Sunday
Jul242011
Quotable: Being a 'traditional' man can be dangerous
Sunday, July 24, 2011 
The featured topic in the July/August 2011 issue of New Internationalist is "The changing face of masculinity." In the first article, "Cooking up a Storm", author Nikki Van Der Gaag shares some interesting statistics:Being a 'traditional' man is risky business. A national survey of adolescent males 15 to 19 in the US found that those with more traditional views of manhood were more likely to report substance abuse, violence and delinquency, and unsafe sexual practices. Results from a multi-country study involving 11,000 interviews with women and men found that men who hold more rigid views about what it means to be men are more likely to be depressed, and overall less satisfied with their lives and their relationships. And in Britain, where suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 35, Jane Powell, Chief Executive of CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) says: 'The kernel of the problem around suicide is that men are not supposed to ask for help. For a guy to say "I can't function" is to say "I'm not a man." '
I find this quote and the rest of the article interesting from a couple of perspectives.
First, when women are looking for a future spouse, they are often looking for (or are portrayed to and told to desire) men who are more traditional, meaning that they are strong, good earners, and able to "take care" of the woman. This makes me wonder. Do women who look for men who are masculine in the traditional sense also enter into relationships with an expectation that they will both take on more traditional roles? Or do women who expect equality in a relationship nonetheless seek out men who exude stereotypical masculinity? If it is the latter, is that why there is often so much conflict in relationships when women suddenly end up taking on more of the burden for household duties and child rearing?
Second, as I've discussed previously in my post on feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood, achieving equality for women requires a change in men. It isn't just about giving women the opportunity to do anything that men can do if that means that they are still saddled with everything that women are expected to do. Men need to be willing to take on roles traditionally assumed to be the woman's domain. In a heterosexual relationship and in a society populated with men and women, there needs to be give and take, not just take.
Reader Comments (11)
Hear, hear!
Excellent post!
What SL said. as usual. I so often find myself looking inward and outward at the same time after reading your posts. This one is doing that. Its short and simple, but so thought provoking and heavy. I shouldn't read these so late at night. :P
I married a non-traditional man, I guess. He is a 50/50 partner in housework, childrearing, gardening, etc. I am the primary decision-maker in some areas and he is the primary in other areas, but we both put alot of work into our family and our home and we both expect equal participation from the other.
If that sort of man is non-traditional, then I think it's a good thing that the definition of masculinity is changing.
Food for thought...
I think it could be either of those situations depending on the woman and her own upbringing. If she was brought up to believe she should embrace a traditional role vs. if she was brought up with feminist ideals.
I happy to see this subject explored in a thoughtful way instead of the common, "Oh noes! Where are all the real men?" way I often see in the media. The patriarchy hurts men too.
Right on, Annie! Getting everybody into the workplace is only half a revolution. It's about time to support everybody who wishes to take on the hard work of caregiving, paid or unpaid (though the more men take on at-home parenthood, the more likely it will be remunerated, via government intervention).
And if the violence in Norway teaches us anything, it's that men remain convinced that violence can solve problems. This not only hurts individual men, who as you note have a higher suicide rate, but it hurts everyone in their path.
I've spent my whole life having a knee-jerk reaction to stereotypical masculinity, probably because I associate it with the attitude that limits me as a woman (after all, if one embraces the stereotype of masculinity, one probably embraces the stereotype of femininity, too). I have to restrain myself from the urge to tear down "macho" men, to dominate them, just because I want to prove they can't dominate me. So the kind of man I find extremely attractive is that guy that everybody thought was gay back in high school. And the crazy thing is, that guy has always for me turned out to have the best qualities that we associate with "traditional" masculinity: dependability, emotional steadiness (not lack of emotion, just not the tendency to FREAK OUT--some might call this bravery?), strong work ethic, and an ethical core that prevents him from doing pretty much anything but the "right" thing in all situations. I will never, ever forget my partner climbing into bed and holding me tight through the end of my son's birth, telling me to let him take on the pain, to relax my body, that we were almost there. THAT is a man. And that same man does a mean load of laundry, mops the floors, and stays home with my son every day. LOVE IT, LOVE HIM. Don't want all that other crap.
Melissa- you basically said what I was about to say.
My entire life I have despised "macho" men. The hot dumb jocks that all the other girls fawned over in high school disgusted me- I liked the sensitive ones, the ones that stuck up for other kids or blushed when they were complimented. And I am one of the only women I know, as an adult, didn't once date a jerk. I look back at my ex boyfriends and, while a few of them did one jerky thing that led to the break up, none of them were macho or "tough" or any of the things associated with traditional manhood. And now I'm married to a man who, as hard as he tries, is not all that macho (don't tell him I said that!) and who possesses all the qualities Melissa listed above- emotional stability, strong work ethic, dependability. He works and I stay at home, but that isn't a male/female thing it's a he makes more money and I still haven't gotten my #(%* together enough to get a career thing. But we divide tasks at home equally (taking into account the fact that he works and I don't, so I do more, he does some) and child rear as equally as we can. I make most of the decisions and do most of the management tasks. We decide major things together and neither of us is necessarily dominant over the other (although on any subject that we disagree on I usually win simply because I argue better than he does... take for example the decision whether or not to circumcise our son. When I could see that the argument was going nowhere and he was giving me nothing more than "he'll look different than me/everyone/blah" I countered with "fine, you take him to the doctor to get it done then." That ended it).
I like to think there is a swing going on right now... it's more acceptable now to be an nontraditional male. But that's based only on people I know, and I realize my population sample is a bit skewed:)
The unspoken assumption in many of the comments is that higher levels of aggression is a common cause to traditional views on masculinity, and the increased risks indicated by the article. I'd expect relatively high levels of aggression to be associated with increased risk in women as well as in men.
There's a good argument to be made that relatively higher levels of aggression is innate in men (please understand I don't believe that biological sex is a binary property, and I certainly don't believe this holds true for all men). And, so, a normative conception of masculinity that does not recognize this and does not foster the control of aggression may be a mistake.
One aspect of traditional conceptions of masculinity (i.e. the ideal of the gentleman) was control over aggression. While we should disregard many (most?) facets of this traditional conception, particularly the chauvinist stereotype of women as weak and emotional, it may be a mistake to dispose of it entirely. One risk of doing so is that men with high levels of aggression are given no tools with which to control it. And that may polarize the prospects of men who have relatively low levels of aggression from those who have comparatively higher levels.
I'm not defending the traditional conception of masculinity. For example, I believe a key feature in an overhaul of masculinity is destigmatizing pscyhotherapy, and giving men help reflectively dealing with aggression, as opposed to burying it and hoping it doesn't explode.
And how many of you women married to your beta males actually respect them?
To Family Man, couldn't have worded it better myself.