From the moment of a baby’s birth, almost every society has different expectations of its males and females. In many societies, men must go through trials or rights of passage in which they earn their right to be men; few societies have such trials for women.
For example, the! Kung bushmen have a “rite of the first kill” that is performed twice for each boy—once after he kills his first large male animal and once after he kills his first large female animal (Collier & Rosaldo, 1981). During the ceremony, a gash is cut in the boy’s chest and filled with a magical substance that is supposed to keep the boy from being lazy. Hunting prowess is ritually connected with marriage, and men acquire wives by demonstrating their ability at the hunt (Lewin, 1988). For example, a boy may not marry until he goes through the rite of first kill, and, at the wedding, he must present a large animal he has killed to his bride’s parents. Even the language of killing and marrying is linked; !Kung myths and games equate marriage with hunting and talk of men “chasing,” “killing,” and “eating” women just as they do animals.
In American society, men are often judged by their “prowess” in business, with successful men receiving society’s admiration. Although in many societies men tend to have privileges that women do not, and despite the fact that male traits in many societies are valued more than female traits (which we discuss in further detail soon), it is not easy for men to live up to the strong social demands of being male in a changing society.
Great contradictions are inherent in the contemporary masculine role: the man is supposed to be the provider and yet is not supposed to live entirely for his work; he is often judged by his sexual successes and yet is not supposed to see women as sexual objects to be conquered; he is supposed to be a strong, stable force yet must no longer cut his emotions off from his loved ones; and he is never supposed to be scared, inadequate, sexually inexperienced, or financially dependent on a woman.
Men in all societies live with these types of gender role contradictions. In some cases, men simplify their lives by exaggerating the “macho” side of society’s expectations and becoming hypermasculine males (Farr et al., 2004). To these macho men, violence is manly, danger is exciting, and sexuality must be pursued callously.
Another side of the masculine way of being must also be addressed, however. David Gilmore (1990) notes that men often must go through trials to prove their masculinity, except in those few societies in which people are totally free of predators and enemies and food is plentiful. In those societies, there is no stress on proving “manhood” and little pressure to emphasize differences between men and women. Gilmore concludes that in most societies masculine socialization prepares men to adopt the role of safeguarding the group’s survival, to be willing to give their own lives in the hunt or in war to assure the group’s future by protecting the women’s ability to reproduce. Gilmore’s point is that men are not concerned with being macho as an end in itself but are concerned with the ultimate welfare of society. In fact, Gilmore argues, men are as much nurturers as women, concerned with society’s weaker and more helpless members, willing to give their energy and even their lives for the greater social good.
Though masculinity has its privileges, it has its downside too. Men do not live as long as women, in part because of the demands of the male role. For example, men are more likely to die of stress-related illnesses, including lung cancer (men smoke more
than women), motor vehicle accidents (men drive more than women, often because of work), suicide (women attempt suicide more often, but men are more successful at actually killing themselves), other accidents (men do more dangerous work than women), and cirrhosis of the liver (there are more male alcoholics and drug addicts; Courtenay, 2000; Nicholas, 2000). Men also die more often in wars. School-aged boys are twice as likely as girls to be labeled as “learning disabled” and constitute up to 67% of “special education” classes (Pollack, 1998).
In fact, with all the attention on how gender stereotypes harm women, men are equally the victims of society’s expectations. Male stereotypes tend to be narrower than female stereotypes, and men who want to conform to society’s ideas of gender have less flexibility in their behavior than women.
For example, it is still unacceptable for men to cry in public except in the most extreme circumstances. Crying is the body’s natural response to being upset. Boys are taught not to cry, but that is difficult when they are emotionally moved; so they stop allowing themselves to be moved emotionally—and then are criticized for shutting themselves off (S. K. Resnick, 1992). Interestingly, when men do cry, their emotions are often seen as more genuine than a woman’s (Kallen, 1998). This is probably because a behavior that is inconsistent with a gender stereotype is often seen as more legitimate and “real.”