![\"Vintage](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2014\/04\/manhood.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Where does manhood come from?<\/p>\n
Is it innate or culturally constructed?<\/p>\n
Why has an emphasis on manhood receded in the modern day?<\/p>\n
Throughout this series, we have indirectly been touching on these questions. Today we\u2019ll tackle them head on. (We explored this subject<\/a> a few years ago, but I had only skimmed Manhood in the Making<\/i> at that point, and it deserves a much more thorough and critical treatment. We\u2019ve now laid down enough context to really dig into it!).<\/p>\n This post is long. Like chapter-of-a-book long. (It was originally even longer, but I decided to break it into two back-to-back posts!). I made it so thorough for those who are very interested in this subject, and for those who will critically question how I came to these conclusions. (If you\u2019re not so interested, skip ahead to the cliff notes version in the conclusion).<\/p>\n The length of this post, and that of all the articles in this series, does naturally give rise to an interesting question: is thinking this much about manliness even manly? In truth, I personally spend very little of my time thinking about \u201cgender.\u201d I\u2019m not all that interested in analyzing manliness, or dissecting sex differences, or thinking about feminism. Perhaps that is surprising coming from a man who runs a site called \u201cThe Art of Manliness,\u201d but I\u2019m honestly a really simple, practical guy. If I had my druthers I\u2019d write exclusively about setting goals<\/a> and preventing swamp crotch<\/a>. The perspective that most guides my own life and conception on manhood is Aristotle\u2019s concept of eudaimonia<\/em> <\/i>(a life of excellence and full flourishing), and thus I am most interested in practical ways to improve everything I do, and in things that can inspire me to be my very best.<\/p>\n So most of the time when I think about manhood, I view it through the prism of how a man differs from a boy, rather than how a man differs from a woman. I, and the Art of Manliness as a whole, is mostly focused on growing up well<\/i>, and while I definitely believe there is<\/i> something uniquely masculine about that growing up process for men, it can be understood largely intuitively \u2013 if<\/i> a man is open to understanding and embracing that unique energy.<\/p>\n But therein lies the problem in our modern age: a lot of guys don\u2019t know how to recognize and exercise that masculine energy because they\u2019ve been taught it doesn\u2019t even exist! No man can be his best or live a truly fulfilling life if he doesn\u2019t understand the landscape of his psyche \u2013 the primal needs that lie in the very marrow of his bones. You can harness and channel these needs, but a man completely ignores them at his peril. Modern men are told there\u2019s nothing real about manhood — that it\u2019s all a silly, outdated cultural construct — and they sure work hard to believe it. And yet they cannot shake a deep sense of malaise<\/a>, and they don\u2019t know why.<\/p>\n While manhood has always been primarily concerned with what you do<\/i>, men have always thought<\/i> about what it means to be a man too, for, contrary to popular opinion, manliness doesn\u2019t just happen<\/a> \u2013 in any age. Perhaps we can say that for the ancients, the split between doing manly things, and thinking about manliness was something like 90\/10. Today, maybe it needs to be more like 80\/20. For our ancestors, manhood was basically like water to a fish — something they understood so intuitively it needn\u2019t be explained. But that thread of understanding that ran through every culture for thousands of years has been severed. A modern man must then spend more time recovering the knowledge of the heritage of manhood, before he knows how to take his place on the manly path of manly deeds.<\/p>\n So I offer this post, and this series, as an extension of that thread in the hopes of helping modern men understand themselves, what society has expected of them in the past, and why society has stopped expecting anything of them today.<\/p>\n Manhood is <\/i>intuitive if you\u2019re not closed off to the idea. How it came to be so instinctual, and why we\u2019ve still managed to lose touch with it in the present age, is what I aim to explain below.<\/p>\n Note: Unless otherwise noted, all quotes come from Dr. David D. Gilmore\u2019s <\/i>Manhood in the Making<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the last several weeks, we have been discussing the 3 pillars of the ancient, nearly universal code of manhood. But what is unique about manhood isn\u2019t simply its tenets, but that it is structured as a code at all.<\/i><\/p>\n In cultures all around the world, being a man<\/i> has been differentiated from being a male<\/i>. Being a male is a matter of pure biology \u2013 the result of being born with a XY chromosome. Being a man, on the other hand, is a title of honor: a prize that must be earned<\/i> through struggle — through trials of courage, skill, and endurance. A boy does not become a man automatically, through the passing of years, but by striving to demonstrate excellence in the 3 P\u2019s of Manhood, especially the tactical virtues of Strength, Courage, Mastery, and Honor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just as it can be earned, manhood can also be lost. Failure to live the 3 P\u2019s brings a man shame, and diminishes his reputation and claim to manhood.<\/p>\n Gilmore calls this dynamic a \u201cmanhood-of-achievement.\u201d As he examined the way in which widely varying cultures defined masculinity, this sentiment kept continually cropping up: \u201cReal men are made, not born<\/i>.\u201d The Native American Fox tribe has perhaps my favorite name for manhood, one that well-captures this idea: \u201cThe Big Impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n This conception of manhood continues to echo strongly even in our modern, nominally gender-neutral times; it is still common to hear people say, \u201cBe a man!\u201d or \u201cMan up!\u201d<\/a> And men talk about wanting to become<\/i> a man or making a journey into manhood<\/p>\n There are tellingly no true equivalents of this kind of language when it comes to womanhood. In cultures around the globe, womanhood is\/was seen not as something earned, but as a state that develops naturally in concert with biological maturation. Gilmore further explains the difference between how manhood and womanhood have historically been evaluated:<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough women too, in any society, are judged by sometimes stringent sexual standards, it is rare that their very status as a woman forms part of the evaluation. Women who are found to be deficient or deviant according to these standards may be criticized as immoral, or they may be called unladylike or its equivalent and subjected to appropriate sanctions, but rarely is their right to a gender identity questioned in the same public, dramatic way that it is for men. The very paucity of linguistic labels for females echoing the epithets \u2018effete,\u2019 \u2018unmanly,\u2019 \u2018effeminate,\u2019 \u2018emasculated,\u2019 and so on, attest to the archetypal difference between sex judgments worldwide. And it is far more assaultive (and frequent) for men to be challenged in this way than for women.