Michael Messner

Michael Messner

Michael

Messner

• Born 1952
• PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley
• Currently professor of sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California
• One of the first scholar to study masculinity within gender studies
• Research areas: gender and sport; men, feminism, and politics; sports media

"Changing Men"

"Changing Men"

• Fact: American men are changing
• New Man versus Traditional Man - this is a simplified, insufficient account of contemporary masculinity
• In order to get a better understanding of changes in masculinity in US, we need to ask:
• How can we assess the meanings and significance of contemporary men's changes?
• To what extent do the dominant expressions of men's changes support a feminist project of social transformation?

• New Father - involved in taking care of the children
• Evidence suggests that there is a gap between this ambition and actions
• "Helping out" versus "managing"
• Why is there a gap?
• Men want to look publicly acceptable, but privately do not truly identify with this
• Internal constraints - men are not capable of "mothering"
• External constraints - men earn higher wages, it's better if they work and mothers take the leave
• The gap can only be closed via structural changes (paid paternity leave, eliminating the wage gap...)

New Father

• Robert Bly - men need to be "initiated into manhood" by fellow men; they need to restore their emotional bonds with other men
• Jordan Peterson
• Women = chaos, men = order; we live in the overdose of chaos
• “You know you can say, ‘Well isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine’ — well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything. If you change those basic categories, people wouldn’t be human anymore.”
• “Men and women won’t sort themselves into the same categories, if you leave them alone.”
• Gender roles are natural, we are unhappy because we try to subvert them - we need to return to them
• Messner's criticism - the harms that men experience are the "costs of being on top," they are not oppression but bi-products of men's oppression of women

Return to the "eternal masculine"

Public display of emotions

• "If boys/men could learn how to express their feelings, they wouldn't have the need to dominate women"
• Messner: Not true. There is no causal relationship here - the public display of emotion by men is becoming more acceptable, but it doesn't inspire belief that patriarchy should be dismantled

• Conclusion: The most significant changes in masculinity in US are in the areas of culture and lifestyle, and are therefore largely symbolic
• Next steps: Focus on marginalized masculinities (working class, men of color, gay men...) - marginalized and subordinated men are more likely to place political changes as the focus of their ambitions