This article originally ran in The Guardian (UK) and was picked up by Raw Story. In part this is a response to Camille Paglia's recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, wherein she decries the decline in traditional notions of masculinity (military service, physical labor) and the feminization of education. Here is a passage that begins with her experience with her own son (11-year-old Lucien):

She sees the tacit elevation of "female values"—such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation—as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical facts.

By her lights, things only get worse in higher education. "This PC gender politics thing—the way gender is being taught in the universities—in a very anti-male way, it's all about neutralization of maleness." The result: Upper-middle-class men who are "intimidated" and "can't say anything. . . . They understand the agenda." In other words: They avoid goring certain sacred cows by "never telling the truth to women" about sex, and by keeping "raunchy" thoughts and sexual fantasies to themselves and their laptops.

Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood," she says. "Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There's nothing left. There's no room for anything manly right now." The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspires me as a writer," she says, adding: "If we had to go to war," the callers "are the men that would save the nation."

On the topic of boys and education, she (and Christina Hoff-Sommers) are dead on - we have created schools and education models that are hostile to boys in particular, and we are seeing the results of the last three decades of that movement in the high percentage of boys diagnosed with ADHD, their lower academic performance, and their lower application, admission, and graduation rates at college.

However, what she sees as "how a civilization commits suicide," some of us see as how a civilization evolves into a healthier and more inclusive version of masculinity. Too much is the traditional model has excluded normal and necessary human expression - the "stiff upper lip," "boys don't cry," and "man up" approach no longer serves men or the women who love them (as friends, sisters, mothers, or partners).

Anyone who is familiar with men's work and masculinity studies knows that we are not seeing "the end of men," rather we are seeing the rough, clumsy, and often challenging transformation of men - and much like feminism it is happening at the local level in men's processing groups, in the Mankind Project's I-groups, and even in some men's spirituality groups. There is also the wider discussion happening on sites such as The Good Men Project, or this blog and many others like it.

And there are more articles being published such as the one below, articles that recognize we are in transition, not decline.

‘Traditional masculine values’ are evolving, not dying

By Ally Fogg, The Guardian
Tuesday, December 31, 2013

I thought I had heard enough febrile, hyperbolic pronouncements on modern masculinity to get me through any year, but I had not counted on Camille Paglia. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the maverick libertarian feminist pondered the implications of the feminisation of society and the devaluing of traditional masculine values. “What you’re seeing is how a civilisation commits suicide,” she declared.

Paglia is not a lone Cassandra. Hanna Rosin and Christina Hoff-Sommers have written on The End of Men and The War on Men and Boys respectively. This year, Diane Abbott warned of a crisis of masculinity that is seeing her young male constituents in Hackney corrupted by hardcore pornography and “a Viagra and Jack Daniels culture”. From North America to Europe to Oceania, masculinity is being prodded, pathologised, diagnosed and bemoaned by voices from across the political, cultural and social spectrum. The great irony is that the overwhelming majority of these voices are female.

Most men instinctively know why this would be. It is the first rule of fight club, after all. Men’s concerns, interests, anxieties or even pride in our own gender roles are typically sheltered by the conceits of fiction – as seen in the exquisite 62-hour thesis on modern masculinity that was Breaking Bad – or filtered through protective layers of irony and humour. Social media users recently parodied the internal travails of feminism with the hashtag #MeninistTwitter, but behind the walls of laddish banter and sexism, there were some very real anxieties and resentments on display.

The sledgehammers and stilettos of a gendered society impact upon, and are wielded by, every man, woman and child. Women – and feminists in particular – have spent centuries developing the vocabulary to discuss the myriad ways in which their lives are affected by gender constraints, and, crucially, they have carved the space in which to host those discussions. Men, too often, mutter into our pints and change the subject. This goes a long way to explaining why men vastly outnumber women in the figures for hazardous alcohol and drug abuse. It is why so many men in psychological crisis end up in a police cell rather than a GP’s surgery. At the sharpest end, it may be why men are around three times more likely to take their own lives than women.

One organisation dealing with the fallout of this is the mental health charity CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably. In an attempt to turn around self-destructive male habits, they have announced that 2014 will be the Year of the Male – 12 months of campaigning, debate and discussion aimed at changing both public opinion and public policy towards male gender-specific issues. There will be a state-of-nation audit of modern masculinity, and a public campaign inviting men to share their stories and experiences. CALM’s director, Jane Powell, says: “We think it’s time to ask some big questions about men and work, health, the media, education, relationships and family and ask what it really means to be ‘man enough’?”

Separately, the Southbank Centre recently announced a major festival at the end of January entitled Being a Man in which voices as diverse as Jon Snow, Baaba Maal and Grayson Perry will contribute to a weekend of performance and conversations on how men’s roles are evolving.

All this leaves hanging a central question of whether examining, debating and discussing masculinity will actually do anything to change the habits and behaviours of men themselves or society’s expectations and obligations. The supposed crisis of masculinity is largely a crisis in economics and employment, education and social policy, health and social service delivery. Those are not issues that can be solved with an introspective healing circle. Identifying and addressing those problems means changing how we behave as men, and towards men. If that means the end of civilisation as we know it, then perhaps it is a model of civilisation that needs to go.

