Overview

"What is a man? What is a real man? Is masculinity a biological given or an ideological construction? In this treatise, feminist philosopher Elisabeth Badinter seeks to define manhood at a time when sex-role distinctions have become increasingly ambiguous and age-old stereotypes about masculinity have been shattered. Drawing on biological examples, historical and sociological analyses, fiction and biography, Badinter offers a highly suggestive account of the new man which our century is in the process of inventing. Exploring the shifting inscriptions of male identity in the popular imagination, Badinter examines changing role models for masculine identity - from the cowboy of the 1950s to the Terminator of the 1990s. She suggests that men need new role models and that sufficient room needs to be left for the expression of male vulnerability, a psychic space that would accept attitudes and behaviours traditionally labelled ""feminine."" This new model, Badinter argues, may reduce the profound effects of homophobia and misogyny."

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9780231084345

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Reviews

Examines masculinity from a historical and psychological perspective, lingering on how society's and men's attitudes toward homosexuality have changed over the years... The subject... is well researched and skillfully presented. -- New York Times Book Review

A French feminist philosopher and historian radically declares that the time of androgyn has come, a time for men to reconcile masculine virility with femininity. Badinter (The Unopposite Sex, 1989, etc.) moves primarily between biological and psychoanalytical discourses to explain the difficult time male fetuses have in becoming real men: As long as women give birth to men, as long as the XY develops within an XX, it will always take a little longer...to make a man than to make a woman. Women have an easier time with identity because they don't have to break with their mother's femininity. It's not always entirely clear whether Badinter is supporting or reviewing traditional gender conceptions using psychoanalytic justifications, or whether she intends to suggest new conceptions. This isn't resolved until the final chapter, where she introduces the reconciled man. Such a man is one who has moved successfully through the stages of denying his femininity and separating from his mother, to renewed recognition of his femininity and reconciliation of it with his masculine virility, which defines the true androgyne. Fatherhood is the key to this process of reconciliation, for parenting is a time for men to find themselves through caring relationships with their children, and because it takes men to produce men. There are few such men today, as most (both straight and gay) are mutilated to some extent, suffering as tough guys or soft guys. Much of the early part of the text pathologizes male and female relationships, as well as mothers' relationships with their children. In the end, Badinter concludes that parenting tasks should be split rather than shared, otherwise, roles become too clouded for healthy development for both the parents and the children. Disciples of psychoanalytic theory will delight in Badinter's proposed resolution to modernity's lost masculinity, though others will have to wade through jargon to get the meaning of the new masculinity. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

ELISABETH BADINTER, internationally known feminist philosopher and historian, teaches at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. LYDIA DAVIS is the author of Almost No Memory.

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