I thought the best person to interview is my one of my good friends ahmad who is a person who likes to share his opinions to other, about his best friend the following questions and see what his answers are going to be:

Why are you guys close ? And be specific

Well we have known each other for so long now. We spend most of our time together and we have a lot of fun. We are always there for each other, wether in our best or worst times.
We support each other no matter what.
Also our ideas and ways of thinking are almost the same and i guess it is why we understand each other more than anyone else.

What kind of things do you guys like to do together ?

As i said before we are together most of the time so we do tons of stuff. We go to the cafe and have a drink and chat like any other person, we play video games, we hang out, and we also go to the gym and swim.

Have you ever told your friend how much he means to you ?

i actually never told him directly how much he means to me

And why is that ?

Simple, because we have known each other for so long and helped each other through so so many situations it is more than obvious that nothing in the world would stop me from caring about him. It is the actions that have spoken the words i guess.

As mentioned in “ Men in relationships “, friendship like these are the ones you would expect to see between men. It is simply because men are more depending on actions rather than emotions, they unconsciously believe that actions speak louder than words even though lot of men, like my friend here, share opinions and like to talk about anything, but surprisingly not feelings. For them, it is not necessary to show love through words if you have already proving yourself multiple times in situations.

In Michael Kimmel’s article, we are introduced thoroughly through the deep definition of masculinity, or as he would like to say, masculinities. He favorites pluralizing the term masculinity for that there is no complete and constant meaning of masculinity. Definitions of masculinity to him vary incredibly from different cultures to different timelines to different societies and even to different personal experiences oneself goes through time which is really supported in the documentary, “Man Enough? episode 4 #metoo”, as we explore the different masculinities each men in the documentary have gone through.

He also argues about how that gender changes as the situation changes, making institutions themselves being gendered. He states that each and every position has its own characteristics that the individual has to comply to. As in for example he mentions that to be in a job that takes a lot of time and devotion, like medicine, it is most likely to succeed in it being a man, since you will not pressured by pregnancy nor having responsibilities in your home because simply your wife will handle them for you while you focus on your job. This fact can lead for gender inequality between men and women because of the favorable condition of the job title that will be taken.

This idea is also presented in the documentary, “Man Enough? episode 4 #metoo”, when Scooter Braun, founder and CEO Sb productions, mentions that in the Hollywood industry, to be a successful male, you get to have fast cars, money and women as if they are also indeed objects like cars and money. Another example is they mention multiple times about women being harassed by men in high positions but not being heard enough because those men are fitting enough for those jobs, thus not even these big claims will shake them from being in their positions, continuing their lives as if nothing had happened.

As Michael Kimmel explained, if we started understanding how we do masculinities it will open up unimaginable possibilities for social change, which is one of the main ideas that the inspiring men in the documentary tried to do when each of them went through their stories and talked about their feelings and opinions to inspire others to do so too.

Donald Trump

Throughout history it was always typical that men have more rights than women, higher positions, higher salaries, were almost always for men. But as times went by, women were slowly starting to be heard more, but it still wasn’t enough. There were still people who were old minded believing in the same old principals that men should always have the higher hand in everything.

First-wave feminism was a period of activity during the 19th and early-20th centuries, women started fighter harder and stronger for equal rights. Since then they have been heard more, people from every position have started supporting them, even some presidents claimed to support the act like Barack Obama. His support of this claim gave women more opportunities to spread their message around America and even to the world.

 But since he resided from his position as a president, Trump being a stereotypical anti-feminist has taken his place. When he was asked about supporting feminism, he simply said that to be with women is to be against men. In addition to that, there were many interviews of him trashing women and calling them inappropriate words. He also has been accused by several women of sexual misconduct which he hasn’t been interrogated about since he is of course the president of the united states, meaning that he still has the upper hand in everything he does.

But in opposition to him, a lot of women didn’t vote for him and have continued fighting for their rights. Which, in my opinion, have succeeded in shutting his views in women and letting them do what they want because he knows that if he tries to do something to stop them, they, among men and even other countries, will not let him do that without fighting their hardest.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/28/trump-says-he-rejects-feminism-because-he-is-for-everyone/

This is a great example of anti-femininity

• 

Since the beginning of time till now, it is mostly known that men have always had the upper hand in most of life’s aspects, but is that always the case?