["Close-Up Of A Man Smiling" on Shutterstock]

Marc Tracy - Here Come the Daddy Wars

This article originally appeared at The New Republic just before Father's Day (obviously I am a little bit behind in my posting), but the main points are still highly relevant. Men are going to face some tough decisions (some already are) and there are going to be some intense societal struggles in determining how men should be fathers and how much they will be allowed to be fathers.

I don't see there being any time soon where men are given equal post-natal time off from work (paid or unpaid, but with job and position security) to that of women - hell we don't even offer women much on average. It's not likely we will be anywhere near France's (22 paid days off, 318 total days off), Spain's (18 paid, 312 total), Germany's (47 paid, 170 total), Sweden's (47 paid, 163 total), or Norway's (44 paid, 150 total) position on parenting in my lifetime . . . or yours.

For the record, the U.S. offers 0 paid days and 24 total days off for maternity/family leave (these are days given by law, and all stats are from 2008).

Here Come the Daddy Wars

June 14, 2013
BY MARC TRACY

The average American spends $144 celebrating Mother’s Day, while for Father’s Day, the figure is $82. And that Father’s Day was inspired by Mother’s Day rather than vice versa is probably the least surprising fact you will read today. Mainly, Mother’s Day’s relative prominence is a vestige—and, to a lesser extent, a reflection—of society’s view that women are primarily mothers whereas men are fathers but also other things. This view not only gives women whose ambitions extend beyond the household a bum deal—for reasons I hope I don’t have to elucidate!—but it also fails men who might like to be more prominent as fathers and caregivers than societal norms currently encourage.

Women have fabricated a way of talking about the conflict between women who hope to find most of their self-fulfillment in the home and those for whom being a homemaker and child-rearer is not enough—and not only that, but believe it should not be enough for most women. This is the enlightened, productive side of what are commonly called the Mommy Wars. My question, as Father’s Day approaches, is: Where are the Daddy Wars?

Every day I see smart, career-ambitious women having an intelligent, heated conversation, informed by personal experience and strewn with first principles, about what a woman’s proper roles are, and what society, men, and other women could do to realize a better world. I don’t feel as though I’ve been kept out. But I do think men have been altogether too shy about joining this conversation or, perhaps, starting their own.

However, in the past few weeks, there have been a bevy of articles and studies that all point to this news: At long last, the Daddy Wars are coming.

The trends are both economic and sociological. Economically, as writers like Hanna Rosin have amply documented, women are finally gaining some level of equality with men—not at the very top, but at least in the middle. A new Pew report found that four in ten households with children have a woman as the prime or sole breadwinner, up from one in ten 50 years ago. Partly this is a function of single mothers, but in more than five million of such households, the mother is married yet simply makes more than the husband—and in such marriages, median income is higher. A Third Way study noted that employment trends are better for women than for men.

Esquire recently published an essay by Richard Dorment on the work-life balance that men face. It was fashioned as a response to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” Atlantic feature (which made mention of how men face similar quandaries) and unfortunately was riddled with condescension for the same people—chiefly, feminists—who should be his allies. (Salon’s Irin Carmon did a good job pointing out this curious dynamic.) Still it captured, I think, the feelings of many men, fathers and not, who were brought up to think in terms of career and providing for their families financially, with actual work at home getting short shrift.

Most men stress over the next step in their professions, with the attitude that if they happen to fall in love and settle down, well, that’s great, too. But recently, in many cases inspired by the women in our lives and the conversation they are having among themselves, we have begun to question whether our most basic priorities aren’t out of whack, and to wonder whether, for reasons both social and surprisingly biological, we shouldn’t be as “ambitious” to have children as we are to land the next great job. Plus, having had children, many of us hope to play a more active role in their upbringing than has typically been expected of fathers. Many of us were lucky to have mothers who, whatever other ambitions and accomplishments they had, clearly took great joy in raising us; some of us were even lucky enough to have similar fathers. Do we want it “all”? Who knows (or cares). But we want that.

In a smart response on New York’s The Cut blog, Kurt Soller noted that men will probably have to take their cues from ladyblogs and the like as they navigate this issue, and offered several smart thoughts, including the observation that when men mentor other men, the subject matter is almost exclusively confined to the professional and romantic, not the domestic. (He also noted that as a late-twenty-something he should be as fretful as many of his same-aged female friends are about the looming having-kids prospect, which is true, if also—gulp—terrifying.) Yet even Soller seemed somewhat uncomfortable raising this topic: “As ridiculous as this seems,” he wrote, “the Esquire article had me realizing that a lot of the anxiety surrounding ‘leaning in’ or ‘having it all’ does feel relevant to me as a man.”

The next step, therefore, is to make this not feel at all ridiculous. Because it isn’t. The next step is to make a magazine devoted to artisinal Brooklyn fatherdom more than a quaint Talk of the Town subject. It is to encourage, socially and even legally, paternity leave, which a large share of men don’t take, as well as respect at the office for caregiving fathers, which according to two new studies such fathers currently do not generally enjoy. In the future, when a man voluntarily gives up great responsibility to “spend more time with my family,” I do not want the notion that this could be a euphemism to even occur to me.

In short, it’s going to be the Daddy Wars. (Want that url? Don’t bother; my friend and I have been cybersquatting at daddywars.tumblr.com for weeks.) The Mommy Wars consist of people—primarily other women—convincing women that it is in society’s interest, their children’s interests, other women’s interests, and their own interests for them to be more than stay-at-home moms. The Daddy Wars cannot be the exact obverse, since the playing field is already asymmetrical (for generations, the default for men was to find some balance between work and home, whereas the default for women was home). But they will be something like that.

