|
|
 |
|
 |
|
| A MAN IN FULL | |
 November 9, 1999 
|
|
|
|
|
CLARENCE PAGE: Manhood is not what it used to be. Women have moved into a lot of roles that once were reserved for men, while men have not eagerly taken on the roles we used to call "women's work." Instead, many guys turn to enclaves of guyhood: Sports bars, private cigar bars, upscale strip clubs, anything that represents good, old-fashioned, hairy-chested manhood. In the futuristic cult novel "Fight Club," now a major motion picture, the only time young men feel truly alive is when they are beating each other up, bare- knuckled. Otherwise, they feel hollow, uninspired by safe, nonviolent consumer society. Their quest for manhood through violence resonates with the testosterone-drenched riot at Woodstock, or maniacal shootings by young males at public schools. The shooters at Columbine High School hated the jocks, we are told. We can only guess how much their uncertain adolescent sense of manhood contributed to their madness. While most men are not that troubled-- fortunately-- many of us are searching, seeking new ways to be what Tom Wolfe calls "A Man in Full." We came to the Million Man March' we come to Promise Keepers rallies. We seek to take back control over families, communities and lives that have lost their moorings. The old images of manhood don't quite work the way they used to, partly because men don't work the way they used to. The working men of my father's generation came back from the war and took factory jobs, built homes, and raised families, the social backbone of the nation. Today factory labor has been replaced by machines, and machines by computers. Our compass of male identity spins out of control. Many men are left feeling betrayed, confused, and frustrated, so says feminist writer Susan Faludi in her appropriately titled book on modern men, "Stiffed." But while post-war America doesn't need some guys as much as it used to, other guys never had it so good. After all, men still control most of the wealth and dominate positions of power. If the modern American hero is not John Wayne, he is Bill Gates. The geeks have inherited the new economy. The losers know it, and they don't like it. It is they, political experts say, who gravitate most quickly to renegade candidates, like Pat Buchanan or Jesse Ventura or even Donald Trump, anyone who will give them some straight talk, guy to guy. But if these new voices betray the guys, too, then what? New times call for a new kind of guy, not only to rediscover manhood, but also to reimagine it. In Washington, D.C., a group of men visit a public housing project. They call themselves the Alliance of Concerned Men. Some of them were ex-offenders. Before they came along, hundreds of families in Benning Terrace public housing lived in daily peril from gang warfare. Within two years, most of the gangsters had left their gangs. They found jobs and rebuilt their family lives, and the local body count dropped from eight homicides in one year down to zero. Where preachers and police had failed to take back the neighborhood, the concerned men succeeded, simply by reasserting themselves as responsible men. Today, just as women have more choices, so do men. The changing role of men poses problems for some men, but it also creates opportunities to relax our air our air of certainty and share our doubts; to compete less and cooperate more; to relax our stony, stoic one-upmanship and enjoy those whom we have been sacrificing for our children, our families, and our communities. Women have spent decades trying to redefine themselves. Men are just getting started. I'm Clarence Page. |
 |
        |
|
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | ||
| ||
| PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. | ||
| ||
