Daily life is replete with examples of men’s anxiety about violating the male gender role. Boyfriends and husbands refuse to watch “chick flicks” in the theatre; pop music enthusiasts keep their fondness for certain performers a secret (“I have lots of male friends who like Adam Lambert, but they don’t want people to think they’re gay”). Why might this be the case? Indeed, men’s tendency to appear “insecure in their manhood” may reflect an interpersonal concern about losing social status.

When a man hesitates to hug male friends in public or balks at the idea of carrying a female friend’s purse for her, we may roll our eyes and (at least privately) accuse him of being “insecure in hismasculinity .” After all, if he felt completely confident about his status as a man, the public enactment of stereotypically feminine behaviors should cause him no anxiety whatsoever.

But what if men really do have cause for concern about the security of their manhood? Not in a literal sense, but in the sense that it is relatively easy for men to lose their status as a “real man” in other people’s eyes. If so, then even men who are personally quite secure in their gender identity – their sense of themselves as a man, and the extent to which they identify with the male gender – might still suffer from concerns about the social repercussions of behaving in a stereotypically feminine manner. Thus, men’s tendency to appear “insecure in their manhood” may not reflect a personal shortcoming so much as it reflects an interpersonal concern about losing social status.

My collaborators and I recently began researching how people think about manhood. We propose that manhood, relative to womanhood, has historically been viewed as both elusive and tenuous. By “elusive,” we mean that manhood is not considered a developmental certainty, but instead is seen as a status that must be earned via action. By “tenuous,” we mean that manhood status, once earned, can be lost with relative ease, via a wide range of social shortcomings. Although these views of manhood may seem antiquated to those who possess a sophisticated understanding of gender, themes of the precariousness of manhood continue to emerge in daily discourse. Consider, for example, the treatment that U.S. figure skater Johnny Weir received during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Commenting on Weir’s “feminine” appearance – Weir wore a costume adorned with a sparkly black shoulder pad, pink sequined detailing, and a pink tassel – sportscasters Claude Mailhot and Alain Goldberg joked that “We should make [Weir] pass a gender test,” and suggested that Weir should compete in the women’s Olympic events instead of the men’s (Garcia, 2010). Hence, a man who is deemed insufficiently masculine – that is, one who lacks stereotypically masculine traits and/or displays stereotypically feminine traits – is seen, by some, as no longer a man.

In this article, I summarize some of the research findings that have emerged from our work, and I highlight the implications ofprecarious manhood beliefs for men. In particular, we find that reminders of the precariousness of manhood encourage physically aggressive displays among men. As such, cultural beliefs about the tenuousness of manhood represent a social factor that may interact with biological factors (e.g., testosterone levels, genes) to shape men’s use of physical aggression.

Manhood as Elusive

Many cultures around the world treat manhood as an achieved status, or one that must be earned via action. As documented by cultural anthropologist David Gilmore (1990), some cultures ritualize the transition to manhood by requiring that young men pass rites involving risk, uncertainty, and a potential for injury. Those who do not successfully navigate these rites of passage will become adults in the biological sense, but not “real men” in the social sense. In contrast, most cultures treat womanhood as an ascribed status, or one that is assigned rather than achieved. As Gilmore notes, the transition from girlhood to womanhood “rarely involves tests or proofs of action, or confrontations with dangerous foes” (p. 12).

Of course, formal manhood rituals are rare in industrialized nations such as the U.S. We therefore wondered whether residents of the U.S. would espouse the belief that manhood, relative to womanhood, is an elusive status that must be achieved. To answer this question, we asked U.S. college students to indicate the extent to which they liked, agreed with, and understood a series of proverbs that contained several statements about the transition from childhood to adulthood, embedded within a number of common proverbs that were irrelevant to our research interests (Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & Weaver, 2008). For half of the participants in the study, the critical proverbs pertained to elusive manhood (e.g., “A boy must earn his right to be called a man,” “It is a rocky road from boy to man”), and for the other half, they pertained to elusive womanhood (e.g., “A girl must earn her right to be called a woman,” “It is a rocky road from girl to woman”). Regardless of their gender, participants liked, agreed with, and understood the proverbs about elusive manhood more than those about elusive womanhood.