Like the Mommy Wars, the Daddy Wars are going to require, as Carmon put it, “a negotiation between what’s possible, what they’ve been taught to expect is normal, and what they might really want.” Like the Mommy Wars, they are going to require walking a fine line between the ideology they forthrightly advocate—men should be home more—and respect for individual choice, of the “I choose my choice!” variety, accounting for not only the choices of the men themselves but also of their childrearing partners. (Yes, eventually, the Mommy Wars and the Daddy Wars will likely have to become one big Parents Wars, but first the right side will have to win the Daddy Wars.) Let’s see if we can’t get a generation of American men to think more of themselves as “Dad” or “Dad-to-Be.” That would be a good start.

Layers of Sexual Identity - A Meditation

[The picture is of the gender-pop band, Girlyman.]

For many years there has been an interesting phenomenon in my life wherein my "straight" identified friends believe without hesitation that I am, like them, a straight male, and likewise, my gay friends believe that I am a gay man who simply has not decided yet to fully embrace my true nature. I've always found this amusing.

Generally, I do not much think about it until someone asks me if I am straight or gay. Someone asked me that the other day, someone who does not yet know me very well, and I actually had to think about the answer. Often, if asked if I am gay or straight, I answer, "Yes." This time, however, I answered, "No."

For most of the rest of the day, I thought about the various layers of sexual identity in my life. It seems that interpersonal context, social environment, and a host of other factors all play a role in how I perceive my sexual identity and how others perceive it. The reality is that the two seldom are in sync, except among close friends. What follows are a few reasons why that may be so.

(1) Culturally Straight: As far as the mainstream culture is concerned, I am a straight white male who loves sports, who is in a committed relationship with a woman, and who has none of the style skills often associated with gay men (I like athletic shorts or cargo shorts and a plain solid color tee-shirt, and getting me to dress up is on par with getting the GOP to increase taxes on the wealthy). I like to lift heavy weights, break stuff up with a sledge hammer, and watch Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad. Sounds pretty straight.

(2) Culturally Gay: Maybe this is less true now that metrosexuality has been invented, but there was a time when a male who keeps his hair pretty short, stays very physically fit, uses hair care products, uses moisturizer, and prefers to smell like something other than body odor was, by default, gay. Then there is the enjoyment of museums, cooking, poetry, and art films - none of which says straight American male. Oh yeah, AND I am a psychotherapist - a field that is 80% women and involves talking about feelings and holding space for people who are often in severe emotional pain. Sounds pretty gay (and not "gay" in the way kids use the word today).

(3) Not Bisexual: I used to identify as bisexual when I first accepted that I am attracted to men as well as to women. Over the years, however, that label has been inaccurate in a couple of ways.

(A) It feels limiting and it accepts that there are only two sexualities, gay or straight. I reject the notion of binaries in the realm of gender and sexuality (and other areas as well). It's not an either/or choice and it should never be presented as though it is. Sexuality is fluid, as is gender identity (if we allow it to be).

(B) Most of my significant relationships (with a couple of exceptions) have been with women. For a variety of reasons, I find, in general, that I am more compatible with women, probably because I am comfortable with emotions while men (even gay men) often struggle in this realm. I also tend find many more women to be attractive than I do men.

For other men, coming to the point of being able to affirm their bisexuality is a monumental moment in their lives - see this Single Dad Laughing blog post for how difficult this can be. In whatever form people "come out," and in whatever label they choose in the process, revealing a whole other part of ourselves to others is often frightening. When that part of us is still subject to shaming and inequality before the law, it is that much more challenging. Deep bow of respect to Single Dad (Dan) for the courage it took to make his coming out part of his blog.

(4) Gender Fluid: I am clearly and unambiguously a man, biologically. However, I manifest feminine energy as much as masculine energy in my daily life, both of which are context specific. I also experience myself as more gender fluid in my interpersonal relationships, as well as at work (when I am at my psychotherapy job, I sometimes forget I am male unless it becomes part of the conversation [which it does from time to time]).

I am beginning to believe that the masculine/feminine binary is more damaging than helpful. These are poor descriptors of behaviors or traits (all of the psychological or emotional traits assigned to either M or F are essentially human qualities that are available to both sexes).

[By the way: sex is the biological makeup of an individual's reproductive anatomy; gender is an individual's lifestyle, often culturally learned - just so we are clear.]

So What's My Point?

I'm not sure that I have one - but I do think that it's useful to cogitate or meditate on these ideas from time to time. It's also useful to see ourselves and our various identities as objects of awareness rather than being so embedded in them that we are unaware.

My guess is that more and more people have experiences similar to my own these days. Although the mainstream culture is only now warming up to the idea that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered (LGBT) are all real people who deserve equal rights, there are a lot of people on the leading edge of cultural transformation who are beginning to grasp the fluidity of gender and even of sexual identity.

[Another by the way: transgender is not simply transsexual, it's a much broader tent that includes anyone who feels left out by the traditional gender binary (including intersex, the third recognized sex type beside male and female): "The category transgender has no singular, fixed meaning. Rather, it is inclusive of identities and experiences of sex and gender variance, changing, and blending. Although no consensus exists about exactly whom this category includes, nearly all definitions share the use of a metaphorical umbrella, which activists agree is a useful tool for political organizing outside current understandings of binary sex and gender divisions."]

