wideview >>> xabian midori

What Does It Really Mean To Be a Man?

"Civilized" men have repressed rites of passage. "How do I achieve manhood." Typically a girl became a woman at first menstruation whereas, a boy became a man in "chronos" or social time.

Traditional people knew who they were. They had blueprints of the world and a guidebook for their passage through time. They didn't have the kinds of self-doubts we suffer today. They didn't have gender confusion and men and women were able to cooperate because they maintained firm boundaries between the sexes.

With the growth of modern cities, technology, we lost the cosmic horizon, the ceremonies and celebrations that marked the stages on life's way and the continuity between generations. There are no longer rites of passage in the modern cities because there are no self-conscious communities to administer them. Men's loyalty has shifted from clan and family to corporation and state.

To add to men's confusion, women want men that are strong, rugged, tough, aggressive, and very successful at their careers, but if they are, they are thought of as overly macho or sexist.

Women want a warm, considerate man to give her all the space she needs for career and personal ambition, yet strong-willed and somewhat dominate like her father. This somewhat incompatible set of standards and expectations has kept men ill at ease with where they "fit in the the scheme of things." Ask most any men, "how does it feel to be a man these days?"

Ask them if they feel that manhood is honored, respected, celebrated. They will tell you that they feel blamed, demeaned, and attacked. But their reactions may be pretty vague. Many men feel as if the are involved in a night battle in a jungle against an unseen foe. voices from the darkness shout hostile charges:

"Men are too aggressive. Too soft. Too insensitive. Too macho. Too power-mad. Too much like little boys. Too wimpy. Too violent. Too obsessed with sex. Too detached to care. Too busy. Too dead to feel."

Exactly what are we supposed to become is not clear. So I ask, "What does it really mean to be a Man in the 21st Century?"

Send your comments to Xabian!