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The Language of Masculinity:

When I was fourteen I entered the workforce with my first job, which was anything but glamorous. I was condemned to spend a little more than a month of my summer trapped in a very old and hot gym with a gaggle of small children. While the children were annoying, it was my fellow coworkers who I found to be the most unbearable.

I have this complex when it comes to interacting with guys my own age. I do not consider myself to be overly masculine in the slightest, so I find myself feeling lost and mildly annoyed at the behavior of my fellow men. Not all men, but just the majority of them who flaunt their masculinity and force it onto others. The ones who find ways to insult not only each other but different groups of people as well.

The camp in which I worked seemed to reinforce stereotypical gender norms much to my dismay. Me and the rest of the boys were in the gym playing sports with the older kids while the girls were confined to the “tot room” watching over the smaller campers.

Lunches, where all of us guys would sit in the break room, were the worst for me. Conversation would buzz around me, but it was as if the guys were speaking a foreign language that I barely had a grasp of. I had mastered the art of nodding along and laughing in order to pass as just another guy, but every now and then though one of them would say something that snapped me to my senses.

“Dude stop being such a faggot,” I had heard one of them yell.

“Shut up, you’re the faggot,” another had retorted, his mouth full of sandwich. They all laughed except me. I always hoped that no one would notice my flinch when they said certain words like faggot or retard. Those were words of their language that I had refused to speak.

It had always fascinated me that men use the term faggot as an insult, as if being gay would  suddenly strip a man of what makes him a man. It seems as though men are obsessed with the concept of a fag, which is to say an overly feminine and flamboyant man who likes men. It must make them feel better about their own fragile masculinity.

To me, masculinity is a language in itself. It is one born from years of privilege and entitlement, of aggression and hate. It not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who use it.

As Steve Almond wrote in his article What I Learned in the Locker Room, “We look to pro sports as a reminder that it is our duty to conceal the parts of ourselves that feel vulnerable, the parts we associate — erroneously, but inextricably — with the feminine.”

Hypermasculinity not only harms those who are not men, but it also harms the men who perpetuate it. The fear of being feminine or the fear of being a “fag” is what drives men to act the way in which they do.

Men conceal their feelings, their vulnerabilities, and repress them until there is no other choice but to push those negative feelings onto others. It makes sense then, that they would attack the so-called “faggots” because they are jealous of a man who can take ownership of who he is and who can take responsibility for his emotions and actions. “Faggots” are a threat to their way of life.

Towards the end of my first summer of work, I found myself exhausted keeping up the charade of masculinity. I think the facade that I had put up began to fade because one boy reached out to me during my last week of work. We were in the gym, and he had stopped me in the middle of my weak attempt at shooting some baskets.

“I just wanted to tell you that I notice how uncomfortable you seem around some of the other guys, I get it,” he admitted. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m a horrible person because of how I act around them. I’m not like this really, I just do it to fit in,” he had told me.

I think I replied with something along the lines of, “Yeah don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal,” but in reality I was confused. Why did this boy care so much about what I thought of him?

The answer didn’t come to me until much later, after I had become more comfortable in my own skin. He was trying to reassure me that he was not a “horrible” person, but in reality it seemed as though he was trying to reassure himself, which makes me think about what Gloria Anzaldúa emphasizes in her work How to Tame a Wild Tongue, “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.”

This boy had given up who he was in order to fit into the male archetype. He took the parts of himself that were against the norm and cut them out in order to become what every man is expected to be. While he may have found comfort in the conformity, he had lost himself in the process of doing so. I came to realize that you cannot bargain with society, you either speak the language it wants you to or you risk becoming a social pariah.

Works Cited:

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands = La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1999. Print.

Almond, Steve. What I Learned in the Locker Room. The New York Times Company, 11 Sept. 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/opinion/sunday/what-i-learned-in-the-locker-room.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.