 All of this makes me wonder . . .

I do not believe in the soul or any on-going personal essence that survives death (although I will not go as far as to say there is no such thing - I'm agnostic, so sue me), but I tend to think we all have some form of intangible awareness that is available to us if we seek ways to experience it. Maybe it is a soul, or buddhanature, or higher self, or Atman, or Christ Consciousness - different worldviews have different names for it - but my sense is that it is not gendered.

Okay, this is sounding like dualism, and I reject dualism (I once proposed Singularism back in grad school in the 1990s, before I knew anything about the Singularity hype proposed by Ray Kurzweil and others). So please allow me to clarify: I think we are evolving toward a time when our bodies will be male, female, or intersex, but our identities will not be defined exclusively by our biology (which is largely the case these days for a majority of people). Identity (awareness?) will be influenced or even shaped by our biology, but it will not be defined by it. We will become gender fluid, and with that, sexual identity will be seen as a continuum, not a binary.

I hope . . . . 

Jesse J. Prinz - Why Are Men So Violent? Are Men Warriors by Nature?

The male warrior hypothesis, based in biology and evolutionary psychology, contends that men are by nature more violent than women, more racist, more prone to social dominance hierarchies, more xenophobic, and less likely to cooperate (unless under duress). In other words, men are ignoble savages.

I think this is a load of crap. And fortunately, so do a lot of other people, including philosopher Jesse Prinz. In a recent column for Psychology Today's Experiments in Philosophy blog, Prinz argues that all of the evidence assembled to support the evolutionary claims can better be understood by looking at social and historical pressures and circumstances. He makes a compelling case.

Why Are Men So Violent?

Are men warriors by nature? History, not evolution, may explain male violence.

 

Published on February 3, 2012 by Jesse Prinz, Ph.D. in Experiments in Philosophy

It will not have gone unnoticed that men are more violent than women. Men perpetrate about 90 percent of the world's homicides and start all of the wars. But why? A recent article in a prominent science journal contends that evolution has shaped men to be warriors. More specifically, the authors claim that men are biologically programmed to form coalitions that aggress against neighbors, and they do so in order to get women, either through force or by procuring resources that would make them more desirable. The male warrior hypothesis is alluring because it makes sense of male violence, but it is based on a dubious interpretation of the science. In my new book, I point out that such evolutionary explanations of behavior are often worse than competing historical explanations. The same is true in this case. There are simpler historical explanations of male violence, and understanding these is important for coping with the problem.

A historical explanation of male violence does not eschew biological factors, but it minimizes them and assumes that men and woman are psychologically similar. Consider the biological fact that men have more upper-body strength than women, and assume that both men and women want to obtain as many desirable resources as they can. In hunter-gatherer societies, this strength differential doesn't allow men to fully dominate women, because they rely on the food that women gather. But things change with the advent of intensive agriculture and herding. Strength gives men an advantage over women once heavy ploughs and large animals become central aspects of food production. With this, men become the sole providers, and women start to depend on men economically. The economic dependency allows men to mistreat women, to philander, and to take over labor markets and political institutions. Once men have absolute power, they are reluctant to give it up. It took two world wars and a post-industrial economy for women to obtain basic opportunities and rights.

This historical story can help to explain why men are more violent than women. The men who hold power will fight to keep it, and men who find themselves without economic resources feel entitled to acquire things by force if they see no other way. With these assumptions, we can dispense with the male warrior hypothesis, which is advanced by Melissa McDonald, Carlos Navarrete, and Mark Van Vugt, in the latest issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These three psychologists imply that male violence is natural and inevitable, but all the evidence they offer can be explained by the simpler assumption that farming technologies allowed men co-opt power over the course of human history.

• The authors claim that men are more xenophobic than women, because they are wired to wage war. But this is also predicted on the historical account, because men control governments and handle foreign relations. It follows too that men start all wars. 
• The authors contend that, compared to women, men prefer social dominance hierarchies, which testifies to their innately competitive nature. But this is easily explained on the social story: in male dominant societies, men gain from dominance hierarchies, and women lose.
• The authors note that men are more prone to cooperate when under threat than otherwise, which may suggest an instinct to form armies. But a simpler explanation is that, having obtained power, men are reluctant to cooperate except under pressure. 
• The authors cite a disturbing study in which men endorse war after being primed with a picture of an attractive woman, which suggests that male violence has a sexual motive. But the link between sex and violence may derive from the fact that sex is often coercive in male dominant societies. 
• The authors link the male warrior hypothesis to racism: white men, they say, show greater fear responses to pictures of black men, than do white women. But this is difficult to explain on any evolutionary hypothesis, since there would have been little ethnic diversity in our ancestral past. Racism is more readily linked to the social history of slavery, an industry run by men.
• The authors also remark that women become more racist at times of peak fertility, suggesting fear of impregnation by foreign invaders. A different explanation is that menstrual peaks also bring out strong emotions, which lets latent racism come to the fore.

