I’ve been contemplating this story for a while now and I’m still in shock. The story proceeds as follows:
A certain Mr. Pedro Jones was baby-sitting for his girlfriend and noted the child was acting a bit too girly for his liking. Taking matters into his own hands, he strikes the child. The child goes into cardiac arrest and dies. He was “trying to make him act like a boy instead of a girl.”
Now this is the whole point I’ve been trying to make with this blog…what constitutes acting like a boy or acting manly? Why are we so caught up in this false sense of bravado anyway? Why can’t a man be a man without all of these additional labels applied? Granted, there must be some definition or characteristics (i.e. men who leave progeny all over the place would more fit the boy category and not the man in my opinion) but I am really talking about the subtle hints that society at large whisper to us. “Men walk with a lean” or “Men drink Alcohol – preferably beer” or maybe “Men should want to ‘score’ as much as possible.” I’m sure if the question, what does it mean to be a man were posed to 20 different men, we would probably get 30 different answers. To be honest, I’m not so sure myself. But to beat a child to death for not being born with your ideal definition of being a man -without even having a chance to mature – is nowhere near close to my definition of what it means to be a man.
What are your thoughts?
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