<\/p>\n Perhaps the difference between male and female should not be overstated, for \u2018femininity\u2019 is also something achieved by women who seek social approval. But as a social icon, \u2018femininity\u2019 seems to be judged differently. It usually involves questions of body ornament or sexual allure, or other essentially cosmetic behaviors that enhance, rather than create, an inherent quality of character. An authentic femininity rarely involves tests or proofs of action, or confrontations with dangerous foes: win-or-lose contests dramatically played out on the public stage. Rather than a critical threshold passed by traumatic testing, an either\/or condition, femininity is more often construed as a biological given that is culturally refined or augmented.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The natural question that arises then is this: how did these different perspectives on the nature of manhood and womanhood develop?<\/p>\n To survive and thrive, every society must fulfill two basic categories of creation and replenishing: production and reproduction.<\/p>\n For reasons we have thoroughly explored in this series, men were tasked with being responsible for the lion\u2019s share of the responsibilities of production (and defense), while women were charged with the lion\u2019s share of responsibilities in the sphere of reproduction.<\/p>\n Within any given tribe, there were likely men inherently better suited to be caregivers, and women more drawn to being hunters and warriors. But individual proclivities were trumped by group needs. This division wasn\u2019t fair (according to our modern idea of that concept), but it was efficient and effective \u2013 a survival strategy that had been honed over thousands of years. Perpetuating any culture \u201crequires that enough people make certain minimal sacrifices and contributions\u201d for the greater good \u2013 even if those sacrifices come at the expense of personal fulfillment.<\/p>\n To fulfill the imperative of reproduction, what societies most needed from women was to bear children. This is a process, that while quite arduous, begins largely naturally and continues forward unaided unless intentionally aborted. Menstruation arrives as a result of biological maturation, and once pregnant, a woman does not have to actively choose to remain pregnant each day. When the baby is born, he or she needs to be fed, and a woman\u2019s body naturally produces the necessary food. Hormones released through nursing draw the mother and baby closer, solidifying their bond and motivating the mother\u2019s care of the infant. This bonding process most certainly requires the woman\u2019s willful patience and self-control, and it isn\u2019t inevitable; despite our ideal of a mother\u2019s unbreakable love, infanticide is surprisingly common in premodern tribes (and among primates as well). But in general, though childcare can be a difficult task, very much necessitating the qualities of endurance and discipline, it is at the same time also carried forward by natural, inescapable forces.<\/p>\n To fulfill the imperative of production and protection, what societies most needed from men was to hunt and to fight. These duties require an initiative that not only lacks an accompanying force of inherent, biological momentum, but in fact runs contrary to it.<\/p>\n Men likely have an inherent comfort and attraction to violence, and testosterone fuels a potent masculine energy that drives men<\/a> to compete, explore, take risks, and seek status. In its natural state, this masculine energy is diffuse; left to follow its own course, it will be discharged in an haphazard way \u2013 in carousing, drinking, brawling, and so on. Men have a tendency towards social withdrawal and doing their own thing. The code of manhood thus seeks to counter these anti-social and unproductive drives and channel men\u2019s energy towards constructive pursuits that benefit the tribe (and arguably the man himself, as well).<\/p>\n But hunting, protecting, and raiding are physically strenuous, highly dangerous, and possibly fatal jobs. The highest impulse in all humans, male and female alike, is towards self-preservation. Human warriors throughout time, and even gangs of chimpanzees as well, will almost invariably try to limit their attacks to times when they can employ the element of surprise and thus have the chance to discharge violence in a way that greatly reduces their own risk of casualties. When chimps perform their border patrols, for example, they will wait until a member of a rival gang is by himself, and then jump him. Even in modern warfare, troops have tried to avoid meeting directly whenever possible \u2013 waiting to attack until they think they have the tactical upper hand.<\/p>\n Humans are also highly reluctant to kill each other. They must overcome this reluctance by de-humanizing the enemy \u2013 viewing them as inferior beasts who deserve to be slayed.<\/p>\n The general human tendency away from constructive work and towards rest and pleasure is a powerful drive as well. Left to our own devices, we all tend to follow the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n Thus, while some highly energetic and competitive men likely relished the chance to fight and hunt, some men, likely most, understandably would have been tempted to sit around and relax \u2013 intermittently seeking sex and grappling for sport whenever the mood struck.<\/p>\n With the duties of womanhood, the effects of inaction were acute and immediate: a hungry, wailing baby. Anyone who has been subject to a baby\u2019s caterwauling knows you\u2019ll move heaven and earth to make it stop, post-haste.<\/p>\n Failing to go hunting on a certain day, on the other hand, wouldn\u2019t have had any immediate<\/i> effects. \u201cOh, we\u2019ve got some bison jerky stored away. We\u2019re fine. We\u2019ll go next week maybe.\u201d The temptation towards inaction and procrastination would have been strong.<\/p>\n The code of manhood, then, can be seen as encouragement to \u201cresist indolence, self-doubt, squeamishness, hesitancy, the impulse to withdraw or surrender, and the ‘sleepiness’ of quietude.