Month: October 2018

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, albeit is identified as a conjunction word. It means “even though, although”. On the third page of “A Master’s Degree in Masculinity”, it states,”That viewpoint has been changing, albeit slowly”. The word albeit was used to explain how mens studies were being done but hasn’t shown much improvement. It emphasizes how nothing has changed since 1991 until these recent years by universities offering courses in men studies

Emasculate: to deprive or weaken strength and identity, most likely in a man (verb)

The word Emasculate can be found in the Merriam Webster Dictionary, that is were I found a proper definition for this word. I first encountered this word when reading “The Boys Are All Not Alright”  by Michael Ian Black, it was in the second sentence of the article. The author was telling readers about his one- linear, he states ” If you want to emasculate a guy friend” the word emasculate caught my eye, I never heard of this word before. I read the second part of the sentence to get a sense of what this word might of meant, the author was pretty much stating that when taking a guy friend to a restaurant ask him what he wants to order, than when the waitress comes tell the waitress what the guy wants. From my experience I know that guys are always wanting to be in charge, and if a person male or female does something for them, their self esteem lowers down. So I concluded that the definition of emasculate may connect to the weaken a men’s self esteem because something was done for them, and I was close. But now I know what this word means, and I can educate those who do not.

The word Carnage is a noun. According to Merriam-Webster, the word means great and usually bloody slaughter. This word can be found in the article ” The Boys Are Not Alright” by Michael Ian Black. The sentence where the word can be found says, “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School now joins the ranks of Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Columbine and too many other sites of American carnage.” This shows that America has become a place of mass slaughter and its because the boys are going through things that they can not talk about to others. Now that I understand the meaning of this word I can use it to when mentioning war. Knowing and understanding this word helps me sound professional when writing and helps show that I know words to replace sad ones.

The word Impugning is a “Transitive Verb”. The definition of Impugning according to Merriam-Webster is ” to assail by words or arguments oppose or attack as false or lacking integrity”. I found this word in the reading “The Boys are Not All Right” by Michael Ian Black in this he talk about man’s emotions and masculinity. That they are not allowed to show their emotions to the world. For example, ” I see him, 16 years old, swallowing his frustration, burying his worry, stomping up the stairs without telling us what’s wrong, and I want to show him what it looks like to be vulnerable and open but I can’t. Because I was a boy once, too”. This show that man are promoting masculinity too because if they show emotion they have to face a lot hate towards their personality. The word Impugning tells us that if u show society your soft side they’ll attack u from their words.

emas·cu·late (transitive verb)

The word emasculate means to deprive strength, vigor, or spirit: weaken, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. This word is found in “The Boys Are Not All Right” by Michael Ian Black on the first paragraph when it states, “If you want to emasculate a guy friend, when you’re at a restaurant, ask him everything that he’s going to order, and then when the waitress comes … order for him.” Now understanding the meaning of the word, I now know that what the author was trying to say is that if you want to take a guy’s strength or make him feel weak in a sense, you should ask him what he’s going to order and then order for him when the waitress comes since it’s usually the other way around or he orders for himself.

During class, as the whole class was reading the article “A Masters Degree in Masculinity” by Jessica Bennett together. I came across a word in which I was not familiar with; ‘Phenomena’. I at first thought that this word looked extremely similar to the word ‘phenomenon’ which also I was not familiar with. I’ve seen these two words many times when reading articles, books, or even posts on the internet, but never bothered finding out what it means. The word ‘Phenomena’ according to the Merriam-webster dictionary had no definite meaning but tells me that it is the plural form of the word ‘phenomenon’ instead. So according to the Merriam-webster dictionary ‘phenomenon’ means a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question. In plural form, it would mean an observable fact or event. In the article piece, the word appears in the sentence “It would also allow scholars to take seemingly unrelated phenomena – make suicide and the fact that men are less likely to talk about their feelings”. Now that I know what the word means I can interpret that this context means that scholars would now look into what it may seem insignificant clear fact that men are less likely to talk about their feelings.

Skepticism(Noun)

According to the dictionary “Marrian Webster” the word Skepticism mean “an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object”.

In the class we learn an article”A Master’s Degree in … Masculinity?” byJessica Bennet. In a quote “Like many new fields, masculinities  studies brings with it varying degrees of skepticism”.

After I searched the mean of the word skepticism, I will be able to know that the quote telling us, is studying of masculinity will let us have a lot of doubt on it, which left us a lot of question about what is masculinty, how masculinity acting in this word, how is different from girl, and this is also a new field so we find the best way to explain what is masculinity is.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, paternity is defined as granted to a father. While I was reading “A Master’s Degree in Masculinity” by Jessica Bennett, the word appears on the fifth page as stated “As partners and husbands,” Mr. Leek said. “Whether we do our fair share of housework and child care. Whether we opt to take paternity leave. (Even when companies offer paternity leave, research has shown that many men are reluctant to take it.)”. Now knowing what the word means, I can understand what the passage means in better detail. Men, parenting their children affects many aspects of their lives. Men see themselves as being tough and brave, and parenting is one of the many things some struggle with. Their relationship is “with other men”.

Merriam-Webster defines the word Commensurate as an adjective, corresponding or equal to measure, extent or degree. The word commensurate shows up in the article “The Boys Are Not All Right” by Michael Ian Black. In this article the author stated “No commensurate movement has emerged to help navigate toward full expression of their gender.” This line was included to show how society is forgetting about the importance of men expressing their masculinity. This issue leads to many of the worlds biggest problems like school shootings or suicide because since an early age boys have this huge target to live up to of being a “man”.