1. The issue I addressed in this essay is a weakness in the culture of American masculinity. The reason I said "manhood or womanhood" instead of "manhood" is that I felt that a narrow focus on gender-specific adulthood is one of the problems that makes guys retreat into symbolic violence. The good to which I aspire is adulthood. "Being a man" is not just loaded, it's loaded with differently disastrous mistakes each time. As I've said before, my personal ideal is Atticus Finch and not Dirty Harry, but I can't expect anyone to share it. Adulthood is something closer to a civilized standard.
2. I don't think that I'm supporting the Stepford version of "family" at all here. I don't define "family", and I certainly don't want the Dobsons of this world to define it. When I say "community and family" I mean "shared sacrifice and shared love", and people are free to define that however they want as long as they don't insist on defining it for me.
I think we're likely to bump heads like this often. When I write an essay I work hard to write simply and exclude anything that blunts my point. It's very hard to do justice to the depth and complexity of gender politics in a 500-word newspaper-style piece about one particular problem of masculinity. And since my experience and expertise in the issues you raise is nothing more than that of a sympathetic outsider, I'd probably look patronizing and make an ass out of myself if I tried.
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Date: 2005-10-03 03:08 pm (UTC)2. I don't think that I'm supporting the Stepford version of "family" at all here. I don't define "family", and I certainly don't want the Dobsons of this world to define it. When I say "community and family" I mean "shared sacrifice and shared love", and people are free to define that however they want as long as they don't insist on defining it for me.
I think we're likely to bump heads like this often. When I write an essay I work hard to write simply and exclude anything that blunts my point. It's very hard to do justice to the depth and complexity of gender politics in a 500-word newspaper-style piece about one particular problem of masculinity. And since my experience and expertise in the issues you raise is nothing more than that of a sympathetic outsider, I'd probably look patronizing and make an ass out of myself if I tried.