Class Notes: Manhood Puzzle

I decided that for the last five weeks of my current class, I was going to post notes from one or two articles/ readings a week. Why? I can hear the questions... well mostly because my note taking is like diving into a pile of narratives, with a guide. Don't believe me? See for yourselves, also maybe learn something new or enjoyable on the way....

The Manhood Puzzle (NOTES by Lesley) by David D. Gilmore 

• boys tested or indoctrinated before being awarded their manhood 



• Swing Kids: HJ indoctrinated. 




• All societies have male vs. female labels, few have a third - androgynous label but even the third have to make a life choice 




• House Episode: Born with both sexes, parents made choice 



• Most societies have an ideal for each sex, a psychic anchor used for individual perception and self esteem



• Think Super Models, and sports figures  



• Marlboro Man 



• There is a social science attitude that there are standard almost universal ideas and concepts ascribed to Men & Women 
• Gilmore is concerned with the Manhood universal



• That boys must attain a manhood, against odds because manhood is not a biological state that is grown into but an object that must be attained. 
• This concept is found everywhere, in all types of societies



• Interestingly women do not fight the same standard, their biological state as women is not tested. 


• On that note: Women who are deviant, usually called "unladylike" but their very gender role is not questioned. 


• Notice that when men were called out for their gender role - called equivalent of being female/ women like.



• Does point out that Women seek "femininity" to achieve social standing, but rarely involves a test or proofs with action 


• Not entire sure that I concur with this idea, it might be considered that women have a different type of test that is socially understood in a different manner. 



• Coming of Age for a female might be constructed in having to accept a husband, or learning how to do certain things. Might not it be considered that women are also pushed to grow into their gender role much earlier. 

• TESTS of MANHOOD a SURVEY 




• Turk Island, South Pacific 


• Avid fisherman, casting and diving in deep waters  
• Men encourage to take risks with their life, limbs 
• Think "manly" thoughts 



• Go on dangerous hunts in tiny boats, with shark infested waters. If don't go mocked for effeminate nature 
• On island weekends, boys go out to get into fights, drink and find sexual conquests. 



• Love in the Time of Cholera (Thinking of main character young Ariza, or even Becoming Jane (though focus on James Avery character, not Jane) 



• East Africa, tribes: Masai, Rendille, Jie and Samburu 


• Boys taken from mothers at birth 
• Circumcision at brink of adolescence, cannot cry out or even flinch during public ceremony


• if they do flinch, they are shamed - as is their entire lineage  
• after the process, if successful, taken out to the woods and taught the ways of manhood 
• Only after, are they considered men and allowed to take a wife. 



• Ethiopia: Amhara 


• wandant (passionate term for manhood) includes aggressiveness, stamina, courageous face in danger, never backing down to a threat. 
• young men forced into whipping contests, to prove their wand-ant 
• also to prove virility scar arms with hot embers.  
• aside from these proofs, a young man must on his wedding night wave a bloodied sheet of martial consummation to kinsmen 
• performances on battlefield and wedding bed, both must be proved. 



• Oddly what comes to mind is For Water, For Chocolate, which is a novel about a woman... but the same ideas come to mind. 



• New Guinea Highlands 



• boys torn from their mothers to forego brutal masculine rituals 



• include whipping, flailing, and terrorizing from older men 
• insist that men are made, not born 
• Parallels 



• These cultures once warrior types, rites of passage preparing for a idealized warrior lifestyle




• but not confined to militaristic societies only. 



• Bushman of Southwest Africa


• peaceful people, not violent 
• boys must track and kill full size antelope, before considered men and permitted to marry 
• Pueblo Indians: New Mexico 


• peaceful as well  
• between 12-15, taken to be purified and beaten by spirits (father's in disguise) 
• Must be made a man 


• note that women might have rites but not to make them a woman, that's a natural state that develops
• Not just primitive cultures - modern urban cultures too 



• machos of latin American cultures 
• manhood is  not mere maleness, it must be proved throughout cultures 



• England 



• boys taken at a young age to boarding schools, where the social grounds provided for a trail of becoming a man through being terrorized by older boys. 



• U.S. 



• boy scouts - making big men out of little boys



• Even Christ used to promote manhood  (at turn of century) 


• athletic, aggressive when necessary
• boys, faith, and gods had to be made masculine or there was doubt.  
• Bildungsroman - a strain of US literature, the ascension to the exalted status of manhood under guidance from elders (failure always a far off option).  


• See Hemingway, Norman Mailer



• Heroic image of achieved manhood being questioned in America, or is it?


• Images of Rambo, Hollywood westerners, gangs, etc. 
• Think about the selling of products to younger boys - 


• J.K Rowling, published her books under J.K. and not Joann because her publisher feared that boys would not read a story about a boy written by a woman 
• The recent trailer for Disney movie Tangled (originally Rapunzel) had its name changed, and the focus of the trailer is on the adventuring Finn (male main character) and not on the princess.... 

• Manhood and Gender Role 


• Frued - anatomy was destiny 
• Jung - developed universal features of "animus" and "anima" core of sexual identity 
• dualism in western philosophy and literature 



• men seek aggression because of their naturally aggressive
• Feminist revolution caused gender roles understanding to change 


• though even Frued and Jung recognized that each individual could have male and female traits within the person 
• sex (biological), gender (social) 
• Gender is a symbolic category 


• ascriptive and culturally relative 
• Sex rooted in anatomy


• constant 
• manhood affected by culture. 
• Previous Interpretations  


• masculine ideology justification for oppression of women (Marxist) 



• not true for societies were gender equality exist 
• Men worry about manhood because evolutionary predisposed to (reductionist #1) 



• again not all societies dependent on warrior/hunter societies
• Men everywhere defending against castration (reductionist #2) 
• Some Help from the Post-Freudians 


• all infants have a primary identity distinct from femininity, all children go through same trails at the beginning. 


• Boys must separate from mother - causing their lost of selves 
• While girl can remain close to mother- because that reinforces their roles. 


• post-freudians mens defense against the eternal child - not at being female-like but rather at being boyish. 
• Think One Fine Day.... the end of the trailer here in particular!
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  Hope you enjoy the videos! Not as much commentary for this one as I thought, but still interesting concepts !