A CANADIAN “professor of masculinity” proposes the abolition of masculinity. Would you expect otherwise? Marc LaFrance tells The Montreal Gazette:

“The irony is the dominant norms of masculinity, what the academics call hegemonic masculinity – the breadwinner, the guy who never gets scared, the guy who is extremely successful – really make for an unlivable life for men.

“These structures distance men from themselves,” he says. “You can’t be a person who can feel, you can’t be weak, you’re not allowed to be sad, to fail.

John Purdy, who sent the story, writes:

I wrote this letter to the editor in response: 

This article is utter claptrap. A perfect reminder of why I pay so little attention to research in the social sciences. As usual, our insipid ‘researchers’ base their investigative approach on a massive undergirding of assumptions, left-wing feminist assumptions, that are wholly unexamined and, indeed, treated axiomatically. Not even the slightest attempt was made to examine machismo for its positive and productive effects. No attempt at all to prove the assertion that machismo is somehow harmful to men.

Rarely indeed have I heard such lame advice for young men as issued from the lips of Professor Lafrance..

“The irony is the dominant norms of masculinity, what the academics call hegemonic masculinity – the breadwinner, the guy who never gets scared, the guy who is extremely successful – really make for an unlivable life for men.”

On the contrary, dear professor, striving for such goals is precisely what makes life livable for men.

To understand the heart of men it is necessary to start with Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Here we see described the true machismo, a man in full, obviously and incontrovertibly superior to the pathetic wretches and koala bears our academic elites offer us as examples of modern “manhood.”

                                                                       — Comments —

Texanne writes:

The comment by Prof. Lafrance’s colleague at the end of the article says it all. The academy is teaching and studying sex to death! 

(Interesting how Prof. Lafrance’s face bears a resemblance to that of brave gender pioneer Chaz Bono. Maybe it’s just the popular beard-under-chin style that made me think of it.)

Kimberly writes:

Whenever I hear the term “life experiences,” perversion is instantly what pops into my mind. I think Chaz Bono is a completely accurate celebrity comparison. What Lafrance is talking about is opening up to gay experiences. What else could he possibly mean by that? He’s even literal, “open them up.” Creeps me out. And the dishonesty of the whole point is embedded in this quote. He doesn’t say “realize,” he says “get men to feel.” What a forked tounge!

Bruno writes:

I believe he may be right. It is not that the standard per se is wrong – surely, a John Wayne type will always have its appeal. It is an heroic archetype. What is wrong is to expect that all men should be
able to behave just like that standard. That simply cannot be done. A normal, decent man cannot be justly expected to behave like a superman, and, if society started to expect men to do so at large, it would generate a lot of frustration and stress on men in general, and nothing good would come out of it. Personally, I think that this Victorian ideal of man is harmful and immoral. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, with all this talk, the image I picture in my mind is that of a tall, square-jawed man, built like a brick wall, wearing a fine suit and a hat, worried only and solely with the most practical business affairs, and whose great sense of justice is negatively compensated by his lack of compassion and emotional responses in any matter not connected with his family. That is pretty much all he is. I wouldn’t want such a man as a friend, nor as a father, much less as a model. And I’d rather live in a society of wimps than in a society of Randianesque caricatures.

Laura writes:

Why is it anymore rigid or unfair to hold up the ideals of courage and strength than it is to hold up the ideals of sensitivity and empathy? Some find the latter much more difficult than the former. Whatever ideals you subscribe to are going to impose unjust expectations on some people. The standard that a man is somehow lacking if he does not have the intuitive empathy of a woman or does not like to talk about his feelings has ruined more marriages than the former ideal of strength and stoicism ever did.

To return to Mr. Purdy’s point about Aristotle, virtue is the golden mean. All spheres of human activity are prone to excess or deficiency. Virtue lies somewhere between the two, and the same is true of manliness. Ethics isn’t a science and most people have always realized that.

I disagree that Victorian men were held to a rigid, unbending standard or that manliness was only equated with high levels of financial success, as Lafrance says.  If one reads the correspondence between husbands and wives of that period, men were much more forthcoming with their affections and expressive of their feelings than they are now. Nevertheless, these expectations of strength weren’t simply imposed on men for no reason. They corresponded to duties. Children and women need the protection of men.

Lafrance’s words clearly suggest that the ordinary breadwinner, not some heroic superman, represents a dangerous ideal. If that is so, most men in history were very oppressed and unhappy.

Laura writes:

I suppose Lafrance would consider Marcus Aurelius to be an example of “hegemonic masculinity.” He was an emperor and warrior. How macho can you get? And yet he was capable of more refined feeling than the modern wimp.

Mary writes:

For those who don’t have the stomach to read the whole article, it ends with this statement, which says it all and is presented as positive: “Now we have the postmodern model in which gender is completely irrelevant.” 

What women’s studies did, and continue to do, for women, mens’ studies will do for men: they will put the nail in the coffin of traditional masculinity. Isn’t it sort of begging the question, when an area of study is newly created after the subject of said study has already undergone the changes that the study was created to confirm? (Does that make sense?) Our fathers, brothers and sons already live in a feminized world in which the deck is stacked against them. This line of study will simply confirm and then further changes that have already been set in motion. So I disagree that these classes are not altogether worthless: they are indeed very harmful. 

I know no truly masculine man who is in the least interested in why he is masculine. I also can’t think of any traditionally masculine men who are deeply disturbed and unhappy with their lot in life. The men who are discontent and who question their very being are the ones who have been emasculated by the prevailing culture. 

I could go on but I won’t. Except for this last fun bit – did anyone else notice? “…and even at Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Lafrance says, “I don’t find any resistance to thinking critically about men and masculinity.” And why would he????

 Laura writes:

“I know no truly masculine man who is in the least interested in why he is masculine.”

That is a great statement.

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