The aftermath of the Second World War to the early years of the twentieth century has seen the liberation of women, to some extent in the private sphere of the household and more evidently in the public sphere of the workplace. This change has mainly occurred due to the Feminist movements. Undoubtedly changes in the lives of women have impinged upon the lives of men, particularly young men in contemporary British society. Political and cultural changes over the past decade have challenged the notion of masculine identity, for example the decline of the manufacturing industry and the performance of girls, outshining boys in the education system. “women have significantly undermine the system of patriarchy- through their educational achievements, through their regendering of family/ paid work norms…the ‘naturalness’ of patriarchy and ‘male superiority has also been undermined’ ”(O’Donnell, 2000:167).
Discourses on the educational under-achievement of males in the education system have led many scholars to claim there is a ‘crisis of masculinity’, in fact boys and girls have both achieving increasing levels of educational attainment, however the girls have been achieving higher A-C passes at GCSE’s and A levels in the school environment at a faster rate compared to the performance of their male peers. (Charles, 2002:90)
Mac an Ghail (1994) discovered that male working class students adopted a particular form of masculine identity as the ‘journeyed’ through manhood. He argued that ‘macho lads’, more than any other male peer group were undergoing a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in which traditional working class ideals such as the dependency on a manual wage labour had become outdated “manual work is associated with masculinity and non-manual with femininity, to be a ‘real’ man means doing manual work ”. (Charles 2002: 116). The culture of masculinity encourages boys to appear macho and tough therefore making leading them more probable to adopt an anti- education and anti-learning attitudes subcultures, for example Pryce (1979) argued that young West Indian males adhere to marginal cultures that are deems deviant and disapproving of authority, such as Rastafarianism due to centuries of slavery and racism. “Rastafarian religion has to be seen has a genuine and dignified alternative to engagement and certainly not as an expressive disreputable orientation” (Pryce 1979:12)., However the education system still remains the foundation to which young men and women gain an understanding of the common norms and values in society, therefore education still plays a major social and cultural role in the socialisation of young children.
In a wider context, Siedler (1997) argued that society deems men to not require the capacity to have needs, traditional conceptions of the macho man denotes an individual in control of their life and relationships, however this false sense of identity blinds men and creates false expectations upon which they find it difficult to live up to these ideals, Siedler used the example of boys went sent away to private boarding schools “they learn to be independent and look after themselves, if a boy continue to feel miserable , this only proves that there must be something ‘wrong’ with them” (Siedler 1997:49).
The issues of the boys (under)achievement regarding them not reaching their potential in schooling stems from an ‘identity crisis’ rather than a ‘crisis of masculinity’. Social and economic factors contribute to such a ‘crisis’, for example the increasing level of female participation in the employment sector coupled with the decline of manual labour intensive manufacturing industries such as coalmining, traditionally considered as men’s work, has meant that it has becomes increasingly difficult for men to assert themselves in social institutions such as the family.
The issues regarding the achievement of males in the education system is one of a complex nature. While females achieve greater academic attainment, male ‘domination’ of education still persists; official statistics illustrate the fact that there still remains a substantially greater number of male headteachers, university lectures and professors. (Rees, 1992:58). Whilst women have experienced great levels of educational attainment, once they leave school, they experience discrimination a wider society in which men still the majority of positions containing high status and power. Therefore one can say that policy making within the education system still remain male orientated, in essence the school environment still remains an institution in which ideologies of masculinity are reinforced and very rarely challenged. Charles (2002) argues the masculine identity is not dependant on the influences by girls, but on entering a world separate from the domestic sphere whether it is through work or the streets.
There has been diminutive evidence to suggest that females are becoming successful in higher strands of the education process, nevertheless some males have continuously found it difficult to succeed in the education system, particularly working class individuals, as opposed the their white middle class peers. The notions of masculinity in crisis can be said to have been exaggerated and over-analyse in popular discourse and media representation, thus creating a moral panic, parallel to the extent of which the youth subcultures of mods and rockers who over-analyse and ‘inflated’ in Stan Cohen’s (1980) classic study. “These young people may not have been delinquent …they were seen as constituting a threat to the moral order of society; their leisure activities and style created anxiety and envy” (Cohen 1980 cited in Charles 2002:111)
Therefore the widening gender gap in the performance at schools were girls routinely outperform boys in terms of educational attainment at school leaving age does not represent evidence of a crisis of masculinity within the education system, whereas the post-war period gave the notion that “successful masculinity was equated directly with success at work ,whether in middle class terms of a career move, more working class of physical labour” (Edwards 2006:8), men still dominate the employment sector. The changing nature if the workplace has had a direct impact on the notion of masculine identity, with a government policy creating the conception of sexual equality, one can say this has ‘feminised’ the workplace. However the glass ceiling effects is persistent in many firms, in which the elevation of women into roles of greater status is halted in the organisational hierarchy, the workplace resembles that of the education system policy making still remains male orientated.
