The Forgotten Male
The Great outpouring of words about the contemporary American woman these past few years has made it seem as though the male either had no problems or didn't count enough to have them aired.
Myron Brenton 1
It's been over thirty years since feminist Betty Friedan informed us that "American women no longer know who they are."2 In the ensuing decades, there has been an absolute avalanche of literature, documentaries, talk shows, workshops, organizations, and political activism focused on the role and identity of women.
The relative absence during this time of any mention of problems men might be facing can easily lead one to the false conclusion that men are doing just fine. But the truth is, the male of the species, at least here in America, is in turmoil.
Statistics We Could Do Without
Feminist rhetoric would have us believe women have suffered far more than men. But statistics reveal a
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dramatically different story. In most measurable ways, believe it or not, the stresses of modern life seem far more damaging to men than to women.
Look at substance abuse. Who is it who is trying to mask their pain with drugs and alcohol? According to government statistics, the rates of arrests for alcohol and drug use are considerably higher in the male population. Five times more men than women are charged with drug abuse. For every woman arrested for drunkenness, more than nine men will be incarcerated. When someone gets cited for driving under the influence, almost nine times out of ten, the person behind the wheel is a guy.3
Hurting or confused people often lash out in ways that are socially unacceptable. In 1992, almost eight out of ten people arrested for serious crimes were men. FBI crime statistics tell us we are over nine times more likely to be murdered by a man than by a woman. If your house was destroyed by arson, chances are nearly nine out of ten that the person who lit the match was male. If your VCR was stolen, the odds are more than nine to one the thief was male. The death penalty is twenty times more likely to await men who have been convicted of murder than it is their female counterparts. And of the few women who have been executed in this country since 1954, none had exclusively men for their victims.4
The extent to which crime is a male affair is shown in the gender breakdown of the population of American penal institutions. In 1992, a man was over sixteen
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times more likely to end up in state or federal prison than a woman. Over ninety-four percent of all inmates are male.
Not only do men live an average of seven years less than women, but they suffer far more than their female counterparts from ulcers and other stress-related diseases. They are more likely to die sooner from each of the fifteen leading causes of death.5 Men are also more likely than women to expire from cancer, pneumonia, liver disease, strokes, hardening of the arteries, and heart disease. While men are only slightly less likely to die from prostate cancer than women are to die from breast cancer, breast cancer research gets 660% more money than the male malady.6 There are twenty-three articles in medical journals about women's health issues for every one about male health matters.7
In this context, the grimmest statistical reflection of how well men are coping comes as no surprise. In 1991, over thirty thousand people in this country were so discouraged with life that they committed suicide. Over eighty percent of all suicides were men. In the 20-to-24 age bracket, males commit suicide almost six times as often as females. When men are over 85, they are over fourteen times as likely to commit suicide as women of the same age.8
Men are hurting. And yet, compared to what is being said about the needs and hurts of women, little is being said or done to find the source of the problems that plague what is soon to be the twenty-first-century American male. What little information does exist
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tends to be viewed predominantly through a feminist prism.
The Unknown Man
The curricula offered to the 100,000-plus undergraduates of the University of California present a telling tale. When I did research for my previous book in 1986, four of the University of California's nine campuses offered an undergraduate degree in women's studies.9 None offered a corresponding major in men's studies. Nine years later, eight of the nine campuses offer a women's studies degree. (The only one that has never offered a women's studies program is the Health Sciences campus of the University of San Francisco, where you can only earn a degree in a medical-related field.) A corresponding degree in men's studies has yet to be offered on a single U.C. campus.10
Similarly, in 1986, the University's intercampus library computer system had 762 listings under the general heading of "men." I'm pleased to inform you that nine years later there were 6,523 entries under "men." But, significantly, that number is less than half the 14,289 entries under the heading "women" that were in in the system nine years ago — and less than a tenth of the 69,838 entries under the heading "women" today.11
One of the system's campuses, the University of California at Santa Cruz, is located near my home. For some time it has offered a women's studies degree. At the time of my initial research, this program boasted
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twenty-seven professors, associate professors, and lecturers.12 Nine years later, there are seventy faculty members connected with women's studies.
Nine years ago, in the neighboring sociology department, there were undergraduate and postgraduate courses entitled "Sociology of Women," "Women in Work," "Feminist Theory," and "Feminist Research Seminar." There was only one course on the sociology of men. Unlike its feminist counterparts, the course for men was offered only in alternate academic years. Today, those multiple sociology courses on women are still being taught. The single course on the sociology of men is not listed in the current catalog at all.
