Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity - Jackson Katz, pg 349-358

Recap: Violence in the United States has been something that has been around for many years. With the advent of 9/11, the violence has been brought to the forefront. The focus of this chapter is about how violence is a more male dominated happening. Advertisers generally use a strong male image to sell and with the movies and other mainstream media of the late 70’s and early 80’s this has been brought to a head with great action heroes like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis. So this goes into a thought of, are males genetically violent or is it learned behavior?

Comment: For me I can recall growing up lots of specific advertising that was very male dominated. Playing with my “real” sounding M-16 rifles and playing soldier with my best friend was a daily past time. For me growing up in the 60’s and 70’s during my early years compared to how things are now is quite different. It makes me really look at what my son being one year old will have to deal with when he is 7 or 8 playing what ever type of male rolled game. I certainly think I will try and make sure that I raise him to be understanding of both the female and male viewpoints.