Is Masculinity in “Crisis?”
According to scholar Roger Horrocks, patriarchal masculinity is killing men. That is to say, men are vulnerable to the particular ways manhood is idealized that require them to engage in deeply self-destructive behaviors (Horrocks, 1994). The movie “Fight Club,” though perhaps a bit dated as it were, illustrates this crisis in action.
In Fight Club, men are portrayed as having been effectively neutered by capitalism. The protagonist, played by Edward Norton, embodies this type of man, as the plot reveals his “split” personality in tortured by conversations with his idealized self – the character played by Brad Pitt.
So what is this crisis and where did it come from? There are no simple answers. A good place to start looking may be the post- World War II era, as developments in connection with the war fostered major changes in the economy, which in turn brought about changes at home and at work. Relations between men and women during this time were radically reformulated. The breadwinning role of the family patriarch, who worked a blue collar job – “Joe Lunchbox” – was destabilized and income responsibility increasingly shifted toward women.
Pointing to what he calls “masculinity at the end of an era,” gender scholar Michael Kimmel cites that men are generally unhappy with changes that occurred in American society over the past 30 years. According to Kimmel “meritocracy sucks when you are suddenly one of the losers.”
The War on Masculinity
By the late 1960’s, the post-World War II economic boom that launched a wave of consumerism to help secure lifestyles for working-class men began to give way. The “American Dream” that is so often idealized gave way to the American nightmare, where the stable employment of many working-class and middle-class white men started to crumble.
Anger and resentment over the President Johnson’s Great Society programs, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and Civil Rights legislation all helped bring about a strong anti-government sentiment. During this time period, office work replaced stereotypically masculine heavy industry occupations that had been the mainstay of previous generations. In the world of work, the newfound egalitarianism brought about by these social changes and through force of necessity (two household incomes instead of one were now required) was as not always celebrated. Income precarity called into question male claims to power based on their “breadwinner” status. Men were, in many respects, emasculated. Their factory jobs, once a source of pride, became outdated and “feminized.”
The “real man” of days gone by – the powerfully built working-class muscle man – was no longer the ideal. Hollywood and Madison Avenue effectively replaced him with a leaner, cleaner, and more highly stylized “new man.” This new ideal is now typified by the well-groomed, slight built, chiseled, underwear model.
But surely these are not real men? Far from it. They’re feminized “gay” men – men who are, for all intents and purposes, neutered and domesticated.
Not surprisingly, it is this post-war time period, the time of the 1950’s, which is forever ensconced in the minds of many men, old and young alike, as a “golden era.” For it is perceived to be the last uncontested time that men were truly happy – where their place at the top of the social hierarchy was unchallenged and they could still be “real men.”
Race relations were also renegotiated. The success of the Civil Rights movement meant that the secure jobs white men once claimed to themselves without competition from more than 50% of the population were no longer “off limits” to women and racialized others. Diversity and multiculturalism increasingly ruled the day. To add insult to injury, the “greed is good” Wall Street ethic increasingly came to define what was applauded as “breadwinning” in contemporary society. As a result, narratives about who deserves social rewards, who works hard, who is on welfare, and who is privileged (or not) started to coalesce and form the basis of a new form of contentious populist politics that were (are) imbued with strong racial undercurrents.
Labor relations were also put to the test. Union wages that formed the basis of a comfortable life for such men and their families were put under pressure during this time period. So much so that the percent of jobs reflecting union pay dropped from 30% to the barely 10% where it stands today (census citation…source income stats). Working class men with high school diplomas shouldered the brunt of these changes, as many were among the first generation that economists point to as having become “downwardly mobile.” And by this, it is implied that this group was statistically more likely to not be as economically successful and secure as their parents before them.
These developments not only called into question what it means to be a man, they left many men feeling hopeless, adrift, and unsure of their place in a world – a world that, by almost every measurable and symbolic indicator effectively left them behind. What does it mean to be masculine? What can a man do? What would it take to make men “great again?” These are the questions that many men struggle to answer.
Violence Fixes Everything
As Fight Club seems to argue, aggression and violence fix everything. Fisticuffs, as evidenced by a clarifying hard punch in the face, is all takes to get a man woke to the power of his masculine identity. One question we might ask here points to another dimension of the problem – how is the production of masculine identity, male power, and violence bound up with male sexuality?
