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BOYS WILL BE BOYS (MYRIAM MIEDZIAN).   Term Paper ID:28288 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examaines issues of gender in U.S. Connection between male behavior & violence.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examaines issues of gender in U.S. Connection between male behavior & violence. Paper Introduction: Miedzian, Myriam. Boys Will Be Boys. New York: Doubleday, 1991. In the book Boys Will Be Boys, Myriam Miedzian examines issues of gender in American society, specifically with an eye to analyzing why boys in America turn to violence so often in contemporary society. The subtitle is "Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence," suggesting that the book will show ways of altering the usual connection seen between being male and being violent. The author finds that what we call male behavior is accepted in society as the norm, as if males were violent by nature and so had to act out certain rituals as part of their genetic heritage. The differences between the genders were Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Of course, this does not explainwhy violent behavior in particular is so emphasized in male thinking,though it suggests that females could be as violent as males if they wereacculturated to be so. The central issue in this book is not that the author finds humanbeings to be violent, but that he differentiates males from all humanbeings and finds that they have been acculturated to violence. However, he does see a need for better parenting from either genderand suggests the need for better education in the process of parenting.Another issue raised is that the author sees the need to change the malemind-set, a difficult proposition that he discusses at length in differentways, noting the different ways the culture promotes a certain idea aboutgender. This is in keeping with various feminist theories holding thatgender differences are entirely cultural. As a group,males are more prone to violent behavior, but those who actually exhibitviolent behavior seem to be suffering form one or more disabilities, suchas learning disabilities, brain injury at birth, maternal alcoholism, andso on. This brought about a reexamination and a reconsideration thatis ongoing. He also sees a danger in the depictionof violence in films and on video and calls for a strong rating system toprotect children. Miedzian concludes that our society creates thissituation by the qualities it emphasizes for young males and the way thosequalities are conveyed through sporting events, television, and parentalattitudes. He also discusses other cultural depictions of violence,from music to wrestling, from toys to the power of commercials. The author addresses criticisms he believes would be leveled at himfor suggesting a change so that we would be raising a nation of "wimps"rather than "real men." Patriotism in America has long been associatedwith manhood and masculinity, and inherent in this is the idea thatpatriotism means the ability to wage war. These philosophersbelieved that this was a voluntary act undertaken to protect certaininterests, and they also believed that there had to be compelling interestsinvolved to entice people to make this sort of commitment and to give uptheabsolute freedom they enjoyed in nature. Urban living creates tensions that are quite different from thoseencountered in the state of nature, but the fact that they are different inkind does not necessarily mean they are different in degree. Those who areconcerned with our ability to survive seem to believe that we have simplyforgotten how to adapt and that wee have become victims of our own successat creating comforts. The primary source for the mind-set appears to be the pervasivecultural view promoted in literature, drama, and other culturalexpressions. Lorenz,Ardrey, and Morris can be seen as theorists seeking these answers. The author finds that this all derives from a view that males areborn with a certain predisposition toward violent behavior. Many also believe that males make poor child-nurturers and that if they did involve themselves more in the raising ofchildren, those children would come out much worse off than they do atpresent. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Miedzian explains this withrecourse to cultural sources for certain attitudes with which young malesare acculturated. However,society has become much more complex. Society and the institutions of society were not thecause so much as the outcome of interactions between individuals. More recent theories, including those of Ardrey and Lorenz,have been mixtures of science and social philosophy, and these theoristsrely heavily on extrapolations from animals. The author finds that what we call male behavior is accepted insociety as the norm, as if males were violent by nature and so had to actout certain rituals as part of their genetic heritage. However, as the author also notes, there has still been a lackof focus on violence as a male problem, and instead, theorists tend to seehuman beings as a group as violent, focusing on aggression in societyrather than on male aggression as such. The author indeed lays particular blame for the connectionbetween being male and being violent on television, what he calls "TheBabysitter that Teaches Violence." The author sees television as nurturingviolence, and he believes that the only way to reduce the problem is tochange how children learn from television by developing a publicbroadcasting system for children. Many in the scientificcommunity have since rejected their ideas, but they are important in anycase for what they imply about biological evolution. Different biological theorists analyzed these same questionsaccording to their view of human evolution and of how that is reflected inhuman culture. Miedzian does not deny their theories outright but shows that he isinterested in something quite different, for he sees gender differences asbeing quite considerable in our society today. Othertheorists have found relationships between human beings and the animalkingdom to show that human beings have an in-bred tendency toward violentbehavior. Much of what they have to say begins with a considerationof the past, of how humankind has evolved to date and of what we know aboutthe origins of human culture. Their studies related to the issue of human aggression and showed howman had originally been a predator in the wild. In the 196 s, a number of ethnologistsanalyzed our biological thinking about humankind and human social life, andKonrad Lorenz can be cited in particular. This thus does nothing to deny the sort of ideasoffered by Lorenz and Ardrey, for it would seem indeed to confirm thathuman beings have certain primitive instincts which are brought to the forewhen the culture places some value on those instincts and nurtures them.The suggestions Miedzian makes regarding how to change this situation wouldseem inadequate unless the culture is completely revamped and redirected,which would take considerable will to accomplish. Scientists have tended tofocus on aggression as a behavioral process, but many of the most popularnotions about aggression are fundamentally myths without any scientificfoundation. Ardrey,Lorenz, and Morris set forth certain ideas about the rightful place of thehuman being in the scheme of things and tried to show how society hadinhibited certain natural tendencies through the ages. The author sees a danger in sucha one-dimensional perspective, and indeed it contributes to a war-likestance. Yet, we have always been able to draw on hiddenresources when forced to do so, and we may be able to do this withreference to the social problems we have ourselves created. The differencesbetween the genders were considered set and were fully accepted for much ofour history, but the women's movement and the civil rights movementchallenged many of the basic assumptions about people and how they were tobe divided. We have developed laws and public institutions to seeto it that our rights and the rights of others are protected. In the eighteenth century, severalsocial philosophers, notably John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau,considered the issue of the social contract and the way in which peopleshifted from a primitive state of nature to a society. We need toevolve socially as well as physically, and our mental evolution may enableus to do this merely by making better use of what we already possess. The author argues with this conclusion as well. Much of our political structure is based on a belief that thisis the case. One reason for this, though, isthat male behavior is seen to be the norm for the human community, showinga gender bias that is pervasive. What started out as a series ofsmall villages has grown into a society with giant metropolises, someencompassing many smaller communities, drawing them in and making them partof an urban environment that can be hostile, violent, and dangerous. Thequestion now facing us is whether urban living has become so far removedfrom the natural state of humankind that our biological evolution has beenoutstripped by the reality of our circumstances. Some see a domineering mother as a cause of violent behavior in thenext generation, but the author believes the absentee father is anothercause, whether that father be physically absent or merely uninvolved in theraising of his children. The subtitleis "Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence," suggesting thatthe book will show ways of altering the usual connection seen between beingmale and being violent. Boys Will Be Boys. Miedzian, Myriam. Today, we have become accustomedto living in a social setting and to making the necessary adjustments tothe social contract. The mind was seen as essentiallya rationalizing organ that gave meaning to what was otherwise a meaninglessbiological existence. In recent years, there has been moreattention given to these questions. In the book Boys Will Be Boys, Myriam Miedzian examines issues ofgender in American society, specifically with an eye to analyzing why boysin America turn to violence so often in contemporary society. We believe we have developed far beyond our ancestors, wholived closer to the earth than do we, yet we still see ourselves as aviolent society, with good reason. 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