Based on all the readings, videos, and class discussions we have had in class, I have realized that there are a number of problems and issues within our culture that still need to be addressed. Before taking this course, I assumed that one of the major problems in our society relating to gender, sex and sexuality was that women are still treated unequally. However, women are not the only victims forced into stereotypical ideologies, men are too. I believe men face the same pressure to be a “man”. That said, a key issue within our culture that we need to address is the gender norms and expectations that men are held accountable for in order to be seen as men. Typically, people associate virility with a quality that one either possesses or does not possess. have and the ability to demonstrate one's masculinity. Men constantly test themselves, performing heroic feats, taking enormous risks just so that other men can grant them their manhood (Kimmel 129). This constant battle to prove one's masculinity pushes a number of men to do so, so that when they don't, they feel as if they have failed at being a man. Therefore, men use their masculinity as a defense mechanism against the threat of humiliation in the eyes of other men (Kimmel 135). In other words, they are afraid of admitting their fragility and being seen as weak due to the repercussions they may face from their peers and society in general. To help change this mentality we must allow everyone, men and women, to freely express who they are. We need to teach our children that it is okay if they don't meet the expectations defined by society. We must also address and discourage the repercussions men face when they tease,... middle of paper ......Legal Review. 38 (2004): 345-350. Print.Gerson, Kathleen. No man's land: Changing men's commitments to family and work. New York, New York: Basic Books, 1993. 325-334. Print.Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Theorizing masculinities. By Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1994. 119-41. Print.Lorber, Judith. “Night in its day: the social construction of gender.” Gender paradoxes. New Haven: Yale UP, 1995. 13-36. Print.Shaw, Susan M. and Janet Lee. “Gender Learning.” Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 105-21. Print.Rutter, Virginia and Pepper Schwartz. Gendering sexuality: Exploring sexual possibilities. 2nd ed. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012. 1-44. Press.