The Changing Definition of Masculinity: (Perspectives in Sexuality)

The Changing Definition of Masculinity is an outgrowth of four years of developing and teaching the course "Social Factors in Male Personality" at Ohio State University, Columbus. This volume reflects, in addition to my thoughts and feelings about what should be discussed in a sex-roles course taught from a male per­ spective, the thoughts, feelings, and knowledge of scores of students, col­ leagues, and friends. These are persons who either have taken the course or discussed with me appropriate material to be included in such a course and/or book. Chapter 1, for example, is influenced greatly by the work of Eliza­ beth and Joseph Pleck's The American Man, dealing with the periods of masculinity in the United States up to 1965. The chapter also deals with emerging meanings of masculinity after 1965, and female and male responses to these meanings. The second chapter is devoted to male sex-role socialization and examines the roles of biology and environment in male socialization. It is also concerned with agents of male socialization and with male assumption of such sex-role traits as dominance, competitiveness, the work ethic, and violence. In Chapter 2, I also propose two general mas­ culine roles frequently assumed by American males which mayor may not be race-specific-the White masculine role and the Black masculine role.

Table of Contents:
1. Meanings of Masculinity in the United States.- Three Basic Sex-Role Concepts.- Traditional Meanings of Masculinity.- The Women’s Movement.- The Gay Liberation Movement.- The Men’s Movement.- The “Moral Majority”.- Emerging Meanings of Masculinity.- Women and Masculinity.- Men and New Definitions of Masculinity.- 2. Socialization and the Male Role.- Biology and Male Socialization.- Environment and Male Socialization.- Agents of Male Socialization.- Males and the Assumption of Masculine Roles.- The White Masculine Role and Males.- Comments about the White Masculine Role.- The Black Masculine Role and Males.- Black Males, Work, and Violence.- Comments about the Black Masculine Role.- Male Socialization in Retrospect.- 3. The Male Self.- Explanations of the Male Self.- The Male Self as a Dynamic Process: A Perspective and Consequences.- Males Against Themselves.- 4. Male Social Perception.- >Male Perceptual Organization of Social Worlds.- Males and Nonverbal Sensitivity.- Consequences of Male Perception.- The Implication of Male Perception for Ongoing Social Interaction.- 5. Male Social Roles.- Men in Marriage.- Males As Parents.- Men’s Friends.- Men At Work.- A Modified Definition of the Male Role: Beyond Androgyny.- Determining Male Gender.- 6. Male Interpersonal Attraction.- Varieties of Male Interpersonal Attraction.- Why Men Are Attracted to Others: What Men Want.- Characteristics in Men that Attract Others: What Women Like Men.- 7. Themes in Male Sexuality.- Men and Sex.- Patterns of Men’s Heterosexual Involvement.- Men and Homosexuality.- Ambisexual Men.- Asexual Men.- Males, Sex, and Violence.- 8. The Male Sex-Role in the Future: Will Prince Charming Survive?.- An Excursion into Fairyland.- The Implications of Male—Female Interaction for Changes inthe Male Sex Role.- The Implications of Men’s Interaction With Men for Changes the Male Sex-Role.- Men’s Responses to Sex-Role Changes.- The Classical Man.- Career Paths Men Take Toward Sex-Role Equality.- Prince Charming’s Emerging Form.- References.