Response Questions for Tough Guise
Due:
1. Where do you think our ideas about what is masculine and what is feminine come from?
2. How much of what it means to be male—to seem male—do you feel is learned? How much do you feel
is natural/biological? Where are the primary places boys learn to be in the world?
3. What are some of the potential affects on boys and men of trying to live up to our culture’s ideal of
physical size and strength? Emotional effects? Health effects?
4. The film spent some time examining the recent school shootings that have been in the news. The
narrator correctly points out that very few of the perpetrators of school violence are female. Why do you
think that is the case?
5. The narrator describes violence and crime data that indicate that men commit an overwhelming majority
of the violence in our society, yet violence is typically not framed as a gender issue—particularly in the
media. Why does the media tend not to focus on the gender issue when boys, or men, are the perpetrators
of violence?
6. Do you have any critiques of the arguments/views presented in the film?