JawsBlog

Just got word about the next Brandeis Alumni club of LI event in my in-box

Real Men and Real Social Change: What Is It To Be “Man Enough” Anyway?

Gordon Fellman
Professor of Sociology and Chair, Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Program

The women’s movement, these past thirty-five years or so, has revealed much about patriarchy, the social construction of gender, and masculinity itself. It has played a part in what we can now see as seriously divergent models of what it is to be a man. Is it swagger, absolute certainty, rugged individualism, cruelty explained away as necessity, toughness, hardness, and justification for dominating other people? Is it compassion, gentleness, forgiveness, the ability to connect with other people in supportive ways, empathy, cooperating, and understanding? Some mixture of these? Two generations ago, was John Wayne a “real man”? Humphrey Bogart? More recently, is Arnold Schwarzenegger a “real man”? George Bush? Nelson Mandela? The Dalai Lama? What does all this have to do with U.S. foreign and domestic policy and the rise of the religious right?

Um, I think I’m really going to pass on this event. Besides the many spats I had with the speaker when I was a student as an undergrad, just look at hte topic of discussion.

I predict that according to the speaker, the Governator and the President aren’t “real men”….plus I’d predict a diatribe against the religious right.