Men should be empathetic and caring – this has been demanded for 50 years. Pedagogy has long since adopted the feminist trend. This has consequences that should be reconsidered against the background of the war.
There is no trace of “soft maleness” here: Arnold Schwarzenegger at a performance in the Whitney Museum in New York, 1976.
For the first time since 1945 there is a major war in Europe. With his attack on Ukraine, Putin wants to destroy the European balance. But other things are also destroyed: perspectives, previous security, values. The latter also includes a specific image of men: since the 1970s, the disarmament of traditional masculinity with its set of toughness, poker face and competition was the program. A new “soft maleness” was announced – empathy, caring and non-violence.
Today, this image of men is beginning to falter. Since war has been waged in Ukraine, military capability has been required. Everyone is saying that it takes strength to defend one’s values. But where is the ability to defend itself supposed to come from if its ethical and social bases have been somewhat carelessly abolished?
Essential qualities of traditional masculinity such as virility, strength, leadership, drive, self-defense, or risk-taking have disappeared from most areas of education, school, or educational work. They were placed in the historical context of patriarchy, hegemony and (male) violence rather uncritically. That they also belong there and have caused a lot of mischief is undisputed; at the same time, however, they also built civilization, averted dangers and secured progress.
This man’s role of performance and toughness has also demanded limitations from the men themselves, for example renunciation of feelings and lack of consideration in relation to their own health. In his novel The Plague, Albert Camus describes how a terrible plague broke out in the North African city of Oran in the 1940s. In view of the epidemic, several of the exclusively male protagonists in the novel see themselves faced with the existential alternative of flight or fight. Those who – like Dr. Rieux, Tarrou or Rambert – those who choose to resist the plague risk their lives for the collective value of salvaging human order, culture and community.
No sense of misandry
In this novel, the male principle is vividly summarized in the qualities of courage, caring, willpower, responsibility, goodness, willingness to take risks, crossing borders, renunciation, altruism, chivalry, honesty and modesty in the form of putting one’s own needs aside.
The break with this differentiated image can be registered in the early 1970s, when feminism – especially in its vulgar form of expression – mercilessly dismantled the male subject in its fight against patriarchy. Suddenly men were presented only as criminals, rapists and abusers. When Marilyn French, a contemporary feminist icon, looked out at the world, all she saw were “rotten men” and “great women.”
This far-reaching change in the image of men in our culture has not yet been adequately recognized or examined in the German-speaking world. Misogyny and misogyny are long-recognized issues that continue to raise public awareness; this does not apply to misandry and hatred of men.
Contemporary pedagogy has uncritically adopted the feminist trend with its dichotomy of exclusively female victims and exclusively male perpetrators. Some time ago, a Berlin mother complained about the school experiences of her six-year-old son in a large German Sunday newspaper. She described how the boys “read bee stories in German, draw butterflies in art class and perform veil dances in sports”. Since the boys then expressed their displeasure in class, they constantly ended up in the social room or were expelled from school.
The order of a rector in Allschwil, in the Basel countryside, to redesign the playground fits in with this. The area that was previously available to boys for playing football and romping around was converted into a “communication area” because talking is “healthier” for boys than romping around. These are not exotic, but rather representative examples.
open re-education
Role models that are important for the development and orientation of boys are systematically discredited – this includes heroes, pioneers, conquerors and adventurers. Areas of life and work that are labeled as male are gradually being devalued, even though they – like the technical professions in particular – are central to society. Boys are now being re-educated discreetly or openly.
The kindergarten teacher who brings his small wooden sword to the after-school care center is sent home because of his “dangerous” toy: this is also a real example from Swiss educational life. Anything that has to do with boyhood trials of strength is viewed with suspicion, forbidden or even punished by female educational staff. When the girls move out on “Daughter’s Day” in order to take “real” men in the traditional male professions, such as in the car repair shop, as female role models, boys are asked to sort laundry or distinguish between cleaning agents.
It is good that boys learn such skills, it helps them to cope with everyday life and is a good prerequisite for a gender-democratic division of labor in the later partnership. But these exercises take place in the context of a gradual emasculation of boys.
At the beginning of the millennium, the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin decreed in a study that “a stable male identity (…) cannot be the first goal of boys’ and men’s work”. Another institution in the capital, “Dissens”, recommends that boys follow the behavior of girls in their school brochure. Education directives from school ministries also follow this example.
Scared and disoriented
When boys and men are offered “only” female qualities and virtues as an explicit counter-proposal, there are consequences. The systematic one-sidedness generates uncertainty, disorientation and anxiety. Men, for example, are venturing out into the world later and later; half of 25-year-olds still live at home; 14 percent of those over 30 still live with their parents.
The large Sinus study from 2007 on life plans, role models and attitudes towards equality between 20-year-old women and men proves the fears of young men about the future. The report states: “The men lack positive role models for orientation in relation to their own new gender identity.” And further: “The men suffer in their subjective state and feel on the defensive: Today, the women write the screenplay.” Therefore, they face the future full of doubts, are reluctant to commit and are unwilling to marry.
With the deconstruction of traditional masculinity, there is a risk of losing those qualities that are essential for maintaining and defending our community: willingness to take risks, the will to fight, the ability to defend yourself and putting one’s own needs aside in favor of social necessities. Remembering these male virtues does not mean demanding a return to a terrible masculinity, to a masculinity that had to be lived out in the 19th century or as Vladimir Putin is currently demonstrating – even in all embarrassing poses shirtless in the taiga.
But with the contemporary disarmament of masculinity, the baby is thrown out with the bathwater. There is a masculinity beyond Putin’s embarrassments, and it needs to be recognized again. Because you cannot convert aggressors with a love of peace, and you also have to stand up for the freedom of your own community. And with determination – and therefore also with the hard qualities of traditional masculinity. Otherwise, men like Putin will soon become supreme everywhere.
Walter Holstein is Emeritus Professor of Political Sociology.