Women’s representation around the world seems to have had little uniformity. The comprising subgroups have shown between them, permutations and combinations of variables – traditional, non-traditional, educated, illiterate, employed and unemployed. Men, comparatively, constitute a more homogeneous mass of individuals, all apparently marching to the same drum.
Group affiliations are central to male lives, with distinct behaviours, beliefs and attitudes distinguishing each. Sounds, symbols, and body language, facial expressions, gestures and signs express thoughts and feelings. These transmitted in characteristic organized patterns make complete sense to members socialized into the process, while remaining meaningless to those of another unique group. The ways of doing things, use of technology, and abilities in arts and institution building, become typical of tribes, communities, or populations.
The male identity requires this reference group of other men for its development. Masculinity, in the sense of being an integral part of society, does not developed in isolation anywhere in the world, but in tandem with the particular group identity. The externally directed individual depends entirely on the concrete presence of this group to influence his existence, e.g., fraternity, religious or political factions. The inner-directed man may not be dependent on any immediate group, but draws sustenance from the implicit value system he constructs through knowledge and experience.
The male identity requires this reference group of other men for its development. Masculinity, in the sense of being an integral part of society, does not developed in isolation anywhere in the world, but in tandem with the particular group identity. The externally directed individual depends entirely on the concrete presence of this group to influence his existence, e.g., fraternity, religious or political factions. The inner-directed man may not be dependent on any immediate group, but draws sustenance from the implicit value system he constructs through knowledge and experience.
A “masculinity blueprint” constructed in the ’70s in USA, hallmarked 4 specific dimensions: avoidance of anything perceived to be feminine, status achievement, aggressiveness, and independence. The emphasis on any one or more of these roles is tuned to the particular social structure and organization. For example, where anti-femininity is a given, violence towards women should be of no surprise.
Some males however, are left with an undefined self-concept, and confusion of the gender role. Perhaps with conflicting messages from the environment, and inability to anchor to a specific reference group, their motivations are of the moment, and often frowned upon by the larger society.
Wade holds that factors contributing to the traditional ideology are lower educational level, lower family income, and African American ethnicity. The influence of education and economics makes sense, but ethnicity? One would think that all cultures have the traditional, non-traditional and confused factions in their ranks – by dint of their social learning (or lack of it), and not genetics!
Wade writes:
Masculinity … not only restricts men from exhibiting signs of behavior or thought attributed to the female role, but also entails a wide array of specific behaviors and self-perceptions to which men closely adhere. For example, traditional masculinity entails such characteristics as homophobia, competitiveness, physical and sexual violence, restricted emotionality, and restricted affectionate behavior between men.
His study has been on the ethnic African-American group, and while acknowledging that little research has been done in this field, Wade makes the association that traditionally masculine men have greater health risks. The alpha-male attitudes responsible for keeping up machismo prevent clean living. That premise certainly holds true across the globe, for any patriarchal culture preoccupied with overt displays of manhood!
Another study, also on the African-American ethnic group, has associated perceptions of racial discrimination with mental health. Essentially the greater the perception of racial threat, the lower the mental well-being. Again, this is probably common across cultures with minority or backward social status, although there has been little empirical research conducted within these groups to confirm it. The researchers tested whether any factors had a moderating influence on the perception-mental health link, among them racial socialization experiences, and self-esteem.
Findings reported by Fischer and Shaw are that concrete socialization behaviours and experiences had a positive impact on the individual’s mental health. However, although self-esteem had the highest moderating effect, the direction of influence was contrary to prediction. They write:
In particular, we were surprised to find that African Americans reporting relatively high levels of self-esteem had poorer mental health when they reported perceptions of more racist discrimination…
It would seem that self-esteem that is built solely on the intra-community networking and interactions, suffers devastation in the more exactly interface between races and cultures. The reason for this may be the inward-looking socialization that, while creating the necessary support groups of family and friends, increases culture-centricity at the same time, attenuating both awareness and understanding of ‘others’ in the same universe.
The fears of racism and “white flight” contribute most to pockets of demographically concentrated races, communities and cultures. Consequent to this forced isolation, although erstwhile homogeneous Western societies may now boast of increasing multiculturalism, there is little social integration between majority and minority groups.
Tariq Modood points out in his article that:
… all minorities – including Muslims – want to live in mixed neighbourhoods, and ghettos are created by those who move out…Society cannot be reduced to individuals, and so integration must be about bringing new communities, and not just new individuals, into relations of equal respect …not by denying that there are groups in society but by developing positive group identities and adapting customs and institutions that enable that.
Socialization within familiar environments does little to facilitate adaptation to the unknown; rather it is likely to accentuate ‘us-and-them’ groupism. I would submit that socialization that cuts across boundaries of culture and race would in fact encourage more interactions between groups, alleviating fears and perceptions of threat. As a result, the buffering action of a hardy and stable self-esteem developed in an open universe, would more effectively moderate influences on health in any ethnic group.
References for this post:
- Wade, Jay C. “Masculinity Ideology, Male Reference Group Identity Dependence, and African American Men’s Health-Related Attitudes and Behaviors”. Psychology of Men & Masculinity. 2008, Vol. 9, No. 1, 5-16.
- Fischer, Ann R. and Shaw, Christina M. “African Americans' Mental Health and Perceptions of Racist Discrimination: The Moderating Effects of Racial Socialization Experiences and Self-Esteem” Journal of Counseling Psychology 1999, Vol. 46, No. 3, 395-407. 1999.
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