The Church and Masculinity

It was so good being back at my church this week and kind of being in the place where I'm most me.

With the influence of Anthony Bradley and David Morris, the youth group has been focusing on masculinity and discussing what it means to be a man of God. It's been wonderful.

In my sociology classes at Mizzou, I am used to thinking about gender in one of two ways:
1) males, being in power and receiving the most privilege in our society, have taken all good things and have greedily withheld social capital from others, especially women and minorities.
2) the gender binary (male vs. female) is a social construction, and so doesn't really exist and can be changed. And aside from biological differences (which can be altered with surgery, of course) there's not really any thing that defines a male as acting like a "dude" and a female acting like a "girl." and that "girlness" or "dudeness" is socialized into people - there's no real hard and fast definition for either.

In my Critical Theory class, my professor has kind of had the view (that he's brought up in different discussions) about the myth of masculine privilege. He cited the author Herb Goldberg who wrote all these books (here) but most notably The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege

As I understand our culture's position (by way of looking at advertising, tv, mass media) a man is his athletic ability, sexual conquests, and economic success.

The Ivory Tower (if you can even feel comfortable calling Mizzou that) says that a man is whatever he wants to be and feels most genuine doing (there is no real definition for "manliness"). However, what he feels most genuine and satisfied doing is what God created him to be. And it is ultimately sin that confuses us and tells us to be things that we shouldn't.

For example, it being the holiday season, and me being a woman, I feel the inexplicable urge to go to the mall. Like everyday. I don't need to go to the mall.