Organized sports and military service both emphasize rugged individualism within a framework of male bonding. Buying, collecting and shooting guns, especially guns that are evocative of military weaponry – a bonus for men who either didn’t find time to serve, were busy making money (or maybe they just couldn’t “man up”). Men find familiarity in these structures. Consequently, any threat to these institutions (NFL protests) represents a potential death blow to the last means of escape men who resort to them to simulate the feeling of life that is all but gone.
Politicians have taken notice of the crises and have cleverly exploited it to advance the careers of political men who have themselves, in many respects, failed to live up to these ideals. They have cleverly managed to harness the power of toxic rhetoric to mobilize the legions of “lost boys” in order to get them to vote. In the process, however, they set off a chain reaction of self-righteous anger, which has had spill-over effects in the society at large.
By telling men you’re going to bring the old jobs back and reinstall them to their rightful place on top of the social hierarchy (the way it was in the good old days), everyone gets to feel great again. The question is, what will happen when empty promises don’t produce jobs? What will happen when men are left with only their anger to comfort them?
Into the Education Factory
American men are clearly shooketh. Changes on the economic front now force many young men, who would not typically seek to acquire a college degree, to enroll in college. Some of these men may see themselves as hostages of a broken system they don’t like and confined to social spaces where they don’t fit in. This new group of college men may be less interested in “higher learning” and the wisdom espoused by liberal professors than they are simply amassing credits to get a credential that keeps them from working at Walmart.
And herein lies a problem: “credential seeking” when it is uncoupled from “knowledge seeking” within a higher education system that was never designed to be “vocational school” is going to produce a lot of frustration and even failure. Potentially, this creates status and achievement anxiety for students, who may struggle to find their way, while institutions scramble to meet the needs of the new “customer.”
Outside of the education factory walls, young men may seethe with resentment, having been effectively excluded from new economy opportunities (often for lack of education). They may be bitter about economic and social changes that have left them behind and seek communities of like-minded others in online forums, where they can connect with people who share their pain. These are the men that have “failed to adjust” (Kimmel).
In the old days, college wasn’t a mandate. Getting a job was simply a matter of walking into a union hiring hall, meeting your dad’s friends, and conveying a willingness to work hard. The trouble is now that the failure to achieve credentials can produce acute levels of anxiety and social exclusion, which we have seen in many cases becomes a pathway to violence.
What Is Toxic Masculinity?
The concept of “toxic masculinity” is used in the social sciences to describe male behavior that exceeds conventional and normative masculine behavior. When you think of the directives “Be a Man,” “Man up,” and “Sack up” you may be close to understanding how contemporary social mandates dictate the way “real men” are supposed to behave as they pursue a particular sense of self. I like to think of it as masculine praxis, or masculinity in action. Unfortunately, it is a form of self-identity that is harmful to both men and women.
Toxic masculinity is masculinity on steroids. Sadly and predictably, it produces profoundly negative social and psychological effects, as it is often violent if not deadly.
For a conceptual definition, we might look to Eric Mankowski, who is the head of Portland State University’s Gender and Violence research team. He argues that the concept of toxic masculinity has 4 components: suppression of anything stereotypically feminine, suppression of emotions related to vulnerability (i.e. fear, sadness, helplessness), male domination over women and other men, and aggression. It is from these 4 expectations that we get attitudes and behaviors, like “I deserve to have access to women’s bodies” (Mankowski). When masculinity is under threat, for reasons as diverse as poor economic prospects and loss of social privilege and power, this is when toxic masculinity tends to reveal itself.
Toxic masculinity upholds a patriarchal belief system that males must dominate in relationships, particularly the household, at work, and throughout public life. To be “manly” is indistinguishable from being dominating. Behavior tends to be aggressive and hyper-sexual. Often there is an aim to assert control over other people.
Put another way, toxic masculinity espouses classically misogynistic views that understand and naturalize masculine/male qualities as inherently superior to feminine/female qualities. Stereotypically, we might conceptualize the disposition as one that promotes stoicism and “quiet strength” – an aversion towards being emotionally expressive (considered feminine).
As the sociologist, Lisa Wade writes in her article “Confronting Manhood After Trump,” toxic masculinity doesn’t work for all men:
“Poor and working-class men, old men, queer men, trans men, men of color, immigrant men, and men with disabilities disproportionately lose [from toxic masculinity]. So do men who find no pleasure in domination. Ironically, this is often why men who are failing in this macho competition—the economically struggling, the unmanly nerds, and even sometimes gay men—are among the most obviously sexist. They may be at the bottom of a hierarchy of men, they reason, but at least they’re not women.”