 In the documentary of “The mask you live in in” it focuses on the way we are portrayed as men in society and how it is much more difficult to be a man than expected. The movie showed a wide range of the troubles faced by boys and men as they try to navigate the realm of masculinity. For us, it should be within our knowledge that to be accepted and looked at in this society is to be a man who doesn’t cry, can’t show emotions, to always be angry and get in fights, to drink, to smoke and to be “attractive” and on top of all that be good looking. You don’t have the right to speak up if you’re sad, scared, or if someone hurt us because we should always know how to manage ourselves.

To add some spices, in the world of movies and series, they always idealize men in an extremely unrealistic manner, like they are always strong and always be successful and live the “thug life”. When in reality it is very rare to find men like these and maybe even impossible.

Throughout The film, we start to learn what is true definition of being a man in this unperfect world and what are the different elements that affect us to make us who we are. One of these stood out most to me which is the role of fathers in our lives and how they have a huge impact in our own personalities. It is they who teach us who we should be as man, yes our mothers have a role but not in the matter of masculinity and all that I have mentioned above.

For example, it is has been showed that most boys that have grew up without a father tend to be either very abusive and controlling or the other way round which is super soft and very insecure. And neither of those are good to someone’s life. But most that grew up with a healthy family and have a good relationship with their dad are more mature and have their life balanced. In conclusion, I think that there should be at least one father figure in your life like your older brother, your grandfather, your uncle, or even your older friend that you can at least talk with about your feelings and anything you want to talk about.

Another aspect they showed in the movie is the impact of videogames in our lives, and how most of them include a lot of violence in which may result in making us more aggressive and may result in getting addicted to them. In my personal opinion, the violence in these games don’t affect a person who has a normal healthy mind negatively nor positively, the only people who may get affected are the ones who already have something in their mind that isn’t right. Addiction to videogames is also true, but if you are just a regular gamer, I don’t see that it is necessarily bad because playing video games is a form of getting your energy out and get distracted from this world, which is way better than smoking or drinking in every way.

In the end I think that society is slowly opening up to the idea that no one is perfect and that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It may take a long time, but it is nice seeing that the world is still fighting for everyone’s rights and hope is not over for such topics.

When it comes to inspiration, the first and only person that pops up in my head is my great grand-father Mohammad Zahir.

I unfortunately don’t remember him since I only saw him once when I was 5 years old before he died.

But through time and time, I always heard about him and when I knew who he was I immediately felt goosebumps, and that’s how I knew who my inspiration is.

Well let me tell who this man is and why he inspires me a lot.

Starting with his childhood, he had a little tough life. His family wasn’t financially good enough and getting his education was hard since his family weren’t educated a lot. So, he had a lot of struggles growing up, but he had hope. He always knew that there’s something better that is waiting for him. And so, he worked his maximum effort, always giving his best with everything and everyone. He never said no to anyone and he was super humble and generous even though he didn’t have that much to give. He simply never said no to anyone.

When he became 20 years old, he decided to open his little pharmacy for work. Through his reputation everyone started buying from him, knowing that he won’t ever cheat or scam anyone. and so, his business started growing more and more by the time, until he opened his own pharmaceutical company. And even though he started having much more money than he used to have, he never bragged about it or did anything stupid with it. He always tried donating and giving the poor as much as he could secretly. And because he was so generous, this one company turned into 3 companies that are the best in my hometown to date.

All this going on in his life, when you really get to meet him, he was the kindest and wisest man you’ll ever meet. His smile never left his face and he always had faith; he was always positive even though sometimes life was harsh on him. He really changed people’s lives. The day he died, lots and lots of people showed up at his funeral and started telling their stories about him, and that’s where everyone knew that there was so much more good he was doing but he kept it for himself because he knew showing off isn’t the way to live life happily.

To this date he is still mentioned by people about how good of a man he was and how he will forever be someone that will change people’s perspectives about life and I’m happily one of them.

Thanks to him, I learned that to live life happily, you should always have hope, you always have to be humble and generous, because what you give to the world, is what you are going to get back.

Fries