Copyright 1995, Scott S. Blake
Do not quote without permission of the author.
My point of departure in this essay is the observation that our western civilization is androcentric. Put another way, the culture that permeates this country and many others is built around a conception of humanity's body and mind that is distinctly masculine in character. When I employ the terms masculine and feminine, I refer only to the dominant stereotype of our time. I intend to bracket questions of essentialism and simply assume that, for the sake of argument, our culture has defined an image of the ideal man and woman. Further, I also assume (again for the sake of argument) that these images are culturally, historically, and spatially specific; that is, they are malleable.
I defend these postulates through general knowledge rather than direct textual references. I believe that they are obvious to individuals with a critical awareness of gender. I intend to show that while the women's movement has made great strides in achieving liberal equality for women, it has insufficiently addressed questions relating to men. Part of my contention in this essay is that while gender-critical scholarship addresses the masculine character of our culture, it does not address the men that are responsible for the propagation of that character.
To date, the vast majority of energy expended in the women's movements has centered on equality of opportunity and remuneration, on reproductive rights, and on women's roles in society and the family. Abstracted one level, it has been an appropriation of political resources that exist in abundance in our culture. In other words, the women's movements have not demanded more than is enjoyed by non-oppressed sectors of the population nor rights that our political system could not give easily. The women's movements have not taken, nor sought to take, anything away from the dominant group of our culture.
The most notable exception to this is the women's anti-violence campaign. Focusing on rape, these women have tried to change men's behavior by seeking stricter enforcement of rape laws, tougher punishments for perpetrators and increased legitimacy for those who allege rape. While the number of court cases have increased, convictions have increased, and jail time has been extended, rape remains an epidemic. Mass media gives us the statistic: One in four women will be raped at some point in their lives. Despite growing awareness of the problem, men continue to rape women and each other. Again, the movement has directed it's energies towards getting what the existing system has to give, not to fundamentally changing the psyche of men who rape (which is nearly all).
This issue of role redefinition also deserves some additional treatment here. It may seem that the growing number of women who work and have children leads to a substantial revision of the man's relation to the family; that is, no longer being the sole breadwinner who is out of the house and leaves the housework and childrearing to his wife. However, what appears to be happening is that men are generally unwilling to give up their working role and assume household duties. Also, with the decline in real wages since the mid-seventies, dual incomes are increasingly becoming a necessity so the man not only wants to, but must work. Since women only earn about seventy-five cents per dollar a man earns in the same job, it does not make economic sense for the man to cease working, either. Although some men are working at home or not working and being responsible for housework, this is very much a marginal phenomenon and the men who do this are often marginalized by their peers and certainly by their culture.
From even this cursory look at the state of gender construction in our culture, it is apparent that women have attained a higher degree of equality in many important respects. It is also clear that for the vast majority of men, nothing has changed (internally or in their individual worlds). There have been no parts of the women's movements that have actively worked to alter the socialization of children into gender roles. Many girls have seen their mothers working and thus have had a role model on which to base aspirations to join the men's world. Even so, men have seen no appreciable shifts in the lives of their fathers. We have been left out of the drive to reform our culture's notion of gender.
I will contend that the neglect of the need to change men as well as women is a fatal flaw in the women's movements as they now stand. By leaving out the active reconstruction of men's gender identity, our tendencies towards violence, objectification, alienation from nature and people, and dominance will not be tempered. Awareness is not enough. Without a drastic change in the way men are taught to see the world and our place in it, we will not be able to feel connection to ourselves, our world, or our fellow humans. Without a positive definition of male identity, we will be unable to critically evaluate our gender roles.
To analyze why there is not a men's movement more substantially, I will employ some work of Melucci and Habermas. From Melucci, I will look at his thought on the components of collective action and elective identity to understand what barriers men must overcome to form a movement. From Habermas, I will borrow the concept of validity claims to examine what a men's movement might consist of and what it's agenda might be.
To begin, there are men's movements. However, these groups exhibit none of the characteristics that Melucci identifies as belonging to movements. For this reason, I discount them as offering any real alternative to existing conceptions of masculinity. I will treat two examples, Robert Bly's warriors and the men's anti-violence campaign, below.
