Masculinity and Violence

The movie we watched today in class was about masculinity and how it is related to violence.  I found the movie to be very eye opening and very interesting.  I learned a lot of new things about males and just how violent they can be.  The question that was raised in my mind was "what is the cause for males perpetrating most of the violence that occurs among the sexes?"  According to the movie violence is a "guise" to shield men's vulnerability.  It is a front that emphasizes the notion that being a "real man" is being aggressive and violent.  In my opinion this is a narrow box that defines manhood and it is the pressure to conform to be "one of the guys".  Males learn from community and from the media.  The assertion that U.S. culture constructs masculinity as violent is a good one I agree with.  The media is a large influence over this by the way in which the strong, dominant male is portrayed.  These males have large muscles and carry big weapons to show their dominance to everyone else around them.  The one aspect of this notion that I do not agree with completely is if the media is a large influence on males to be violent, more men would be violent towards others.  There are a lot of men around that do not resort to violence to show their dominance, who watch video games and the same movies as those men who commit violent acts.  Therefore there have to be other factors or something to do with their psyche that makes them commit the act.  Some of the other factors could be who their role models are.  For example if they see an older male figure in their family being violent, they are more willing to be violent as well.  Violence is definitely a gender issue and it affects the relationship between them.