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Another skirmish is breaking out in the U.S. ongoing culture war. The hot-button issue stoking the outrage machine this time: the meaning of masculinity.

The latest skirmish broke out last week when Wisconsin state Sen. Steve Nass, a recurrent critic of the University of Wisconsin, sent an email to his colleagues in the Wisconsin Legislature with the subject line, UW-Madison Declares War on Men and Their Masculinity Not a Joke.

The target of Nass ire is the University of Wisconsin Mens Project, a six-week course that offers college-aged men the opportunity to critically reflect on an age-old question: What does it mean to be a man?

The dueling sides (however reductive) in this latest culture war flare-up should seem familiar. In one corner, the cultural conservatives, like David French of the National Review, who believe that men in general have essential natures that are different from women. We shouldnt be cultivating a masculinity that valorizes vulnerability, conservatives insist; rather, we should be raising young men to embrace their natural strength, demonstrate courage, and live dutifully. Inasmuch as boys are taught what it means to be a man, its the responsibility of the family to instill proper values and certainly not the university they claim.

In the other corner are liberal academics who see masculinity as a cultural construction with some toxic characteristics that can be changed by recognizing how cultural norms of masculinity are created, embodied and performed. Regardless of the positive values young men learn from their fathers, liberals argue that popular media and college culture have just as much influence on the making of student masculinity. And the university which wants to ensure the health and achievement of its students believes it has a role to play in helping college-aged men recognize and stand against the most toxic parts of that culture.

Between these two sides is a yawning chasm, a gulf defined by differing answers to some giant questions about social change and human nature itself. Questions like: Is masculinity an inherent, natural quality of all humans with an X and Y chromosome, or a cultural construction? Is masculinity something that can be changed? If so, how, and toward what ends?

Despite the distance between these two sides, I think theres common ground here, if were willing to look for it.

As a young man, I attended the UW-Madison (B.A. 2007). And I can tell you from firsthand experience that the pressures young men experience during college, couched in notions of masculinity, are real and powerful.

I can recall listening time and again to other young men brag about the number and nature of their sexual dalliances, lurid tales in which sex was not-so-subtly equated with conquest. I know well the culture of competitive binge drinking, a culture that defines the measure of ones manhood by the toxicity of ones blood alcohol level. Ive broken up fights in those alcohol-drenched hours of the evening, after those same young men have been thwarted in their attempt to add another notch to their headboard.

This culture is, of course, not a monolithic description of college masculinity; plenty of college-aged men resist these norms and practices. But this particular set of values is powerful. Communicated to men through popular media, and enforced by men up and down this unfortunate food chain, college-aged men have too often been acculturated into this way of seeing and valuing themselves.

And its here where I think both sides can find some common ground. There are, undoubtedly, legitimate differences of opinion between Sen. Nass and the Mens Project. But lets be clear: Offering young men the opportunity to reflect on the excesses of binge-drinking, hook-up culture, and violence all expressed targets of the Mens Project sounds like the programming offered by a church youth group, not a group of campus radicals. So why would conservatives like Nass simply dismiss this work?

The cynical answer, of course, is that it makes for good politics. In many ways, Nass got what he wanted: another headline hell employ to justify further cuts to the university budget. (The last line of the email to his legislative colleagues asked, Will we have the courage to reform the UW System in the 2017-19 biennial budget?)

Instead of feeding the outrage machine of the culture wars with another splashy headline, Nass should engage with campus leaders who are promoting a healthy vision of masculinity. There's most certainly some common ground; and where theres disagreement, lets disagree! If the senator doesnt like parts of the Mens Project curriculum, then he and others should present visions of the masculinity they want to promote not just call for more budget cuts.

And then, perhaps, we could try something novel, like oh, I dont know talking to each other? This is college! Lets explore ideas, let our young men wrestle with those ideas, and then choose for themselves what it means to be a man intentionally. Despite our first instinct, the culture wars can be an opportunity for democratic engagement, not just scorched-earth politics.

These conversations are all the more imperative as we count down the days until the inauguration of Donald Trump, a man who intentionally and unintentionally made his red-blooded masculinity a central part of his campaign, and who now serves as a de facto role model to so many young men across the country.

From his campaign slogan to Make America Great Again (like when men and women had clearer gender roles), to his muscular foreign policy positions that openly embraced war-crimes (like water-boarding or killing the family members of known terrorists), to the sexist dog-whistles (contrasting Mr. Trumps broad-shouldered leadership with Secretary Clintons lack of stamina), to the outright misogyny of bragging about sexual assault and dismissing it as mere locker room talk, Trumps particular brand of masculinity was front and center in his campaign.

And regardless of one's politics, surely we can all agree that casually boasting about sexual assault isn't the type of "masculine" behavior we'd want our young men to emulate.

This makes the work of the Men's Project the conversations they provoke and the light they shine on toxic expressions of masculinity as critical as ever. While Sen. Nass and the Men's Project will never come to a perfect agreement about what masculinity is or should be, if the senator were to embrace the conversation, I think he'd find a lot more common ground than he anticipated.

Eric Luckey is a Ph.D. student in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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