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I often quip that men generally have two speeds - neutral and pissed. This circumstance is consequent to the simple fact that men are not taught to access their emotions. The larger context of this condition is that men no longer have an experience of initiation from boyhood into manhood. Plainly put, boys will be boys and men will be boys -- because no one is there to teach boys to be men.
Women in our culture have unavoidable, biologically-based rites of passage that are acknowledged by and blended with their overall socialization. The momentum created by this allows women to be socialized in a manner that points them toward a clear path of womanhood, defining them even as they define themselves.
Men, since the Industrial Revolution, have lost the elements of their socialization that spoke to similar social rites of passage. With the father, or father-figure, working outside the home and the tradition of apprenticeship all but lost, boys have coincidently lost the context of their own manhood.
There is, for males, no sense of place, and so, no point of reference for a genuine sense of self other than that sense of self that is attached to the roles laid out as socially appropriate. Fold in to this the mixed messages of gender socialization fostered by the feminist movement and men find themselves not only not knowing where they belong, but also not knowing who they are or even whom they are supposed to be.
All of this feeds into the sensibility of covert male depression that is so prevalent in post-modern society. Since depression in men often presents as anger and irritability, the sullen, cave-dwelling stage of male middle adolescence becomes a way of life, a way of being in the world - the template for the neutral-or-pissed-boy/man.
Because of the global continuity of female social development and socialization, there is built into that a sense of group momentum. Observation of adolescent males and females often reveals that, while a "clique culture" undoubtedly exists within both genders, there is a homogeneous subtext across female groups that does not exists among male groups.
When boys individuate, they tend to split in a dramatic way. This can lead to a sense of social isolation not necessarily felt by females. No matter the extremity of the differences between female groups there is a shared bio-social experience that is unavoidable. Here, again, we have fodder to feed the covert male depression/no sense of grounded social identity motif that drives the underlying Peter Pan complex.
How do we foster a sense of progressive social development into manhood that also promotes emotional intelligence in a culture where apprenticeship is dead, confirmation is a gesture, the bar mitzvah is about the money, and organized sports teach us more about winning and not losing than about leadership and teamwork?
Given the strictures imposed by cultural momentum, it would seem that, just as re-parenting is sometimes necessary to divest ourselves of the motifs engendered in childhood, a program of male self-initiation is in order. It suggests that, as there are few or no points of reference to define us, we must - a la Erik Erikson, who took his nom de guerre referencing the idea that he was his own creation - in order to find ourselves, define ourselves.
So, what kind of man do you want to be? It's your choice...
© 2009 Michael J. Formica, All Rights Reserved
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