What do I think when I hear the word masculinity? I believe that the media has done a fantastic job at ingraining the idea of strength, power and control pertaining to the idea of masculinities. Flipping through a dictionary to find the definition of 'masculinity' you would come across this definition, "characteristic of a man or men, or having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness".
Even the dictionary describes masculinity as a sense of strength, which in my mind correlates with power and control.
In Orwell's 1984 totalitarianism is at an extreme, to a point where a wrong thought could get a person into trouble. Masculinity is torn down in a man such as Winston. If masculinity is about power, control and strength the totalitarian government takes all of that away from a man, to an extent where they don't have control over their own thoughts because they too are being monitored. "The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power." (George Orwell, 1984) Winston feels this pressure of suppression of freedom to exert his own masculinity, and hates Big Brother for it. The party controls everything in Oceania, Winston is not even allowed to be with his love, Julia. It's perhaps like 'The Party' is able to exercise their masculinities to the extreme, leaving others completely unable to exercise their own masculinities. This is why I believe people decided to follow Big Brother, to have the sense that they are able to gain their masculinity back, but really is this true? They may feel like they have more power if they are a part of 'The Party' but are they not still following Big Brothers rules and not their own?
An appropriate comparison is Orwell's 1984 to the ruling of Germany under Adolph Hitler. Hitler would have been like Big Brother, and the Nazi's would be like those who were apart of 'The Party'. Hitler, as in Big Brother, destroyed society with a totalitarian government. They did this through ultimate control, propaganda, and their followers to help them imply their methods. In my opinion, and many others, Hitler and Big Brother's methods and way of controlling their government were completely immoral and illogical. In both examples of Hitler and Big Brother, masculinity is exercised to an extreme, and therefor result in the masculinities of others being destroyed.
