ABSTRACT
The August 8, 2005 issue of Time magazine (Canadian Edition) featured a special report on what it means to be 13 years old. Joseph Charles, an African-American male living in Los Angeles, United States, and one of the many youth profiled in the magazine (p. 41), commented that “Life as a 13-year old is hard. There is a lot of responsibility. Everyone wants you to be perfect … . Thirteen is the beginning of a different stage of life.” It is, according to Charles, when “interest in girls changes [and] you start wanting them to do stuff for you.” However, it is not any girl that Charles thinks would qualify to be his girlfriend; she has to be someone who is “pretty.” This expectation corresponds with what Cameron (1997) found in her study of the construction of heterosexual masculinity among young American men. As she notes, “Proper masculinity requires that the object of public interest be not just female, but minimally attractive” (p. 53). Seemingly with the notion of responsibility in mind, and likely reflective of his classed environment (one which is conflict-ridden and rough), Charles continued to say that his girlfriend must know “how to fight” because he would not “want her to be getting punked and then I have to jump in.” Also at 13 years, said Charles, “most teens like sports”—his preference is basketball. However, sounding a note of logic and sobriety, he added, “They want to be the best on the team, but there is always somebody better than you … . The only way you can get to play sports is if you get a good education.” About school, Charles said,
Being 13 is very hard at school. I have to be bad in order to be considered cool. I sometimes do things that aren’t good. I have talked back to my teachers and been disrespectful to them. I do want to be good, but it’s just too hard. Since I’ve been in junior high, I have been to four different schools. Some schools really tried to help me, but I have been suspended so many times, they just had to kick me out (p. 41).
