Against the backdrop of #MeToo and Time’s Up movements prompting conversations about the patriarchy’s continued impact on women, some are discussing the system’s lingering, often damaging, effects on men.
On Thursday, Boston University alumni gathered at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge, curious to learn what the “Are You Man Enough: Performing Contemporary Masculinities” lecture, hosted by the BU Alumni Association, was all about.
Barbara Gottfried, a women’s studies professor and BU alumnus, lectured about masculinity today and masculinity throughout history.
“I don’t set myself up as exactly an expert on masculinity,” Gottfried said. “I’ve never been there in some ways, but I have read quite a lot, and you would be surprised how much there is nowadays.”
Gottfried said she was surprised to see so many men at the lecture because she doesn’t typically have many male students in her classes.
Over the course of her presentation, she discussed conceptions of what it means to be masculine and where in popular culture she sees masculinity permeate, offering the cowboy as the quintessential male figure of American culture.
Gottfried asked, “Who are today’s cowboys?” Answers from the audience included astronauts and superheros.
Referencing psychologist Robert Brannon, Gottfried listed four components of the dominant traits of masculinity, ways in which Brannon believed men should behave. Brannon’s rules include not engaging with “sissy stuff,” being both a successful “big wheel” and a reliable “sturdy oak” and a commandment to “Give ‘em hell!”
Summing up Brannon’s rules, Gottfried noted a stigma attached to acting feminine. Success and status are vital aspects of masculinity in America that men crave, and men must be dependable, tough, daring and assertive.
“I wonder, has it really changed so much?” she asked. “And the superhero suggests maybe not.”
Through different stages of men’s lives, Gottfried said, they are conditioned to attempt to attain these qualities, receiving gender cues even as babies. By the ages of three and four, children know what is socially appropriate for boys and girls.
“From a very young age, boys are taught to act like a man,” Gottfried said. “Most of all, they are taught not to cry.”
Hopefully, Gottfried said, the attendees gained perspective on contemporary masculinity’s performative nature.
“What they got a lot of was some confirmation of ideas that they may have had or a further understanding of the way in which masculinity as it’s performed in America today can be pretty oppressive,” Gottfried said in an interview with The Daily Free Press.
In light of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, Gottfried said there’s connection between what’s happening in society to conceptions of masculinity.
“We’re not trying to put down individual men, but trying to look at the way in which what’s happening with masculinity now is interconnected to what’s happening in the culture now,” Gottfried said. “It’s not a coincidence that we have a particular president at this time.”
Fixing this cycle can take some work, Gottfried said, but it’s something parents can work on with their children, even at a young age.
“Modeling a certain kind of masculinity is also really useful to rounding boys with older boys and men who are not so invested in a kind of toxic masculinity,” Gottfried said.
Sarah Speltz, associate director at Alumni Programs, organized the discussion Thursday night. She said the event was created as an effort to provide educational programs for alumni who still live in Boston.
“Even some alums who can’t actually attend the event, they were glad that this topic was available to them or just that we’re discussing it in general,” Speltz said in an interview with The Daily Free Press.
Alumnus Bonnie Klein, 57 of Bedford, said she came to hear the lecture in order to develop a better understanding of the conversation around masculinity.
“[I’m] finding it to be a wonderful thing to get out and have conversations with people about some of the issues that I’d like to see more of a focus and just have a better understanding myself,” Klein said.
Focus on gender, Gottfried said, is as universal as it is strong.
“We are heavily invested in gender as a category,” Gottfried said. “It crosses cultures and races. There’s almost no culture across the whole world where gender does not matter.”