\u201d It is ultimately a way to motivate men to overcome the human tendency for safety and passivity, and choose instead to strive to attain resources for their people — to work and fight (and to pursue women — despite the risk of rejection — as well). As Gilmore writes:<\/p>\n \u201cIn most societies, the three male imperatives are either dangerous or highly competitive. They place men at risk on the battlefield, on the hunt, or in confrontation with their fellows. Because of the universal urge to flee from danger, we may regard real manhood as an inducement for high performance in the social struggle for scarce resources, a code of conduct that advances collective interests by overcoming inner inhibitions. In fulfilling their obligations, men stand to lose — a hovering threat that separates them from women and boys. They stand to lose their reputations or their lives; yet their prescribed tasks must be done if the group is to survive and prosper. Because boys must steel themselves to enter into such struggles, they must be prepared by various sorts of tempering and toughening. To be men, most of all, they must accept the fact that they are expendable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why did men accept the code of manhood if it pushed them to do difficult and dangerous things? Why did most men readily forgo the path of least resistance and decide to follow the \u201chard way\u201d \u2013 \u201cThe Way of Men?\u201d<\/p>\n Men who chose a life of danger and difficulty to serve the greater good were rewarded with the title of man<\/i> \u2013 and given the honor, respect, and rewards (including increased opportunities to procreate) attendant to that status. Men who shirked this duty and sought a softer, easier path were shamed and stripped of their manhood. The desire for honor was so great that most shunned the sheltered life and heartily chose The Way of Men.<\/p>\n Still, though, why didn\u2019t men rebel against the whole system \u2013 the whole idea of linking the imperative to \u201ccreate more\/consume less\u201d to their very manhood? Well, certainly in a harsh environment, contributing to everyone else\u2019s well-being not only helped women, children, and their fellow kinsmen survive, but helped them personally survive as well. A system that pushed all men to be their best and to pull their own weight was a boon to both the man and<\/i> his tribe \u2013 it made life better and more comfortable for all. As Gilmore asks about the code of manhood: \u201cCui Bono<\/i>?\u201d (Who benefits?) The answer? Everyone.<\/i><\/p>\n But, I also think something else is at play — that choosing the hard way, though it involves overcoming one\u2019s natural tendency towards dependence, fear, and passivity, is ultimately the most psychologically satisfying path to take. Part of this satisfaction comes from the fact that the manly imperatives can be seen \u201cas modes of integrating men into their society, as codes of belonging in a hard, often threatening world.\u201d While we often think we want to be completely alone, as social animals, we are happiest when strongly tied to others. Part of it also has to do with fulfilling one\u2019s biological potential, and scratching the itch born of one\u2019s innate masculinity. And part of it is rooted in the satisfaction only open to those who choose to be creators, rather than simply consumers. But to explore these ideas would mean straying into philosophical territory, so we\u2019ll move on for now, saving this discussion for the final post in this series.<\/p>\n Sidenote #1: Why Vice is Considered Manly<\/b><\/p>\n Have you ever wondered why \u2013 despite a slew of well-meaning PSAs \u2013 we culturally have a hard time shaking the idea that things like drinking hard liquor and smoking cigarettes is manly? It\u2019s not just the marketing \u2013 it runs much deeper than the Marlboro Man. It\u2019s the same reason we think motorcycle riding and car racing is manly. Such \u201cvices\u201d are bad for you, dangerous, and could potentially cut your life short.<\/p>\n A man\u2019s indulgence in such pastimes register in our minds as an embrace of male expendability \u2013 a fundamental tenet of the ancient code of manhood. Men who lived the code, men who were good at being men, gladly chose a potentially shorter life full of risk, danger, excitement, adventure, and glory over a life that was longer and safer but infinitely duller. Thus when a modern man evinces a casual indifference to prolonging his life, we instinctually feel he\u2019d be the kind of guy we\u2019d want on our team when guarding the perimeter<\/a> \u2013 the kind of man who\u2019d run towards the danger instead of seeking out the safest place to hide.<\/p>\n Likewise we\u2019re instinctually wary of men who are super straight arrows \u2013 who abstain from any vices at all. Deep down we worry they hold to life too tightly \u2013 that their convictions might be a cover for cowardice.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not completely rational, of course. Just because a man rides a motorcycle doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019d be good in a pinch, and just because a man is a strict teetotaler doesn\u2019t mean he isn\u2019t brave. It\u2019s just the initial, visceral reaction we have when evaluating the manliness of other men \u2013 before their subsequent actions confirm or disprove this first impression.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To prepare young men for their roles in a difficult and dangerous world, they are taught from an early age to be physically and mentally tough \u2013 strong, skillful, stoic. Their toughness is tested through rituals that determine whether they\u2019ve developed these values enough to be considered a real man.<\/p>\n Such tests are often included as part of a tribe\u2019s rite of passage \u2013 ceremonies in which a boy officially becomes a man. These initiations frequently involve physical challenges that require a young man to publicly demonstrate his stoicism and his competence in the manly arts. In more peaceful tribes, a boy\u2019s rite of passage often centers on demonstrating his ability to provide, such as bagging his first antelope. In tribes that frequently engage in warfare, the rites typically involve testing a young man\u2019s ability to withstand great physical pain. For example, in the Amazonian Sater\u00e9-Maw\u00e9 tribe, a boy must stick his hand in a glove woven with bullet ants (the ant with the most painful sting in the world) and withstand wave after wave of their searing stings for over 10 minutes. He must do this 20 more times over the coming months and years as part of his journey into manhood. To pass these tests, each time he must endure the pain without making a noise; to cry out in pain during these rituals is to bring shame to oneself and to one\u2019s family.<\/p>\n Such torturous rites of passage seem senseless and cruel to our modern sensibilities, but they were not arbitrarily designed and instituted. When a man\u2019s prowess as a hunter and a warrior were paramount to the survival of his tribe, demonstrating his insensibility to pain showed his kinsmen that he would not fall behind when tracking prey and would not turn and run from fright on the battlefield. These tests of skill and toughness showed that a man could be trusted, and when you\u2019re guarding the perimeter together, trust is everything<\/i>.