Toxic masculine behaviors, unfortunately, are not always problematized in American culture. Even worse, they are often celebrated; they are understood to be “natural” and universal. Domination of women and lust for power combined with physical displays of brute strength are sadly admired and are abundant.
Take, for example, Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was well-known for being a bully. He yelled at and demeaned everyone around him, including other men (Valenti). In spite of this, he was widely admired, counting former Presidents as friendly associates.
It is important to note that Weinstein’s hyper-aggressive sexual assault of the women whose careers he controlled was not simply about sex; it was always about power. In the media coverage of his sex crimes, there is one troubling narrative emerges: people treat him as an “exceptional” example of bad behavior. Yet as journalist and author Jessica Valenti points out, his behavior is not really exceptional at all:
“For too long,” she says, “we’ve lauded men’s domination and aggressiveness as a sign of leadership rather than possible red flags. When men talk over everyone else in a room, we call it confidence rather than entitlement. If they berate others in meetings, we call them powerful and passionate, not bullying. And when they treat women at work differently than they do men, we’re told that they’re not sexist – they’re just “old-school.”
Instead of venerating men who exhibit domineering attitudes at work, what if we saw their behavior as a warning sign? After all, experts and research tell us that harassers and sexual abusers often adhere to tradional gender roles, that they’re likely narcissists, and that they exhibit behaviors consistent with particular kinds of over-the-top masculinity.
In other words, we have a pretty good idea of what a harasser might act like at work. So why not do something about it?” (Valenti)
Feminist Epistemology: Patriarchy & Hegemonic Masculinity
Scholars in gender studies point to the term “hegemonic masculinity,” conceived in R. Connell’s gender order theory. Hegemonic masculinity is defined here as the current configuration of practice that legitimizes men’s dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women and other marginalized ways of being a man (R. W. Connell, 2005). In what is a significant development, Connell’s theory doesn’t point to one essential masculinity; but rather identifies that there are “multiple masculinities” which can vary across space, time, and individuals.
The sociological concept hegemonic derives from a theory originally articulated by the Italian Marxist theorist, Antonio Gramsci – cultural hegemony. Hegemonic in this case refers to the cultural dynamics by which a social group claims and sustains a dominant position within a social hierarchy. The following figure illustrates the circular/cyclical pattern of how hegemonic masculinity is produced, reproduced, and perpetuated. Gramsci’s theory has wide-ranging applications, as it might be used to describe social dynamics in criminology, education, gender relations, media, and industrial organization.
Not unlike toxic masculinity, hegemonic masculinity refers to a culturally idealized form of manhood; one that is traditionally focused on bread-winning and embodied performances that exude dominance (psychic as well as hierarchically). Personal qualities that are suggestive of a brutish, even violent, physicality are prized. This produces men who, not surprisingly, are anxiety-ridden, crisis-prone, and sometimes inclined toward violence, which is seen as a socially acceptable means to maintaining their deserved dominant social position.
The concept of hegemonic masculinity was further influenced by psychoanalysis and the work of Sigmund Freud. Freud produced the first analytic biographies of men and showed how adult personality was a system that was dynamic and constantly under tension.
Other work that we might look to that adds additional explanation includes Erich Fromm and Judith Butler, who both explore psychological themes in their work. Whereas Fromm explores the role of social class and material concepts in an individual’s psychic character development in connection with violence, Butler calls attention to the idea of gender as a performance.
Fromm’s work is particularly applicable here, to the extent that his theories integrate Freudian psychoanalysis with Marxist historical materialism, although he differs from them both in very significant ways. By making freedom the cornerstone of his theory, he allows people to escape the biological determinism of Freud and the social class determinism of Marx. Going one step further, Fromm develops a personality theory, where he argues that each socioeconomic class fosters a particular character, which is governed by ideas that justify and maintain it. Social character, to use his words, orients the individual toward tasks and actions that will assure the perpetuation of the socioeconomic system.
More recent social science research has explored how these psychological landscapes may play out in practical and material ways. Michael Kimmel’s Angry White Men looks at the roots of violent masculinity among downwardly mobile white men. He uses the term “aggrieved entitlement” to characterize how some men (white men in particular) are angered to the point of violence. These works can help us begin, as Mankowsky says, “to deconstruct how masculinity is socialized as a performative task rather than a biological imperative” (Mankowski).
