What truly makes a man a man?

What is "masculinity"? What are "masculinities"? What defines these concepts? Use examples from Orwell's *1984* as well as those drawn from popular culture, literature, advertising, and so forth to furnish your response.


The most common and accepted definition of masculinity is largely just a social construct and in fact, it can be argued as being an archetype. Society and especially mass media describe masculinity being such that an individual possesses big muscles, has "cut up" abs and is also quite powerful, rugged and confident at the same time. Having conversed with several different women from different cultural backgrounds, they all seemed to describe very common traits that they attribute to masculinity that also coincides almost perfectly with the traits described by society and mass media.


Some examples from popular culture that perpetuate the "ideal" traits of masculinity are the Old Spice commercials with Isaiah Mustafa and the Dos Equis commercials. In the former example, Mustafa (or the script writers) say(s) that men are truly men when they look like him, talk like him and apparently, smell like him too! When Old Spice is using Mustafa to portray the ideal man, they make sure that he has his shirt off and they emphasize his abs as well. This not only effectively tells us men what the socially acceptable appearance of us is, but it also tells us how to behave and what to use to smell "like a man". In the latter example of the Dos Equis beer commercials, the ideal man happens to be one who is rugged, mysterious, interesting and apparently who loves living at home with a friggin' cheetah as a pet!! This apparently, is the "trick" to being the ideal man and the proof for that is being surrounded by beautiful women at the bar while getting a beer.


In George Orwell's 1984, the author implicitly defines masculinity as having some sort of significance. He exemplifies this by making all of the major characters in the book that either are significant in terms of contributing to the plot or towards the party, all male. The characters that truly have significance are O'Brien, Parsons, Goldstein, Charrington, Winston and of course, Big Brother. By making all the significant characters in the book male, Orwell is implicitly saying that he believes that any individual who is important is masculine. He implicitly says that when males are being the primary caregivers and the primary providers, they are being masculine. For example, when Parson's wife asks Winston to help her fix the faucet in her kitchen, Orwell shows that only males have the ability fix things and take care of others, while the women depend on the men for comfort and help in many situations except for taking care of the children, which they have traditionally been portrayed as always doing.