The male warrior hypothesis makes many predictions that don't pan out. There is no evidence that men prefer foreign women--the Western ideal is Barbie--and women often like effeminate men: David Bowie would not be sexier with an enormous beard. On the male warrior hypothesis, women should fear foreigners as much as men do, because foreign men are hardwired to attack them, but women are actually more sympathetic to foreigners. This may stem from their firsthand knowledge of discrimination. Women are also more cooperative than men, which makes little sense if men are innate coalition builders.

There are dubious presuppositions as well. The warrior hypothesis assumes there was constant warfare in our evolutionary past, but some anthropologists argue that ancestral populations were too sparse for frequent contact. It also presupposes that warfare increases male fertility, when it may actually reduce fertility for all. Fertility is probably maximized when men are non-violent and share in childcare, but in many societies men beat their wives, neglect their children, and practice sex-selective infanticide against girls. The authors perpetuate the myth that evolution prefers men to be polygamous and females to be monogamous, but we see every variation in other species. In chimpanzees, both sexes seek multiple partners.

Social history explains such facts by proposing that men have taken power by their greater strength, leading to violent competition and the abuse of women. This approach correctly predicts cross-cultural variation in gender differences. As women gain economic power, they cease being treated as male property, age differences between romantic partners shrink, and violence against women diminishes. On the flipside, women who gain power, like Margaret Thatcher and Condalisa Rice, are often hawkish, suggesting that power, not gender, determines belligerence. Women in the judiciary dole out harsher penalties than men. And woman are committing more acts of domestic violence than previously recorded.

To reduce male violence, it is not sufficient to reform men, as the defenders of the male warrior hypothesis recommend. Nor will it suffice to empower women. This will reduce domestic violence, but not war, because women can be as aggressive as men. Warfare did not decline precipitously with women's suffrage, and during recent conflicts with Russia, 43 percent of Chechen suicide bombers have been women. Crucially, we must reduce the incentives for violence. In a recent book, Steven Pinker documents a radical reduction in violence with the rise of democracy and global trade, a comforting confirmation that social factors matter (for two reviews see here and here). I think Pinker's optimism may be overstated: global trade has done less to remedy the poverty that devastates lives of people outside the economic partnerships between wealthy nations; healthy trading relationships can lead one nation to overlook the human rights abuses in another; and there have also been dozens of attempts at genocide since the Second World War.  In fact, Pinker too eagerly accepts the myth of the ignoble savage: the idea that humans are violent by nature.  But his book does contain a crucial insight.  He shows that patterns of violence can be dramatically altered by historical forces.  Attitudes towards slavery, torture, and honor killing change over time, and this should make us realize that the biological contributions to violence may be greatly outweighed by the sociological.

Violence is a complex problem, which no simple biological approach can diagnose or remedy. Factors such as political instability, population density, and income inequality are associated with massive differences in violence across cultures, and these differences are observed while gender ratios remain constant. Of course, men still hold most of the power in the world, and it is no surprise, then, that they perpetrate most of the violence.  But that too is a historical fact, not a biological given.  If we focus on biology instead of economic and historical variables, we will miss out on opportunities for progress.

Jesse Prinz, Ph.D.

Jesse Prinz is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. His work focuses on the role of perception, emotion, and culture and their influence on human human thought and values. His most recent book is Beyond Human Nature with Penguin Press and on Kindle.  He is also the author of Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perception Basis and Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion, The Emotional Construction of Morals, and a forthcoming book, The Conscious Brain.

The Good Men Project - Is Society Neutering the Men in Our Nation?

"The Editors" posted this article the other day at The Good Men Project. They discuss the work of Jim Wysong, author of The Neutering of the American Male, and his belief that the "roles of men and women have become intermingled to the point that it is difficult to define the difference between sexes, confusion has continued to increase, resulting in bewilderment and frustration" (from the product description at Amazon.com).

Personally, I think there may be some truth to this, for traditional males, but for those men who have worked to integrate their gender polarities and have embodied a more fluid notion of gender roles, this is not very relevant.

That said, I see this struggle quite often in the men who seek coaching and/or counseling. Especially in counseling, traditional gender roles seem to be losing their relevance. For these men, this does result in confusion and frustration. But to me, the answer is not regression.

I see it as thesis (hyper-masculine men, i.e., traditional masculinity), antithesis (feminized men), and we are now moving toward synthesis (fluidity in gender roles without losing the biological gender identity).

Is Society Neutering the Men in Our Nation?

January 23, 2012 By the Editors

Increasing gender role reversals create stressed men.

In the popular NBC drama “Parenthood,” character Joel Graham represents a growing number of American men: the stay-at-home dad whose go-getter wife brings home the bacon.

On the show, Joel is usually content building furniture in the backyard and hosting play dates for his young daughter. But, every now and then, his lawyer wife Julia makes a unilateral decision that leaves him angry and doubting himself.

It’s a natural reaction, says Jim Wysong, author of The Neutering of the American Male, a look at the psychology of confused gender roles.

 “Most men are wired to be in charge; it’s part of their DNA,” Wysong says. “They come into the world with a tendency toward certain masculine characteristics, for instance, a preference for building blocks over building relationships.

“Over the past century, gender roles have blurred, leading to some women developing more masculine qualities by necessity – think World War II, when they had to take the men’s place in factories – and some men developing stronger feminine qualities, like sensitivity and compassion.

“The man’s feminine characteristics overdevelop so his psychological needs can be met by the masculine woman in his life, be it his mother or his wife.”