“You Will Not Replace Us” (the Jews Will Not Replace Us)
Fear of “replacement” has for a long time been a rallying cry for the European alt-right youth movement, Generation Identity. But in this case, we’re not only talking about a crisis of masculinity but a specific type of masculinity; one that is white and Christian and opposed to ethnic diversity and multiculturalism.
Other American identarian movements have picked up on this refrain and they are quite literally carrying a torch for it, as was demonstrated in Charlottesville Virginia. So it’s not just masculinity that is perceived to be in crisis…this is a problem of Western civilization as a whole, where male identity, racial identity, and religious identity are revealed to be inseparable and deeply intertwined.
According to the French writer, Renaud Camus, “people don’t want other people to come in their territory, in their country, and change their cultures and their religions, their way of living, their way of eating, their way of dressing. It’s a worry that is central to the very essence of being human. To be human is to not be replaceable. That is, a human being is not an object, not a thing.” So to some degree, these feelings should not surprise us. But is violence the solution?
Normalizing Violence
Toxic masculinity uses violence and coercion to enforce hierarchical social relations, where masculinity is positioned over and above femininity. In doing so, it normalizes violence that too often results in the degradation and outright murder of women. But it doesn’t stop here.
Violence can and often is directed at any opportune target that fails to conform to the norms of toxic masculinity. And this includes men too – “lesser men” – men who are poor, working-class, nerds, old, queer-bodied, trans, men with disabilities, as well as immigrants – in other words, any man whose embodiment and behavior falls outside standards upheld by American and European models of masculinity.
Following the same logic, it includes men who fail to embrace norms that call for the domination of others – “Cucks” and “Soy Boys” are the trendy monikers of late that describe the men of late who are driving the contentious politics of the contemporary moment.
Data reported by Brandwatch
The advertisement depicts the bolt of a rifle; the implication being that if you don’t have familiarity and expertise with guns you are not a real man; you are a woman.
Capitalism & Masculine Performance – A Strain Theory of Masculinity
For a long time, American men have bought into the idea of what is a classically liberal notion – the idea of the “social contract.” Setting aside Hobbes and Rousseau for the moment, we might say simply that this idea is understood within the American imaginary as a belief that all one has to do is “work hard” and everything will be okay. This always was and remains a fantasy for all but a few.
The basic problem that many never recognized (and continue not to recognize) is that the deck was always stacked in their favor. America, the land of “equal opportunity” was never really equal; some were more equal than others (i.e. white men), as discrimination against women and ethnic outsiders was inherently built into the system.
Robert Merton’s strain theory was advanced to elaborate on Emile Durkheim’s strain theory, where he articulated his concept of “anomie” – a feeling characterized by anxiety and alienation, where one is cast adrift due to profound changes in values and social ideals. Merton, of course, added an important economic component to Durkheim’s theory and offered a model to explain how people might react to economic strain. But what if we were to elaborate this theory even further to address the crisis in masculinity, where we took a more intersectional approach? We might look at Merton’s theory in connection with Connell’s masculinity theory, taking care to look at the confluence of social identities brought about by gender, race, and social class dynamics.
Economic discrimination and social inequality make it difficult for males who are not white to attain levels of economic success that put them on equal footing with their white male counterparts. In light of this, there may be social pressure for men of color to assert social dominance (which they lack) – to project power and claim status – by acting hypermasculine. They make up for their lack of economic success as well as their perceived lack of masculinity by engaging in exaggerated social performances in order to reclaim it.
Why Is It Always the White Guy?
The socialization of males in American society (which varies considerably based on one’s race and class), as has been shown here, relies in no small measure upon the encouragement of men to achieve self-definition, independence, strength, and a sense of purpose through violence.
Military service represents the paragon of this ideal, however, the dynamic is similarly prevalent in occupations like policing, as well as in sports and fitness. All of these interlocking fields of what has traditionally been male endeavor participate to some extent in the social reproduction of what is essentially a sanctioned “cult of violence;” one that confers honor and status upon men that can establish dominant status over weaker men and women as well as those who are members of defined racial/ethnic groups. Real men bring the pain. Women are pain.
Sociologists have gone to considerable lengths to study issues like domestic violence and gang violence. But very little work looks at violence specifically in connection with white men as a social group. Michael Kimmel’s work, as I have already pointed out, takes up the issue of American anger within the context of male entitlement (what he calls “aggrieved entitlement” and criminologist Mike King calls “aggrieved whiteness – the notion that white Americans have become oppressed victims of politically correct multiculturalism).
