Communications and Media

Part 1
Most cultures perceive male beings as strong, physical and aggressive.  Though this is not always true as some men are weak and humble, while some women are muscular and aggressive, more men than women are physical and aggressive. Right from their childhood, boys in most cultures are cultured to be strong and aggressive as they are expected to play a protective role. In writings, they are thus allocated roles which concur with this cultural belief.

Besides being strong and aggressive, male characters are portrayed as competitive, sometimes to the extent of being ruthless. In this paragraph, one of the characters almost breaks his opponents neck following a tackle. The fact that a male game official who witnesses the bone-breaking tackle does not take action and lets the game play on, gives the indication that men will not only participate actively in aggressive behaviour, but will also see nothing wrong with other people being aggressive.  This suggests that competition among the male characters is intense and explicit. So determined are males to win whatever is being fought for that they find it acceptable injure or hurt competitors.


Part 2
I grew up in a town where soccer was one of the most popular sports. Almost all the boys I knew participated in at least one outdoor sport, mostly soccer, basketball, and American football. Although I played both basketball and American football reasonably well, soccer was my favourite sport and my passion for the game has remained to this day. 

Among my age mates in the town, soccer was regarded seriously with different neighbourhood teams meeting regularly for matches which attracted crowds of youngsters. Having watched on television adult players celebrating scoring goals, I preferred to play as a striker as that would give me better chances of scoring, and teasing opponents.  My best moment in a match would come, predictably, when I scored a goal. I was young, and too ambitious to score goals and win matches(Spronk, 2009).
My tidings changed when one day our left-back was injured during a match and the coach instructed me to replace the injured left-back. That made me a defender and after a hard-fought game, my coach reasoned that he was more impressed with my defensive skills than striking skills.

Having been brought up to believe that boys were supposed to be tough and must take on challenges fearlessly, I took up the defense position and set about defending my own goal from attacks, a role I have played to this day. Soccer is regarded as a physical game which demands physical strength and speed on the part of the players. Then I realized one more thing as a defender, aggressiveness was expected of me (Palmer-Mehta, 2009). Over ten years later, I still remain aggressive on the football pitch tackling hard opponents who attack our defence.

I also grew up in a culture which trained me to believe that boys and men should not wear brightly-coloured attire. Men were expected to go for  cool  colors like black, blue and grey, while girls and women could wear brightly-coloured clothes and still look beautiful. Not even some angry words from my angry dad who had bought me an expensive  brightly coloured  shirt could convince me to wear it. I had learnt from other boys that clothes with flower-patterns could only be worn by women. I carried this belief to my adulthood and I still consider colour a very important element in my choice of not only items of clothing, but also when buying music systems, presents for my friends and family, and cell phones.