What makes a man a man? Strong muscles and willpower? Ability to provide for a family? All this together and something else? Different answers have been given to this question at different times. And today they have come to the absence of a single answer. But there must be something more important!
“Am I a man or not?” With an interval of just a couple of weeks, I heard this phrase from two of my friends who found themselves in very different circumstances. The first, quite successful businessman, having exchanged his fifties, suddenly began to buy premium cars twice a year, stuffed his house with the most expensive equipment he could find, and for the plot he ordered seedlings of almost Lebanese cedar from Lebanon directly.
He ended up divorcing his wife, with whom he had lived for almost twenty years. Trying to explain what happened, he said with sincere resentment that she did not appreciate his success and care, and he realized that he deserved a better fate: “Am I a man or not?”
Another friend was also never deprived of success. A specialist of the highest qualification, he made an excellent career and last year started building a house abroad. And then there was a big trouble (we will not go into details).
My friend lost his job. There is no end to offers, only money is offered to him two or three times less than those to which he is accustomed. At the same time, his wife has not worked for the last 15 years, teenage daughters are pulling money with the energy of good vacuum cleaners, it is equally unprofitable to preserve and sell unfinished abroad. When asked what he was thinking of doing, my friend chuckled mirthlessly: “We’ll break through. Am I a man or not?
I can assure you that both of them are definitely men, and not the last ones. That’s just the meaning of this concept itself, it seems, is invested differently. As, however, and everything in the world.
What do men think?
93% of Russian men say that the main thing for them is to do work that is interesting.
59% are ready to leave their parents or friends and move to another city or even another country for a better career or a higher standard of living.
Findings from the Changing Face of Men study commissioned by Discovery Networks in 2013.
Upon availability
As for me, I myself encountered the awareness of my belonging to the male sex for the first time on a walk in kindergarten, when the teacher, on a particularly hot day, ordered to undress our entire group in order to douse both boys and girls with a hose. It was then that I immediately understood everything.
Philosophers and historians like to liken the development of mankind to the development of one person. And from this point of view, antiquity – the “childhood of mankind” – is the period when masculinity was determined and evaluated by the fact of the presence and size of the male genital organ. Moreover, this identification of the size of the male genital organ with male prowess, apparently, originated even before the appearance of man.
In males of some species of primates, the so-called “penile display” is the custom for an aggressive demonstration of his erect penis. And not to females, but to other males – in order to intimidate and achieve a more privileged position in the community.
From an evolutionary point of view, a man is necessary to produce offspring.
With all the simplification of the biological approach, it cannot be denied in accuracy. Very much in our life is determined by evolutionary necessity. And from the point of view of evolution, a man (like a woman, by the way) is necessary then in order to produce offspring. And if so, then in the absence of genitals, by definition, he ceases to be a man. The thing, however, is that the presence of these very organs the further, the less guarantees a man his high rank.
Options are available
Perhaps this is the time to move from the concept of sex to the concept of gender. If sex is a biological category, then gender is psychological and social. Accordingly, “sexual” masculinity corresponds to gender masculinity.
Differences began in the Middle Ages, when two types of masculinity developed simultaneously in Europe. The first is knightly, based on the cult of strength, military prowess and the ability to conquer both the enemy castle and the heart of a beautiful lady. The second is monastic, the essence of which is wisdom, meekness and patience. Which of the two – a knight or a monk – is “more of a man”, at first glance, it is obvious. But this is only at first glance.
In fact, monasteries were built in exactly the same way as knightly military orders: the same strict discipline and the same strict hierarchy reigned there. And the holy fathers were very good at handling weapons. But perhaps even more important is another consideration. No matter how proud men of all times are of the ability to use their male organ for its intended purpose, perhaps the greatest reason for pride has always been the ability to restrain impulses of the flesh. And in this respect, the monks of the knights were definitely superior.