While everyone has both masculine and feminine qualities, problems occur when a person loses balance and is living opposite his or her core, Wysong says. The incongruence leads to stress, distress and dissatisfaction. And, increasingly, thanks to the economic tailspin, some very confused men and women.

In 2010, there were 154,000 “house dads,” a number that’s been climbing steadily since 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Experts say that what began as a small trend of choice, as wives outdistanced their husbands in earnings, has become one of economic necessity in many families. The construction industry, one dominated by men, has been one of the hardest hit in the economic downturn.

♦◊♦

How can these men tell if their emotional distress stems from psychological neutering? Wysong offers some telltale signs:

• If they have lots of friends who are girls, but no girlfriends. Feminine females will enjoy the company of a man they can talk to and feel comfortable with, but they won’t be physically attracted to him if he doesn’t possess a masculine presence. It’s a law of nature in the same way opposite poles of a magnet attract while like poles repel.
• If they’re more comfortable around women than men. Masculinity tends to be more confrontational – men will test one another, push each other. Femininity tends to avoid confrontation. Men who have developed a stronger feminine side are not comfortable with confrontation and feel threatened. They feel more supported by and less threatened by women.
• If they consistently look to others for approval. While a certain level of self-confidence is healthy and necessary for both men and women, masculinity tends to have a self-confidence that’s almost unwarranted. Masculinity remains self-confident even when they know they don’t have the answers. When that confidence is muted in men, they often doubt themselves and seek approval from others.

If you recognize yourself, Wysong says, don’t worry.

“A lot of times people worry there’s something wrong with them; they worry they’re weird,” he says. “You’re not. There are logical reasons behind it.”

With self-awareness, it’s possible to make changes to bring your male and female qualities into balance – even to choose from which to draw in different situations.

“Masculine and feminine qualities are equally important for both sexes,” Wysong says.  “Problems arise when a person gets stuck living their life incongruent from their gender core.”

About Jim Wysong: Jim Wysong is a businessman, contractor and real estate investor who spent more than 30 years observing and studying psychology and human behavior through workshops, seminars and textbooks. His efforts to better understand his own emotional discomfort led to theories that have universal applications in modern society.

Secret Lives of Men - "Possible Masculinity" Jon Davies Ph.D. & David Shen-Miller Ph.D.

Cool topic - great discussion in which they examine the identity and mental health issues college age men are dealing with and how we can help them develop a more mature idea of masculinity.

Secret Lives of Men: "Possible Masculinity" Jon Davies Ph.D. & David Shen-Miller Ph.D.

Join my guests Jon Davies Ph.D. & David Shen-Miller Ph.D. to discuss "Possible Masculinity" in which men aspire and set future goals for their identities and behaviors based on what men need to become healthy, responsible, and nurturing in their families and communities. Possible Masculinity is a key component of the Men’s Center Approach (MCA) developed at University of Oregon to help college men. Join us to discuss their new article on the topic in "Professional Psychology: Research and Practice."

Listen to internet radio with Secret Lives of Men on Blog Talk Radio

Tags: Secret Lives of Men, Possible Masculinity, Jon Davies, David Shen-Miller, Chris Blazina, men, masculinities, cultural evolution, psychology, young men, Men’s Center Approach, college age men

The New Man? Same as the Old Man, but More Nurturing

A couple of months back, the Atlantic magazine Hanna Rosin's inflammatory article, The End of Men, as a cover story. Two weeks ago, Newsweek's Men's Lib continued the "death of alpha male" meme with it's suggestion that male-dominated jobs - construction and manufacturing, for example - are gone and that men should embrace "girly jobs and dirty diapers."

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune's John Keilman riffed on this theme in his editorial, Meet the New Man - Don't panic: He's still got some Old Man in him:

I am the New Man. My turn-ons include nurturing, chamomile tea and doing more than my share of the housework. I have forsaken red meat for soy, power lifting for Pilates and world conquest for the simple joy of raising sensible, well-adjusted children.

You might think you've seen my like before, maybe in the form of Alan Alda, Phil Donahue or those guys who run around the woods naked, banging bongo drums. But they were outliers, mere heralds for the New Man to come. At long last I have arrived, and I'm about to corner the market on masculinity.

He had a little fun with the themes of the recent articles, but he does have a good editorial with a few good points. when he quotes Michael Kimmel the article gets good.

Michael Kimmel, a sociologist at State University of New York-Stony Brook and the author of Guyland, says that transformation is already well under way: Men, by necessity, are taking a larger role at home as their wives' work commitments increase — and they're finding out that it's not half-bad.

"The data are very clear," he said. "Men who have more egalitarian relationships are happier and healthier. The more men are involved in child care, the happier their kids are and the better they do in school."

The revolution is not yet complete. Gender expectations we've inherited from our parents and grandparents are still intact — "We don't live in an Etch A Sketch world where things change and we say, 'No problem,' " Kimmel said — and so we're in a transition period where strange, hybrid forms of manhood abound.

There are Peter Pan types who are full of aggression when they're hunting video game zombies, but who become as mild as mice when they have to hunt something in the real world, like a job. There are the gym dandies who pump their quads and lats to caveman proportions but wouldn't dream of using their muscle to hang drywall or haul roof shingles. And there are the hipsters who combine virile, Grizzly Adams-like beards with T-shirts bearing the logos of kiddie cereals.

