Hegemonic Masculinity Analysis

Exploring the construction of hegemonic masculinity, we go through a contradicting state of the definition of manhood. Although contradictions appear, it is socially adapted and able to reside without conflict. Take manhood as this, “We think of manhood as a transcendent tangible property that each man must manifest in the world” (Kimmel, 1994). Meaning that manhood is merely an idea which is drilled into a man’s head by society, “Gender, we said, was an achieved status” (West and Zimmerman, 2015) in other terms, manhood is a socially agreed upon idealization of how men should act or who they should be. In West and Zimmerman’s “Doing Gender”, Hegemonic masculinity is accomplished by the unavoidable categories of sex and gender and ways we act upon them; collaborating together in a socially constructed standard of how to be.
Sex is the biological identity of a human being, “The criteria for classification can be genitalia at birth or chromosomal typing…” (West and Zimmerman, 2015). Sex category is determined through the sex criteria although, according to west and Zimmerman, a person may classify themselves in a specific sex category even though they do not have the sex criteria for that category. Gender is the agreed upon way one person should present themselves if they identify in a specific category (masculinity and femininity). Hegemonic masculinity is dictated through the three societal standards that are put in our heads as a baby. Whether it is the cars and trucks to the guns and swords little boys get; we see masculinity being something in which is taught at a young