Katherine Miller pens some daring (and damning) prose in her essay, “Man Up.” It’s creative, and a powerful indictment of all things metrosexual, to be sure. I think she’s on the right track, but I think she ultimately misses the mark.
“Man Up” is a litany of admonitions for men that is as entertaining as it is shallow. One message for Mr. Man Up: You can be smart, but please don’t buy your own clothes (leave that to the woman). Never have I read a single sentiment that so completely and simultaneously implies a dependence on women while enforcing women’s traditional, subservient gender role.
But conservatives, of which I tend to count myself one, don’t like terms like “gender role.” We disagree with feminism, and we generally oppose the feminization of our culture. Maybe it’s in reaction to feminism — or perhaps just in spite of it — but conservatives have a strong desire to not only repudiate (refudiate for the Palinites) feminine virtue but also to place the brute on the pedestal of what a man should be. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature as “nasty, brutish and short.” From “Man Up,” it’s clear that Miller likes her men nasty, brutish and tall.
Miller’s essay is a more comprehensive — and ostensibly more thoughtful — version of a column she wrote in January 2009 while at Vanderbilt University. That column more or less is exactly what she says it is in “Man Up” — “a thrown-together list of superficial attributes”: No salads and no diet soda, for example. Apparently the gods have ambrosia, and the women have arugula. I have to say I was upset by this since I rather enjoy eating at Sweetgreen and I know other men who do as well. Anyway, the list goes on from there.
And yet Miller follows her self-deprecating (a decidedly feminine characteristic?) paragraph with two of filler and then dives in with a fresh list of superficial proscriptions for men: don’t cry, don’t do theater, don’t do yoga, don’t buy your own clothes (as stated above) and don’t bring diet soda to work (again with the diet!?).
I won’t — and shouldn’t — get into an exhaustive explication of everything superficial about the qualities of “Man Up.” With all due respect, a superficial document calls for a superficial summary. Reading it reminds me of the analogy an economics professor mine at UNC applied to Ayn Rand’s writing. It’s good soup, but it’s still soup — you take the first spoonful and you know what you’re getting all the way down to the bottom of the bowl.
It’s not that Miller is not on the right track, though. She’s getting at something fundamental about the conservative condition. She just misses the forest through the trees. Focusing on actions and labeling them inherently masculine or feminine begs for defeat. Those really are socially constructed. Half a millennia ago, competition that didn’t often result in death was for children. Today, the NFL is as macho an institution as they come. To that end, Miller even mentions a Super Bowl XLIV ad for the Dodge Charger with the slogan “Man’s last stand,” and yet ironically misses the point that the things she has hermetically sealed into the spheres of the masculine and the feminine are all heavily influenced by the prevailing norms today, enshrined in ads like Dodge’s and, with the advent of the World Wide Web, ubiquitous.
What Miller should consider doing, and what great conservative thinkers have already done, is investigate the inherent qualities that are masculine. Conservatives are deeply committed to a belief in a natural order, both in law and in human nature.
Writing on the question of “Courage” as a masculine virtue for the American Enterprise Institute, scholar Harvey Mansfield harks back to Aristotle — arguably the progenitor of conservative political philosophy — and says “men find it easier to be courageous than women, and women find it easier to be moderate than men.” Aristotle suggests the right causation in the eyes of conservatives: human nature begets social order. We don’t buy into human nature as a science and we don’t buy into the Marxist bunk that changing the “superstructure” of society will change the individual. The idea that masculinity is inherent and unique to men is what makes feminist scholars pull their hair out — and conservatives love that, because in spite of the assault on masculine virtue, it’s proven damn resilient. And Miller, in spite of articulating it awkwardly, gets that. Groovy.
I believe that Miller is espousing courage in “Man Up,” or some version of it. Yet believe that she is putting the cart before the horse by holding up popular “manly” actions as the means to the masculine end rather than holding up the more fundamental aspects of man’s nature. But it’s accessible, and its heart is in the right place.
But where we do agree, in spite of an essay that I found to be a little heavy on style and a little light on substance, is that any collection of young conservative ideas deserves a discussion of the state of masculinity in our culture.
Personally, I consider myself an aesthete, I like theater, I don’t call people who cry “pussy,” and I like salad (but not diet soda). Yet I understand that there are differences in the sexes, that men possess inherent masculine qualities, and that Don Draper is — in spite (or because?) of his incessant smoking, drinking, and infidelity — a total badass.