Robert Bly started a group that has become a joke among many feminists and nearly all men (that have even heard of it). His most basic premise is that men must recapture the warrior-self to become in tune with their innermost nature. To accomplish this task, groups of men congregate in forests, naked, and participate in a kind of shamanistic ritual involving drumming, trancing, and self-revelation. The men are encouraged to speak of their fathers and mothers and the trials and tribulations of their youth. In the ensuing emotional release (crying), men are supposed to discover their "true" inner warrior and thus be able to draw strength from him in their daily lives.
Although the encouragement of emotional expression is not common in the larger society, it is not unheard of and though of some cathartic value, rarely has much affect on the way men think of their position in society or their relation to women, families, and nature. Also, this path is closed to anyone who does not have the time or money to engage in the weekend in the woods. I find the warrior archetype to be of dubious value at best. Some Native American cultures have warrior images that are thought to be "positive;" that is, they only defend their homes, families, etc. However, to most white men of European descent, warrior figures are those of Perseus, Achilles, Ulysses, King Arthur, and the like. These people were invariably agents of destruction and shepherding. Perseus was sent out to destroy the evil woman and save the helpless maiden, a common theme. Those women who were evil should be killed and those who were good should be sequestered at home and kept safe.
The "movement" invented by Robert Bly thus addresses some issues of modern masculinity, but leaves many more open and, indeed, strengthens the cavalier attitude of many men towards women. Were his model applied to many men, we would turn into knights-in-shining-armor that cry during the commercials of their soap operas. Let me also note that there are still repercussions for men who do not conform to our culture's notion of masculinity. Chastisements range from ostracism to violence. I will expand on this later.
The men's anti-violence campaign is somewhat less laughable, but also sadly misguided. Men Against Violence Against Women grew out of such activities as Take Back The Night marches. It is the product of the women's anti-violence campaign and does not owe its existence to any critical inquiry on the part of men. As feminist research began to highlight violence against women (be it rape, wife beating, or child molestation), the women's movement responded with battered women's shelters, rape counseling services, legislative initiatives, and other forms of activism. Some men who wished to lend support to these actions either assisted in existing organization or formed their own groups. One particularly noteworthy product of men's participation is the White Ribbon Campaign. In this group, men and women wear white ribbons to symbolize violence against women. The ribbons are awareness-raising devices, intended to provoke thought and encourage men to be aware of their potential violence and curb it.
While there is no data to indicate the efficacy of this movement, the men involved feel engaged and useful. However, these examples of activism do not address the fundamental questions of why men rape and seem to have a propensity toward violence. It is built on modifying behavior, not the motivation for the behavior. Also, it is more an extension of a women's movement than a men's movement. Many of the men involved describe themselves as feminists to indicate their concern. Like many of us concerned with gender roles, these men have no basis for forming an identity independent of feminism.
Part of Melucci's theory of collective action revolves around the collectivity forming a group identity. He predicates doing this on the ability of individuals in complex societies to form elective identities. By choosing one's own affiliations and identifiers, one can escape the categorizations that modern administrative controls impose on us. In the case of men with gender awareness, few have attempted to (and none successfully) define an identity that either goes beyond the traditional one of masculinity or provides distinction from women with gender awareness. Although it may appear that a man self-identifying as a feminist is not problematic, I believe that it is.
A feminist man is, by definition, alienated from himself. By mixing the gender identity of being both a man and a feminist, he is neither. The traditional meaning of a man is incompatible with feminism. It is, after all, one of the reasons that there is such a thing as feminism. To be a feminist, one must recognize that women have been and continue to be (at least in some respects) oppressed by the dominant group in our culture, white men. For a man to be a feminist, he must not only recognize this, but also must take on some personal responsibility for his actions and the actions of his forefathers. In doing so, he ceases to be a man in the traditional sense, since that sense means that he adopts either a misogynistic or cavalier attitude toward women. Within the current definition of masculinity, there is no room for total equality. One can make political space and/or personal space for equality, but the man still has the inculturated tendencies of the masculine character. Furthermore, feminism does not offer any prescription for what a man should be, only what he should not be.
A feminist (or any other, for that matter) man should not be violent, should not view women as sex objects, should not discriminate, harass, or otherwise degrade women. He should not be disrespectful, but should not but her on a pedestal, either. He should not think of her as anything but a fellow human being, worthy of all that he does not take away from his male peers. While discussing this subject with a friend, he put this point to me eloquently,
To be manly is to NOT be a wimp, NOT a girl, NOT a queer, NOT a crybaby, NOT your mother, NOT your father...how can men help but fear that, if the masks we wear are lifted, we will turn out to be nothing at all?
