Masculinity in Crisis Myths, Fantasies and Realities Roger Horrocks MASCULINITY IN CRISIS This page intentionally left blank Masculinity in Crisis Myths, Fantasies and Realities Roger Horrocks Consultant Editor Jo Campling @ Roger Horrocks 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published in Great Britain 1994 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-333-59322-7 hardcover ISBN 0-333-59323-5 paperback Printed and bonnd in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne Transferred to digital printing 2001 First published in the United States of America 1994 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 0-312-12020-6 (cloth) ISBN 0-312-12021-4(paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Horrocks, Roger. Masculinity in crisis : myths, fantasies, and realities I Roger Horrocks. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-12020-6. -ISBN 0-312-12021-4 (pbk.) I. Men. 2. Masculinity (Psychology) 3. Sex role. I. Title. HQ1090.J6 1994 155.3'32-dc20 93-37500 CIP In memory of my grandfathers Bob Horrocks and Tommy Nunnington the old is dying and the new cannot be born. Antonio Gramsci Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 2 Exploring Gender 5 3 Power and Powerlessness 25 4 Gender and Patriarchy 49 5 The First Woman 67 6 The Fragile Male 89 7 Male Autism 107 8 Rippers, Muggers, Soldiers 125 9 Male Images and Stereotypes 143 10 Growing Up 167 11 Conclusions 182 Appendix: Films Cited 186 Notes 188 Index 202 vii Acknowledgements Many of the ideas in this book have been discussed with other people, and frequently borrowed from them. In this sense, writing· is a social act, and I owe a great debt to many people. Many professionals in the psychotherapy world have helped me over the last twenty years. In particular I thank Tom Feldberg, John Costello, Sybilla Madigan and Alan Danks. To my own clients I owe an incalculable debt. Psychological theory has paled into insignificance next to their flesh and blood lives, which have moved me, amazed me, saddened me, angered me, and above all taught me. As Goethe said, theory is grey, but the tree of life is green. Someone else said that friendship is the bread of life, and my own friends have nourished me hugely - it seems rather understated to thank them for that, but I do: in particular Simon Jackson, Richard Mitchell, Valerie Streater, Victoria Zinovieff, Hilary Horrocks, and the late Norman Farebrother. A special thanks to Alix Pirani who encouraged me to express my ideas about 'the feminine' four years ago. I am very grateful to my editor Jo Campling who has been both informa tive and supportive, and also to Belinda Holdsworth at Macmillan. The anonymous reviewer pointed out many flaws of form and content and has helped make this a much better book: I am indebted to him. The staff of the Library of University College, London, have been unfailingly helpful. My biggest thanks go to my parents, and to Rachel and Adam, my own family. viii 1 Introduction This book argues that masculinity in Western society is in deep crisis. The masculine gender has all kinds of benefits, but it also acts as a mask, a dis guise, and what in psychotherapy is called a 'false self'. But who are we behind the false self? But more than this, I shall suggest that masculinity is a crisis for men today - that the masculine gender is a precarious and dangerous achieve ment and is highly damaging to men. For the past two or three decades we have become used to feminism showing the damaging effects of gender inequality on women. It has often been assumed that men, in their positions of dominance, have the most exciting and rewarding careers, feel more powerful in their public and private lives, and are generally favoured over women. While there is clearly some cogency to these arguments, I have found in my work that in fact many men are haunted by feelings of emptiness, impotence and rage. They feel abused, unrecognized by modern society. While manhood offers compensations and prizes, it can also bring with it emotional autism, emptiness and despair. Many of the ideas in this book come out of my work as a psycho therapist. I work with both men and women, and today I see individuals wrestling with fundamental questions of identity and meaning. But - and in many ways this was the motive for writing this book- I don't see men feeling less confused or less in pain than women. In the last two decades feminism has obviously been primarily concerned with the subordinate place of women in society, and with the negative ways in which men treat women. There has been a lot of anger, resentment and hurt expressed in the feminist writings, and so the view of men found in them has not been a flattering one. There is no point com plaining about that - it is surely right that women have been able to find their voice and express their demands, their resentments, sense of injustice and so on. In fact, feminism has been able to mount a profound critique of patriarchal society as an unjust system. But men have been relatively silent. There has not been much of a debate or argument about these issues. Some men have agreed with much of the feminist position and have made their own critical analyses of male dom ination. 1 Gay men have produced their own analysis of sexuality and gender, and have generally been sympathetic to feminism in the sense that they were also concerned to distance themselves from the traditional image