Rhetorical Analysis 3 Kimmel

In “Bros Before Hos” by Michael Kimmel, the author identifies pressures and norms that coalesce into what Kimmel calls the “guy code”. Kimmel explores the expectations placed on men first by method of compare and contrast.

Kimmel relates the stories of some of his interviews with women and then with men concerning their gender. He found that women thought “Nobody can tell me what it means to be a woman anymore,” (608). Later Kimmel contrasts this with what male interviewees thought it meant to be a man, “Never show your feelings, never ask for directions, never give up, never give in, be strong, be aggressive, show no fear, show now mercy, get rich, get even, get laid win...” (609). Kimmel's compare and contrast methodology certainly seems appropriate when examining one gender in relation to another.

To explicate his definition of the “guy code” Kimmel employs the classification and division method by categorizing certain attributes as desirable in the male gender. This is most apparent in his “Real Guy's Top Ten List,” (608). Kimmel also includes Robert Brannon's summarized four basic rules of masculinity. These rules, documented by the social psychologist in 1976 are strikingly similar to the list Kimmel compiled in recent times. It can be assumed that Kimmel's objective is to convince the reader that little has changed in the expectations placed on men from the point of view of the social and behavioral sciences.

Next, Kimmel describes the implementation of the “guy code.” Kimmel uses the process mode of writing to describe the operation in action. Kimmel's method can be witnessed in the passage that begins, “Guys hear the voices of the men in their lives – fathers, coaches, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, priests – to inform their ideas of masculinity,” (611). The description of the enforcement of the “guy code” can also be described as a process, as Kimmel explains here, “Masculinity is largely a 'homosocial' experience: performed for, and judged by, other men,” (611).

Kimmel uses description to finish out his essay, as he describes homophobia as a means by which to force masculine behaviors on males. Kimmel appeals to the male fear of being misperceived as homosexual as the driving force in macho behavior. Kimmel states, “Everything that is perceived as gay goes into what we might call the Negative Playbook of Guyland. Avoid everything in it and you'll be all right. Just make sure that you walk, talk, and act in a different way from the gay stereotype,” (613). Kimmel cites his interactions with men in workshops about how it feels to be perceived as gay to reinforce his position that the vehicle for conforming men to traditionally masculine roles is homophobia.

Kimmel employed many different modes in his investigation of male standard enforcement among other males, but chiefly he used the process mode. Several passages begin with a narrative, but they are ultimately related to the process of enforcement. I would like to point out however, that much of his evidence may be anecdotal, and I suggest he may have tainted the interviewees answers with leading questions. It would seem likely that one could find evidence to support a similar standard base for women, but he discounts that in the opening of his essay quoted above. I propose these premises undermine his argument.