Does masculinity exist and should it be developed?
Does masculinity exist?
Mankind between essence and existence
The human intelligence cannot seize sexual differences through distinct concepts, if not through description of organs and physico-chemical processes of the body, which is too simplistic. A man is not simply a male. A man or a woman cannot be reduced to his or her genital organs. If a man was but a male, it would be reduced to his dominant sex drives, to promiscuity (sexual vagrancy), to his polygamous desires, etc. In fact, the human reason can only explain the way by which the human beings live their differences, which varies between individuals and between eras. This is the basis of the concept of gender in human sciences. On a philosophical or theological level, this shows us that we need to feel each another, to understand each another, and to want to be a man or a woman to be or become fully a man or a woman. There is thus a subjective part in the development of the sexual identify which depends on everyone and on every culture. Everything is not only biological, luckily, because humans are free and, to this end, accept to educated themselves, providing they understand the meaning of human life.
From an ontological point of view, to explain the Being, we cannot consider that the difference man/woman is of the order of accident; that is to say that there is no difference by nature, in the sense that each is from the human nature: they share the same essence. This point is important to say that men and women are equal in dignity and have the same moral and spiritual faculties. However, talking about an accidental difference does not mean that this difference is accessory. In fact, the physical differences explain the sexual differences and show the masculine and feminine identities. It is from the body that I can understand that the existence of the human nature depends on a sex duality, at least for reproduction and generation of human individuals, but also for affective, moral, and spiritual impacts, as will be shown later.
This dependence on the body is essential and, in the same time, does not indicate a total determinism. This explains the changes in appearance and the presence, in a small minority of cases, chomosomal, anatomical, and even psychological abnormalities of the sexual differentiation (case of intersexual births, issues raised by transsexuality, etc.). The human body and psyche have a certain plasticity; even the brain as organ too. This particularity may sometimes lead some people to think that, because of this somewhat undetermined aspect, there are no real differences.
Recognizing oneself as a human
Because they are not animals and pure products of biological mechanisms, humans require a psychic integration (or a recognition) of their biological identity to be able to better understand their sexual difference. This feature of the human psyche makes some men or women unable to feel themselves father or mother, and even refuse to become father or mother. However, these particular cases do not put into question the fact that the body surely shows a concrete existence of human beings with specificities. Previous studies (similar to that of John Gray « Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus » but more scientific), have shown that men and women have important trends that make them different (especially, according to today science, through the action of the hormones[1]). This does not mean that all the individuals follow the same model. There are important individual differences. One may feel more or less father or mother, man or woman, and have more or less marked reactions: there are women more or less feminine and men more or less masculine. In this aspect, we all depend on our education and culture. In fact, there are real stereotypes, but it does not seem easy to distinguish among them the positive or negative ones to better explain the masculine and the feminine.
We may say thus that masculinity does exist because the bodies are truly masculine or feminine in their full dimensions, and that, because of the unity of the person, these influence and indicate the ways of the relationships the person will put to action.
Should we develop masculinity?
Masculine domination?
Gender studies carried out in France have been especially marked by the thesis of Pierre Bourdieu[2]: every representation of sexual differences is linked to masculine domination. Indeed, this domination exists; it is a historical and cultural fact. However, it should always be the object of a moral and spiritual fight. Does it necessarily affect the relationships between men and women? Making the masculine domination a reality that cannot be destructed, but through sexual undifferentiation, carries the risk of generating a cure that is worse than the disease. Aren’t love, friendship, giving, and forgiving interior attitudes that, through a recognition of the differences, bring peace where, paradoxically, the uncontrolled opening of the desires leads to the narcissistic violence of the sexual relationships? This is how the dominant men may occupy, in certain cultures or types of education, a space that should be given to women. Inversely, fatal women or abusive mothers are psychological realities that should be analysed with scrutiny; they correspond to by-products of femininity just as macho and eternal adolescents correspond to by-products of masculinity. In other words, discovering masculinity in connection with femininity is firstly and mostly an issue of moral and spiritual education.
Being a woman is understandable through the relationship with the man and the child and, inversely, the tenderness of a man is not the same as that of a woman. Here, poets and mystics may say a lot, not to mention the concrete experience and the common sense that cannot always be conceptualized but simply lived. Feeling the tenderness of a mother and that of a father makes it possible to seize the difference, to describe it, but the reason finds it difficult to explain.
The sensitive issue today is that the man is perceived, through official works, especially in France, as essentially dominant. In other words, the human nature and its essence are overlooked (human person of sexual nature) but, in the same time, masculinity is reduced to domination and is given back an essence that should have been taken away. In the radical feminist theories, the woman has to free herself denying the sexual difference; that is, its own difference considered as exclusively based on power relationships. The roles are interchanged in the name of equality and, we have no more to seek our masculinity as men and our femininity as women but to free our desires and sexualities.
