True Manliness: A Rebuttal
Harvey Mansfield is no "Harvey the Rabbit." (An imaginary companion of inebriation from the Pulitzer-prize winning play by Mary Chase.) This Harvey is real. He is the William R. Kenan Professor of Government at Harvard University and is out and about promoting his new book, "Manliness." I heard him interviewed recently on National Public Radio's current affairs program, "On Point."
In his closing commentary he acknowledged that he had made patronizing remarks about women. It was appropriate, he said. "They are weaker and will always be."
Professor Mansfield misses a point essential to human existence. Cooperation rather than strength is more likely to result in survival. Statistics demonstrate beyond any shadow of doubt that it is a man's world. In the United States of America, the most free and most democratic of societies, men control the professional financial industry, media ownership, most corporate board positions, most political offices. Women are making inroads that are not representative, considering that females are the statistical majority population of the world.
Those heroes that Mansfield holds up for emulation include the John Wayne types; the warrior models. In general, and as generals, they dominate by force.
In rebuttal, I hold up a different model of manly men, those who have positively impacted the lives of millions for generations. These include Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, and men like Raul Wallenburg and Oskar Schindler. These men waged peace at risk to themselves. The organ they exercised the most was the brain.
None of them were pugilists. Look at their legacies.
This is not to denigrate physical muscularity, but to underscore the failings of relying upon larger muscles straining at a task for a limited period of time. The contemporary world demands not such musculature, but rather sustained use of the well exercised human brain, working out by resolving inter-related global problems one small effective solution at a time, and understanding that solutions may be fluid and require repeated patient focused attention. Not all significant problems will stay "fixed" by brute strength.
It is a law of physics that every action results in an equal and opposite reaction.
Heroic women, whom Mansfield sees as difficult to find and define in accord with his success model, would be warrior women. Elizabeth I, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier might win his grudging approval.
Womanly women do not want to be manly. Nor do they need to be manly. They are equally powerful, a thought that appears to frighten Professor Mansfield into concerns about gender neutrality as the ruination of American culture and society.
Models of heroic women include Jackie Joyner Kersee, an athlete's athlete, admired by all. Rosa Parks and JoAnn Robinson, who knowingly volunteered to launch the Civil Right's Movement. Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul, both Quakers, led the Women's Suffrage Movement and endured physical and mental torture in the process. Who would deny the courage of Florence Nightingale, or all the battlefield nurses who have followed in her footsteps? Who would not recognize the leadership of Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, using her office to uphold human rights and wage peace, not only for war-torn Ireland, but on behalf of all those in conflict situations around the world. In fact, her rival for the office said later that she made a much better President than he ever would have. There is the contemporary courage of Christiane Amanpour, reported to be the highest paid journalist in the world, not merely for her interviewing skills and news sense, but for her courage in covering some of the most dangerous places on earth and getting at the root causes of human conflict.
As more women claim their own strengths and move forward in more public arenas, this continually evolving world will benefit. The ground under so many turf wars will have a better chance of becoming a strategic playing field. Mansfield says that "women are closer to reality."
The contemporary reality is that NOW is the time in history for rational compromise and creative negotiation to solve interconnected problems that range from gross economic disparities to a battered environment; from global water shortages to lack of widespread multicultural appreciation of useful differences. Education in human tolerance is as important as education in family budgeting and both are currently in short supply. Coursework that envisions a courage-filled, peaceful planet must be designed to help children from around the world, see a world in which they can not only survive, but thrive, together.
Now is certainly the time for all human beings "closer to reality" to put their shoulders to the wheel of the work of the world. It is past time to reduce the decibels of shouting and turn up the volume of hearing; to restrain from shoving and use our combined energies to reach strenuously for a much less fearful and bullying vision of the world.
In his closing commentary he acknowledged that he had made patronizing remarks about women. It was appropriate, he said. "They are weaker and will always be."
Professor Mansfield misses a point essential to human existence. Cooperation rather than strength is more likely to result in survival. Statistics demonstrate beyond any shadow of doubt that it is a man's world. In the United States of America, the most free and most democratic of societies, men control the professional financial industry, media ownership, most corporate board positions, most political offices. Women are making inroads that are not representative, considering that females are the statistical majority population of the world.
Those heroes that Mansfield holds up for emulation include the John Wayne types; the warrior models. In general, and as generals, they dominate by force.
In rebuttal, I hold up a different model of manly men, those who have positively impacted the lives of millions for generations. These include Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, and men like Raul Wallenburg and Oskar Schindler. These men waged peace at risk to themselves. The organ they exercised the most was the brain.
None of them were pugilists. Look at their legacies.
This is not to denigrate physical muscularity, but to underscore the failings of relying upon larger muscles straining at a task for a limited period of time. The contemporary world demands not such musculature, but rather sustained use of the well exercised human brain, working out by resolving inter-related global problems one small effective solution at a time, and understanding that solutions may be fluid and require repeated patient focused attention. Not all significant problems will stay "fixed" by brute strength.
It is a law of physics that every action results in an equal and opposite reaction.
Heroic women, whom Mansfield sees as difficult to find and define in accord with his success model, would be warrior women. Elizabeth I, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meier might win his grudging approval.
Womanly women do not want to be manly. Nor do they need to be manly. They are equally powerful, a thought that appears to frighten Professor Mansfield into concerns about gender neutrality as the ruination of American culture and society.
Models of heroic women include Jackie Joyner Kersee, an athlete's athlete, admired by all. Rosa Parks and JoAnn Robinson, who knowingly volunteered to launch the Civil Right's Movement. Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul, both Quakers, led the Women's Suffrage Movement and endured physical and mental torture in the process. Who would deny the courage of Florence Nightingale, or all the battlefield nurses who have followed in her footsteps? Who would not recognize the leadership of Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, using her office to uphold human rights and wage peace, not only for war-torn Ireland, but on behalf of all those in conflict situations around the world. In fact, her rival for the office said later that she made a much better President than he ever would have. There is the contemporary courage of Christiane Amanpour, reported to be the highest paid journalist in the world, not merely for her interviewing skills and news sense, but for her courage in covering some of the most dangerous places on earth and getting at the root causes of human conflict.
As more women claim their own strengths and move forward in more public arenas, this continually evolving world will benefit. The ground under so many turf wars will have a better chance of becoming a strategic playing field. Mansfield says that "women are closer to reality."
The contemporary reality is that NOW is the time in history for rational compromise and creative negotiation to solve interconnected problems that range from gross economic disparities to a battered environment; from global water shortages to lack of widespread multicultural appreciation of useful differences. Education in human tolerance is as important as education in family budgeting and both are currently in short supply. Coursework that envisions a courage-filled, peaceful planet must be designed to help children from around the world, see a world in which they can not only survive, but thrive, together.
Now is certainly the time for all human beings "closer to reality" to put their shoulders to the wheel of the work of the world. It is past time to reduce the decibels of shouting and turn up the volume of hearing; to restrain from shoving and use our combined energies to reach strenuously for a much less fearful and bullying vision of the world.