I just finished Michael S. Kimmel's book, The Gendered Society, which examines gender from an institutional, cultural, and social perspective. He rocked my world quite well, and my neck remains a little sore from all the nodding. I'm a sucker for anything verging on deconstructionism.
If the words "socially constructed" frighten you, then you will not like this book. But you are probably exactly the sort of person who so badly needs to read it. Let's talk about sex. And gender. And gendered identity politics. And why our "free" country has more violence, hostility, and crime to show for all this happiness and prosperity. Let's talk about the books that justify misogyny with biological imperatives- "he can't help it, he's a man." Or let's let Michael talk about these things.
Violence is epidemic in American society today. The United States is, by far, the most violent industrial nation in the world-- despite our being the society with the highest rate of incarceration, and the only industrialized nation that uses the death penalty ostensibly to deter violence. Did I say "despite"? Don't I mean "because"?
Violence takes an enormous social toll, not just on its victims, but in the massive costs of maintaining a legal system, prisons, and police forces. And it takes an incalculable psychic cost- an entire nation that has become comfortable living in fear of violence. Turn on the evening news in any city in America for the nightly parade of murders, fires, parental abuse, and fistfights masquerading as sports.
My heart and my mind both assent to his understanding of biological explanations for aggression and violence as ultimately humiliating and ridiculous for men.
Often, biological explanations are invoked as evasive strategies. "Boys will be boys," we say, throwing up our hands in helpless resignation. But even if all violence were biologically programmed by testosterone or the evolutionary demands of reproductive success, the epidemic of male violence in America would still beg the political question: Are we going to organize our society so as to maximize this propensity for violence, or to mimimize it? These are political questions, and they demand political answers- answers that impel us to find alternative, nonviolent routes for men to express themselves as men.
Frankly, I believe that men are better than that, better than that, better than biologically programmed violent and rapacious beasts. I believe that we can do far better than we have in reducing violence in our society, and withdrawing our tacit silent, and thereby complicit, support for it. When right-wingers engage in this sort of "male-bashing"- asserting that men are no better than testosterone-crazed violent louts (and that therefore women must leave the workplace and return home to better constrain us)- most men know these slurs to be false. But they are false with a ring of truth to them. For as long as men remain in their postures of either silent complicity or defensive denial, one might very well get the idea that we do condone men's violence.
Maybe we secretly admire violent people? After all, the very notions of "courage" and "bravery" are wound up so tight in military garb with guns that we can't see the virtue from the vice. The low status of women as sentient human beings in our culture cannot be separated from the amazing levels of violence against women (by others and by themselves). Our low regard for human life plays out in everything from the degrading sensationalism of Fox programming to the belief that the taking of a life can be "just" or somehow desirable.
Kimmel provides an excellent survey of the research in the ongoing nature vs. nurture debate. There are too many interesting data bits to share, but I'll throw in a few. He cites the research of Scott Coltrane, which shows that the closer a relationship between father and son in a culture or society, the higher the status of women in that culture. The more time men spend with children, the less gender inequality is present in that culture. This doesn't mean that men become women or women become men- it means that men are socialized to explore a broad and less limited concept of personhood which respects their humanity over their sex.
A culture which values work and social status above interpersonal relationships (i.e. how you look in the crowd vs. how you look up close) will never offer options which permit men to be present as fathers. Some social scientists want to blame the rise in juvenile crime on the lack of a male role model (a father) in the lives of children because then they can throw up their hands, close their wallets, and say, "There's nothing we can do except preach family values."
The National Academy of Sciences reports that the single best predictor of violent crime is NOT fatherlessness but "personal and neighborhood income". Fatherlessness also varies with income- the more money a father makes, the more likely he is to be married or involved in his children's lives. Is the crisis of fatherlessness a crisis of poverty? In an impressive research study on L.A. street gangs, Martin Sanchez-Jankowski found "as many gang members from homes where the nuclear family was intact as there were from families where the father was absent" and "as many members who claimed close relations with their families as those who denied them". Whoops. That's right- the gangsters had active daddies but what they didn't have was money.
We can see the wrenching and rigid social construction of masculinity in our children. For example, it is almost cool for a girl to be a "tomboy" (meaning she is a "boyish" girl) while it is the ultimate shame for a boy to be a "sissy" (meaning a "girlish" boy). If you think little girls don't understand that being a boy is better than being a girl in our culture, think again. Boys and girls understand the inequality between women and men, and they also understand it is more okay for a girl to dress like a boy than for a boy to dress like a girl. The exception is when boys dress like girls to mock them; a guy "being funny" or "making fun of girls" is excused anything. In surveys of elementary students, a large percentage of girls thought their lives would be "better" if they were boys, while almost no boys believed life as a girl would be "fun". In fact, a number of boys said they would prefer to be dead than to be a girl.
Being honest with oneself about how gender is socialized is a painful process. It reveals how deeply connected the link between gender inequality and gender difference, and how the latter serves as justification for the former. Little boys come to understand that their status (a status which allows them to break moral rules and assert dominance) in the world depends on their ability to distance themselves from anything associated with females. Treating women with contempt and disrespect begins early in life. The message is reinforced in high school as sex becomes something men "take" and something women "give". Marriage is something a woman "tricks" a man into. A bachelor party is when the man accepts the old "ball and chain", while a woman reveals in material goodies of a bridal shower. If I didn't know better, I might almost think that men lose their freedom when they get married and women get married because they had no freedom to lose.
I don't agree with Kimmel about everything. For example, he believes that women need to work- that there is some abstract and respectable glory that earns respect and equality when women work. How very American. Or Soviet. In fact, in the USSR, where women worked almost equally with men, their social status is even more deplorable than in the US. Labor does not guarantee respect for women. Once we agree on that, can't we just agree that I should be respected for my humanity as opposed to my labor status? Isn't that what Kimmel ultimately wants- more respect for individual personhood as opposed to the trappings of rigid social hierarchies? If I stay home and unschool my kids (which I do), should I just forfeit any hope for respect? Or should I just forfeit any hope for respect from WASPs whose primary self-realization occurs in the nonintimate pantomimes of the workplace?
I've been in the working world; it did not impress me. Can I choose to stay home with my kids as a human rather than a woman? Is staying home in itself a "womanly" thing to do? Why is Kimmel so narrow on this work issue?
Equality is always percieved as a loss by the privileged group. Southern whites were not exactly enthusiastic about the prospect of treating blacks as human beings. No one wants to lose their VIP card. Or their "at least I'm better than THAT person" card. Nixon was right about the "Southern strategy"- blame and disgust are effective political uniters and crowd-pleasers even in a "freedom-loving" democracy like the USA.
