Michael S. Kimmel: The Politics Of Manhood

THE POLITICS OF MANHOOD : Profeminist Men Respond To The Mythopoetic Men’s Movement by Michael S. Kimmel 

“Do you want it tame or do you want it wild?” group leader Shepherd Bliss asks the assembled 60 or so men in a meeting room of a luxury hotel in Austin, Texas. Bliss is running a workshop on “Exploring Masculine Ground” at the First International Men’s Conference in October 1991—a gathering of over 750 men from all over the country who have come together to retrieve their deep, wet, hairy’, wild masculinity. There can be only one response to Bliss’s question. “Wild!” shout the men in unison.

We’re off to explore masculine ground, a “sacred masculine space” to be retrieved through ritual incantation and guided fantasy. This is my introduction to the actual work of the “mythopoetic” men’s movement, and, although I have read most of the major texts, I am still somewhat surprised by how uncomfortable I feel. I am politically and intellectually skeptical, and emotionally uneasy. Such feelings are usually a tip-off that I need to pay greater attention to my experience, that I need to be more open to what is happening around me than usual. So I try to let it in…

Contents THE POLITICS OF MANHOOD

I. CONCEPTUAL CRITIQUES

  • Weekend Warriors: The New Men’s Movement: MICHAEL S. KIMMEL AND MICHAEL KAUFMAN
  • Mythopoetic Foundations and New Age Patriarchy : KEN CLATTERBAUGH
  • Gazing into Men’s Middles: Fire in the Belly and the Men’s Movement : DON SABO

II. THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: THE MYTHOPOETIC MEN’S MOVEMENT AS A SOCIAL MOVEMENT

  • Men at Bay: The ‘Men’s Movement’ and Its Newest Best-Sellers : BOB CONNELL
  • The Politics of the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement: HARRY BROD
  • “Changing Men” and Feminist Politics in the United States :  MICHAEL A. MESSNER

III. THE PERSONAL IS INTELLECTUAL: HISTORICAL AND ANALYTIC CRITIQUES

  • “Bom to Run”: Nineteenth-Century Fantasies of Masculine Retreat and Re-creation (or The Historical Rust on Iron John): MICHAEL S. KIMMEL
  • Deep Masculinity as Social Control: Foucault, Bly, and Masculinity :  TIMOTHY BENEKE
  • A Woman for Every Wild Man: Robert Bly and His Reaffirmation of Masculinity :  DAVID S. GUTTERMAN
  • Renewal as Retreat: The Battle for Men’s Souls :  TIMOTHY NONN

IV. THE PERSONAL IS PERSONAL: THE POLITICS OF THE MASCULINIST THERAPEUTIC

  • Homophobia in Robert Bly’s Iron John : GORDON MURRAY
  • The Shadow of Iron John
  • Soft Males and Mama’s Boys: A Critique of Bly : TERRY A. KUPERS
  • Psyche, Society, and the Men’s Movement:  CHRIS BULLOCK
  • Cultural Daddy-ism and Male I Iysteria : DAVID M. WEED
  • Iron Clint: Queer Weddings in Robert Bly’s Iron John and Clint Eastwood’ Unforgiven :  MARK SIMPSON

V. THE STRUGGLE FOR MEN’S SOULS: MYTHOPOETIC MEN RESPOND TO THE PROFEMINIST CRITIQUE

  • Thoughts on Reading This Book : ROBERT BLY
  • The Postfeminist Men’s Movement : AARON KIPMS
  • Healing, Community and Justice in the Men’s Movement: Toward a Socially Responsible Model of Masculinity :  ONAJE BENJAMIN
  • Mythopoetic Men’s Movements : SHEPHERD BLISS
  • We’ve Come a Long Way Too, Baby. And We’ve Still Got a Ways to Go. So Give Us a Break! : MARVIN ALLEN
  • Tw’enty-five Years in the Men’s Movement:  JED DIAMOND

VI. CONCLUSION:  CAN WE ALL GET ALONG?

  • Why Mythopoetic Men Don’t Flock to NOMAS :  MICHAEL SCHWALBE
  • In Defense of the Men’s Movements : DON SHEWEY
  • Betwixt and Between in the Men’s Movement:  MIKE DASH
  • Afterword : MICHAEL S. KIMMEL
  • Contributors

Language: English
Pages: 396