The first issue to consider when thinking about a men's movement is that of formulating an agenda. I begin from the premise that I began this paper with: that our civilization is androcentric. While it may not seem that this provides much impetus for men to reform themselves and their society, one must bear in mind that men are as constrained as, if not more than, women in the roles available to them. One of the most important accomplishments of the women's movements has been to open more worlds for women to choose. Men, on the other hand, still face ostracism or violence if they are perceived as being too far from the norm.
Furthermore, men's relationship to nature, while being criticized, has not been evaluated sufficiently in terms of its basis in biology versus inculturation. Historically, we have been obsessed with dominating the world, capturing animals, dissecting them, domesticating them. We have also fought wars of incredible destruction, against demonized enemies and members of our own "civil societies." We have created a model of family man that revolves around shepherding the family while simultaneously being separate from it. We have turned all of nature to utilitarian purposes, measuring value in terms of usefulness.
It is true that the positions of power and wealth are occupied almost exclusively by men. If that is the definition of the good life, then men have nothing to change. However, there are many rewards that life has to offer that are inaccessible to men by virtue of our being trained to objectify, dominate, and administrate. Chief among them is the ability to garner satisfaction from interpersonal relationships. Men certainly enter into, exist in, and even derive pleasure from their relationships, but we cannot, generally, exist on emotions alone. Just as women were for centuries forbidden to enter the realm of politics, men are forbidden by the culture of their creation to leave the public sphere. Do to so is to be marginalized, pathologized, ostracized, and, in some cases, beaten or killed.
To enter human existence as fully cognizant beings, men must be allowed to experience, express, and validate their emotions. We must be taught to see ourselves and others as thinking, feeling creatures, deserving of respect and consideration. Since feminism focuses itself on women and women's issues (as it should), men must take up their own cause. To join the women's movement seeking our own prizes would dilute both movements. Also, men, as we currently constructed by our culture, tend to seek control and, therefore, would probably try to control the women's movements. Historically, men have sought control of revolutionary groups and successfully subsumed women's issues beneath the "larger" problems.
In endeavoring to establish a basis for men's activism around our own gender issues, I find Habermas's conception of validity claims particularly useful. The following analysis is not based on Habermas's writings. Rather, it employs categories that he developed and I have applied to the issue at hand.
I hypothesize that men and women use different types of validity claims for their gender constructions. Men, whose primary identity usually rests in the system, base their claims on truth. Women's identities, on the other hand, rest in both the realms of interpersonal relations and personal expression. As life-givers and wives, women define themselves in terms of doing the right or ethical thing. This is the sphere of interpersonal relations. As a group without voice in the public sphere, they are also consigned to silence. Left only with expressions of personal feeling, they also claim sincerity when speaking from experience.
The image presented above is a gross simplification, but for my purpose here, it is sufficient to recognize that men and women derive their identities from separate spheres-that the identities of women are not based on the same claims as men's identities. It may well be that part of the reason the women's movements have been able to redefine femininity (however marginally) is that their self-conception of their roles is built on the notion that their position in society was "right." Without going too far afield, the reader might think about the religious basis for gender roles. Since religion is not science, it cannot make claims to truth in the privileged language of the system and, therefore, traditions derived from religion claim validity through rightness, not truth.
Men, however, with our near-monopoly on science, have claimed that gender roles are "true" or "natural." We have not only applied scientific logic to our own gender roles, though. In the masculine worldview, what is good for the gander is good for the goose (gender reversal intentional). If what we are doing is natural, then the things we subject others to must be natural as well. This is why many men resisted the women's movements' redefinition of woman. What could be more threatening than obliterating one's view of the world as an orderly, natural place? Here we gain some insight into the difficulties of formulating (and the lack of spontaneity in) a men's agenda. If men consider themselves to be natural expressions of the way things are, change is not only hard, it is undesirable. If men already express their true character, there is no benefit in altering that image.