Pointing the Finger
One thing you must understand before we go any further: This book is not being written to de-emphasize the American woman or to blame the ills of men on the rise of the feminist movement in the United States. The problems of men are our own fault! We have lost our way to true manhood and thrown responsibility to the wind. Now we're reaping a whirlwind. If we men continue to refuse to be men, women will continue to move into the roles of service and responsibility men have traditionally filled in the past. Out of their need for survival and for the protection of their children, the mothers — not the fathers — of this nation have been thrust into leadership roles in homes, schools, and churches.
This book will not attempt to define manhood in terms of chromosomes or psyche, a task which has already been attempted by many. Rather, when I speak of being a man, I am referring to being one who is ultimately responsible for spiritual and moral leadership in home and society. Again, this is not to imply that women do not have moral and spiritual responsibilities or are incapable of leadership. What I am saying is that the ultimate responsibility for moral and spiritual leadership in human affairs has been and should be the distinct domain of the male gender. It is my contention that the increasing failure of the American male to exercise this responsibility is a primary reason why men are confused about what it means to be a man in modern America. This leadership failure also contributes to other problems that beset women, children, families, and society in general.
A letter to Ann Landers illustrates the plight of families brought about by men who are missing from action.
Mother ran our family. Daddy was a wimp. If anyone is at fault, it's him. Almost all my teachers, from nursery to high school, were women. The male teachers were all effeminate. In one school the only male employee was the janitor. I was disciplined and rewarded exclusively by women. I learned early where the power was and I wanted to be on the winning side.13
The situation of the man who wrote this letter is not atypical. Whether we men like to acknowledge it or
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not, most of us have been feminized to one degree or another through similar circumstances.
A definition is in order. When I write about being "feminized," I am not talking about men who become homosexual or who, though heterosexual, have certain effeminate attributes. When I speak of feminization, I am referring to a conditioning process in modern American culture in which men have been trained to respond to people and situations in ways that are more akin to historical female behavior patterns than they are to historical male behavior patterns.
This feminizing process has evolved through a series of dramatic events during the last few centuries. A severe male identity crisis in America is the result. With an arrogant contempt for the consensus of history, there are those who have declared modern man "liberated" from "archaic" and "unfair" sex roles. But the pathetic smorgasbord of alternative identities now peddled everywhere from TV talk shows to church pulpits leaves men more confused than ever about what manhood means.
Let's face it. It's extremely difficult for men to like men when so much confusion exists about the definition of manhood. For most of human history, people knew what it meant to be a man. Now, at least in modern America, no one seems to know. Modern cultural aberrations, if they have not dealt a death blow to the traditional understanding of masculinity, have certainly left it crippled. And yet, the crises that plague American men, women, and their families will not be
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solved without men returning to historical masculinity and a clearly defined role of responsible fatherhood.
In the remainder of this book I want to consider specific models of American masculinity, both the false and the true. I will devote several chapters to a challenging and surprising study of manhood in early American history. I will describe the process through which the American male has lost the traditional understanding of what it means to be a man and a father, and note the factors that contribute to his marginalization from meaningful involvement in home and social life. Finally, I will suggest some things that I think can help American men regain their identity.
Chapter 2 || Table of Contents
1. Myron Brenton, The American Male (New York: Coward-McCann, 1966), p. 13.
2. Elaine Partnow, ed., The Quotable Woman (Los Angeles: Pinnacle Books, 1977), vol. 2, p. 252.
3. Unless otherwise noted, the figures that follow are a general compilation of government statistics from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1994 (114th edition, Washington, D.C.)
4. Warren Farrell, as referenced by Peter Brimelow, "Gender Politics," Forbes, March 14, 1994, p. 47.
5. Ibid., p. 46.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Introducing the University (University of California at Berkeley, 1985-86).
10. This conclusion was reached by studying the 1995-96 catalog of each of the University of California's nine campuses.
11. Both of these sets of statistics came from a subject search on the University of California's Melvyl System Libraries Computer. The most recent search was done on October 4, 1995.
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12. The following statistics are drawn from the University of California Santa Cruz General Catalog, 1984 and 1995.
13. Ann Landers, "Daddy Was a Wimp," Santa Cruz Sentinel, Oct. 25, 1984, p. B-5.