In contemporary British society masculinity has come to be understood as a particular form of gender and sexual identity, the school environment promotes set of masculine ideologies which boys learn to ‘do’ gender. (Charles 2002). The notion of masculinity can therefore be said to be nothing more than a moral panic over the destabilisation of the legitimacy of men’s dominance over women in contemporary society. Previously acceptable ways of being a man are no longer accepted in society and even frowned upon, thus creating uncertainties and insecurities for individual men in society. Segal (1990) has suggested that the feminist movements are been influential in questioning the authenticity of men’s dominance in society, the ways in which dominant forms of masculinity are no longer desired but men are now experimenting with alternative ways of being or becoming a man, this new way of becoming a man can be seen in the ways in which men are engaging in the household especially with fatherhood.
The family remains the most complex arena where a perceived crisis of masculinity exists; the increasing participation of women in the workplace has created many dual-income households in heterosexual relationships. Evidence suggests that the majority of domestic and parental tasks are still carried out by women in household (Rees 1992:47).
Recent media attention towards men’s movements and similar pressure groups such as Fathers for Justice have highlighted the changing notions of masculinity that men have within the family and childcare, men are now seeking to gain a much more loving relationship with their offspring and spouses, creating a greater sense of equality and unity with the family, at a time when arguably family ideologies may be deemed in a ,state of ‘crisis’, for example increasing divorcing rates, the ever increasing rates of single parent household and technological advances such as IVF have threatened to ensure the notion of fatherhood becomes redundant; however this does not constitute a crisis of masculinity, rather the notion of a more sensual form of masculinity illustrates the ways in which men are adapting to ensure the ideals associated with the institution of the family remains constantly embedded throughout the transformation of society, as its becomes directed towards a more technological age.
“Masculism is the ideology that justifies and naturalises male domination” (Brittain 1982:4 cited in Edwards, 2006:23), male dominances still persists, yet at the same time, individual groups of men are facing significant changes in their social and economic lifestyles, in institutions such as the family, work and education. Therefore it is hasty to declare a ‘crisis of masculinity’. Emphasis undoubtedly should be placed on the least powerful group of men, who are burdened with a lack of educational achievement and faced with a shortage of traditional ‘manly’ jobs, this may entail a specific crisis within forms of masculine identity, and this contemporary crisis according to Connell (2002) is nothing new. Connell argues that throughout the history of masculinity, the concept of a perceived crisis has only acted has the catalyst for change, in which dominant forms of masculinity will prevail. “The history of European/ American masculinity over the last two hundred years can broadly be understood as the splitting of gentry masculinity, its gradual displacement by new hegemonic forms, at the emergence of an array of subordinated and marginalised masculinities.” (Connell 2002:249).
The increasing popularity of men’s magazine that promote ways in which men can become loving partners and maintain a healthy body, such as Men’s Health, have shown than forms of masculine identity are starting to become visible. “Perhaps the most hegemonic is non hegemonic!-an independent man who knows his mind and who can ‘see through’ social expectations.”(Siedler, 1994: 351 cited in Frosh et al, 2002:62)
The great deal of attention of has drawn upon the issue of masculinity in crisis, this shows that is a mere moral panic over the legitimacy of male dominance in society, previous modes of controls in which male were ideologies of male dominance were reinforced and ‘dictated’ are now becoming suppressed, yet the restructuring of masculine identity acts to preserve such supremacy. Gender inequalities still persist in the contemporary world, cultural change have made strides in adjoining the public and private sphere where such gender inequalities are most evident. However in order for this to truly materialise, the dominance in social institutions needs to be addressed. In a society that prides itself on equality and civil liberties, a significant number of the male population is needed to accept the reality of male dominance and be prepared to do something about such a thing. Whether this will happen, only time will tell.
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