Michael S. Kimmel: The Politics Of Manhood (PDF)

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?