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Full Text:
ON MALE LIBERATION Jack Sawyer
Male liberation calls for men to free themselves of the sex role stereotypes that limit their ability to be human. Sex role stereotypes say that men should be dominant; achieving and enacting a dominant role in relations with others is often taken as an indicator of success. ‘Success,’ for a man, often involves influence over the lives of other persons. But success in achieving positions of dominance and influence is necessarily not open to every man, as dominance is relative and hence scarce by definition. Most men in fact fail to achieve the positions of dominance that sex role stereotypes ideally call for. Stereotypes tend to identify such men as greater or lesser failures, and in extreme cases, men who fail to be dominant are the object of jokes, scorn, and sympathy from wives, peers, and society generally.
One avenue of dominance is potentially open to any man, however—dominance over a woman. As society generally teaches men they should dominate, it teaches women they should be submissive, and so men have the opportunity to dominate women. More and more, women, however, are reacting against the ill effects of being dominated. But the battle of women to be free need not be a battle against men as oppressors. The choice about whether men are the enemy is up to men themselves.
Male liberation seeks to aid in destroying the sex role stereotypes that regard ‘being a man’ and ‘being a woman’ as statuses that must be achieved through proper behavior. People need not take on restrictive roles to establish their sexual identity.
A major male sex role restriction occurs through the acceptance of a stereotypical view of men’s sexual relation to women. Whether or not men consciously admire the Playboy image, they are still influenced by the implicit sex role demands to be thoroughly competent and self-assured—in short, to be ‘manly.’ But since self-assurance is part of the stereotype, men who believe they fall short don’t admit it, and each can think he is the only one. Stereotypes limit men’s perception of women as well as of themselves. Men learn to be highly aware of a woman’s body, face, clothes—and this interferes with their ability to relate to her as a whole person. Advertising and consumer orientations are among the societal forces that both reflect and encourage these sex stereotypes. Women spend to make themselves more ‘feminine,’ and men are exhorted to buy cigarettes, clothes, and cars to show their manliness.
The popular image of a successful man combines dominance both over women, in social relations, and over other men, in the occupational world. But being a master has its burdens. It is not really possible for two persons to have a free relation when one holds the balance of power over the other. The more powerful person can never be sure of full candor from the other, though he may receive the kind of respect that comes from dependence. Moreover, people who have been dependent are coming to recognize more clearly the potentialities of freedom, and it is becoming harder for those who have enjoyed dominance to maintain this position. Persons bent on maintaining dominance are inhibited from developing themselves. Part of the price most men pay for being dominant in one situation is subscribing to a system in which they themselves are subordinated in another situation. The alternative is a system where men share, among themselves, and with women, rather than strive for a dominant role.
In addition to the dehumanization of being (or trying to be) a master, there is another severe, if less noticed, restriction from conventional male sex roles in the area of affect, play, and expressivity. Essentially, men are forbidden to play and show affect. This restriction is often not even recognized as a limitation, because affective behavior is so far outside the usual range of male activity.
Men are breadwinners, and are defined first and foremost by their performance in this area. This is a serious business and results in an end product—bringing home the bacon. The process area of life—activities that are enjoyed for the immediate satisfaction they bring—are not part of the central definition of men’s role. Yet the failure of men to be aware of this potential part of their lives leads them to be alienated from themselves and from others. Because men are not permitted to play freely, or show affect, they are prevented from really coming in touch with their own emotions.
If men cannot play freely, neither can they freely cry, be gentle, nor show weakness—because these are ‘feminine,’ not ‘masculine.’ But a fuller concept of humanity recognizes that all men and women are potentially both strong and weak, both active and passive, and that these and other human characteristics are not the province of one sex.
The acceptance of sex role stereotypes not only limits the individual but has bad effects on society generally. The apparent attractions of a male sex role are strong, and many males are necessarily caught up with this image. Education from early years calls upon boys to be brave, not to cry, and to fight for what is theirs. The day when these were virtues, if it ever existed, is long past. The main effect now is to help sustain a system in which private ‘virtues’ become public vices. Competitiveness helps promote exploitation of people all over the world, as men strive to achieve ‘success.’ If success requires competitive achievement, then an unlimited drive to acquire money, possessions, power, and prestige, is only seeking to be successful.
The affairs of the world have always been run nearly exclusively by men, at all levels. It is not accidental that the ways that elements of society have related to each other has been disastrously competitive, to the point of oppressing large segments of the world’s population. Most societies operate on authoritarian bases—in government, industry, education, religion, the family, and other institutions. It has been generally assumed that these are the only bases on which to operate, because those who have run the world have been reared to know no other. But women, being deprived of power, have also been more free of the role of dominator and oppressor; women have been denied the opportunity to become as competitive and ruthless as men.
In the increasing recognition of the right of women to participate equally in the affairs of the world, then, there is both a danger and a promise. The danger is that women could try simply to get their share of the action in the competitive, dehumanizing, exploitative system that men have created. The promise is that women and men might work together to create a system that provides equality to all and dominates no one. The women’s liberation movement has stressed that women are looking for a better model for human behavior than has so far been created. Women are trying to become human, and men can do the same. This implies that sex should not be limited by role stereotypes that define ‘appropriate’ behavior. The present models of neither men nor women furnish adequate opportunities for human development. That one half of the human race should be dominant and the other half submissive is incompatible with a notion of freedom. Freedom requires that there not be dominance and submission, but that all individuals be free to determine their own lives as equals.
Autumn 1970