Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity

by David D. Gilmore and Professor David D. Gilmore

Book Overview

What does it mean to "be a man" in different cultures around the world?

"Absorbing, well-argued, and finely written."--Nicola Shulman, Sunday Times, London

In the first cross-cultural study of manhood as an achieved status, anthropologist David D. Gilmore finds that a culturally sanctioned stress on manliness--on toughness and aggressiveness, stoicism and sexuality--is almost universal, deeply ingrained in the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000JV5KWS
• ISBN13: 9780300050769
• Release Date: July 1991
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Wow the different cultures

I used this book for my Culture Anthropology report and this subject was certainly intense. I felt this book was very comprehensive and graphic in its discription of male cultural concepts.

What makes a man?

This book explores the ways in which manhood is defined. It does so by investigating a series of fascinating case studies. To take but two of these, we see that the Truk of Micronesia have a pattern of adolescent drinking and brawling that can be seen as both a holdover of a more bellicose past and a stage through which to pass into marital and parental life; furthermore, we find that Tahitian manhood is subdued, probably reflecting the relative ease and cooperative nature of their subsistence basis (fishing and agriculture) as well as an absence of intergroup aggression. The ways by which males achieve status across cultural contexts vary with respect to the social and ecological conditions faced by a given society. Where warfare prevails, for example, a society's warriors earn high status, and are typically favored by women as mates. Common to many societies, men must "impregnate women, protect dependents from danger, and provision kith and kin (p. 223)." Such provocative conclusions, attention to ethnographic detail and clear writing make this a book difficult to put down. The main drawback rests with some of the interpretation of the cultural and universal patterns of manhood. The Freudian interpretations commonly make little sense and the group selection arguments need re-couching in terms of individual selection; otherwise, most interpretations seem sensible. Overall, this book does a great job of addressing manhood in the making.

An excellent academic work.

Here, an anthropologist looks at the way masculinity is defined and created in various ways and various cultures around the globe. What we find is that just about every trait now vilified in America is highly valued around the world, in both "primitive" and "advanced" societies. This book seems to be about what our country has forgotten (or is in serious denial about), at its own peril -- that men are constructive, generous, sacrificing, loving, supportive of their families, hard working, etc... Why they are that way is what the book explains.Unlike women, who automatically get to go from being girls to being women when they first menstruate, men face a much less definite transition in going from boys to men -- a state which has to be earned and is constantly tested. Femininity is a biological fact; masculinity is largely a cultural construct. This is why we have the term "real man", while it would be ludicrous to say someone was not a "real" woman or implore her to be one. Being a man is provisional, not permanent. It's something which is always in question.This book is a definite tonic for anyone who thinks men's lives are some walk down a flower-strewn path. Also a good complement or counter-balance to all the deterministic evolutionary socio-biology out recently. The bibliography goes on for pages (thus satisfying the other experts in the field), yet the book is for the most part quite readable to the motivated layperson. Sure to provide one with new perspectives on familiar aspects of everyday life even if it's not an analysis of modern industrial life.