<\/p>\n Even today, central to the purpose of military boot camps is building a force where every soldier knows that his fellow brothers-in-arms have already been required to demonstrate competency in the basics of martial defense. The more dangerous a unit\u2019s missions will be, and the more the men will need to rely on each other, the more arduous and challenging the required training and tests of their mettle — culminating in grueling programs like BUD\/S<\/a>. During BUD\/S, stinging ant gloves are replaced with Hell Week, but the goal is the same: to ensure that only the elite go on \u2013 that each graduate is assuredly up to the task of being a SEAL and will not fail his brothers once out in the field.<\/p>\n Sidenote #2: Why We\u2019re More Comfortable with Tomboys<\/b><\/p>\n Have you ever wondered why as a society we are a lot more comfortable with tomboys than tomgirls (which is, telling, not really even a common word)? Girls who want to be tough and do guy stuff aren\u2019t usually much criticized, and in fact may be encouraged and saluted. When boys are \u201csoft\u201d and want to do girly things, on the other hand, people tend to look askance and even viscerally recoil at such displays of \u201ceffeminacy.\u201d This has been changing somewhat in very recent times, with the push for even greater gender fluidity, but is still commonly the case.<\/p>\n The reason for this difference in our reactions likely comes from the fact that in primitive times, pretty much all women were \u201ctomboys.\u201d Women may not have been tested on their toughness in the same way as men, but life was hard for everyone<\/i>, and women had to be pretty \u201chard\u201d to survive, too. Living in the wild, taking care of children in the woods, and gathering food was no cakewalk. For example during harvest season, Yanomamo women carry 70-80 pounds of crops on their backs. Thus even women had to \u201cact like men\u201d sometimes, and tribes like the Blackfoot Indians admired women with \u201ca manly heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the most masculine women \u2013 those few who wished to accompany men on raiding parties — would probably still get pregnant and thus fulfill their most important social imperative. So there was no harm in women seeking toughness; if a woman could bear children and<\/i> nurture them and<\/i> be tough, all the better.<\/p>\n The same could not be said for men who wished to be womanly. A man who desired to stay home from a hunting or raiding mission was shamed as a coward. While a tough woman could still bear children, a womanly man could not fulfill his <\/i>most important social imperative: to serve as protector. Soft and timid men thus weakened the tribe as a whole and left it more vulnerable to attack.<\/p>\n This dynamic has been true up through my great-grandmothers\u2019 time. Tough pioneer women were an asset to a group crossing the plains, while effeminate pioneer men posed a vulnerability and a burden. Even today, in environments where toughness in both sexes is still an advantage, women remain \u201charder\u201d than the average female \u2013 take a look at women who live in the wilds of Alaska, or the wives of gnarly biker dudes, for example. Studies have shown that modern men with high testosterone choose female partners with high testosterone \u2013 likely because of an instinctual judgment that such women will ultimately make better companions when traveling \u201cthe hard way.\u201d<\/p>\n The reason we still worry about boys who are soft and timid, more so than girls who are tough, even in our plush, peaceful modern age, is something that we\u2019ll get into in the next post.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Gilmore argues that, \u201cThe harsher the environment and the scarcer the resources, the more manhood is stressed as inspiration and goal.\u201d Basically, the harder and more dangerous life is for a society, the more precarious that people\u2019s survival, the more men need to be men.<\/p>\n If Gilmore\u2019s theory is correct, then what we would expect to find is that in cultures where resources aren\u2019t scarce, where the livin\u2019 is fairly easy, an emphasis on manhood would be weak or non-existent. And indeed, that is precisely what you do find. For example, when the first Europeans landed on the beautiful island of Tahiti in the 18th<\/sup> century, they were greatly struck with how passive, gentle, mild, and comfortably effeminate the men seemed to be and how androgynous the sexes were in general. While the Tahitian men did initially try to fight off the newcomers, as soon as the Europeans displayed their superior firepower, they quickly laid down their weapons and sued for peace. The women, who were not submissive or deferential to their husbands, willingly gave themselves sexually to the delighted white explorers \u2013 and did so with their husbands\u2019 blessing. A popular idea at the time was that there were yet-to-be-discovered native peoples tucked away in the world who represented a kind of blissful Eden from which modern man had fallen into greedy, violent, brutishness, and the Tahitians really seemed to be a perfect example of this kind of primitive paradise.<\/p>\n Men and women both contributed in the provision sphere and their respective contributions were equally valued. Almost without exception men and women performed the same tasks; the division of labor was flexible and based on what was practicable for each individual. The early Tahitians were agriculturists and land and livestock were plentiful and available to all. The men did not hunt, nor need to undertake dangerous deep-sea fishing trips. The people fished and gathered seafood from the island\u2019s well-stocked lagoons.<\/p>\n The early colonists observed that male and female roles were not sharply differentiated. Men and women did not see themselves as having very different burdens, thoughts, or characteristics, and men did not feel the need to prove themselves as men. Anthropologist Robert Levy observed the same dynamic when he surveyed the culture in the 1960s: \u201cMen are no more aggressive than women; women do not seem \u2018softer\u2019 or more maternal than men\u2026the men seemed a little feminine and the women a little masculine.\u201d<\/p>\n We find a similar story among the Mbuti — a hunter\/gatherer tribe that resides in the Congo region of Africa. The tribe includes numerous bands, within which the people live as nuclear families. Everyone — mom, dad, and children too — hunt and gather together. The land yields sufficient plants and game for their needs. Both parents tend to their kids. Men and women hold political power and decisions are made together. The Mbuti generally eschew aggression and violence as a solution to problems; instead, those who disobey the tribe\u2019s loose rules are shamed or banished.