The question to be asked is thus the following: are the woman-mother and the man-father stereotypes to destruct or, on the contrary, are they essential parts of the human existence? Answering this question imposes recognizing that the common experience of humans has shown that women-mothers and men-fathers are necessary for the good of humanity. The recent debates in France about « marriage for all » have raised the fact that most childhood professionals have noticed that a child needs, besides stable affection, to be structured with identification and differentiation with a father and a mother. Separating manhood from paternity generates real social problems, especially in the field of intergenerational relationships (filiation). It is clear that the greco-latin and the Judeo-Christian traditions, despite some excesses during a period or another that reduced the social sexes to their biological roles, found the understanding of man and woman on this physical but also spiritual identity through incarnation of maternity and paternity. If angels have no sex, men have!
One should not thus confound essence and existence… Though the human nature implies important trends that found masculinity and femininity; individuals are not, in their existence, taken from the same mould. There is also a social aspect: putting forward the exclusive primacy of the man-father would injure those who do not feel the vocation of becoming a biological father. Indeed, there are vocations of spiritual paternity, for example, or other activities for men who do not want to have children but whom, nevertheless are able to develop their masculinity. Let us not forget that human persons are also beings of desire and that marital love, just as filial love, is a necessary regulation of their sexual dimension: learning to be father, mother, son, or daughter is part of the education for love and for dedicate oneself for the good and the happiness of others. Otherwise, we would be the slaves of our own affective and narcissistic desires. Yet, we know that narcissism destructs personal and social relationships. Freedom is not independence but, on the contrary, a dependence. It is an ability of waving relationships that let everyone reach the best of himself.
Masculinity or the quiet strength
Through the common experience of humanity, which cannot be restrained to cultural contingencies, it seems clear that masculinity is characterised by a great deal of corporeal exteriority, thus affective, regarding family and social relationships. This is reflected by behavioural trends: greater distances with difficulties, thus communication difficulties, more physical violence in solving internal or external conflicts, need to challenge dangers, and to fight physically. It is undeniable that generally (but not for all men) masculinity is characterized by more force, even more violence, physical violence. Men have in average 30% more muscle mass than women and the vital need to use it. Fights on the school playgrounds between boys are not drama, but they should be regulated and sanctioned to be canalized. The masculine man should therefore learn how to be open to the others, to listen, to take care of the others, all of which are natural for a woman. A man needs more time and more moral and spiritual efforts to integrate his dimension of father, thus responsibility, because being a father is being responsible of one's acts and assume their consequences. In other words, a man needs more than a woman to be educated to take care of himself and of others in singular relationships. The devoted admirer, the protector man, for example, are cultural representations that say something about the masculine moral need of feeling responsible of his wife and children. Otherwise, as often seen, he leaves home to wander as he likes. A woman needs to be educated to moral responsibility but she lives in her body a more intense interiority and altruistic demand. However, as a child, she needs masculine exteriority for a better distance with herself and with others. Having said this, every couple should learn to know each other because of the unavoidable individual differences.
Overall, the great masculine trends are risk-taking, conflict for conflict, the search for sexual relationships for pleasure and not for the quality of that relationship: these are few among the characteristics observed in the masculine behaviour. This latent violence of masculinity is also seen in that depression, though more frequent in women than in men, causes more suicides in men.
Thus, several qualities in men are to develop further, and several defects are to amend. It seems obvious to say that these qualities cannot be developed in women, but as there is a trend toward undifferentiate roles, it is necessary to remind it. The qualities linked to dual sexes are intrinsically linked to the abilities of the body. The very way in which the masculine organs are built means other things that those of feminine organs. The fact of needing nine months of gestation, not to mention all what should be done after delivery (breastfeeding, child care, parental roles, task sharing), requires a close collaboration, but different tasks, between a man and a woman. Subsequently, the way the little boy or the little girl will establish his or her relationship with his or her father or mother regarding the conscience of his or her own body and of that of each parent will imply different vocations: maybe, for the father, the external role of establishing the limits and, for the mother, to establish proximity and comprehension; however, this should not be set in stone.
The human person is a spiritual being but paradoxically, it is the conscience of the body that allows the spiritual life to find its meaning and its direction for a better understanding of the foundations of human physical, affective and moral relationships. It is thus difficult to deny that a family made of a man, a woman, and children remains the foundation on which persons develop. This generates also other relationships with grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. Even though family relationships may not be biological (in case of adoption, for example), they remain those through which other relationships find their reasons for being.