Further more. As crafts developed, ideas about masculinity also developed. Tailors or blacksmiths, perhaps, would be glad to become knights, but they could not overcome class barriers. And they did not need to pray earnestly and subdue the flesh. But they were also men. And so, their masculinity was increasingly determined by the ability to sew especially beautiful clothes or forge especially durable armor. And by selling them, provide for the family. Masculinities became more and more, as each social group formed its own ideas about a real man.
The same thing happened with representatives of different nationalities. For example, Jews for centuries were forced to live under conditions of persecution that they could not resist physically, so the image of a real man that has developed among the Jewish people is not at all the image of a mighty warrior. And the image of a Talmudic scholar, who, turning to the wisdom of the sacred books, is able to find a way out of a difficult and dangerous situation in which Jews often found themselves.
Different types of masculinities coexist today even within the same small towns or educational institutions, says sociologist Ravin Connell. Does it make life easier for modern men? Probably yes, but not much. The world is so mobile that it is hardly possible to remain within the limits of one’s narrow group all one’s life. And it is worth crossing its borders, and you will have to prove your masculinity again. How?
Without “baboon”
“I heard a wonderful word from one of my students: “baboonism,” says sexologist Irina Panyukova. – We live in a wonderful time when a man can assert himself, doing without baboons. Such a model of development presupposes self-affirmation not through the cult of physical strength, not through the mechanisms of suppression and subordination, but through intellect and social skills. They allow a man to achieve a position in society and feel self-confidence. With more or less success, our country is still moving in this direction.”
Probably so. But with two caveats. The first of them represents 70 years of recent history, when representatives of low-educated strata occupied a dominant position in society, and almost every second family went through military experience. The current generation of 20-30-year-olds is the first to grow up in a different situation and behave differently.
Aggressive instincts are needed by men to protect offspring from enemies
And there is a second caveat. Modern Europe (and America in many respects too) presents a man with a lot of opportunities to assert himself and gain confidence, without grabbing his teeth into anyone’s throat and without waving an erect organ. And this, of course, is wonderful.
But there are also some downsides. If we recall the evolutionary necessity, then men still need strong muscles and aggressive instincts. To perform the second most important function after the production of offspring, namely: to protect this offspring from enemies.
And the need for aggression will not completely die out until the enemies disappear as such. Alas, the helplessness of Western countries in the face of terror and migrants demonstrates this quite convincingly.
Or or
I remember, I was seven years old, and my parents and I were returning from somewhere in the village. By train, in a shared carriage. About two hours before arrival, two drunken big men broke into the car, crammed with humming people, bags, bales and who knows what else. They walked down the aisle, cursing everyone with a variable number of storeys, throwing those who got in their way, kicking the bales in drunken courage.
The car fell silent, and then my father got up to meet them. Not at all a heroic build, a thin and wiry bespectacled man, a school biology teacher, from whom I have not heard a single swear word in my whole life. What he said to them, I do not know, but all three retired to the vestibule. Soon my father returned, already alone, fixing his shirt collar as he went. No one else saw the drunks, and my father diligently hid his right hand from me the rest of the way. I still managed to see the broken knuckles of his fingers. But even more I remember the look with which my mother looked at him.
And perhaps, if not for this story, I would write something completely different now, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I have no other arguments in favor of my ideas about masculinity.
Is it just a quote from Brodsky: “Men of that generation always chose: either-or. To their children, who were much more successful at bargaining with their own consciences (at times on favorable terms), these people often seemed simpletons. As I said, they didn’t listen to themselves very much. We, their children, grew up, or rather, raised ourselves, believing in the complexity of the world, in the significance of shades, overtones, elusive subtleties, in the psychological aspects of everything in the world.
Now, having reached an age that equalizes us with them, having gained the same physical mass and wearing clothes of their size, we see that the whole thing comes down to the principle of “either-or”, to “yes-no”. It took us almost a lifetime to learn what they seemed to know from the very beginning: that the world is a very wild place and does not deserve better treatment. That “yes” and “no” very well encompass, without any trace, all those difficulties that we discovered and built with such taste and for which we almost paid with willpower.