. But he is comfortable enough in his own masculinity to know that a pedicure would not in itself switch off his heterosexuality. In Brett Martin and Juergen Gnoth’s paper Is the Marlboro Man The Only Alternative? The Role of Gender Identity and Self-construal Salience in Evaluations of Male Models, they conclude “that masculine models like the Marlboro man are not the only alternative for advertisers. Instead, males can be segmented in terms of gender identity” (365). This means that notions of masculinity should now acknowledge androgynous and feminine men in advertising strategies. The stoic man has slowly evolved into the sensitive and affectionate figure. He is capable of showing his emotions and tenderness without fear of violating an unwritten code for manliness. The significance of the phrase ‘real men wear pink,’ although sounding commonplace actually makes a world of difference when applied. It is no longer unusual to see men being more meticulous than women. Nonetheless, men are feeling threatened where the term ‘retrosexual’ hopes bring back the old notions of manliness. But Andrew Romano in his article Why We Need to Reimagine Masculinity writes that this does nothing to improve their situation but only propagates old problems. “What’s required, then, is not a reconnection with the past but a liberation from it; not a revival of the old role but an expansion of it” (para.4). In fact, women now find it sensible that a man knows how to take care of himself. Rather than “clinging to an adolescent dependency on women” (Ehrlich 254). Nowadays, seeing men in tighter jeans than women or one who takes more time in the bathroom is no longer as shocking. Androgynous relationships are becoming more and more acceptable where the reversed roles of husband and wife occur. Changes are drastically being seen across the globe. Sweden, for example, passed a law in 1995 where the couple is subjected to lose a month’s leave unless it is the father who takes it then this was made two months in 2002. Further, 41% of employers are now encouraging paternal leave to be fathers. This led to a change where, “now more than 80 percent of Swedish fathers take four months off for the birth of a new child, up from 4 percent a decade ago” (Romano para.12). The modern woman has gained so much from the feminist movement of the past decades that more and more choices are being available to them. Educational reformer Michelle Rhee says it best with the roles they play in her marriage, “It’s not assuming all of the traditional roles. It’s knowing that as a woman, you could have whatever way you like” (“Makers: Women Who Make America Part 3”). The typical definitions of masculinity and femininity still exist and the conformity to these identities continues to be rampant as a cultural measure of what a man or woman should be. But the idea of consciously depicting these traits is becoming a matter of choice. “It’s time, in other words, for a New Macho: a reimagining of what men should be expected to do in the two realms, home and work” (Romano para.6). The romantic ascriptions of the rugged man and the fragile woman are brought into awareness as not the only prevailing options. This proves Ehrlich’s description of the cowboy, “If he’s gruff, handsome and physically fit on the outside, he’s androgynous at the core. Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once” (253). Alternatives do exist but they are yet to be fully embraced by society. It takes confidence to carry one’s self without having to fold when someone bats an eye. Each individual has both masculine and feminine qualities that some are only more attune with it than others. SpongeBob acting out as a mother is not necessarily a bad thing. It is but a notion that androgyny contains layers that blur gender roles. Works Cited “Makers: Women Who Make America Part 3.” Prod. Kunhardt McGee Productions. Makers. PBS, n.d. PBS.org. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. “Rock-a-Bye Bivalve.” Prod. United Plankton Pictures. SpongeBob Squarepants. Nickelodeon, 29 Mar. 2002. Pollystreaming. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. Brownmiller, Susan. “Femininity.” Boston: Open Road Media, 1984. Print. Diffendal, Chelsea. “SpongeBob SquarePants and the Emasculating Arm of Flesh.” Chrestomathy: Annual Review of Undergraduate Research, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Charleston. 4 (2005): 46-64. Web. 13 Nov. 2014. Ehrlich, Gretel. “About Men.” Boston: Thompson Books/Cole, 2008. Print. MacDonald, Kerri. “Pink or Blue Toys for Girls and Boys.” New York Times, 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. Martin, Brett A.S. and Juergen Gnoth. “Is The Marlboro Man the Only Alternative? The Role of Gender Identity and Self-construal Salience in Evaluations of Male Models.” Market Lett. 20 (2009): 353-367. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. Romano, Andrew. “Why We Need to Reimagine Masculinity.” Newsweek, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. Tarr, Britni A. and Timothy Brown. “Of Theory and Praxis: SpongeBob SquarePants and Contemporary Constructions of the American Dream.” American International Journal of Contemporary Research. 3.11 (2013): 20-29. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. The Week Staff. “Top 6 SpongeBob SquarePants Controversies.” The Week, 14 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Nov. 2014. Read More