RR: Kimmel

                In an exert from a Michael Kimmel’s piece “Bros Before Hos”: The Guy Code, Kimmel describes some of the pressures and expectations surrounding man-hood and what it means to be a man. In this piece he starts out be describing what young men themselves think it means to be considered a true man, and what they believe is expected of them to portray true masculinity. He states some of the basic statements he receives from these men such as, “Boys don’t cry,” “It’s better to be mad than sad,” and “Size matters”. From these statements he goes on to describe where these phrases and beliefs stem from, and who imposes them upon each man; he describes how each man is afraid of one another's judgment, and how every man is looking for signs of weakness in one another, and how each man fears be portrayed as gay, or, in reality, portrayed as a weak, or as a failure in “Guyland”.        

                For Kimmel, some of the rules associated with “Gut Code” things such as, never expressing emotion or enthusiasm, not showing interest in things like art or music, not taking too much interest in what a woman has to say, not dressing too nicely, and showing an unquenchable sexual interest in women. For me, I feel like this is a lot of what I witness in men and their interactions with one another;  they always tell stories of their achievements and successes, they don’t necessarily always talk about women in an itemizing and material manner, but it is certainly rare when you hear a man talk about how emotionally connected and in love they are.