Sunday, March 8, 2009

Men Are Like Onions...

...There are layers.

So I am working diligently on my topic proposal for my next paper. The general topic is gender issues and men's studies. The specific topic is working out to be a sight more complicated. I have between six and twelve pages, double spaced. Currently, my thesis statement is looking a little daunting for the page restrictions. And I don't think that going to nine or ten point font is going to help any. Not to mention it might get me in trouble - wasn't a problem for my intro paper, but my instructor is wise to my tricks...

Male Depression and the problem of feeling. Archetypal male social gender constructs are abusive to men. They create in men a certain inability to adequately recognize and express their feelings, most notably depression. Further, the results of these social gender constructs are directly responsible for the lingering endemic problem of largely unconscious misogyny.

And the worse part? I have to fit a graph or table in this somewhere. Thankfully, I can probably get away with making that small. But I think I'm probably going to have to amend my thesis statement to narrow the focus. The thing that sucks, is that the part I reasonably should trim, is the whole reason I got interested in writing this damned paper in the first place. And it leaves me with little to persuade anyone of - because I don't think the notion that male social gender constructs are abusive to men is all that controversial - least ways I should hope it isn't.

5 comments:

Isis the Scientist said...

This sounds fascinating. I hope you'll share more of it with us as it comes together.

DuWayne Brayton said...

Careful what you hope for, I eventually post the entirety of my papers. It is quite possible that my instructor will let me write the paper I want and base her grade on roughly twelve pages of it.

If that happens, I might just end up with a rather longer paper that actually covers what I want to cover.

Unknown said...

Yes, please do share. I have to say that your thesis statement sounds like it could be at least 3 papers from someone who actually has intelligent things to say about these things. Which you are, so I am looking forward to hearing more about it.

JLK said...

What about just focusing on how alexithymia creates problems in diagnosing and treating depression in men? You can brush on how societal standards make the condition much more common in men without addressing gender constructs as a whole. That might help you narrow it down a little bit, and you can use a graph that shows rates of alexithymia in women versus men and rates of diagnosed depression.

DuWayne Brayton said...

Dammit JLK!!! Yeah, I think that's actually a very good idea.