The Manbox and Sexuality

I think that being gay is outside of the stereotypical manbox because of the stereotype that gay people act in a certain way, which is considered feminine. Femininity, and things associated with it, would typically go outside of the manbox. The issue with this is that it is not a fair stereotype to say that gay men act like women, and to solve this we need to redefine what it means to be a man. Masculinity should not have anything to do with how tough you are or how dominant you are. The rugby players in the article we read were gay and they were manly. So why is being gay out of the manbox? Long-standing cultural beliefs are hard to change, so while the gay community is progressing in this day and age at a fairly rapid rate, straight people around them, even if they are becoming more accepting, are not changing these beliefs and stereotypes about what it means to be gay, and what it means to be a man. I think that the video we watched last class explained a lot of why this occurs when he told the story of if you go to any playground in America and ask if some boy acts like a girl, they will get in a huge fight defending themselves. These boys are growing up watching movies about superheroes, and yelled at for crying, and all these other cultural influences that only reinforce the notion that being anything outside the manbox is wrong. Until there can be some sort of massive cultural change, I think that boys will continue to think in this way. Somehow they need to know that being gay is not something that prevents a man from being a man. We need to instruct children from a young age what it really means to be a man, and somehow do it in a way that is contagious, just like the superhero movies. The issue is that I, personally, am not quite sure how that can be done.