I did not know how damaged American masculinity is. [View all]

[IluvPitties]

Coming from Latin America, I always thought we had the real issues with sexism, and that the US was miles ahead in terms of gender and domestic relationships. Although my father himself has verbally and emotionally abused my mother for decades, I never saw the things that seem to be so common in teenage culture over here. For example, we never had bullying issues to the point of driving people to commit suicide. We never had this ridiculous praise for the athletic, all mighty jocks like people do here. We did not have kids bringing guns to school wanting to shoot anyone. Don't get me wrong, we did have issues of all sorts, but there seems to be an element of abuse and violence here that was truly missing from most interactions with other people, including girls.

When I moved here, I asked people about their views about gender relations, and I heard all sorts of BS about American men being so responsible, family loving and respectful of women in comparison to Latinos, and I assumed it was true. I felt like I came from a flawed culture that abused women (my father) to a culture in which violence against women was, luckily, a rarity. When I started teaching, I would have (and still do) conversations wirh students about their perceptions of gender relations in America, and even now, most, both men and women, seem unable to recognize the deep issues existing in this country about the topic until we start analyzing what happens in different Latin American nations in regards to that... It is then they start recognizing "that happens here too" and seem to wake up to the obvious fact that it is as prevalent here, or even worse.

I guess the point I want to make is that the issues with American masculinity are so deep and engrained in the minds of people here that they are part of the coming of age culture of people. High school and college culture seem to celebrate and normalize all of this to the point that people don't realize they are participating, either as perpetrators or as victims, of abuse.