Crisis of Modern American Masculinity :: Essays Papers

Crisis of Modern American malenessI think every human being between 20 and 40 needs to read Elizabeth Gilberts The Last American Man. Without going into enlarge (like I said, you should read the book), this is a biography/profile of Eustace Conway - a man who is, among other things, capable of and prefers to (or would prefer to) live the kind of frontier modus vivendi we have read about hunting and gathering his food, living in a house he built using his own hands, make his own clothes from the skins of animals he captured, and so on I suspect that for galore(postnominal) people the story, at least initially, will arouse the sort of romantic feelings that tend to come with fantasies of a simple life of rugged self-sufficiency. However, even off for those who be quite certain that they prefer their modern urban lifestyle (air conditioning, direct deposit, grocery stores, ebay, cable TV, &c.), I think this book raises total questions about what it means to be a man at the t raverse of the twenty- scratch century.The problem, as I see it, is that we have not re-defined masculinity for the modern age. In the old days, masculinity was measured by (1) somatogenetic abilities, particularly strength, but also skill, (2) power/success/wealth, and (3) sexual prowess. The first can be developed through education and hard work, the fleck could be acquired through the application of the first, and the third, well, either you got it or you dont, but locker room bragging can always make up for any lacks, in particular if you got the first two. Boys growing up in such a orderliness work to develop their physical abilities and learn how to apply them most efficaciously, thence becoming a man. This makes sense when a man powerfulness be faced with the challenge of building shelter on the prairie or raising crops, but us modern urban men are unlikely to face such challenges. Of course, we are not unprepared for the challenges of a modern urban lifestyle. Our educ ation generally provides such life-sustaining skills as linear algebra, the performing arts, and information systems management. The educational system is successful decorous to allow most of us to get jobs that pay us rich to afford all the requirements of a modern urban lifestyle housing, food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, etc. The trouble is that while education has more or less unbroken pace with the advance of civilization, our notions of masculinity have not.