<\/p>\n Other conflicts are avoided simply by running away from them. Each band of Mbuti lays claim to an exclusive territory. A neighboring band can ask for permission to hunt and gather on that land. But if they cross the border without doing so, they are considered thieves and trespassers. If the two rival bands do not happen to meet up, all is well. If one band does encounter a group of interlopers, the potential conflict is resolved without violence; the offenders are expected to drop their fenced goods and high tail it back home. They are not pursued. The Mbuti explain this passive response to territorial trespassing by saying that because there\u2019s plenty of food to go around, it\u2019s simply not worth fighting over.<\/p>\n That answer also essentially explains the underlying reason for these cultures\u2019 more peaceful ways and their lack of emphasis on sex differences and the code of manhood.<\/p>\n In the face of stress and danger, animals generally respond with either fight <\/i>or flight<\/i>. In most species, the response is completely instinctual. In humans, it is more of a learned choice.<\/p>\n Throughout history, only a tiny number of human societies have chosen flight as their predominate response to threats. These extremely rare cultures did so largely because their resources were abundant, and they thus did not feel threatened by the incursion of rival gangs who were interested in grabbing a piece of what they had. In such cultures, a code of manhood is very weak, as men don\u2019t need to toughen up in preparation to be critical hunters and fierce warriors. When food comes easily and life is peaceful, men don\u2019t need to be men. As Gilmore puts it, \u201cPerhaps without typical manhood ideology, men are permitted the luxury of remaining passive and dependent, rather like stone-age Peter Pans.\u201d<\/p>\n For thousands of years, the overwhelming majority of societies have chosen the other track — to fight<\/i>. They have done so because men\u2019s biology naturally predisposes them to this response (the human female reaction to stress is a third, until recently overlooked response: to tend and befriend<\/i><\/a>). And they have done so because in nearly every case, choosing to fight yielded an evolutionary advantage. Until very recently, almost all the world\u2019s people lived in a harsh environment with scarce resources — resources that had to be protected tooth and nail and sometimes obtained through raiding. And they resided next to other tribes that had the very same idea. Even if the world\u2019s tribes had wanted to flee, there was nowhere to run. The continual conflicts and ever present dangers inherent to primitive life had to be met head on.<\/p>\n In pointing to exceptions like the Tahitians, Gilmore posits that \u201cthese virtually androgynous cultures raise questions about the universal \u2018need\u2019 for masculinity in male development, and in my opinion suggest that cultural variables may outweigh nature in the masculinity puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n I was prepared to accept that the few exceptions to the rule did indeed buttress an argument for masculinity being largely culturally constructed. Yet when I looked more into them, they proved not to be so exceptional after all!<\/p>\n An emphasis on certain aspects of a culture, those that fit the observer\u2019s preconceived perspective, to the exclusion of others that contradict it, is typical of both the first Europeans who came upon native peoples, and to a lesser degree even of modern anthropologists who invariably filter their findings through their own prism of beliefs \u2013 or simply don\u2019t get a chance to see certain aspects of a culture during the time they are living among a tribe. This is true of primatologists as well. For example, when Jane Goodall first started observing chimpanzees, and sending dispatches to the world about these fascinating primates, what she saw was a delightful, peaceful, human-like group of animals. Their innocence seemed to point to an original peaceful paradise from which humans had fallen. Killing simply to kill was thought to be a uniquely human flaw.<\/p>\n But a decade after Goodall began her study of these cute, apparently fun-loving chimps, the group began splintering into two factions and fiercely turning on each other \u2013 brutally and senselessly slaying their former friends. In a series of bloody raids, one side completely wiped out the other. For primatologists it was a terrific shock.<\/p>\n Likewise, according to some anthropological surveys, 10% of hunter-gatherer societies are considered to fight \u201crarely to never.\u201d Yet as Richard Wrangham points out in Demonic Males<\/i><\/a>, \u201cwith the ethnographic record so sketchy and our time frame so narrow\u201d it\u2019s nearly impossible to know how long \u201cnever\u201d really is. \u201cAn anthropologist settled into Western Europe for the two decades between 1920 and 1940 might report a Germany, France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia at peace.\u201d<\/p>\n All of which is to say, early observers and later anthropologists often emphasized what they wanted to see, and what they got to see. How exceptional the supposed exceptions are, then, is largely about which side of the coin one is looking at.<\/p>\n Take those supposedly \u201cvirtually androgynous\u201d Tahitians. While men and women did share in most of life\u2019s tasks, men were responsible for almost all of the building and farming, while women did light agricultural work and devoted more time to gathering, childcare, and maintaining the household. Both men and women did cook, but women could not eat the food cooked by men, while men could eat the food cooked by either sex. While Gilmore argues that \u201cthere are no jobs or skills reserved for either sex,\u201d canoe fishing was in fact the exclusive preserve of males. While women shared political power, they had to sit behind men at meetings.[1]<\/a> While Gilmore writes that \u201cthere is no concept of male honor to defend,\u201d and that \u201cmen are expected to be passive and yielding [and] to ignore slights,\u201d that is only true of the post-colonial period, when the French government had put an end to the island\u2019s chief-led clans. Before the arrival of Europeans, however, these clans would frequently war, sometimes simply because of a chief\u2019s hurt pride.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Gilmore does mention that Tahitian boys underwent a rite of circumcision<\/a>, but notes that it was done for \u201chealth\u201d reasons and in private, and thus lacked any connotation of testing. But he leaves out that there is another rite young men underwent that is very much like the manhood-earning challenges of other cultures. Before he could get married, a Tahitian man had to have his entire backside painfully tattooed.