We also examined people’s beliefs about the underlying causes of the transition from childhood to adulthood. If people view manhood as an achieved status, then they should report that social factors play a larger role than biological factors in the transition from boyhood to manhood. U.S. college students rated their agreement with two statements about either manhood or womanhood: “The transition from boyhood [girlhood] to manhood [womanhood] occurs because of something physical (e.g., hormonal changes),” and “The transition from boyhood [girlhood] to manhood [womanhood] occurs because of something social (e.g., passing social milestones).” As expected, participants viewed manhood as caused more by social changes than biological changes. Moreover, they attributed the transition to manhood to more social causes than the transition to womanhood. Together, these findings supported the first component of our precarious manhood hypothesis, that manhood is considered more elusive than womanhood.

Manhood as Tenuous

Next, we turned our attention to the second component of precarious manhood, the belief that manhood can be lost more easily than womanhood. We presented U.S. college students with an ambiguous statement that was ostensibly extracted from a longer, autobiographical account (Vandello et al., 2008). Half of participants read: “My life isn’t what I expected it would be. I used to be a man. Now I’m not a man anymore.” The other half read: “My life isn’t what I expected it would be. I used to be a woman. Now I’m not a woman anymore.” After reading the statements, participants wrote down their interpretation of what the author meant, and they rated how difficult it was to interpret the author’s words. We coded participants’ interpretations for social versus physical content. For example, a statement such as “She is old and can’t do the things she used to” was coded as physical, whereas a statement such as “He failed at something important” was coded as social. Consistent with the idea that manhood can be lost via social shortcomings, almost 50% of people’s interpretations of lost manhood reflected social failures (e.g., job loss, inability to support a family), and only 11% reflected physical themes (e.g., old age, sexual reassignment surgery). The reverse pattern emerged in people’s interpretations of lost womanhood: Whereas almost 50% of their interpretations reflected physical changes, only 30% reflected social themes. Moreover, people indicated that it was much more difficult to interpret statements about lost womanhood than about lost manhood, indicating that themes of lost manhood are relatively more familiar and understandable to most people.

Still, are there at least some domains in which womanhood can be lost? The domain of parenting seems like a viable candidate. According to the motherhood mandate (Russo, 1976), the expectation that women will bear and raise children spans both historical eras and cultural boundaries. Thus, we wondered whether a woman who does not bear children will lose womanhood in other people’s eyes in the same manner that a man can lose manhood.

To answer this question, we asked U.S. college students to select which of several visual images best represented the psychological profile of an adult who could not have children (Vandello et al., 2008). Half of our participants first read a description of a woman, Anne, who could not get pregnant, and the other half read about a man, John, who could not impregnate his wife. After reading the description, participants selected an image to represent Anne or John. The set of possible images contained an attractive adult, an unattractive adult, and a child, all of whom were the same sex as the adult (Anne or John) in the description; the remaining images were abstract, and were identical across conditions. Our primary interest was the frequency with which people selected the image of the child to represent an infertile woman. That is, if a woman who violates the motherhood mandate is no longer a real woman, then people should characterize her as a girl.

Instead, the largest percentage of participants (28%) who read about Anne selected the image of the unattractive woman to represent her. Only 16% selected the image of the girl. Conversely, the largest percentage (40%) of those who read about John selected the image of the boy to represent him. This finding indicates that women who violate the motherhood mandate may be viewed as flawed – that is, physically unattractive – but they are nonetheless seen as real women. Note that people’s selection of an unattractive woman to represent an infertile woman is interesting in itself. This trend could reflect an implicit tendency to treat women’s physical beauty as a cue that signals fertility (Buss, 1989), or a broader tendency to equate women’s appearance with their overall value and worth (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Regardless, our findings are consistent with the notion that womanhood status is not as tenuous as is manhood, even in a domain that is considered quite important for women.

Implications for Aggressive Actions

No matter how you look at it – homicides, violent crime rates, laboratory-induced aggression – men are more physically aggressive than women (Bettencourt & Miller, 1996; Eagly & Steffen, 1986). Although the reasons for this disparity are complex and multi-determined, we propose that men, at times, use physical aggression as a means of restoring their manhood.