Habermas wrote that validity claims can be redeemed within the ideal speech situation. Through open debate of the assumptions and flaws of a claim, it can be rendered transparent and accepted or rejected. Obviously, no speech situation is ideal, but that does not mean that a claim cannot be redeemed, merely that special challenges may be posed for that issue. In the case of men's identities and roles, there are some daunting impediments to the formation of an ideal speech situation.
First is the nature of the claim itself. Science maintains for itself a privileged language that excludes from the debate those cannot or do not partake of the language. Since men claim that their gender roles are natural, a convincing argument must be made in that language. Unfortunately, terms such as inculturation and socialization have only marginal scientific validity. As words of the social sciences, they are subject to debate and revision in ways that technical terms in the natural sciences are not. To show that men are not biologically conditioned to act the way we do, one would have to conduct biochemical, neurological, and genetic studies. Demonstration of cross-cultural differences will be insufficient to force a change since such studies cannot speak the privileged language.
Second, because part of men's identity involves violence, or the capacity and propensity to violence, the active questioning of men's roles is potentially dangerous. My personal experience has taught me that even the impression of being "less than a man" can prove dangerous. The appearance of being other than the culture's image of a man directly threatens the validity claim that men are natural in our culture. Therefore, one is apt to become an object of fear and hatred if one confronts others with the possibility that their identity is based on a farce.
These caveats in mind, I will now turn to the question of how one can begin changing men in a positive way.
The first step in redeeming the validity claims of our culture regarding men's gender identity is to create a critical literature of the claims. In this, men can learn from the example set by women. The enterprise must be interdisciplinary. No single approach will breach the wall men have formed around our identity. If our minds are indeed set on the idea that our existence is natural (i.e., devoid of cultural meaning), then we must set about criticizing this idea. The social sciences and natural sciences may be able to accomplish this task jointly.
On the natural sciences side, the male body needs to be defined as a separate phenomenon from the female body. Feminists have begun this task, but by attempting to "raise: the importance of the female body to that of the male. I contend, however, that the male body should be removed from its position as normal and its meaning constructed to be that of part of normal. Here, true equality is necessary to achieve the level of sophistication in studying sex differences that will enable men to see our bodies as part of ourselves and our gender as independent of our sex.
On the social science side, there are two primary tasks. First, we need to identify the masculine ideal type. Before criticizing men, we must define what a man is. Rather than departing from man as human, we should conceive of man as part of humanity. We are not representative of the way our species behaves, especially since we do not even make up half of the population. This is a radical departure from history and an enterprise already embarked on by feminists. However, feminism has tried to construct women as part of humanity starting from their exclusion. A certain degree of humility is required of men before we begin this reconstruction, a recognition of our privileged status and a rejection of it as being illusory.
Second, masculinity needs to be recognized as valuable for self-definition. To date, men have not been able to elect their masculinity. For most, it has been uncritically accepted and others have rejected it. Masculinity represents the status quo, the terrible history of oppression and violence. By redeeming masculinity as an acceptable identity and one that is open to all, we can begin to understand it through direct experience, free from the struggle and conflict of our alienation from nature. Furthermore, by understanding the process by which children are taught their gender, we can render transparent the murky waters of inculturation, exposing our programming and aiding our self-reprogramming.
Besides the sciences, art and language have tasks in the project of reconstructing men. As women have done, men need to create positive role models for ourselves. As I mentioned above, our current archetypes do not give a picture of men that allows for significant change in our gender identity. Through the use of a forward-looking genre such as science fiction it is possible to show a future where men are constructive, social creatures instead of the destructive, domineering beings too many of us are today. Such stories often insinuate themselves into common wisdom over time, a phenomenon we should not hesitate to exploit.
Science fiction (sci-fi) is closely related to the genre called utopia. Such visions often incorporate elements of sci-fi, utilizing technology to support abundance or stronger social ties. Images of utopia can have significant impact, over time, on our conceptions of the universe of possible action. However, ideas at the cultural level change very slowly, often more slowly than the forces driving the change. Nonetheless, they do not appear to change of their own accord.
The reader may have inferred from this essay that I am not especially convinced that men will be initiating any change in the foreseeable future. While that is true, I am convinced that the endeavor is worthwhile. Once the seeds are sown for a shift, something will happen, whether a positive change or an overpowering backlash, I cannot say. My task for this paper was to organize my own thoughts on the subject and form them into a coherent picture that can serve as a starting point for serious work. I hope it is at least intriguing.