Night to His Day & Tough Guise

Tough guise is a really interesting film, it shows how the dominant culture, men, cause more violence then women do, and no one really acknowledges that men are doing it. for example, when school shootings occurred, all the killers were male, but in the news papers what the title will be are "kids killing kids" instead of "boys killing boys", yet if a female would commit so much crimes and do something illegal, the main topic would be "a WOMAN is committing murder."

• 85% of murder is committed by men
• 90% of assault is committed by men
• 95% of domestic violence is committed by men
• 95% dating violence is committed by men
• 95% child abuse is caused by men
• 99.8% of men are in jail because of rape

yet, no one really puts the thought on why men are doing these crimes, well as i said before, men have to live upon this "man box", in the man box men have to behave a certain way, physical, strong, dominant, etc. and because of the media, and over exaggerating what a man should be, men feel the need to act a certain way to prove they are men, when in reality some men act tough, and when behind close doors, they are the most emotional, loving beings. 

The media has portrayed black people as the "gangsters, and always in the hood, causing trouble and hustling", the media has portrayed latinos as "boxers and tough guys in the barrio", and asians are always portrayed as "kong fu fighters, assassins, ninjas, etc." (Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) so the boys and men feel as if they need to live up to this expectation. In the video, a few teenage boys were asked what will they be called if they don't remain in the man box, they're response was:

• wuss
• wimp
• mommas boy
• queer
• weak
• soft
• emotional
• sissy
• and much more horrible words that will really drive someone over the edge

The wizard of oz represents that being a tough man is an act, in the video they explained when toto uncovers the curtains to the great wizard where he is mechanically portraying a tougher version of himself as an act, the wizard explains he's actually a nice person. if a child is abused, most likely when they get older they would become abusers and usually men take out their anger on other men (men are the main victims violence committed by other men)

the reason that violent men are not the main topic of discussion is because we focus more on the subordinate group instead of the dominant, in the video they showed a little chart that explained this:

• when we hear the word race, we think of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and never think of White, because they already are the dominant race.
• when we hear the words sexual orientation we often think of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, never we think of the dominant group which are the heterosexuals.
• when we hear the word gender, we think of women, not of men.

what this is trying to explain is that the dominant group (white, heterosexual, and men) are somewhat invisible.


The article "night to his day" written by Judith Lorber, is an article explaining that there would always be a difference between men and women, besides the biological perspective of it. even though now a days there are more tom boys in the world, more women working at either the Marines or the Army, and more children having unisex names and clothing, there is always something different about boys and girls. In the mid 1950's women just began to be allowed to join the Marines yet, a woman in the Marines had to take hair care classes, and make up classes, and also had to wear make up (at least eye shadow and lip stick) a tom boy would always have earrings on and so on, so the point is there will always be a segregation agents men and women.