MANLINESS, PART 2

What is a man?

It is crazy that we even have to ask the question!

In his excellent book, Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys, historian Neil Oliver laments the demise of manly British men,

Great ships and manly men – these were the kinds of things we used to produce in this country. And the rest of the world accepted the truth of it like an immutable law of the universe. As a nation we used to have the best dreams and the grandest ambitions, and we fashioned from ourselves a breed of men that believed those dreams could be made reality with just a strong jaw, a firm handshake and a bit of backbone. We don’t make anything now. We’ve given away or destroyed all our industries and thousands of our men spend the best years of their lives answering phones in call centres or doing something or other in IT. A lot of the rest are at home minding the kids. How did we let all this happen? Men can be tamed and domesticated – that much is obviously true – but most would be better off out in the woods and hills, like the lions and tigers and bears.

There is an oft-talked about “crisis of masculinity” in our society, but even talking about this subject is difficult. It always feels dangerous – that if we dare say anything too manly we will offend the feminists. (It is amazing how nervous men are of offending feminists – why are we scared of them? Its not like they could have us if it came to a fight!)

This diffidence has affected the language we use, and this has happened so subtly that most of the time we don’t even notice it.

The very word “masculinity” deserves thought. It was the development of “Women’s Studies” that led in the 1980s to an academic subfield of “Masculinity Studies.” “Masculinity” deconstructs manliness. “Masculinity” is a much more slippery word than manliness; and less complimentary. It is socially acceptable to describe someone as masculine but it is not acceptable to describe them as manly. “Manly” is just too strong meat, unless used in an ironic manner, such as in the ad for McCoy’s “man crisps”, or Yorkie “not for girls” chocolate.


The replacement of a strong, clear, word with a more slippery one can also be seen in the use of “gender” in preference to “sex.” Sex is definitive: I am a man; she is a woman. Gender is much more flexible.

The same thing is seen with the use of the word “partner” instead of “spouse.” Partner can mean anything; spouse can only mean the person of the opposite sex to whom one is married.

Masculinity, gender, partner – slippery words that undermine what it means to be a man.