[3]<\/a> Men would get other tattoos all over their bodies as well throughout their lives. Their favorite designs? Spears, clubs, swords, and other weapons of war and figures of men engaged in battle, triumphing over a fallen foe, and carrying a human sacrifice to the temple. (Oh yeah, they made human sacrifices, too). Women received tattoos as well, but their designs typically centered on stars, circles, and coconuts.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n And the Mbuti? While husbands and wives alike look after their children, their kids do not see their parents as interchangeable and associate \u201ctheir fathers with authority, their mothers with love.\u201d[5]<\/a> Men and women do hunt together \u2013 when they\u2019re using nets. But when hunting is done with the bow and arrow, only men are allowed to participate. Both sexes collaborate when making political decisions, but men hold the leadership positions. And the young men also do in fact go through a grueling initiation into manhood; between the ages of 9-12, boys are circumcised and then taken to live in the woods for several months where they learn to hunt and fish. Each morning they are whipped to instill manly toughness. At times they are allowed to dance and sing, but otherwise their mouths are stuffed with leaves to ensure complete silence.<\/p>\n So much for our completely peaceful, totally androgynous utopias.<\/p>\n Indeed, I searched in vain to find a culture that did not include at least some gender role differentiation as well as elements of the code of manliness. (There is one<\/i>, but it\u2019s a very special case. We\u2019ll get to it in a bit).<\/p>\n Gender role differentiation and the code of manhood has truly existed always and everywhere. How wide the divide between the sexes and how strong the code of manhood does vary \u2013 and it varies according to the abundance of resources in a given society.<\/p>\n So rather than saying that in societies where life is flush and easier, codes of manhood disappear<\/i>, it is most accurate to say that as resources go up, an emphasis on manhood goes down. Yet even in the most resource-rich cultures, it persists.<\/p>\n What is most interesting to me about otherwise relatively egalitarian, resource-abundant, mostly peaceful cultures, is that they still include a rite of passage for young men into manhood. But if boys don\u2019t need to be prepared to navigate a harsh world, and thus don\u2019t need to prove their manhood and demonstrate their toughness, what then are such rites doing there?<\/p>\n As an ancillary\/auxiliary explanation for manhood, Gilmore also touches on the psychological theory that all boys, in every kind of society, have a more difficult time growing up and becoming mature, contributing adults — creators, rather than just consumers.<\/p>\n The idea is that all babies begin life inside their mother\u2019s womb: mother and child are completely one. As children grow up, they face the challenge of emerging from this primal unity, separating themselves from their mothers, and forging their own, independent identities.<\/p>\n This is not always easy, as the desire to \u201cseek solace at mothers side, is probably a universal human tendency\u201d \u2013 one that lasts in varying degrees throughout our whole lives. To enter into adulthood is to accept new privileges, but also new responsibilities and burdens. Adulthood requires mastering the art of delayed gratification and learning to embrace work \u2013 to do what needs to be done, rather than what we simply feel like doing. At times we all want to run from these demands and return to our magical childhoods where our every need was met and nothing was asked of us except to exist. Deep in the core of our identity, there is a part of us that wants to regress into \u201cinfantile narcissism\u201d — to get back to the blissful, \u201cprimary, profound, primeval oneness with mother.\u201d<\/p>\n Some psychological theorists speculate that fighting this regressive pull is more difficult for males. Not simply because historically the demands of adult manhood were so arduous and dangerous — so tempting to avoid — but because girls do not have to separate as sharply from their mothers; they can look to their moms as models of grown womanhood. Boys must make a more dramatic break as they seek their own, masculine identity and to find their own way in the world. In the absence of such a break, boys may flounder on the path to adulthood, having a harder time finding a sense of self and resisting the retrogressive pull towards an infantile passivity and dependency.<\/p>\n Stunted physic development is not only arguably bad for individual men but for society as a whole. Boys who never grow into mature men tend towards social withdrawal; eschewing a life of work and challenge for that of ease and pleasure; they do not embrace a \u201cparticipating, contributing manhood\u201d; they want to be served, rather than to serve, to consume, rather than to create. Even in the most peaceful, resource-flush societies, if half the population isn\u2019t contributing, you\u2019ve got a big problem.<\/p>\n To help young men avoid getting stuck in this state of arrested development, cultures around the world, even the more peaceful and prosperous, created rites of passage \u2013 symbolic dramatizations of the formation of a boy\u2019s own masculine identity. In requiring the performance of great deeds or the completion of arduous tests and challenges, these initiations allow the young man to psychologically break away from his mother and his childhood. An initiate \u201creemerges a ‘man’ and childhood is dead, a victim again of manly competence.\u201d Rather than stumbling around in the malaise and stagnation of man\/boy limbo, his masculine energy stuck in a state of itchy, unfocused restlessness, a young man is launched into adulthood, with the confidence and self-perception that he is ready and able to do great and hard things \u2013 to serve his people and to reach his own goals as well.<\/p>\n In this view, then, the code of manhood can be seen as a \u201cstruggle against regression\u201d — \u201ca defense against the eternal child within, against puerility, against what is sometimes called the Peter Pan complex.\u201d A culture of manhood may ultimately be understood as \u201ca revolt against boyishness.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, in tribes around the world, both the peaceful and the war-like, impugning another’s manhood is just as likely to involve comparing a man to a child<\/i>, as it is to involve comparing a man to a woman<\/i>. For example, among the famous Masai of Africa, becoming a man and a warrior takes a decade of training and a whole series of initiation rites. While on this decade-long journey, young men \u2013 called moran<\/i> \u2013 consider the failure to grow, of backsliding, to be the worst deficiency:<\/p>\n \u201cany failure of the moran’s code of behavior is met with immediate accusations not so much of deviance or immorality as of ‘immaturity,\u2019 of ‘behaving like a child,’ which is worse. This type of criticism bites deeply enough to force the necessary reforms, since the accusation of retrogression is the most humiliating of taunts\u2026the charge of being childish stokes a mortal blow to the progress of the moran towards the status of manhood, the goal of his ten-year apprenticeship.