This is the real point: we are in a time of flux and transition. Men are no longer happy with the old ways of being masculine, and the culture is phasing out those roles anyway - so we are adapting, slowing, feeling our way into the new options.

What many of us have found is that there is no longer one right way to be a man - we have options, maybe not the ones that Kimmel outlines, and maybe some of those are options as well. We get to choose - we get to find the expression of masculinity that feels best for us, and each of us may come up with different ways of doing that.

Keilman offers his own assessment of how the New Man will live his life:

So let the New Man tell you how this makeover will finally end.

The New Man doesn't fear commitment. He longs for it. He runs after it. He knows that without a spouse, his life will be incomplete. What's more, he'll never be able to afford that 60-inch 3-D television.

The New Man loves spending time with his children. It's good for them to have a male role model. And it's good for the New Man to have backup when he gets in a huge brawl with the other dads at a peewee football game.

The New Man keeps a tidy home. He washes dishes, sweeps floors and does laundry with nary a peep of complaint. So when he and his buddies destroy a hotel room in Vegas, the missis will have to write it off as an aberration.

The New Man, in other words, will never be completely free of the Old Man. He'll be a nurse who enjoys an evening at the demolition derby, a stay-at-home dad who totally rules at Halo. He wants full equality for women, and he wants a Three Stooges marathon.

OK, that is not how I am doing it (especially the Three Stooges part), but I applaud anyone who is blending the old parts of masculinity that still feel good with the new things an evolving culture demands of us. So he gave us his version, so let me give you my variation on the New Man:

• I rock the gym and the kitchen - I can deadlift 400 lbs or make a fluffy, tasty quiche.
• I like thick, bitter beers as black as night, and I enjoy helping my girlfriend decorate our new house
• I will be a personal trainer and a mental health therapist and an editor/writer.
• For me, emotional intimacy is necessary for good sex - my heart and balls are on the same page and want the same things.
• My path to spiritual growth is interpersonal and intrapersonal.
• I can hammer nails, sew buttons, change the oil in the car, or do laundry (and I know how to separate clothes into the correct loads).
• I love football, soccer, and racquetball, and I use moisturizer, cologne, and keep my hair trimmed.
• If you threaten someone I love or care about, I'll beat you to submission; and if you need a helping hand, I'll give you all that I have.
• I kick ass at anything I care about . . . and I do it with compassion and heart.

Those are just a few of the ways I am finding my way into the possibilities of being a man. How are manifesting the emergence of the New Man?

Tags: New Man, Nurturing, men, masculinities, cultural evolution, gender roles, media, evolving men, masculinity, traditional men, traditional masculinity, John Keilman, Meet the New Man, Men's Lib, The End of Manhood, Michael Kimmel, Gender expectations

More Responses to Newsweek's "Man Up!" Issue

The Atlantic Wire blog has collected a few of the more prominent responses to the recent issue of Newsweek with it's Man Up! cover story. I've already commented here a week or two ago when this was new. Just thought I'd share some other perspectives.

Does Masculinity Need To Be 'Reimagined'?

By Erik Hayden | September 21, 2010

Newsweek

In an Newsweek cover story that builds on Hanna Rosin's Atlantic article "The End of Men," Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil examine whether masculinity needs to be reimagined to cope with the demands of the 21st century. With a cover that loudly proclaims "Man Up!" and a subheading explaining that men need to embrace "girly jobs," the article has received a fair amount of buzz from critics who'd like to take the writers to task on their central thesis. Here's what the Newsweek writers are asserting and how pundits are reacting to the argument:

• We Need to Reimagine Masculinity write Newsweek's Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil. In tough economic times, many men have embraced the "old models and mores of manhood." But telling men to follow some "musty script" only perpetuates the problem, encouraging them to blame women or retreat "into the woods." Instead, men must adapt to new roles, some of them more traditionally feminine in nature, to find a place in a world that's "rapidly outgrowing Marlboro Manliness." As far as jobs go, men now feel "limited to a narrow range of acceptable roles—a range that hasn’t kept pace with the changing employment landscape." Just as men's roles changed during the early 1900s from "historic artisan" to self-made, restless, "competitive breadwinner," they are changing again. They conclude:

On the surface, the New Macho is a paradox, a path to masculinity paved with girly jobs and dirty diapers. Dig a little deeper, however, and it begins to make a lot of sense—not just for men but for everyone. If men embraced parental leave, women would be spared the stigma of the “mommy track”—and the professional penalties (like lower pay) that come along with it. If men were involved fathers, more kids might stay in school, steer clear of crime, and avoid poverty as adults. And if the country achieved gender parity in the workplace—an optimal balance of fully employed men and women—the gross domestic product would grow by as much as 9 percent, according to a recent study by the World Economic Forum.

• So...They Mean 'Men Need Feminism'? Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory dissects the cover story, and finds some points of agreement : "Their argument is essentially that we need to encourage men to take active caretaking roles at home and at work. This means putting more emphasis on the importance of fatherhood and recasting so-called nurturing professions so that they no longer seem the sole domain of women. Another way of saying all that? Men need feminism. They are talking, after all, about equal opportunity and expectations, and greater freedom from restrictive gender roles -- that's the fundamental aim of feminism, as I understand it."

• A 'Half-Baked' Idea concludes the dismissive New York Post: "Authors Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil fail anything that remotely passes as enlightening about the topic or even a clear conclusion on the state of American manhood. The End of Men isn't nigh, nor is macho dead. But its definition should be broadened."