As my friends and I were talking about the class reading that we had to do for Mr. Kay's class. We were talking about the main character in the book and what we thought about her. As we walked, we were talking about the character choices in the book. I was telling them that I thought that the character actions were too impulsive to make any sense. As I told them that they gave me a look of confusion and giggles. I asked what happened. And all they said was what is the character name. ¨Why her name is Dane¨” everyone laughed with the laughter filling the halls ¨ẅhat did I say, that's her name¨. ¨Her name is Dana, You know that right¨ I looked at them thinking that they're crazy because I knew that I said. ¨You said Diane you know that right¨  as I looked at them I said ¨ Ya I guess¨. I went through that day not truly know what I said wrong but I know that the reason why they didn't fully understand me was that of my speech and dyslexia. The knowledge of know that your being affected by something that you can't change about yourself. I know that I am not the only one effect by a speech in their everyday lives. The short story Mother Tongue  It illustrates the struggle of a mother who is trying to live her everyday life with working, finances and raising a child, and dealing with the knowledge that she will not be fully understood and taken seriously because of her ability to speak English. “I knew from a four fact because when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her”(2). This ideal of speech impacts someone's ability of taken seriously is something that many people have to face in their everyday life with people with speech people are being less likely to be hired over other people. This practice can not only affect business body with them not hiring the best person for the job because they don't speak perfectly but instead picking people that might not be qualified and cause them to lose financially.

Cultures around the world have dictated their version of success in their society with people who ability took and speech a certain part leads them to be more successful in their society. Thru their eyes they cherry picking people that will be able to compete in the world to make them look more smart and intelligent.  The Idea of only picking people that looks and sound like the part cause them to overlook smarter and brighter people because they are different. This Practice not only limits the society as a whole by not putting their best foot forward in the areas of ideas, jobs, and knowledge. But it's also limit the society in another way. Its limit people experience and culture with them suppressing there difference and accents it fixes the average way people speak. As a society, we need to think and talk about if we want this to be the process of people being accepted into a job. If as a society we are comfortable with that we need to ask why. Why are we comfortable with allowing a part of our population that percentage numbers in the double-digit not being able to be heard or taken seriously.  That the real question that everyone should be asking themselves and that will people with claim different causes are more moral the ideals that anyone forms any background cannot listen be the cause of the way that they speak is something that we all need to acknowledge and do something about because for more people it´s unchangeable.

Literacy is a part of life that many people underestimate. When any form of literacy is left out of the curriculum, people forget it. It becomes something they no longer pay attention to, and when mentioned, its gets degraded into oblivion. But literacy is really something great. It does in fact play a huge part in our lives, and no matter what people say about, it will always be there. Whether literacy takes the form of social media, news, writing a paper, or other things, it will remain a major part of life. This is why we cannot forget it. And I, from experience, can say that books don’t give me the chance to forget literacy.

“Let’s go bud, time for bed,” my mom called to me.
I put down my pencil and ran up the stairs to get ready for bed. I always loved reading; it would make my imagination run wild. I didn’t know how yet to read, but with everyday I got a little bit closer to understanding.

“Alright son, tonight, we’re going to finish The Horse and His Boy.”

“Nice,” I replied. “Finally the ending!”

As soon as I was born, my parents were reading to me, or so I was told. My parents to me so often, that they still today tell me about all the books I read during my childhood. Granted, they have given a significant portion of those away, but there still exists a small collection of children’s books in the house. My parents say those are their favorites. has left me with a true love for reading and literature.I have learned to love all different kinds of books, whether that was a biography about some famous person, or a nonfiction novel about a kid’s experience growing up with no parents, or even a science fiction novel about life on another planet. I’ve learned to truly appreciate books

As I got older, and learned how to read, I would do it  constantly. I would read anything I could get my hands on, whether it was a nonfiction book, magazine, or even an essay online about something I was interested in. I think it is acceptable to say that there was never a time in my early childhood when I wasn’t currently reading something. Nowadays, this is no longer true, but I distinctly remember reading all the time, even if that meant re-reading a series once or even twice because I loved it so much. Sherman Alexie described my situation perfectly in her essay titled, The Joy of Reading and Writing, “I read books late into the night, until I could barely keep my eyes open.” She, like myself, remember reading whenever she could, even when she wasn’t supposed to be.

Jimmy Santiago Baca put how I felt about books into words in the film A Place to Stand. “I didn’t want to the guy to hit my eyes so I could read the story.” I was so deeply in love with reading that if something happened to me that rendered me unable to read, part of me would die. Reading was such a big part of my childhood, that if I didn’t have books, I don’t think I would be same person I am today. I would not have the same imagination, the same creativity that I have today. And those things are such a part of me that I would indeed be a different person.