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/a>Perhaps my favorite manhood-related insult is found among the Papua New Guinea. Men who are cultural contributors and creators are honored for their constructive manhood and are said to have \u201cstrong heads.\u201d The object of shame is a man who \u201cconsumes more than he produces,\u201d and thus \u201cfails in all the constructive masculine pursuits: he provisions no one, cannot protect his kinsmen from attack, impregnates few women, and contributes little that is new and useful to the economy, religion, or technology.\u201d This physically and culturally sterile man is said to have a \u201csoft head\u201d — like a baby.<\/p>\n In addition to the Tahitians, the Semai are the other culture Gilmore uses as evidence that an emphasis on manhood is not truly universal.<\/p>\n And indeed, the Semai are the people who most meet the criteria of being exceptionally androgynous and egalitarian. There\u2019s no code of manhood at all, or even a rite of passage for boys.<\/p>\n The Semai live at the center of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. Though they exist at a subsistence level, land for much of their history was plentiful and sufficient for their needs. Men and women both take care of the children and gather food. Though it isn\u2019t strenuous or dangerous, hunting is an almost exclusively manly task. But the divvying up of labor is still very flexible:<\/p>\n \u201cFew traits are distinctively ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine.’ The sexual division of labor is preferential, not prescriptive or proscriptive. That is, there are no rigid rules, and a man or woman may choose to do whatever he or she feels suited for without incurring criticism. However, the expectation is that someone skilled at an activity normally preferred by the opposite sex will be particularly good at it. For example, male midwives are especially talented, and female headmen are unusually powerful.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The capacity to give freely of all that one has is highly prized. \u201cThere is not even the remotest notion of ‘protecting your own,\u2019 as the concept ‘your own’ has no meaning to them.\u201d<\/p>\n The most marked characteristic of the Semai is their thorough and unyielding commitment to nonviolence. They are likely the least violent people on earth. Aggression of any kind is strictly forbidden. There is no conception of male honor. Children are taught to be afraid of, and to flee from strangers. They are raised to be soft and timid and told that “there are more reasons to fear a dispute than a tiger\u201d and that it is \u201csafer to be cautious than to be brave.\u201d If a Semai \u2013 child or adult — senses a threat, he or she will run away and hide.<\/p>\n Even competitive sports are verboten, since they foster aggression and the losers will be made to feel bad and inferior to the winners. Children \u201cplay\u201d badminton without the net or keeping score \u2013 intentionally hitting the shuttlecock so that the other players can hit it back. The game is designed for exercise only. There is no government, police, or formal leaders. Because they are so conflict-adverse, all disputes are settled through communal mediation. No one recognizes the authority of anyone else, and no one can be coerced to do something they don\u2019t want to do. If continually entreated to perform an undesirable task, they\u2019ll simply turn away and say, \u201cI\u2019m not listening.\u201d Even the children are free to do as they wish; if a parent asks their child to do something they\u2019d rather not, the child can simply say, \u201cI bood\u201d (basically, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do it\u201d), and the matter is closed for discussion. There is no word for \u201cadult\u201d in their language.<\/p>\n Is this, then, at last the egalitarian, pacifistic utopia that disproves the idea that there\u2019s anything innate about violence and about masculinity?<\/p>\n I\u2019m afraid not. When one takes a closer look at why<\/i> the Semai developed their philosophy of nonviolence, one finds that it is the product of very unique circumstances \u2013 very sad and dark circumstances at that.<\/p>\n Starting in the 19th<\/sup> century, Malays began raiding the Semai \u2013 killing the men, raping the women, and taking the women and children to be slaves. The children were sold to well-to-do families as household servants and playthings for sexual abuse. For a century the raids were continual but unpredictable. The Semai never knew when they were coming and their lives oscillated between perpetual dread and overwhelming terror.<\/p>\n Because the Malays were so much more numerous and powerful, the Semai felt that attempting to fight back would mean the wholesale destruction of their people. Thus they chose to respond to the raids by trying to run away and settle elsewhere. If they were still caught, they readily surrendered. The men accepted the blows that fell upon them as they watched their wives assaulted and impregnated by strangers and their little children carried off to a life of sexual slavery.<\/p>\n Anthropologist Robert Knox Dentan, who studied the Semai for four decades, traces the people\u2019s adoption of nonaggression to a kind of cultural \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d Learned helplessness is a psychological term for what happens when humans are repeatedly subjected to stress and abuse that they cannot control or do anything to mitigate. Eventually they simply lose hope, give up, and no longer even try to stop the pain, even if it is potentially avoidable. Learned helplessness is linked with clinical depression, and there is some evidence that the Semai are particularly susceptible to dolefulness and despondency.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n In modern times, though the slave raids have officially ended, the Semai are dependent on a very fickle government for protection and aid. Malaysian authorities have continually taken the Semai\u2019s land and shuttled them into various \u201cregroupment\u201d camps. Through all this displacement, dispossession, and dislocation, the Semai have passively accepted their fate. Dentan argues that instead of the typical responses to threat \u2013 fight, flight, or tend and befriend, the Semai have chosen another path: surrender<\/i>. While Dentan attempts to tease out the possible moral strengths and evolutionary upside of complete surrender to threat and abuse, the Semai themselves are not proud of their reputation for nonviolence, and know the Malays see them as cowards.