Knowing and Not Knowing:Reflections on Manhood

摘要

The current political situation in the U.S. frames two questions aboutmanhood: Is manhood a residual problem in the move from hierarchical to democraticforms? Is fascism, or fundamentalism, in part a reaction to feminism, which challenges thehierarchy of man over woman? These questions direct an exploration of possibilities forbreaking the ties that bind manhood to hierarchy and thus to militarism. A paradigm shiftin the human sciences, signaled by research in neurobiology and developmental psychol-ogy, sets the stage for reconsidering the construction of manhood and the meaning ofmasculinities. Gender binaries and hierarchies are linked to splits between reason andemotion, mind and body, self and relationships. Resistance to these splits, uncovered by research on child and adolescent development,suggests a potential for transformation that is psychologically rather than ideologicallygrounded. The linkages between violence and appeals to manhood are examined, leadingto the suggestion that we now may be witnessing the endgame in a struggle between democ-racy and patriarchy. In a consideration of literary and scholarly works that explore the process of liberation,the potential for disarming manhood is addressed along with the release of womanhoodfrom idealization and debasement. The freeing of a voice held captive by the structures ofhierarchy and the honor codes of patriarchy suggests how these frameworks can shift. TheU.S. presidential campaign of 2004 highlights two different military models of men inleadership: the top-down image offather-knows-best and a band-of-brothers—and sisters—vision. Manhood and womanhood appear as garments cloaking a self that may want to beseen, suggesting ways of alleviating human tragedy.