Is masculinity really in crisis?

Sometimes the contrasts are unhelpful. Women have defined themselves - by contrasting themselves with men, who are often seen as powerful, privileged and without problems. J.R. Macnamara’s recent article 'Dissing' men in On Line Opinion makes important points about how much our thinking about men - and women - is formed by the media. From our thinking other things flow - ideas, programs, policies. Men were once expected to protect women, as we saw above. Today we want men and women to be equal, yet somehow different. It doesn’t quite work: people are either equal, or they are not. Much of our thinking about gender is thus built on a contradiction. No woman can be hit on TV, and rightly so. Yet nobody seems to notice if men are hit. Can this be right? And what does it say about how we see men and women?

If men are to move forward, they might try doing these things:

1. Speak up. Women can’t hear what men don’t say.
2. Have some ideas about feminism, and get them out there.
3. Learn to relate more effectively to other men. We have raised boys to be competitive, but it doesn’t always work. Men have to learn the art of compromise.
4. If men  can listen, they function more effectively in relationships and at work. We must keep trying hard to be good listeners. Isn’t it hard work!
5. We have to express our feelings for loved ones. We don’t need another generation of emotionally frozen men who won’t hug their kids and partners.
6. Men have to take charge of their own health needs, what they eat, what exercise they do, seeking out doctors that are good for them.

The gender revolution started with men and women in different worlds. The arena for men was a public world ;  women lived in a domestic or  private world. This has changed, as we saw above. But the gender revolution has not been completed. Perhaps it never can be.  We used to admire Johnny Weismuller, Don Bradman  and other sports heroes. Now we  admire Trent Barrett and  Billy Slater. A new ad for BigPond shows us a woman putting cocoa butter on the toes of a sportsman with the  saying- “Sports Stars Get What They Want on Demand”. Too true, unfortunately. Women tell us they like men to be meek and compliant, but they go crazy over Jake Wall and Tom Watson. We still want men to be physically and emotionally strong. And I suspect that most men still want women to be feminine, Germaine Greer notwithstanding. Somehow we have love, lust, desire and lifelong relationships, the raising of kids and the whole complex business of shorter relationships and sometimes child support, all tangled up in a struggle for power.

I don’t think masculinity is in any crisis. Most men and women live together, as they did a hundred years ago, minus the TV and the fridge and  the computer. They probably still worry about their kids doing well at school, and running over-budget.  The experts tell us that women want intimacy, and offer men sex ; men want sex, and offer intimacy as the price. However much people snarl and bitch over gender issues, the marvel is that it’s springtime. And there are lovers everywhere.