To test this idea, my colleagues and I threatened some men’s manhood by videotaping them while they performed a feminine task that involved braiding a mannequin’s hair (Bosson, Vandello, Burnaford, Weaver, & Wasti, 2009). Other men were videotaped while performing a similar but non-threatening activity that involved braiding three strands of rope. Next, we offered men an opportunity to select which of two activities they would like to do – solving a “brainteaser” puzzle, or hitting a punching pad. If men use aggressive displays to restore threatened manhood, then men who braided hair should select the punching task more frequently than men who braided rope. This is precisely what happened. Whereas 50% of men who did the hairstyling task subsequently chose to punch, only 22% of those who did the rope braiding task selected the punching activity.

And a manhood threat did not only motivate men to choose a physically aggressive activity. In a follow-up experiment, men actually punched a punching pad harder following the manhood threat (hairstyling task) than they did following the non-threatening task. In yet another study, we had U.S. college men do the hairstyling task after which half of them punched a pad. The other half of men did the hairstyling task and then waited several minutes without doing another activity. Finally, all of the men completed a measure of anxiety. The findings showed that men who punched the pad after the manhood threat scored lower in anxiety than those who did not punch after the manhood threat. This suggests that a physically aggressive behavior can alleviate men’s anxiety concerning the loss of manhood that results from stereotypically feminine actions.

Taken together, these findings suggest that displays of physical aggression can be effective means of restoring threatened manhood. Of course, there are numerous other potential causes of men’s use of physical aggression, including biological factors, socialization tendencies, and other situational pressures. Nonetheless, reminders that their manhood is precarious may, at times, motivate men’s physical aggression even when other causes are not present.

Finally, it is important to note that our research participants in all of these studies have been a fairly homogenous group. They were generally between the ages of 18 and 30, and almost 90% of them identified as “exclusively heterosexual.” Moreover, approximately 60% of our participants have been White (with about 15% Black, 15% Latino, and 5% Asian American). When possible, we have compared the responses of men who differ in age, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity, and we have found little difference across groups. However, it is possible that our participants have simply been too homogenous to allow us to detect real differences. Therefore, we cannot state with confidence that beliefs in precarious manhood are universal, nor can we know how men of different ages, sexualities, and racial/ethnic groups might respond to manhood threats like the ones we used. These questions must await further research.

Some Explanations

Thus far, I have asserted that manhood is viewed as more precarious than womanhood, but I did not offer any explanations as to why this might be the case. Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer and my collaborators and I can only conjecture at this point.

One possibility is that beliefs about manhood reflect evolved adaptations to an early social environment in which men competed with one another for access to fertile female mates (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Trivers, 1972). Evolutionary theories posit that ancestral men’s reproductive success was closely linked to their position in status hierarchies, but status could easily be challenged by a stronger or more skilled competitor. Thus, men may have evolved a preoccupation with achieving and maintaining social status because ancestral men who were especially wary of status threats were also more successful at attracting mates.

Another possibility is that precarious manhood has its roots in long-established sexual divisions of labor (Eagly & Wood, 1999). Because men have historically occupied social roles that involve status-seeking and resource acquisition, people tend to associate manhood with qualities such as competitiveness, defensiveness, and efforts to “prove” status. That is, we imbue the status of manhood with the qualities that men have embodied in fulfilling socially assigned roles.

Of course, these perspectives do not justify or speak to the legitimacy of precarious manhood beliefs. If anything, they simply provide possible explanations for why we, as a culture, persist in teaching boys and men that they must struggle to become, and then remain, “real” members of their gender.

Conclusion

Daily life is replete with examples of men’s anxiety about violating the male gender role. Boyfriends and husbands refuse to watch “chick flicks” in the theatre; pop music enthusiasts keep their fondness for certain performers a secret (“I have lots of male friends who like Adam Lambert, but they don’t want people to think they’re gay”); and many men assiduously avoid hobbies and vocations such as knitting, baking, and fashion. When faced with examples like these, it can be tempting to hold individual men responsible for their own feelings of anxiety. As the work presented here suggests, however, doing so might be missing the bigger picture. Men – even those who are perfectly “secure in their masculinity” – are aware that their manhood is precarious and that they may, at any moment, lose manhood status in other people’s eyes. Until widespread beliefs about the elusiveness and tenuousness of manhood change, it may be unrealistic to expect the average man to violate gender role norms with ease.

References

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