Yay! It's like daylight savings.
Now I can go write some fanfic or something.
My holidays are almost over and I didn't do that much stuff. I did read and binge quite a bit so that was good. Mostly some feminist stuff, but then it kinda took a new-age turn.
I was looking for a book on what healthy masculinity might look like, or that tries to define masculinity in an era where it has seriously come under attack. Enter King, Warrior, Magician, Lover which I think I heard about from r/MensLib. I don't think masculinity per se is a problem, what people are generally attacking is toxic masculinity - but as with all discussions about identity politics, it feels personal when you identify with the identity that's being attacked.
Somewhere along the line masculinity was warped so that many of today's men in power (e.g. Trump) actually don't have a grasp on what holistic masculinity looks like. I suppose our market structures for the past two or three centuries have led men to specialise in those parts of their masculinity (aggression, dominance, strategic thinking) that helped them compete in public life (i.e. their sphere, as opposed to women who were confined to the domestic sphere).
The problem with the separate spheres ideology is that it potentially pushed men and women to specialise in a particular part of their humanity (women specialised in caring for others, men specialised in progressing themselves), which when taken to extreme lengths can be damaging because you are denying other parts of your humanity and preventing yourself from developing into a mature, whole person.
One of the things that King, Warrior, Magician, Lover bemoan (and Tim Winton for that matter) is the loss of rituals for boys. This is where it starts getting a little new-agey (and I've been watching Wild, Wild Country so definitely a lot of new age energy going on atm), but a ritual is just another way of pinpointing the transition from boy to man. Something - some lesson, experience, role-model or elder - teaches the boy to forego their boyhood in order to develop his manhood.
What's the difference between boy and man? Man is secure, but is aware of his own limitations, he is humble, has a cause greater than himself, cares about those around him and chooses to shoulder responsibility. He maintains the joy and curiosity of his boyhood but jettisons the envy, dependence and arrogance.
Tim Winton believes that with the loss of rituals and positive male role-models, boys are too often left to make it up as they go along. They constantly rehearse and try-on behaviours to see how those around him respond. If there's enough encouragement then they keep it, but if there isn't any then they shame themselves out of it.
With the rise of the career woman, came backlash from housewives complaining that society undervalues motherhood. But I think what's worse is how society undervalues fatherhood. Society does not encourage fathers to be an active presence in their children's lives. The fact that custody laws tend to favour mothers is emblematic of that.
Boys need positive male role-models, yet men are often not encouraged to think of themselves as role-models for others, to nurture or care for others or to be intentional about how they teach the next generation of boys.
Fatherhood and masculinity are important, and we need to be able to have a meaningful discussion about that without coming under attack for being heteronormative or antifeminist. It isn't a zero-sum game. While it's true that some men willingly choose not to take responsibility for nurturing and teaching the next generation (either domestically or professionally), society is also structured to discourage them from doing that.
Anyway, here's some further food for thought on this male crisis:
- What representing men in divorce taught me about fatherhood (TED talk)
- A world without fathers
- this was written in 1996 but the trend is still present, the journal is published by a non-partisan Washington think tank
- Engines of Inequality: Class, Race, and Family Structure
- this was written in 2008 and talks about the divergent trends on fatherhood among families of different classes (children in lower income brackets have a higher rate of fatherlessness, and African American children have a higher rate of fatherlessness)
- for the most part, the article doesn't make inflammatory remarks about race and is largely positivist (in tone at least)
- but you should be aware that the author has since been stripped of some of her teaching duties because of her views on white cultural superiority (see here and here)
- interestingly enough, Wax upholds the cultural superiority of white, mid-century bourgeois values and uses that to support her claim that America should limit migrants from non-western countries (who will have a harder time assimilating), yet she doesn't address the fact that on many measures, Asian Americans have surpassed white Americans in their adherence to these values.
Blah blah blah, talk talk talk. After reading about all this stuff on masculinity and manhood, I wanted to see if there was some hippy, jungian equivalent for female archetypes. So I started reading Goddesses in Every Woman but although it combines two of my favourite things (personality psychology and greek mythology) it seems too stuck in the cultural and political context of its time (the women's liberation movement in the 80s).
Other stuff
- Brendan and I watched Morning Wars and we LOVED it (nominated for 8 Emmys y'all) - a very nuanced portrayal of the real, emotional consequences of #metoo
- I watched ITV's Sanditon adaptation - it was very saucy and non-Jane-Austen-y but you know me I have to watch every period drama out there
- I want to watch Mrs America
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