How Society Construct the Man
“All men are created equal” and that applies to women too.
We are in a transition into a post-modern era (and post-feminist world) where the value of gender equality and gender neutrality has been affecting our culture and our society. It may takes time to level the effect but its effect is being observed at the present.
For myself, I cannot fully understand what feminism is all about unless I understand what masculinity (the identity that society constructs me) is all about. Self is the one which emerges not just from the individual, but with how others see the person, and how the person responds to and develops his or her own responses to this. Part of myself was being constructed by how others see me and how I viewed and affected by society in which I belong.
As a child, on my early phases of socialization, it was beyond my knowledge to question and notice the inequality of gender, and I belong to masculine specie (the separation of sexes) that should display manliness behaviors and have to be opposite to behaviors displayed by girls or women. I should exhibit manly behavior as defined by my father, Tito’s, kuya’s and other male role model or idols around the community or actors in local TV and cinema.
During my elementary school days, you were taught that mothers are “Ilaw ng Tahanan” and fathers are “Haligi ng Tahanan” and Home economics was for girls while Practical Arts like wood working was for boys.
The Catholic church doesn’t tell you how to be a man but how to be Christian. And Jesus is not an image of masculinity but of holiness. Teachers also don’t teach us how to be a man, but teaches us the usage of language, how to read and write. Our parents teach us how our gender is different from our brothers or sisters by the clothes and its color that we wear, our toys, our school bags and other things that the society traditionally identify as male or female things and objects.
The difference in gender was being defined by our Patriarchal society and inequality in gender was only being defined when these differences in gender, that is being constructed by our society, acts as the main cause of inequality. Considering that masculine behavior is constructed to be authoritarian, superior, dominant, analytical, divisive etc and feminine behavior should be nurturing, passive, submissive, sex object, private and etc…
If Patriarchal culture has became the authority and only represents the superiority of class or one sex or gender, then only one class or gender will emerge. Henrik Jensen said that “Culture is made up of two legs: one leg is duty and one is rights.” If the duty of culture is to create all man equal, then that equality should be applied to women too, which is also their rights.
Masculinity defined: What is Manliness
The development of new man or “the enlightened man,” as others called it, of tomorrow is not specifically for men alone but for men and women together. If there’s nothing special about being a boy or a girl, because girls can do everything boys can do, then what is the characteristic of manliness that can’t be a characteristic of being a woman.
In the development of identity, boys learned from seeing role models around them—their grandfathers, their fathers, or their idols in the movie or TV. What if sons don’t spend much time with their fathers or with other men in their family who are role models and spend much time outside their family.
Is masculinity in our culture being defined more by Fernando Poe Jr., Robin Padilla, Derek Ramsey, Dingdong Dantes or Hollywood actors? Or other male figures in Computer games and sports heroes.
According to Dr. Harvey Mansfield, Professor, Philosopher and Writer, every human being has characteristics of being a Thumos (the need to depend yourself) and Eros (the need to improve yourself – love, yearning, opening) . Manliness is more of being a Thumos, and women can have that manliness (e.g. Margaret Thatcher) but more men than women have it.
Before the Romans, there was the Greeks and manliness was being defined by Homer and exaggeratedly by Achilles –that displayed a lot of being a Thumos. Roman culture was very manly—very imperialistic, dominating, and assertive. Then Christianity went back in the other direction, bringing with it a combination of anti-manliness and a denial of human pride. Manliness is very proud and very desirous of honor, whereas Christianity teaches humility. It has a lot of femininity in it. It’s full of women saints and, of course, the worship of Mary. But it also brought with it a transformation of manliness into something more Christian—the gentleman or the chivalrous knight who was devoted to a woman, who fought battles in order to please or at least impress a lady.
According to Dr. Harvey Mansfield, there are ordinary manliness and its opposite, philosophical manliness. Ordinary manliness is a little bit complacent, whereas philosophical manliness is challenging or being willing to question all of your precious, darling ideas—everything that’s precious to you, all of your possessions, wondering whether they are really valuable or not. It takes a certain courage to stand up to your own previous opinions or positions and perhaps also the public opinion of society at the time.
“Ordinary manliness is being satisfied with yourself and knowing yourself to be superior, or at least satisfactory, as you are. You’re not apologizing; you’re not yearning for something better - you are what you are. A manly man is very judgmental. He looks down on those who don’t have this obviously good characteristic.”
Manliness, for males, can be seen and express in sports and the attention we give to sports. Men love extreme sports — taking crazy risks, the desire for adventure, competition and other physical activity. Dr. Mansfield said that “Those are not necessarily responsible forms of manliness, but they are expressions of it when nothing else is expected, when it isn’t expected of you”.
