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February 19, 2002 |
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The
return of the 'manly men': |
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But Sept. 11 may prompt a return to “manly men” as role models and today’s college males may be better prepared than previous generations to assert their masculinity in more positive ways, says James Chesebro, a communication professor who specializes in cultural and media symbolism. Chesebro has published more than100 articles in national communication journals and has been recognized as one of the 25 most prolific communication scholars by the Index to Journals in Communication Studies. In 1970, Chesebro called his first essay on masculinity “The New American Male.” It was the same year feminist author Kate Millett wrote in Sexual Politics that “hostility between the sexes is so bitter it has reached the proportion of a war raged in terms of murder and sodomy.” Two years later, as feminists got the Equal Rights Amendment through Congress and thousands of American men continued to die in Vietnam, Chesebro was writing about “Masculinity as an Oppressive Ideology.” Chesebro and other researchers saw evidence the crisis had indeed led to increased aggressiveness and a more self-serving masculine ideology that sought to put men at the top of the societal system. American soldiers in Vietnam were twice as likely to return fire when fired upon than were soldiers in World War II, according to research by Northwestern University psychiatrist Benjamin Bosch. It was the continuation of a decades-long trend. World War II soldiers were twice as likely to shoot back than their World War I forebears. “It’s a combination of the wars that were involved, of our changing society, changing male roles,” says Chesebro. “I also think to some degree it was a function of some of the attacks feminists had launched against men.” But Chesebro says the crisis began long before most Americans ever heard of Vietnam and before the word “feminism” found its way into the vocabulary. The Civil War and the industrial revolution saw men competing for jobs against freed slaves, women and immigrants. Settlement of the American West forced men to look for new ways to assert their masculinity. “The closing of the frontier eliminated the ability to be a self-made man,” Chesebro explains. “Men use war as a way to release aggressiveness.” The 19th Century was also when sexual preference became associated with the image of being masculine. “You can point to the actual point at which the word ‘homosexual’ emerged and was used for the first time, how it started to be used as a class term to evaluate people.” A century and a half later, men were trying to sort out conflicting images popular culture was sending about what it meant to be a male and a Rhodes Scholar in the White House had trouble defining such a seemingly simple term as “sexual relations.” Advertisers, which had long used women’s sexuality to sell products, began to feature nude or nearly nude men in ads for such products as Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch clothing. And Madison Avenue was in conflict over just what constituted the perfect male. While some ads featured a “skinny guy” look, others portrayed more muscular men. In her 1999 book “The Whole Woman,” feminist Germaine Greer reckoned that by 2000 “more men [would] hate more women more bitterly than in 1970. “Our culture is more masculine than it was 30 years ago,” Greer proclaimed. “Women are struggling to live responsible dignified lives while men have retreated into extravagant masculous fantasies and behavior.” President Bill Clinton’s handling of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky dealt masculinity another blow, says Chesebro. “He made … men look comedic and really diminished the whole effort to redefine masculinity in a positive way,” Chesebro says. But Chesebro says the 21st Century has brought an unexpected opportunity to redefine masculine ideals in the way New York firefighters and police officers responded to the World Trade Center attacks. “September 11 has so overwhelmed us that the image conveyed by the firemen and the policemen at Ground Zero seemed to me such a powerful image of what men were … that a lot of people … might consider that as a real option for them,” Chesebro says. “The men were strong, directive, powerful, but also their whole frame of reference was to help people and that was a nice combination.” And Chesebro believes the so-called “millennial” generation of males, those born since 1981, is better prepared to adopt a positive masculine approach than the so-called “Generation X” that preceded them. “They’re going to have it easier because most of those parents have more respect for their children, more respect for the marriage,” Chesebro explains. “They’re less likely to get divorced and remarry than the earlier generation. “In ’81, we got that bumper sticker that said, ‘Baby on board’ and that really said what was happening to America. We respect our children more. We’re taking better care of them.” But challenges remain for both men and women in the 21st Century. “We're going to have to redefine a lot of feminist discourse,” Chesebro says. “Feminist discourse that incorporates a lot of contempt for men is really, I think, going to be diminished more and more. We have terms emerging for people who have contempt for men as a class. I think that will diminish.” Chesebro and associate professor Koji Fuse are reviewing the responses of 700 ISU freshmen to surveys about masculinity. They are working with other researchers on similar surveys at New York University as well as in Korea, France, Germany and India in an effort to determine how different societies view masculinity. New York University was chosen to provide a contrast to more conservative views found at ISU, Chesebro explains. Surveys are being done of both male and female students and college females in the Midwest are generally less experienced sexually and less sexually aggressive than those on the east and west coasts, he says. Other countries are being surveyed in an effort to show how differences in culture can shape masculinity. Nineteenth-Century Japan, for example, adopted a sort of dual standard concerning homosexuality, underscoring the role individual culture plays in defining masculinity, notes Fuse, a Japanese-American. “Before 1856, when Japan opened itself to foreign countries, for a long period of time the royal family was basically relegated to being abnormal,” says Fuse. “In the 11th Century, samurai clans emerged and … took over the whole politics of Japan. They tried to put the royal family aside and homosexuality was associated with the royal family.” In India, the world’s second most populous nation, the tradition of arranged marriages may impact masculinity because most men do not “choose” their wives as they do in the United States, notes Chesebro. “The whole concept of masculinity starts to change profoundly,” Chesebro says. “Yet, at the same time in India, they’re incorporating all sorts of western films which really show masculine as being individual and so you have a cultural clash going on. Chesebro hopes American males can also learn a thing or two from men in those other countries. “American men really do need to look at how men throughout the world are making some choices,” he says. “Are there some choices Indian men are making, for example, that American men may find useful?” Chesebro and
Fuse have tentatively identified 10 factors that give people a
masculine image: 1. Physical energy — active, aroused, display tension, aggressive tendencies 2. Masculine physical characteristics — lean body, low pitched voice 3. Masculine socio-cultural roles — enthusiastic sports fan 4. Masculine ideology 5. Opposite sex partner 6. Positive subjective masculine self-concept 7. Age 8. Race, nationality 9. Exaggerated sex life 10. Erotic male characteristics (perfect body) -30- Contact: Writer: ISU
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