Everyone feels pressure at some point in their lives. Pressure can come from anywhere. It can be due to an issue at work, at home, or it can be coming from the society. It is not easy to live a life of pressure, but this society humans have built pressures everyone in many ways. However, the question here is not how society pressures people, but the differences between men and women in their way to cope with this pressure.
It is a well known fact that women are victims of media pressure. Through advertisements, television or social media women feel the need to live up to a certain stereotype. That stereotype has changed through the years and can be different according to countries, but nowadays what is important is being a certain way physically in order to feel comfortable in our current society. Women are pressured to always look put together and happy. However in opposition to pressuring women to always look their best, there are many rules that prevent women from looking how they want to ; for instance, dress codes in school. Girls should not wear tank tops because it is distracting and they should not wear short skirts for the same reason. Nevertheless, even in places where these rules do not apply anymore the pressure to follow them remains – society has built a stigma that a woman is an object of lust and only that. In that way, women suffer pressure wherever they are.
However men also suffer from media pressure. The perfect man is to be masculine, strong and he must not feel emotions or cry. This is the image built by society through the media of how men should be. Little boys look up to their idols, who are often artists or athletes, and they want to be like them. However, these people portray the image of the violent strong man that will not fear anything. In a book written by Jackson Katz, he talks about the pressure young men suffer due to the media and it is clear that it is very similar to women but only on the opposite spectrum. This is a generelized study – not all men feel the need to be agressive, violent or masculine, just as not all the girls feel the need to look like models on television. However, it is true that at least once in a person’s life they will feel a form of pressure to follow what society promotes.
In spite of all this pressure, things are changing and people are believing in themsleves more as time goes by. Men and women all face pressure from the world. In the end it is just a matter of how people cope with the pressure. Someone could have a very hard life full of debt and troubles but still be able to avoid too much pressure through their way of thinking, while someone with the simplest problem could feel immense pressure from that and break down. There is no comparing how much pressure this person or that person is facing. It is like pain – it is not possible to measure pain because everyone feels it differently. Pressure is a feeling.
To conclude, men and women sometimes face the same pressures and sometimes a man could face pressure that a woman would not face. However ultimately it is a question of how a person reacts to pressure.
