Read: Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements.
I just read a very interesting book written by Michael A. Messner: Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements.
That guy is a scholar who is part of the Men's studies field. Other well-known authors are R. W. Connell, Michael Kimmel, H. Brod, Michael Kaufman, and Jeff Hearn (no, this is not a Michael conspiracy ;). This area of enquiry is pretty much new. I know it might seem strange to some that we specifically address men since they've been, by default, universal subjects for ages.
Men studies started in the early eighties, following on the trail of role theory, which itself was quite popular at the end of the sixties and throughout the seventies. Role theory was focusing on how the «masculine» and the «feminine» roles were constructed and conditioned. Then came along Pleck with his «Myth of Masculinity», who started saying « Hello guys, we can't talk of a masculine and a feminine role». Men and women are not monochromic beings. There is no single role. There is no single conditioning pattern. And of course there is no single, ahistorical, universal man - despite the idea being widespread or existing as subtext for Man = humanity, or «Man the Hunter» and such.
So there was this interest on how different behavior, identity and status patterns emerged among men. From «beefcake» to «sissy», there is a whole world of differences. There is, as well, a very real happy intra-men hierarchy («happy» being my ironical comment, of course), which, funny enough, closely intersects with racialized and economical status. The fineness with which the authors examine how cultural context impacts on men is very enlightening. They differ so much from dumb-ass raging t-hormones, men-are designed-to-screw-each-other-up (but they like it and are all fine with it), or we-see-enduring-tendencies-so-that-must-mean-they're-innate-but-we-won't-try-hard-to-prove-it pop theories (because of course, social upbringing is so light an influence).
Ok, I know you might have been showered with those, and it might be hard to see things differently. But I won't reproduce all of the analysis and the points made by the scholars from men's studies here. Too long. If you wish to know more, you might want to read one of them. I also stronlgy suggest «Sexing the body», and «Myths of Gender», written by Ann Fausto-Sterling, who is a biologist. She explains how we've been prone to look for innate, clear group differences between men and women. «Male» and «female» hormones, for instance, were artificially baptized as such. Brain differences? Let's have a closer look at that corpus callosum. Want to know more? Curiosity piqued? Go ahead and read. That author dutifuly backs up her claims. If, after reading her, you have critiques, please share them with me.
So these guys from Men Studies are very much into subtle analysis. They also are into feminism (That's another reason why I love them ;). Their taking into account of how power works through gender relations is refreshing. They articulate both intra male and male-female hierarchy.
If we come back to Messner, his book is an attempt at maping the different current politics of men groups.
After laying out some basic conceptual points:
Institutionalized Privilege
The Costs of Masculinity
Differences and Inequalities Among Men
Men's Responses to Historical Crises in the Gender Order
He mostly examines:
The Mythopoetic Movement: They attempt to guide men on spiritual journeys aimed at rediscovering and reclaiming 'the deep masculine' parts of themselves that they believe have been lost. According to Bly (1990), a mythopoetic leader, modern men revert either to destructive hypermasculinity or to a 'feminity' that softens and deadens their masculine, life-affirming potential.
They profess a complex and contradictory «loose essentialism»:
On the one hand, mythopoetic men tend to treat ''gender, masculinity, and the category of 'men' as if they were primitive constituent elements of the universe'' rather than social constructions. According to Schwalbe (1996), this belief in essential natures of women and men appealed to mythopoetic men because:
'' it provided an ideological defense against feminist critiques of men. Such a defense was necessary precisely because the men saw it as natural. The men were aware of generic feminist criticisms of men as brutish, insensitive, power hungry, and so on. However, the men did not see these criticisms as aimed at social arrangements that produced a lot of genuinely bad men. Rather, they interpreted these (...) as criticisms of the essential nature of men. Feminist criticism of men was thus experienced as indicting the morality of all men. A defense had to respond in kind; it had to somehow redeem the category'' (p. 64).
''This essentialist redemption of the category of ''men'' in effect allows mythopoetic men to assert ''This is who I am as a man - take it or leave it. I won't feel guilty about it. I won't apologize for my gender'' (p.65).
On the other hand, the «loose essentialism» allows for agency and flexibility in individual men's construction of their own masculinity.
Question is, however, up to where exactly does loose essentialism allow for personal freedom? That, they won't define. But still they'll claim «we can't change our deep masculine selves».
The Mythopoetic Movement mostly attracts white, college-educated, middle-class, middle-aged men in the US.
The Promise Keepers: Christian men who gather in stadiums.
Ok, seriously ;) Their central message is a call for a remasculinized image of Jesus, and a concomitant call for men to retake leadership roles in families. In the words of Tony Evans (1994), their leader:
''I am convinced that the primary cause of this national crisis is the feminization of the American male. When I say feminization, I am not talking about sexual preference. I'm trying to describe a misunderstanding of manhood that has produced a nation of 'sissified' men who abdicate their role as spiritually pure leaders, thus forcing women to fill the vacuum.'' (p. 73).