Cameron Parker is the opinion editor for the Daily Tar Heel. He is a member of the Student Free Press Association.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
just take it to the place you right-wingers always take this:
“We need more wars to send the boys to so they can die for Old Glory.”
of course, it always turns out that– with rare exception– the people promoting this argument have never served a day in uniform.
LAME!
@steveeboy (whose tagline says it all):
Many thinking conservatives believe that the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are bad for the republic for many reasons.
And some of us that think this way have gone to both places, and still wear the uniform.
“We disagree with feminism, and we generally oppose the feminization of our culture.”
I don’t get this. Why would conservatives on a whole disagree with equality between the sexes? Women are voters, too; why not advocate for them? And what the hell is the “feminization of our culture”, anyway?
Mixtape, you’re fighting a straw man. No conservative in public life that I can think of has said anything about equality of the sexes being a bad thing. The critique is that feminism as it now exists on the left is functionally (and probably ideologically) about something different. An example of that kind of argument would be Christina Sommers’ The War Against Boys, which among other things, mentions the labeling of typically boyish behavior as evidence of mental disorder. That so many boys are drugged into submission is, for conservatives, evidence of feminization of our culture. The effort is being made to cultivate feminine behavior at the expense of boys’ masculinity. Left feminism isn’t content with equality. It looks askance at masculinity: “all sex is rape,” may be an extreme sentiment, but it’s a sentiment that resides on a continuum with less extreme, but ideologically related sentiments. The structure that was formerly used to repress women is viewed by some Left Feminists as a viable weapon against traditional manhood. Whining about that structure as anti-equality is meant to distract from that aim. Not cool.
Cameron,
News flash, in the real world gender roles are very real, though not politically correct.
Men are, by nature, usually bigger, stronger and more aggressive than women.
By itself, that does not make men better, or worse, than women. But the difference is real, and it really does matter in some situations.
Men can’t suckle their children, and while relatively recent technology alllows us to bottle feed our kids safely, there are thousands and thousands of years of natural human development that has resulted in women being generally more nurturing to children than men.
The people who advocate the position that women should serve combat roles simply have shit for brains (I apologize for the vulgarity, but it is the right expression).
Modern infantry, hell probably most in history, have to carry heavy loads long periods of time, then fight. Sometimes short brutal battles, sometimes long arduous slogs, and while less often nowadays (but it still sometimes happens) direct hand to hand combat.
Not one women in 20 has the upper body strength or endurance for that role.
GI Jane was a ridiculus farce.
Robineus,
Thank you for your service to our country.
J: Well said. Again.
Best Regards,
Hey Stevie Boy. Two words for you…Man Up!!
I read both the original and the response and naturally found things I can agree and disagree with.
I think our culture has gotten to a point where men and women are so confused by gender roles that they are now seeking ways to objectify their ideal view of masculinity and femininity. The problem with that is you end up with a laundry list of ideals and a futile attempt of achieving them by simply just going through the motions. Much of this could have been avoided in a persons early development if we just allowed to “do” instead of being lectured to by adult role models. (No, I am not advocating a lack of parenting or boundary settings, just telling the crazy faux-macho uncle and feminazi aunt to STFU) Developing masculinity and femininity is more “je ne sais quoi” than do this, do that. For the over-thinking male that Miller alluded to, this is an equation that cannot be solved by today’s beta male. I personally believe there is a level of intellectual development that occurs in males by actually doing the traditional masculine activities, rather than reading a Dummies Guide about it. It is, and should be our nature. Feminine Studies classes are held in a classroom, Masculine Studies are held in the field. To quote the great Ari Gold, “I go to where the meetings are.”
J — Speaking of straw men. The radical, man-hating feminist who wants to stamp out all evidence of masculinity and thinks that all sex is rape? Really? Judging an entire ideology (feminist, Christian, conservative, whatever) based on the handful of people within who are certifiably bugnuts is never a good idea.
The vast majority of feminists don’t give a rat’s ass about how men do or don’t behave; the movement is about equality. Every ideology has a continuum, but the few fringe nuts who have co-opted “feminism” to describe a sort of Female Supremacist movement aren’t feminists as the movement was originally conceived. The definition of feminism is and has always been “aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.” Which is why, when someone says that they’re “against feminism”, I get confused.
Hey, Capt. Mike — ever been pregnant? Talk about carrying heavy loads for extended periods. Ever seriously threatened a child in the presence of its mother? Try it sometime, and see what kind of fight you have on your hands.
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