Manliness, for those who practice Buddhism, is having the characteristic to control strength—strength that isn’t used for acts of violence but for acts of nobility. Manliness has strength to convinced men or women that they are not weak or by making them strong.
Manliness, for Christians, is valuing other people more beside yourself. "When you value other people more than you value even yourself, you move toward meekness, because now all your strength serves the good of others".
From the traditionalist, masculine—which Henrik calls the “father”—is not simply about men as individuals but is an essential aspect of culture. He sees it as the vertical dimension, which includes everything that human beings have looked up to, from God on high to ideals and excellence as well as the father’s traditional moral authority.
In the field of politics and fight for equality and freedom, manliness is defined and exemplified by such people like Jose Rizal, Benigno Aquino Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela where they gave voice and strength to the powerless. They serve an inspiration, they gave hope and fight for freedom and never surrender in getting it. They have the quality to defeat a foe not by their aggression or physical strength but their courage to fight what is right and having the humility that they are not that superior or powerful as being displayed by other man. If Dr. Harvey Mansfield defines manliness as confidence in the face of risk then the men above were not only confidence during their struggle but defined it through their action.
(Maybe, women can define best what manliness is.)
Deconstructing the Man: Men Becoming Like Women
Before, our society is being stratified by sex or gender, now gender matters as little as possible. Gender doesn’t mean anything for employment, politics, or sharing work and family. Gender has nothing to do with who cooks or takes care of children. Men and women are equally able to do these things.
With the emergence of feminist ideas and a call for gender equality, traditional men and women roles are switching and both roles are being played by both sexes. Women can be the family’s financial provider and the men are playing the traditional role of women as housewives.
There is one town in Batangas, known locally as “Italy” because of houses in that area are architecturally designed like residential house in Italy. The Italian model house was a product by working abroad (OFW) by a women or mothers while their husbands take care of their family and their home - a switching of traditional role.
It also breaks the rule that men should be in public and women in private. The limited space for women before has become a space where women can express their freedom and identity – of not just being a wife in a man’s world.
When you’re in the mall, you can see male pushing baby’s carriage, holding bottled milk, changing diapers, or carrying their baby, just what mother’s traditional and society’s image of nurturing.
Being a Nurse is not only for woman’s job. Nursing is one college course with the highest enrollment and it was being shared equally by male students. In Business outsourcing employment, Call Center Agents (somehow likened to a job of telephone operator, a job for women) was also being populated by males. Information technology breaks gender barriers.
In politics, male legislators can debate publicly with women, contrasting that arguments with woman should be kept in a domestic place that is private. Before, arguing with women in public place can be considered unmanly when viewed from a masculine point of view.
In early childhood education in Sweden, little boys are given dolls to play with and girls are given toy tractors. It’s all part of the Anti-Sexism Awareness Training that begins in kindergarten. In the United states, the same educational experiment on gender deconstruction ends up on using of dolls as machine guns by boys and cradling the tractors in a blanket by girls.
Man’s changing roles and image and doing what is not traditionally questions what its like to be a man in postmodern culture.
Media and Metrosexual Man: Transition into a Neutral Gender Society
In our media, there’s a television show titled, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” that reconstruct a man that can impress and win the heart of a woman. The man is being groomed by five gays on his new personality – new looks, how to dress, how to prepare sumptuous meal and a makeover of his abode. The make over is more of a feminine touch transforming a man into somehow like a - Metrosexual man.
Metrosexual man as being defined in Wikipedia, is the single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that’s where all the best shops are), is perhaps the most promising consumer market of the decade. In the Eighties he was only to be found inside fashion magazines such as GQ, in television advertisements for Levis jeans or in gay bars. In the Nineties, he’s everywhere and he’s going shopping.
Culture Creates Pictures of Who We Are Supposed to Be
Culture creates pictures of who we’re supposed to be, and sometimes there are strange sub-messages. Strange in a way that what is used be not ordinary before becomes ordinarily and culturally being accepted now by our society. How is it to be a masculine in a creeping gender less society? If signs that women are getting their equality and voices be heard, the image of traditional men should be represented and repackage in a transition as a new man.
David Beckham, the football star player, is the one who exemplified a new man compared to traditional manliness being defined by Achilles, the Samurai’s, the cowboys, the knights and "Rambo". David Beckham, being called the metrosexual poster boy, was always on the cover of the magazines for men and women, wearing a designer’s clothes, with make-up, groomed hair and these are all being cooperatively done with a feminist touch by men with queer eyes. Male models are being depicted in print and advertising media in the same way and these images, signs and symbols are being perceived by our society and it is becoming our culture. Add to that the Filipinos habit and culture of “malling” , one example of socialization that construct everyday reality.