They differ from the Mythopoetic Movement in that they don't even try to have it both ways with some loose, undefined essentialism. They are staunch essentialists through and through. They also are more directly political. They attempt to reassert what they see as a ''traditional family'' that is based on a God-given division of labor between women (as mothers and domestic caretakers) and men (as providers, protectors, and leaders), à la Leave it To Beaver family model.
But they somewhat heard the critics about «men being unfaithful, drinking too much, not being responsible (not bringing the money home)» and the like, that Christian women and others would voice. So they're all into let's make a pledge we'll be faithful, we'll fulfill our duty as the family providers and that kind of stuff.
Messner sums up the Promise Keepers as this: ''[they] can be viewed, simultaneously, as Christian masculinity therapy in a confusing and anxiety-producing era, as organized and highly politicized antifeminist and antigay backlash and as a religious intervention through which Christian women hope to secure men's agreement to change their behaviors in ways that are far more dramatic than any amount of ''feminist browbeating'' was ever able to accomplish.'' (p. 35).
The Men's Lib Movement: ok, in a nutshell it is « women and men are equally oppressed by sexism and power dynamics don't exist». So basically they end up complaining about how sexism hurts men, but they change nothing or very little of the constraining prescriptions of «manhood» since they don't want to loose dominance.
The Men's Rights Movement: ''Feminism [is] viewed as a plot to cover up the reality that it is actually women who have the power and men who are most oppressed by current gender arrangements. Men's shorter life-span, health problems, military conscription and divorce and custody laws [are] used as evidence of men's oppression [nevermind that it is men who created most of these conditions]. (...) they [are] claiming that men are the true victims of prostitution, pornography, dating rituals, sexist media conventions, divorce settlements, false rape accusations, sexual harassment, and even domestic violence. Whereas men's liberation discourse - despite its limits - often relies on solid scientific research, (...) men's rights discourse has tended to rely on anecdotal stories, combined with a few highly questionable studies (...). (p.42)
Some divorced fathers who organize in groups enter into that category. Father 4 Justice is one, for example. ''Fathers' rights discourse has attempted, with some success, to co-opt the liberal feminist rhetoric of gender ''equality'' and ''rights'' to forge a campaign that aims to alter laws related to divorce and child custody. But what fathers' rights discourse rarely includes is a discussion of fathers' responsibilities to children before divorces.'' (p. 45)
The Socialist Feminist Men: There are different kinds of profeminist men. Mainly radical and socialist feminist men. Messner mostly talks about the socialists, who comprise a good part of the scholars in the field of Men's Studies. Like the radicals, they also want to look at the root causes of sexism, but they mainly differ in that they widen their perspectives and examine how different oppressions intersect with each other. So they intersect sexism and social class, sexism and racism, and that sort of thing. They can see that members of an oppressor group don't hold the same positions, even though they each minimally benefit from the group's global status.
''The discourse of socialist feminism, highly influenced by Marxist structuralism, parted dramatically from the psychologism and individualism of men's liberationism. Socialist feminists viewed masculinity not as a personal style or internalized attitude but as part of a structure of power. But socialist feminism also parted significantly from radical feminism, in that class inequalities were given at least as much analytic importance as gender inequalities. Thus, socialist feminists were among the first to call for an examination of inequalities among men, rather than relying on a simplistic and falsely universalized definition of «men» as an undifferentiated sex class. This was (and is still) a very difficult and tricky task, but socialist feminists set about attempting to strike a balance between an analysis of the ways that patriarchy benefits all men and the ways in which social class inequalities benefit some men at the expense of other men and women. (p.56).
(Portrait of Michael Kimmel, well-known scholar in Men's studies)
The Racialized Masculinity Politics: I'll sum up with a quote from someone involved in these politics and speaking of racialized men's preoccupations :
'' It is patently clear that the central concerns of Black men are not about relinquishing male privilege or forging new concepts of androgyny or sex-role egalitarianism. They must first and foremost deal with the issue of survival. It is not that they have abused the privileges accruing to men, but that they have never been given the opportunity to realize even the minimal perquisites of manhood - life-sustaining employment and the ability to support a family... we should realize that the more these legitimate aspirations to manhood are retarded, the greater the tendency will be to assert them in other areas. (Robert Staples, 1982, p. 13)
The Gay Male Lib Movement: Let's do the same, for the sake ok time, with this entry:
''We who are gay-identified have a unique opportunity to see throught the facades that pass for masculinity in our culture (...) [However], the post-Stonewall gay-identified male(...) affects the poses of machismo partly because he is overreacting to the pre-Stonewall limp-wrist image, an image once connected to effeminacy and drag. He is emphatic about being a conventional male because masculinims is so highly valued. He is likely to say. 'I am a man. I'm not a drag queen. People think gays are effeminate, but I'm not. I can just be as masculine as the next guy'. Little does he know that the 'next guy' is trying to keep up appearances too. (Jack Nicols, 1977, p. 330).
Fiiiew. I could write on and on about the topic. I feel I barely scratched the surface, but that makes a lot of lines. Shoosh.
Anyhow, I might post more on that topic in the future.