The reinvention of a ‘real man’ [washingtonpost.com]

RE: Jose A. Del Real, “The ‘Reinvention of a ‘Real Man’:

Thank you so much for bring our attention to Jose A. Del Real. Washington Post piece, “The ‘Reinvention of a ‘Real Man’. While the article’s focus is on norms of toxic ‘masculinity’, it has application to processes that underlie hate violence of all types and any violence against those perceived as ‘different’ be they women (for men), children (for adults) or people of a ‘different’ race, ethnicity, religion or any other ‘characteristic’!

Many years ago, I was teaching a college course on “Violence against Women”. During one of our discussions a male student was describing what he believed were characteristics of ‘real men’ in relationships with women.  His description traditional, stereotypical expectations and what he believed were the norms for both men’s and women’s behavior. I asked him how he came to believe what he believed. He kept saying “They say…this” and “they say …that”. I asked him who ‘they’ were. He named the usual suspects: ‘society’, ‘you know, ‘everyone’! I asked him why he believed these vague ‘thems’. He said, “What else are you supposed to do?” I replied, ‘Think for yourself! Understand your relationships, do what works in the relationship for the parties in the relationship. Don’t chase norms from unnamed sources! Pay attention to lived experience!

Years later while participating on a professional panel of leading national experts dealing with violence against women, the opportunity to revisit the earlier discussion emerged when one of the panelists pointed out how violence in domestic relationships between men and women often results when ‘social expectations’ associated with ‘social roles’ are not being met by one or both of the parties. Violations of social norms and expectations lead to conflict!

To explore this idea in more depth, I asked one of the panelists the following question: In traditional social science thinking what happens when you don’t have social norms? I received the traditional answer straight out of most sociology text books: “Without norms you have anarchy and chaos”.

I replied that I thought such a response is to the benefit of those who seek to control people, who enforce the norms, often with violence. I pointed out that because norms changed over time, it was more important to explore the idea that instead of focusing on the ‘norms’ suppose we focused on the distribution from which the norms were derived. Would we then see the diversity of possibilities and value our individual understandings derived from our experiences of what works in our situations? Would we value the exploration of our experiences and relationships to make ‘what works’ valuable regardless of where it falls in relation to the norms? We would value ourselves, others, and the diversity our experience represents. We would then be less likely to need violence to ‘enforce norms! I finished with the observation that the answer to my initial question might be “without social norms we would be forced to see and value diversity (something not necessarily supportive of those in ‘power’, the ‘norm enforcers’? I was told that I would have failed my Introduction to Sociology exam!

In her discussion of ‘poisonous pedagogy’, Alice Miller observes that children are often raised to not recognize how they are taught to accept the will and interpretations of another and not value their own subjective experience (For Your Own Good, 1990). Thus, they seek out the opinions and directions of others (however vague these ‘others’ are – as my student above) to make decisions.

In a classic article from 1950, Leon Festinger points out that those who base their understanding of the world on ’social reality’ (perceived opinions of membership /reference group) are more likely to be violent than those who use ‘physical reality’ (personal interactions with the world). The latter or more likely to recognize the diversity of experience, have empathy and express authenticity. (“Informal Social Communication” Psychological Review, 1950, 57, 271-282.)

Using survey research, Kelman and Hamilton report that people whose role and rule orientations were high tended to support the use of violence, whereas those with high ‘value orientations’ tended not to support the use of violence. (Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton, Crimes of Obedience. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1989.)

In a time when our identities our fluid (we might realize that they always were) the search to reinvent a ‘real man’ might provide a way out of the dictates of roles and rules and to empower, support and value the dignity found in our diverse experiences of living.