In one our local reality TV show, there’s a male participant that wears head band on his hair, and this influenced youths fashion, especially on males, straight or not, wearing hair bands that is especially wear by girls.
Tights or leggings that come originally and wear by ballerina, and popularly fashioned by women is also now being wear by males - that is in mountaineering. And it looks good on picture on your “Facebook.” Wearing tights has become a fashion statement for “mountaineers,” I wear one in black color. It is more comfortable wearing tights (underneath a short) in trekking mountains, it is easily dried, it protects your lower skin from insect bites and heat and scratches from the wild plants. Functionality of things knows no gender.
Color also breaks the gender differences. You can see males wearing pink shirts or pastel colors that are ordinarily matched and worn by females. I’ve seen a pink car being driven by a male. I’ve seen nails of a man being polished by lavender. There’s also a Politician that always wear a floral design shirt and it’s a good “gimmick” for packaging his image and name recall for political purposes. From these, we can’t judge that these men are not straight on their masculinity.
Man’s culture on fashion and how they dress is changing. Taste is being dictated by advertisement coming from both genders. Vanity also, is not only for women. My nephew, in his teens, applies some face powder on his face to prevent an oily skin from showing.Males have products like cream to wash their faces, hair spray and wear long hair in dread locks. We are on a transition into a gender-neutral society.
“We don’t know what the future of masculinity looks like, some sociologist and scholars think that we’re entering an era of real fragmentation where guys are going to be the ones who are struggling with a sense of personal identity and where there will be a sense of ambivalence about what it means to be masculine”.
In real world, the rule of equality is still outbalanced by superiority, dominance and aggression- the characteristics of being manly and of being a Patriarchal society. And we can say that there’s a lot of catching up before we can finally blur the line between opposite genders.
Man (Male and Female) in a Gender Less Society
Can men or boys be confused in a gender less society as women are confused between home and work when they entered the public sphere of the “man’s world.”
Social science writer Elizabeth Debold states that, women in order to succeed at work, have to be single-minded. They have to be able to shut off distractions and concentrate on their job. In order to be successful at home, on the other hand, and especially as a mother, they have to be open to interruption all the time from their children, who think they’re entitled to one hundred percent of their time just by being born. It’s much more spread out and distracted. They really have to like being distracted in order to be successful.
That’s one thing that we cannot separate with women, their nurturing and motherly qualities. Men should spend more time with their family or son’s or daughter in order to understand or how to feel, how to care and nurture – men should balance their time on being public and private individuals.
For me as a male, being manly is not to take charge or to dominate but always to be responsible; to be responsible in your actions, with your family, and society. Responsibility is not for male alone but for each individual.
If men can be confused whether they’re meant to be manly and take charge and be responsible—and even to continue with the usual small courtesies that a gentleman is supposed to offer women, I think men should always be gentleman at women and women should be ladies to men. Playing it equal is not taking charge or to dominate but to take and hear the other sides point of view. Playing it equal doesn’t mean that I will not open the door for ladies or not offer my manly strength for them when needed, it is courtesy and respect for the opposite sex or any individual. It will always be in man’s nature to impress a girl by his “masculinity”, a word that will always identify males.
The gender-neutral society has to let the two genders be themselves to some extent. There needs to be respect for both gender or sex, even with all of his/her faults. We cannot separate man of having his own manly version or a mixture of both feminine and masculine inclination, and of female having manliness and feminist behavior - it is in our nature to both express in masculine and feminist behavior because it is biologically and psychologically within each individual.
We must retain our respect for identity and diversity and not to discriminate or not to separate by each differences. Society can be everything, as it is being shaped by individuals composing it. Like an ecosystem that is being composed of different species, where gender matters less, society can maintain and preserve its diversity in a harmonious way.
“When men transcend not only personal egoic structures but a lot of rigid modern and postmodern ways of thinking, what emerges is a kind of noncompetitive care and communion that expresses the best part of our humanity”
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Jebel
Sources:
Wikipedia
Resources from the MMS 111 module
Answers.com
Enlighten Next Magazine :Constructing the New Man
Whatever Happened to the Vikings, Elizabeth Debold
Beyond the Rambo Mentality, Carter Phipps and Tom Huston
In Defense of Manliness, Interview with Dr. Harvey Mansfield by Ross
Robertson
Constructing the New Man, Carter Phipps
What it Means to be a Man, Andrew Cohen & Ken Wilber in dialogue
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover – archetypes of the mature Masculine
By Eivind Figenschau Skjellum