Looking back on these things, I can easily see how books and literacy helped me grow. Reading helped me to understand and appreciate forms of writing from a very early age.. I’ve learned to value books and whatever wisdom they held within their two covers. I learned to see the meaning or reason why a certain part of a book was written. I can very easily read what is happening “between the lines,” as some people say. Reading gave me this ability, which I cherish with all my heart.

Now that I am closing on my seventeenth birthday, I still read every now and then, but I’m no longer that little kid that was obsessed with books. Other things occupy my time, and some days I don’t even touch a book. I still retain my love for books and literacy though. If I find a book I haven’t read I’ll be busy until I read the last word. I also can still look at things in life and appreciate the literacy held within it. I doubt anything could happen that would take away my love for books and literacy.

From the critique of my slide, I learned that since I am the creator, only I know what I want to grab the audience’s attention. I also learned that images get distorted sometimes when being shown on a projector in comparison to a computer screen so I should be careful when enlarging or minimizing images and text because it may make things be grainy or go unseen by the audience.

To remake this slide, I first remade a version that had my original background and text color but with more paint splatters as a border. I then decided to completely remix my slide so, I inverted the colors making the background black and the words white. It was suggested that, to catch the eye, I should make my name multicolored so, I did so. It was also suggested that I make my quote bigger so that the audience can read it since it was put on the slide for a reason.

I think the research helped me make a better slide because it showed that there are many different ways to interpret information and in order to convey the message you want, you have to catch the eye of the audience. I would also consider my classmates’ presentations research because I could see the things I liked about a slide and the things I didn’t like about a slide and I could see common mistakes that were present in my slide as well as theirs. For the most part, I used the given resources, google and advice from my friends to create a good slide. I used the ideas of eye catching colors, the rule of thirds and other advice from classmates/friends to formulate a new and improved idea for my slide remix.

At first my slide was just a word and design with a hidden meaning. You weren’t able to understand how it connected or expressed the essence of “Nile” without a thorough explanation from me. When critiquing my slide my classmates informed me that I could maybe add a definition of the word in my slide but it wasn't needed since I explained it.

I made the changes to my slide so that it could speak more so for itself. Although it still is simple, it looks a tad more special and I added the changes that were advised to me by my classmates plus a few extra changes that I thought would spice it up.Think these changes enace my slide greatly.

The research I did from all the source provided, really helped me to better understand the elements of a good slide design. I used space and the spacing of the different things to allow the presentation to look clear rather than cluttered. I used lines to draw the eye to the focal point of my presentation. The color I used changed to a slightly lighter purple than before, so that the text was still seen. Some shapes to go with my  “Special Person” theme, and a small shadow behind the focal point to make it bounce out and shine brighter than the rest. I think I made a lot of good changes to my slide and like it much better overall.

I didn't know what to do for my slide so I chose to do something different. I haven found my way yet so I chose to put a blank canvas because I still have my whole life ahead of me. My canvas is just waiting to be painted. The title is Pristine Justine because thatś how I view myself.

I didn't get a lot of critiques, I heard that there was weird empty spaces everywhere and   too many pictures. I decided to change the whole idea because I wanted it to reflect more on me and how I see myself. I did something simpler and decided not to do a picture because I wanted it to be new and just something I made and not just get it from the internet.  

I still use the video about the ikea sign because I used a bright color blue. I think the font color compliments the background. There's a perfect amount of empty space I don't know if my slide will be seen from 5k away like the Ikea sign, but I think i did a lot better on this side.  

From the critiques on my slide, I learned that color and font is a very important factor in design. Through color, we can catch people’s eyes, and changing the font up will make the slide less bland and boring. Furthermore, I removed my name from the slide because I wanted the viewer to focus more on the background picture, and not get distracted by my name being there. In addition, I changed the color, font, and placement of my slide because I learned that color plays a strong role in design and eye-catchers. Moreover, I used the clouds as a natural resource to put my quote on. By doing this, I allowed eyes to focus more on the quote and background, opposed to focusing on my name.

The research I did helped polish my slide because I used natural lines in the image to direct audiences’ eyes where I want them. In addition, I changed up the font to make a less bland slide, and color to catch eyes. I used presentation Zen, and other desgin websites to make my slide better. By studying how to make a good slide, I found a new interest in design and edit.

