Al Kresta's 2nd Talk on Manhood

Manhood 2 Outline

Here is an outline of April 1, 2014’s thoughts on manhood. When we get together for our third meeting on April 8, we will finally focus on manhood IN CHRIST. This outline for April 1, however, describes manhood as we learned about from brain physiology and the neurosciences, cultural anthropology around the world and from our own lived experience in American society.

1. There does seem to be a “War on Men”

1. Hollywood and the prestige media-

• Fathers in sitcoms. Any good dads who are more than merely loveable dolts? Since 1970 only Brady Bunch and Cosby Show come to mind. Where are the strong, responsible, intelligent, generous models?
• You come in “fourth”, we don’t need to “fiddle” with men anymore, “why don’t they just go away?”, “Why keep them around? For ornament!”, “men are in retreat in this woman’s world.”, “There is nothing objectively essential about his contribution.”

2. Consider book titles like The War on Men, The End of Men and the Rise of Women, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Turns Men Into Boys, Are Men Necessary? What is a Man?
3. The Kinsey/Hefner/Pill sexual revolution and, later, ideological feminism’s call for “liberation” from home and traditional female sexual restraint satisfied libertine men but left men confused about their role vis a vis women. Women now had “a lot more important things on their horizon” (Hanna Rosin, “Sexual Freedom and women’s Success”, Wall Street Journal 3/23/12).
4. But neither women nor men are happy. “As women have gained more freedom, more education, and more power, they have become less happy” (Nancy Gibbs, “What Women Want Now”, Time, 10/14/09). Men, 18-34, claiming a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life has dropped from 35% to 29% in ten years. Women, on the other hand, rose from 28% to 37%.

2. Are you a man? (Lady MacBeth to her husband, Macbeth). What is masculinity? Are men everywhere alike in their concern for being “manly”? If so, why?

1. Neuroscience & Comparative Brain Studies

1. Gender neutrality is a myth. For thirty years from the 1960s until the 1990s, academics like Dr. John Money, Johns Hopkins University, claimed that a boy could be raised as a girl if the nurturing was strong enough. Nurture trumped nature. He was tragically wrong. See the film Dr. Money and the Boy With No Penis or read See Weekly Standard review of As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto, 2008.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/011/136eioki.asp
2. Parents raise girls and boys differently because girls and boys are so different from birth. There are significant brain differences from birth and through maturation.

1. At 18 months, children still cannot reliably assign themselves a to the correct gender. Lisa Serbin, Concordia University, in a study of 77 toddlers, girls and boys, found that children’s toy preferences are firmly in place by this age. Boys go for trucks; girls for dolls.
2. Boys and girls see the world differently. Girls make more elaborate and precise color sensitive distinctions. They also navigate using landmarks that can be seen, heard or smelled. Boys rely on absolute directions (north, south, etc) or absolute distances (2 miles, 3 city blocks).
3. Boys and girls process and describe emotions differently
4. Boys are more risk-taking; girls more risk averse.  Boys tend to overestimate what they can achieve. Almost all drowning victims are male.
5. Boys and girls assign different meanings to aggression.  Consider boys trashing each other in a locker room or fighting as a prelude to friendship. Robin Hood & Little John, King Arthur and Lancelot. Compare Anne Shirley’s response to Gilbert calling her “Carrots” and pulling her pigtails.

Girls and boys play differently. They fight differently. They learn differently. They see the world differently. They handle negative emotions differently.

2. Crosscultural studies on masculinity. Real manhood is different from simple anatomical maleness. It is not a natural condition that comes about spontaneously through biological maturation but is a precarious or artificial state that boys must win against powerful odds. This is true among peasants and urbanized peoples, hunters and fishermen, on all continents and environments. It is found among warrior  peoples and those who have never killed in anger.

1. See David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990, pp. 12ff.
2. Williams and Best, Measuring Sex Stereotypes: A Thirty-Nation Study, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982 conclude that there is “substantial similarity” to be found “panculturally in the traits ascribed to men and women.”
3. When we look over the globe, three elements defining manhood are ubiquitous. These put men at risk on the battlefield, in the hunt and in confrontation and competition with their fellows.

1. Man is an impregnator of women.
2. Man is a protector of women and children.
3. Man is a provider for kith and kin.

4. For a male to become a man impregnator-protector-provider takes training. Older men turn boys into men whether among the Masai or in 19th century England.  Consider the chartered purpose of the Boys Scouts. Scouting’s purpose is to “make big men of little boys” by fostering “an independent manhood” as though this cannot be expected from nature alone.
5. Even in late 19th and early 20th century Anglo-American Christianity there was a call for a “muscular Christianity”. This was one reason Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire, 1981. Must see movie) competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.  In America, advertising executive Bruce Barton publishes The Man Nobody Knows which presents a strong, muscular Jesus who worked with his hands, slept outdoors, and travelled on foot. Jesus was “the world’s greatest business executive..The Founder of Modern Business” who created a world conquering corporation with a group of twelve hand-picked protégés from the bottom ranks of the business world.  

Was Jesus really a glorified Rotarian? Next week we focus on Manhood in Christ.

In response to the question what does our American society prize as masculine traits?, you listed conqueror, protector, strong and sensitive, lots of sexual partners, offering wisdom, successful, achieving, high status, confident, man of his word, integrity, responsibility, gentleman, lots of money, dignity, aggressive, physically strong, competitive, driving a Ford F-150, leadership. John Kopinski offered None of the Above and what followed was an acknowledgement of a pocket of society that sees the New Man as a hipster, going with the flow, artsy, beatnicky.  When asked who is the No Man answers were coward, wimp, double-crosser.