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that the Semai aren\u2019t capable of violence or don\u2019t think about it. Young Semai men fantasize about fighting back, and dominating the Malay. They have simply learned to push this desire down. Yet it remains latent in their masculine make-up. In the 1950s, when the British military recruited Semai to fight Communist insurgents, the men were at first completely bewildered as to what was expected of them. But they quickly transformed into the fiercest fighters in the unit. According to Dentan:<\/p>\n \u201cA typical veteran\u2019s story runs like this. \u2018We killed, killed, killed\u2026We thought only of killing. Truly we were drunk with blood.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even after living for years among the most peaceful people on the planet, Dentan muses that young men the world over are \u201cprone to bellicosity,\u201d and that it\u2019s hard not to imagine that all men \u201chave chromosomal, hormonal, or neurological predispositions, if not to physical violence, then to uncontrolled energy and the resulting wild behavior that prompt American authorities to drug so many of their boy-children with amphetamines.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n We\u2019ve covered a lot of ground and I imagine it may be a little confusing. So let\u2019s summarize and synthesize what we have discussed so far. Here\u2019s a little crib sheet:<\/p>\n So, at last, we return to the original question: is manhood innate or culturally constructed?<\/p>\n Well, it\u2019s very much both.<\/p>\n Manhood begins with a male\u2019s innate proclivities and biological potentialities, and then channels them into culturally-constructed pursuits. It asks men to serve the greater good, but the particular duties it lays at men\u2019s feet are based on men\u2019s inherent characteristics and drives. Manhood is thus made up of equal parts biological maleness and sociological demands. Here’s another way to put it: Masculinity<\/em> is the energy born of testosterone; Manhood<\/em> is how cultures seek to utilize that energy.<\/p>\n And once the code of manhood is instituted, it becomes a feedback loop, with the innate and constructed elements becoming so intertwined, it is impossible to tell where one begins and one ends.<\/p>\n What I mean is this: for thousands upon thousands of years, men have been chosen to be protectors and providers, as well as the initiators of procreation. They were chosen for these roles based on their biological make-up. For thousands of years, all across the world, men have spent every single day of their lives fulfilling this biological potential and striving to excel in these cultural imperatives. Striving to live as men. So whatever artificiality born of cultural construction men may have felt in taking on these roles at the very dawn of time, would have vanished over the ages as this way of life became more and more deeply engraved on the collective male psyche and the marrow of the masculine bone. In the end, what may have begun as a mix of biology and culture became inextricably melded together. So that manhood simply is<\/i>.<\/p>\n As you\u2019ve been reading along, you\u2019ve likely already been thinking about how all this applies to our present society. Most obviously, as we live in the most resource-rich period in all human history, the fact that an emphasis on the code of manhood is currently very weak should now not at all be surprising. And yet a celebration of, and demand for, manhood has not died out altogether. The dynamics of the code of manhood in our modern society, and the reasons we\u2019re so thoroughly conflicted about its place in our culture, is where we will turn next.<\/p>\n Read the rest of the series: <\/strong> [1]<\/a> Tahitian Transformation: Gender and Capitalist Development in a Rural Society<\/i> by Victoria S. Lockwood Where does manhood come from? Is it innate or culturally constructed? Why has an emphasis on manhood receded in the modern day? Throughout this series, we have indirectly been touching on these questions. Today we\u2019ll tackle them head on. (We explored this subject a few years ago, but I had only skimmed Manhood in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":39800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[42269,502,6],"tags":[42370],"class_list":["post-39786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-character","category-featured","tag-manhood"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/04\/manhood-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/04\/manhood-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/04\/manhood-320x227.jpg"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Code of Manhood<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Origins of the Code of Manhood<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
Toughen Up, Young Man!<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
Paradise Found: The Seeming Exceptions to the Rule<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n<\/a>
\nIn almost every culture in the world, there exists a code of manhood, and wherever these codes exist, they emphasize a man\u2019s duty to protect, procreate, and provide. But there are a few very exceptional exceptions to the rule \u2013 cultures where a true code of manhood simply doesn\u2019t really exist (or more accurately, as we shall see, exists more faintly).<\/p>\nParadise Lost: The Not-so-Exceptional Exceptions<\/b><\/h3>\n
Growing Up Is Hard to Do \u2013 Any Way You Slice It<\/b><\/h3>\n
The Semai<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\nConclusion<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"2D](\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2014\/04\/manhoodchart.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n
\nPart I \u2013 Protect<\/a>
\nPart II \u2013 Procreate<\/a>
\nPart III \u2013 Provide
\n<\/a>Part IV \u2013 The 3 P\u2019s of Manhood in Review<\/a>
\nPart V \u2013 What is the Core of Masculinity<\/a>
\nPart VII – Why Are We So Conflicted About Manhood?
\n<\/a>Part VIII – The Dead End Roads to Manhood<\/a>
\nPart IX – Semper Virilis: A Roadmap to Manhood<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n\n
\n[2]<\/a> Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands, Volume 1<\/i> by Douglas L. Oliver
\n[3]<\/a> The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty<\/i> by Caroline Alexander
\n[4]<\/a> The Cannibal Islands: Captain Cook’s Adventure in the South Seas<\/i> by R.M. Ballantyne
\n[5]<\/a> Demonic Males<\/i> by Richard Wrangham
\n[6]<\/a> Cautious, Alert, Polite, and Elusive: The Semai of Central Penisular Malaysia<\/i> by Robert Knox Dentan
\n[7]<\/a> Overwhelming Terror: Love, Fear, Peace, and Violence among Semai of Malaysia<\/i> by Robert Knox Dentan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"