Chicago, Illinois -- Love it or hate it, the men’s movement has changed the landscape for the scholarly study of men and masculinity.
Since Robert Bly’s Iron John: A Book About Men took hold of the best-seller lists, scholars have been divided about the mythopoetic men’s movement, which emphasizes ritual male bonding and a search for the “deep masculine.” Many scholars actively divorce themselves from the movement, which is seen as part of a backlash to the impact of feminism.
“It’s a very mixed blessing, and sometimes it’s not a blessing -- it’s rekindled some feminist fears,” says Harry Brod, who teaches gender studies at the University of Southern California.
Many scholars who work on masculinity are not affiliated with professional organizations or programs described as “men’s studies.” Those who do are split over whether to embrace or reject the men’s movement, which has received enormous popular attention in the last few years.
Among the scholarly critics is R.W. Connell, a sociologist who teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He wrote last year in Tikkun magazine: “In the final analysis, Iron John and the `mythopoetic men’s movement’ are a massive evasion of reality. Bly is selling simplified fantasy solutions to real problems. In the process, he distorts men’s lives and distracts men from practical work on gender inequalities.”
With its “wildmen” retreats and ritualistic drumming, the movement has become a sexy subject for ethnographers and sociologists, several of whom have become participant-observers as they try to understand the phenomenon.
Scholars tiptoed around the divisions at the fourth annual meeting of the Men’s Studies Association here. The organization, which has about 250 members, is affiliated with the National Organization for Men Against Sexism, known as NOMAS, which is made up primarily of counselors and activists.
Members of the association want to explore male privileges and how patriarchal values affect women and gay men, among others. Participants in the mythopoetic movement argue that men are in pain, distant from their fathers, and straitjacketed in bureaucratic jobs that deny them the chance to bond with each other. Another branch of the men’s movement defends father’s rights in custody cases.
Michael S. Kimmel, an associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a strong critic of the men’s movements. Traditional notions of masculinity oppress both men and women, he said at the meeting. “We need to look at how our fear of other men has animated our quest for manhood,” he said. “Politically we have to be confronting all the time both sexism and homophobia, both within ourselves and within our culture.”
Calling himself proud to be a “mama’s boy,” Mr. Kimmel said men could learn from women rather than remaining terrified of things feminine. “One of my friends suggested we need more Ironing Johns, not more Iron Johns,” he joked.
Philosophical differences have led a number of members to begin another association for men’s studies.
Sam Femiano, a psychologist who formerly headed the Men’s Studies Association, is among those behind the American Men’s Studies Association, which will hold its first meeting in April. The new organization will be friendlier to the mythopoetic movement, Mr. Femiano says. “The NOMAS ideology is more restrictive than ours. We’re looking for more unity.”
Interested scholars will soon have their choice of two scholarly journals. Mr. Kimmel said the men’s studies association would probably expand its newsletter into a journal called Masculinities. Last August, The Journal of Men’s Studies made its debut. Jim A. Doyle, its editor and a professor of psychology at Roane State Community College, says the unaffiliated journal will welcome articles from both “wildmen” and feminists who work inside and outside academe. The journal’s new issue, on the topic of black men, comes out this month.
Among the scholars getting inside the men’s movement are Michael Schwalbe, a sociologist at North Carolina State University who has attended men’s retreats as part of an ethnography.
“There’s a depth and complexity to the experience that you can’t appreciate from the outside,” says Mr. Schwalbe, an assistant professor. He points out that participants see their dissatisfaction in primarily personal and psychological terms, while scholars tend to pin the blame on broad structural inequalities.
“I think the movement can be steered,” Mr. Schwalbe says. “It’s possible to inject more feminist consciousness into the movement, if it’s done right.”