In conclusion, I enjoyed working on this project. It helped me learn a lot about design and where to place things. There is a lot of things I need to work on and this project has pointed that out. Some things I could have worked on are choosing a better font, and using better color.

     The criticism I got from my classmates for my slide didn’t impact me as much as the criticism Ms. Hull gave me. I didn’t want to continue on with the theme I had but I did it anyways. My slide was a very spread out collage that I had no confidence in presenting in front of the class. Ms. Hull told me that if I wanted to make a collage then go for it. I had to get rid of the white spaces and “make people look at everything at once”. Those are exactly the changes I made.

     I stuck to the composition video on youtube that explained how pictures should intersect at the four intersecting points and the slide tutorial video that explained how important pictures are in a presentation as my sources. There is a numerous amount of different pictures explaining different things that all tie to one main topic.

     My slide may or may not have improved but this time I have a little bit more confidence in myself. I learned that slide making takes time and effort and the smallest things are actually a big deal. From the videos and websites I gained much knowledge on how to make my slide better in the future. I thank these videos and the people behind the voice overs, but most importantly, Ms.Hull.

After the first slide that I did, I thought the project was okay just like how my slide was just okay. It wasn’t anything special but it worked for what the project was asking for. This is why it took a little while to even start the revised version. I didn’t have much interest to do the first slide. Yes I looked at some of the websites that suggested strategies for design but knowing how to make the slide look decent didn’t really help me choose an image, a topic, something to go off of. So there was no real motivation. Although I did still have to do something so I put a slide together very last minute and that was that. Like I said I thought the slide was okay seeing as I didn't put much effort into it but, when it was time for me to present to the class about how I designed my slide I didn’t really know what to say.

The feedback I got from the presentation was definitely helpful and in general it sounded to me like I should take my own picture for the slide instead of looking one up. Now I understood where that was coming from and I also thought a picture of my own would be better but I don’t have a super amazing camera so that didn't really work out. But I did indeed make my own picture in a way. Now if the comment on my slide wasn’t “take your own picture” it was “it’s too blurry at the bottom”... both things I couldn't really change. So I decided to start over completely. I stayed with the soccer theme though so I wasn’t completely lost or anything, just had a blank slide.

For some reason starting the new slide was much easier than the first one (that is when I actually decided to start.) In place of the soccer ball on the field by itself I tried to find a picture of player I liked on the ball or just holding one. After stretching a couple of photos to try and fit in the background of a slide I decided to try something different. I got a picture of the player I wanted and this time it wasn’t the whole background of the slide but only an image in there. I threw a couple more in the slide to try and add more flavor but that wasn't working either. The idea was really good but it just looked ugly with a bunch of rectangular images in there with no good way to fit them together. At this point I decided to devote myself to a good looking slide. I thought well the players would look fine but just without the stupid backgrounds. So I found a free photo editing site and fiddled around with the images till I found a good brightness and whatnot. It was pretty much all downhill after that, I figured I could keep two uniform colors present then make the text that color as well. Overall I was happy with the outcome and enjoyed the project.

Originally I was going for the the Ikea look, like focusing it on one thing. To me, it made sense at first but then explaining it to people I can could see why it was so many of my teammates were confused.  My and teammates think my topic was clear.  Somethings that my teammates told me to improve ways to make sure my topic was more clear.  Also to not have as many pictures because at first look they didn't make sense.  My pictures were also srinked and weren't pleasing to the eye.

After taking in all my critiques and applying them to my slide i decided to improve it by just having ONE picture and basing it on my topic(languages).  I also changed my background to blue because it’s like the sky in my picture and also when asking people what’s their favorite color many siad blue so I thought it would be appealing to the eye.  My front color is yellow because I think yellow is a color that pops to the eye.  Also since my background is the sky, the yellow front goes well with the sun my my picture.  Now I think my slide is more understanding and well done.

After all us this I really appreciate the speech Ms. Hull gave us because it made me feel a lot better knowing that none of us got the project done right and that we are supposed to learn from our mistake, so I want to thank Ms. Hull for that because not only do I feel more confident in Tech I feel better in my other classes.