• They Arbitrarily Re-Coded 'Masculinity' as Personhood figures TBD's Amanda Hess. "'The Newsweek authors conclude: 'After all, what’s more masculine: being a strong, silent, unemployed absentee father, or actually fulfilling your half of the bargain as a breadwinner and a dad?' OK, but isn't that what all people in American society are expected to do? You remember people! They're those humans who go about working jobs, fulfilling their family obligations, and otherwise acting like grown-ups, regardless of gender identity. If being an adult is the most masculine thing you can do, then I'm well on my way toward becoming a successful career and family man. I even took out the trash last week."

• 'I Challenge the Framing of the Issue' contends Rachel Sklar at Mediaite. The Newsweek cover idea that "men are in crisis, on the decline, and 'going off the rails'" is "wildly skewed" and fails to appreciate how, "gender parity might actually be better for all concerned." Sklar also noticed that, "there was, "no – absolutely no! – reference to or inclusion of gay men (and/or women) in this piece. Staggering, frankly, in this day and age."

Sources

• We Need to Reimagine Masculinity Andrew Romano, Tony Dokoupil, Newsweek
• New Macho Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon
• Half-Baked The Editors, The New York Post
• New Person Amanda Hess, TBD
• Man Up, Newsweek Rachel Sklar, Mediaite

Tags: men, masculinity, gender roles, cultural evolution, Newsweek, Man Up!, Does Masculinity Need To Be 'Reimagined'?, Erik Hayden, Andrew Romano, Tony Dokoupil, Atlantic Wire, stereotypes

Rise of the 4 Dimensional Man?

Bauer Media owns a few "men's magazines" (FHM, Q, Kerrang!, Zoo, Empire, Mojo and Car), none of which are very progressive or focused on psychology, spirituality, philosophy, or personal growth.

Mostly, they feature T&A, gadgets, cars, popular media, music, and T&A. Their market research suggests that men (14-35 age group demographic, by my guess) are changing - they call these new men 4 Dimensional Men.

They say the 4D man is "confident, individual and has varied interests and passions" - they also call it a "retrograde hyper masculinity," though I'm not quite sure what that means.

I'm not sure what to make of this. There might be a shift happening, but I would not have guessed it was happening with readers of these magazines.

I think younger men are less rigid in their definitions of masculinity because they were little kids when Boy George and Prince and George Michael were all over the television - they have been exposed to more diversity as they began to define themselves, so they are less traditional. Anyway, I HOPE that's what happening.

From Media Week:

Bauer identifies a new '4D' male readership

Bauer Media has recognised a new male demographic for its men's magazines which the publisher has labelled "4D" or 4 dimensional man.

The company unveiled a year’s worth of research in a presentation to agencies and clients last week which focused on the man of 2010, his motivations and needs.

Bauer believe it has identified an emerging generation of young men, said to live by a more "individual interpretation of masculinity than their predecessors".

The 4D man is not as tribal as his predecessors, the metrosexual and the lad, where you were either one or you weren’t, according to Liz Martin, research and insight director at Bauer.

She said that the research indicated the 4D man was increasingly interested in culture and is more health conscious.

She added: "The 4D attitude squeezes out lad attitudes – he is confident, individual and has varied interests and passions".

Bauer’s presentation acknowledged that the developing media has been integral to the 4D man’s evolution as the modern male consumer engages with multi digital platforms.

The study involved more than 1,500 men aged 15-40 to reflect the main age range of Bauer titles such as FHM, Q, Kerrang!, Zoo, Empire, Mojo and Car. 60 men in the same age bracket were chosen to document their lives via video for the study.

Geoff Campbell, managing director of men’s lifestyle division for Bauer, said: "The late 80s and early 90s spawned the lad culture, then in the noughties we had metrosexuality and it’s shifted again to retrograde hyper masculinity."

The research was compared to results of a similar study undertaken by Bauer in 2001.

Campbell said: "Despite ongoing challenges of the men’s magazine market, we engage with and have a dialogue with men more often and in more places than we did even at the height of the men’s magazine audience".

Phil McNamara, editor of Car magazine, said: "The multi-media era has hit us. What we can now do – aside from produce beautiful imagery and maintain high production values – is bring cars alive on the internet. The consumer can hear a Ferrari and see how it goes around a corner; it’s so much more engaging."

Campbell added that as well as "meeting the needs of 4D men" Bauer titles "are pivotal in helping the men who read them become more 4D."

He said: "They want to learn everything about something".

Paul Rees, editor of Q magazine, said: "The 4D man has come into being in the last couple of years. There used to be all this tribal way of consuming music. Men are terrified creatures – if they're in a record store with a mate they are not going to buy a Katy Perry single, even if they secretly quite like it. Now men can download Katy Perry and no one would know."

Paul Keenan, chief executive of Bauer Media, said the research would be used "to meet the evolving needs of readers and audiences, and the needs of advertisers who want to reach and interact with men."

As part of the study Bauer also conducted research with academics in the psychology, sociology and media fields to examine recurring themes thrown up by the research.

Tags: young men, culture, cultural evolution, gender, masculinity, Bauer Media, 4D, male readership, four dimensional man, magazines, FHM, Q, Kerrang!, Zoo, Empire, Mojo, Car