Week 10-"Manliness"-Opinion Assignment on News Article from Drudge Report

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008046
http://thelittlegreenblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/manliness.html
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.10/13-manliness.html


"Manliness" is the title of a new book by Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield. Predictably, Mr. Mansfield has sparked a firestorm of comments, both pro and con, by his opinion of what manliness is, who has it, and why he believes it is necessary to society.Naomi Schaeffer Riley, in the Wall Street Opinion Journal says of him, "He would like to return the notion of manliness to the modern lexicon. His new book, "Manliness" (manfully, no subtitle), argues that the gender-neutral society created by modern feminists has been bad both for women and men, and that it is time for men to rediscover, and women to appreciate, the virtue of manliness." She also goes on to say "The core of his definition of manliness--"confidence in a risky situation"--is not so far from that of biologists and sociologists, who find men to be more abstract in their thinking and aggressive in their behavior than women, who are more contextual in their thinking and conciliatory in their behavior." There is certainly nothing surprising there, anyone over the age of twelve should be able to see evidence of that in everyday life. She quotes Mansfield as saying :"What you see today at Harvard and elsewhere are a lot of liberal males who are trying to make women happy by trying to treat them as if they weren't women." "And that," says the man who never misses the chance to open a door for a woman or help her put on her coat, "doesn't work very well." So why didn't he simply write a book on gentlemanliness? "Because before you're a gentleman, you have to be a man. Gentlemanliness is a refinement. It presupposes that you have a certain superiority over women, but teaches you how to exercise it. It also teaches you that women are superior in their ways.


Ken Gewertz, in his article in the "Harvard Gazette" interviewed both Mansfield and a prominent Harvard feminist professor, Nancy Cott. It probably would surprise no one that Ms Cott was opposed to the idea of Mansfield's idea of manliness. She is quoted as saying, "There must be a better term than manly. Nobility, character, courage, and integrity are wonderful principles for human behavior. Why not dispense with trying to save the word and hold up these other terms as ideals?" Mansfield, however, took issue with her, saying, "Principles are all very fine, but they need someone to stand up and vindicate them, to risk one's life for them in extreme cases. Principles don't establish themselves. They need someone to defend them."


Andrew Seals, in his blog titled "little green blog" on Blogspot says that "Mansfield is, apparently, a widely-read scholar, so I cannot imagine how he can overlook the amazing diversity of manliness present in even the briefest survey of the poets—from Catullus to Shakespeare to Rochester to Shelley to Neruda, one can find "confidence in the face of risk," an "easy assumption of authority," heroism, command, and "a kind of animal spiritedness or 'bristling' that vies with our reason," but not always in ways that limit themselves by either a public/private distinction or by concrete and irrefragable (sic) gender roles." Mr. Seals seems to feel that the book is wrong in its assertion that the practice of manliness as Mr. Mansfield defines it is necessary for the functioning of our society, in fact he goes on to say; " The manliness Mansfield wants to reintroduce not only does not need to be defined through gender, but would not even be effective if it were. Private virtues are adopted by individuals, not massive social groups that are only macroscopically homogeneous. If manliness is to be a virtue (which I dispute), then its gospel must be preached to individuals, not to mankind."

I would have to say I disagree both with Ms. Cott and with Mr. Seals. Ms. Cott speaks as if she admires the virtues of nobility, character, courage, and integrity, perhaps as a feminist she just objects to those being linked with "manliness". All those virtues can be exemplified by women, certainly, but "manliness" embodies something more, and it is that to which she objects. Manliness is indeed all those terms, but also a great deal more.

As for Mr. Seals, he seems to just generally be in error. Manliness, as defined by Mr. Mansfield, absolutely IS defined primarily ( but not solely) by gender. Furthermore, until fairly recently the quality of manliness was recognized as necessary in society. Somehow in the last few years the idea of 'manliness' has been discarded in our modern society, but throughout most of history there has been a fairly constant definition of manliness ( indeed womanliness also) that has served us well. I do not mean the hyper testosterone, unemotional cave man like type of so called manliness that is often the butt of Hollywood jokes, but true manliness, a man who knows he is a man, knows what that really means, and is comfortable with that identity. The fact that much in our culture has rapidly declined since manliness has become a "dirty word" should give us pause and have us re-examine the issue of what is, and is not, manliness. Our culture is not "gender neutral" ( the latest buzzword from the 'intelligentsia') which would be foolish enough, but even worse, it is being increasingly feminized at all levels as the quality of manliness is not only not appreciated but is attacked, denigrated and demonized. This loss of the quality of manliness has ominous implications for our society, some of which we are already seeing the evidence of. Men and women are (surprise!!) different, and they bring different strengths and weaknesses to our society with them. No society can function well in the long run without input from both. There is a valuable place in society for both womanliness and manliness , what the feminists and liberals may not want to hear is that they are two separate places.