Wasting Their Whiteness
Kimmel’s work alludes to a social-psychic phenomenon that was first identified by W.E.B. Du Bois. Writing in Black Reconstruction in America, Du Bois called attention to labor dynamics that pitted white workers against newly freed blacks. Preserving Southern racial hegemony after the Civil War was recognized to be as crucial to the profits of Northern capitalists as it was for counterparts in the South. To maintain their profits, capitalists exploited a key dynamic of white psychology – paying these workers poorly, they capitalized on the power of white supremacist racial ideologies, which had the effect of securing for poor whites a privileged spot in the racial hierarchy. The low wages of poor whites were supplemented by a “psychological wage” of social superiority. This ultimately proved more attractive to them than maintaining solidarity with black workers.
Not much has changed since this time. If history proves anything, it’s that the most effective strategy for capitalists has been to weaponize racial antipathy to pit laborers against each other. Being poor in American was then and remains now better than being equal to blacks.
It stands to reason, however, that not all white men have been able to achieve the economic success they thought was theirs for the taking. Interestingly, this is where the ideology of white supremacy is revealed to be the con that it is. Struggling to get by and not feeling particularly “privileged” as they are so often told, they get angry when life doesn’t produce the rewards they were told they could expect. That is to say, they worked and did their “part” but hard work didn’t pay off. Forced to take work that is often perceived to be beneath them, working for money that fails to measure up to their socially ordained worth and value, all while being told how to talk, behave, and dress….this set the stage for contemporary social discontent.
Escaping the “Man Box”
The concept of a “Man Box” was first popularized by American activist Tony Porter. Porter uses it to draw attention to stereotypical expectations of male behaviors, including heterosexuality, not expressing weakness or fear, acting tough and aggressive, not asking for help, and viewing women as objects (McCool). In England, volunteers working for a charity called The GREAT Initiative operationalized the concept of the Man Box through their work in schools, where they set up workshops to train young boys (age 9) about gender issues. The purpose of the workshop was to point up stereotypical ways of thinking with the end goal being to help boys to rebuild their understanding of masculinity so they can feel empowered without hurting others. By the end of the workshop, the boys write about their vision for a masculine ideal. Some wrote things like: “asking for help shows strength not weakness”, “treat everyone as equal” and the ready-made protest slogan “object 2 objectifying” (McCool). The program offers one example of what might be done in American classrooms to help undo the damage of masculine stereotypes.
Another U.S. based program, Rethink Masculinity, helped organized a class for men (the pilot project was a partnership between the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault). This particular program billed itself as a class where men “learn how social constructs of masculinity harm them and the people around them and work to construct healthier masculinities.” Or, as one participant put it, “It was eight weeks of guys discussing how they can address their actions with better self-awareness and less toxicity.” Other programs include the Men’s Project at the University of Wisconsin, Masculinity 101 at Brown University, and the Duke Men’s Project at Duke. The goal, with all of these programs, once again, is to help men examine their own biases and behaviors in order to cut down on misogyny and gender-based violence (Campbell).
Where Do We Go From Here?
So what do we do now? How do we address the damage that is, as Kimmel argues, the result of when men fail to adjust? Can men unlearn toxic masculinity?
The good news is the answer is yes. Anything that is socially constructed can be “deconstructed.” Which is to say, if we made men this way, we can unmake those things that contribute to toxic behavior and social identity. Ultimately, there is no choice in the matter. For it is not only men but also women who suffer when men feel compelled to live up to unrealistic ideals imposed on them by a society that glorifies and rewards toxic masculinity. We have to be willing to recognize that we all are not powerless and keep working on it – and everyone has to do their part.
Sources
“It’s No Accident That Sexual Harassers Rise Up in the Ranks,” by Jessica Valenti, The Guardian.
“I Went to a Feminism Class for Private School Boys,” by Alice McCool, October 2016.
“Confronting Manhood After Trump,” by Lisa Wade, January 2018.
“Masculinity in Crisis,” by Roger Horrocks, Self & Society, Vol 22, No.4, September 1994.
“The Men Taking Classes to Unlearn Toxic Masculinity,” by Olivia Campbell, 2017.
R. W. Connell, Masculinities. Second Edition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, (1995) 2005.
Discussion Questions
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