Robert Jensen, The Quagmire of Masculinity

Robert Jensen
The Quagmire of Masculinity

He recounts three incidents of bad male behavior. His solution?

Masculinity in three acts: Attempts at dominance through (1) force and humiliation, (2) words and argument, and (3) raw insults. Three episodes about the ways masculinity does men in, neatly played out during one long weekend. By the time I get home, I am tired. I am sad. It feels like there are few ways out.

But there is, of course, a way out. It's called feminism. It offers men a way to understand the nature of this toxic conception of who we are.

Feminism is a gift to men, if we are smart enough to accept it.

And how does he define feminism? He doesn't do so here, in this excerpt from his book,
Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. If feminism is just aping bad male behavior, then how is it a solution. On the other hand, if feminism is linked to the "ethic of care" and an exaggerated account of female virtues (that sort of account that claims that men are just evil while women are always good), then isn't the solution worse than the disease? What can we say from a Christian standpoint, when reviewing the three incidents? Yes--males are involved, but then again they are the subject of inquiry, aren't they? Are these "characteristic" alpha males of the first two stories (or the passive-aggressive male in the third) following the ideal? It is one thing to remind us (who are civilized) of what is obvious--that these men are behaving badly. But it is another to ask what is the justification for this claim? Is Mr. Jensen evaluating it from the standpoint of feminism? Or from an inherited tradition that he attempts to live?

These men are proud, and the solution is not for them to become like women, or to adopt an ideology which either does away with sex differences, or goes to an extreme by denigrating one sex while elevating the other, but to embrace humility, as a cure to pride, and grace, as a cure to original sin. (The first one seems to be guilty of being unchaste, in addition to being proud, while the second lacks some of the appropriate social virtues... what can we say about the third? He does seem to have an anger issue, and lacks the virtues of obedience and legal justice.)

There is nothing wrong with argument, so long it is in the service of God and truth and not of ego.

So let us not be quick to blame "masculinity" when what is the source of the problem is not bare masculinity, but bad habits or vices.