The Art of Masculinity

• In Event: Investigations into the Construction and Deployment of Race, Gender, and Sex in Civic Culture

Abstract

The characteristics that have commonly defined masculinity were long thought of as practices learned through doing or experience. Beginning in the 20th century and with more increasing urgency since the 1990’s, masculinity has been transformed from a practice into a disciplined art. Enough practices have followed suit to represent a larger trend, yet no one has attempted to describe what transforms a practice into an art, why this occurs, and its implications. This paper attempts to answer these questions by comparing Plato’s qualifications of a true art in his quarrel with the Sophists to the emerging art of masculinity. Specifically, I analyzed Robert Bly’s 1990 book, Iron John as a representation of the shift from masculinity as practice to masculinity as disciplined art. The analysis found that Iron John’s conceptions of masculinity fit within Plato’s qualifications of a true art and concludes with a discussion of the larger implications this trend has for society and the field of communication studies.

Author

• Luke A Winslow, Univ of Texas, Austin