Thursday, August 21, 2003

Anybody read this book called “Stiffed,” by Susan Faludi?

Amazing analysis of the plight of masculinity. I’m only a hundred pages into it. Faludi is actually a noted feminist. Her book seems to shed light on what I’ve been feeling most of my adult life. Being a man is a very limited role. Being a man is not what was two generations ago. Men were told they would be inheritors of this nation and this world. Men are now caught between an old value system and a modern world in which we are superfluous.

[Some of the ideas here I saw illustrated (allbeit comically couched) in the movie “Roger Dodger.” ]

The old male value system of strength and integrity is irrelevant in our image based society. The service jobs of today don’t rely on man’s industriousness, or his character. Men have become media defined objects – The Metrosexual Male – judged on our appearance. In the 70’s feminists fought to break women from the limits of this objectification. Maybe they didn’t tear down the superficiality, but they gave voice to the situation surrounding women.

There are many forces at work keeping us quiet, having us question ourselves rather than society at large. As a man this “Crisis of Manhood” panders to a dangerous zone of my psyche- The Victim. And voicing a problem, complaining like a victim is not part of the old male ideal of stoicism and quiet determination.

As men we have no jobs, no value system, no integral role in the family unit. This is a problem.