Masculinity defined???

The following is from Christine Forsey's The Making of Men: Guidelines for Working With Boys to Counter the Male Sex-role, West Footscray, Australia: West Education Centre, 1991:

The masculine ethos ... refers to a gender construct. A construct of attitudes, values and beliefs that are inculcated by males as a result of the expectations that are placed on them from the moment that they are born. These expectations are generated and reinforced by the family, education, religion, tradition, the media, peers and society at large.

The masculine ethos asserts that males, first and foremost, are powerful. It demands that they manifest their power through:

• rivalry and ambition
• the intimidation, dominance and exploitation of lesser beings - namely females and children, but also weaker males
• disregard for, and even an aversion to intimacy, and therefore the self-knowledge and empathy that intimacy engenders

Comments:

• There is no mention of men using what power they have to protect or provide for those weaker than themselves.
• There is no mention of self-sacrifice (women and children first, etc.).
• There is the implicit assumption that power held by men is always abused and directed towards oppression of those who are weaker.
• Forsey goes on to suggest that a feminisation of men would prevent this.

In other words, men abuse power, whereas women, presumably, do not.

The forward to the publication states that Christine Forsey "has been working with teachers and boys in schools to develop strategies and curriculum support materials which counter the male sex-role".

See also Kimbrell on men's health and on masculinity

Stuart Birks

26 February, 1996, updated 13 August 1999