Go Ahead Punk, Make My Day...

I just got back from an indoor shooting range. Three buddies all went out to celebrate the last hours of "manliness" left for one of us as my friend Spencer is getting married on Saturday in Georgetown. He is taking the big leap and we thought what better way to send him off them to stand 40 feet away from a paper target and fire loud rounds out of a handgun. I have shot before, but only once. After we figured out how to turn the safety off (took about 5 minutes) we were the next Jack Bauer's in training.

I gotta be honest, it was fun and felt good to control something with that much power. I felt more like a man... or did I? When I got home I started my reading for Sociology this week and we are learning about Gender Inequalities. The bulk of the information I read focused on how gender roles are mainly a creation of gender socialization rather than a biological reality inherent in our genes. Several examples were discussed including a (scary) story of a twin male after a botched circumcision (ouch) that left him having surgery to reconstruct his genitals to then become a girl. This twin was then raised as a girl and had no real problem with it. In this case she/he has the same genetic makeup as her/his brother yet they were raised as a different gender and found no problems with that.

It seems odd, but it does make sense. Most of my "manlihood" as I can sense it comes from cultural norms and expectations. When I was in middle school I liked to be in chorus. Was it a "girly" thing to do? According to my friends, yes. Did I have to take pause to decide if I would participate in chorus? Yes! I ended up doing it, but had my moments of doubt. My natural leaning would be to do what made me happy, but the gender socialization that influenced my decision was clearly felt.

So back to the shooting. It was powerful, it was fun, it was "manly." But was there some hormone that activated within me this morning to cause me to want to go to a shooting range? It was more likely a lifetime of social norms, movies and other gender influences that made me think this activity was the manliest thing I could do today.