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Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (Yale Historical Publications Series)

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Kristin L. Hoganson's Fighting for American Manhood does an interesting job of walking the thin line between gender definitions, interpretations of discourse and traditional explanations of behavior in two fields that have been difficult for many newer historians to break into, international relations and military history. Although primarily a work explaining American motives in the first, Hoganson does bring some new insights on the latter to light. The work is a somewhat successful attempt to synthesize the various answers historians have previously put forward to the question, "Why did the United States go to war in 1898?" Hoganson suggests that by understanding the very real phenomenon of cultural perceptions of "manliness," and how these perceptions affected the nation as a whole and those in power in particular, we may reach a more well defined answer.
Acknowledging the validity of many of the previous explanations put forward by historians, Hoganson weaves many of them together. For example, while acknowledging that annexationist aspirations were relevant to the political actors of the day, she points out that many of the underlying reasons for these aspirations may be ascribed to gender fears. Politicians wanted to appear "manly," and there was no better way to appear this way to the voting populace than to adapt a "jingo" platform. With a similar stroke she places explanations revolving around Social Darwinists in a broader picture by illustrating that at the root of many of the fears of social degeneracy and racial competition were definitions and discourse which is clearly painted with gender based pigments. In these areas Hoganson hits her stride and in large part succeeds in redefining the scope of our understanding to include gender.
She does not, however, hit the mark in a few areas. Primarily because it appears that she never really aimed in that direction. Specifically, her treatment of the economic and strategic explanations for the Spanish-American War appear to be missing. While she does make a series of valid observations about the gender biases of several of the key actors in these areas, these observations are not relevant as causation. Naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan was almost certainly extremely gender biased, and in all likelyhood was also a racist, but neither of these were central to his reasoning. As evidence that the strategists carried little weight she points to the fact that the Army was not expanded in conjunction with the massive naval expansion of the period. One is left wondering why naval officers and supporters would have pushed for a large army when their whole theory of geostrategic influence and security rested not upon the occupation of land, but on the domination of sea lanes. Many of the same problems apply when she addresses economic factors. Overall, her dismissal of geostrategic and economic factors rests primarily upon a loose scaffold of secondary sources and the very real gender biases of the primary actors.
This is a moderate work of synthesis that potentially serves as the starting point for a new generation of interpretation. Hoganson has met her goal, she set out to lay a new cornerstone for the interpretation of American imperialism at the turn of the century and she has largely succeeded. Gender is a valid lens through which we may view many of the factors contributing to the American imperialist experiments. What now remains is for Hoganson or others to follow this up with a valid and in-depth gender based analysis of the factors she dismissed or glossed over, military and economic.

Studying how gender norms and ideals contribute to, and at times create, historical events is not a revolutionary idea; but applying gender norms and ideals to how late nineteenth and early twentieth century Americans understood war and empire comes very close to being just that. Professor Hoganson's short study of how bellicose ideals of male virility which glorify physical prowess and anxieties about an altering gender landscape in the years just before and after the Spanish and Philippine-American wars adds a new level of complexity to the study of those wars, and the path which American foreign policy took during the twentieth century. Using the time tested method of simply taking seriously what policy makers and popular media outlets said and wrote, she builds a rock solid case for reinterpreting American foreign policy in particular, and war in general, through humans' more visceral conceptions of themselves.

Zeroing in on the language norms and the gender ideals which they espoused, Fighting for American Manhood recreates the sense of urgency that much of America's political and cultural elite felt concerning the declining stature of elite men in American society. For the generation of American men who had been either too young to fight in the Civil War, anxiety about their personal and political worth in comparison to the Civil War generation mixed with a personal resentment about being continually marginalized by that generation-especially in the political arena. Even more troubling to much of the elite was the perception that, unlike the Civil War generation, these men could not measure up physically to the working men who were demanding, often violently, greater participation in American life. Accompanying all of these criticisms that the young American elite leveled at themselves was a poisonous interpretation Darwin's evolutionary doctrine which argued that only the physically strong could survive in the dangerous game of international politics. Add to this a resurgence the early nineteenth century standard of honor where slights would require physical resolution and the closure of the frontier, and Americans already had powder keg in the persons of young men itching for a fight.

The changing role of women in American society added some of the most profound anxiety which was making young men hope for a fight-one that would reassert their sense of manliness. The fact that women were arguing for suffrage, were highly visible, and vocal, in civic and moral reform movements which were challenging men's prerogatives in what were traditionally men's private spheres, was cause for even further concern. This concern was exacerbated by general gist of many women activists argument that an infusion of feminine sensibilities into the political dialogue was the best way to assure a better world for all mankind. These sentiments struck at the core of ideals of robust manliness that the young, increasingly belligerent, and politically ambitious generation of American He-men found most dear.

Enter Cuba. Though it is something of an overstatement to argue that insurgent Cuba represented for Jingoes an ideal land where men were men and women were women in the most reactionary sense imaginable, it is not complete overstatement. In recounting the political rhetoric used by the Congressional supporters of Cuba libre and the press coverage Spanish atrocities in the penny dailies, Hoganson recreates the image of a noble island of honorable fighters and dainty women that were more likely found to be in The Art of Courtly Love or the more middle-brow romances that were popular fare in the late nineteenth century. This was more the creation of fanciful imagination than it was of a product of reflection on the conditions of the Cuban insurrection, but like many myths it was taken very seriously even by those who helped to create it. Wanting to believe the officers and soldiers of Cuba libre were knights and squires in need of fraternal assistance from their powerful brothers to the north was overwhelmingly attractive to men who were questioning their own worth by the standards they believed Cubans exemplified. Only interaction with Cuban irregulars would alter the romantic conceptions fostered by government and popular media.

Most interesting in Professor Hoganson's account of the period leading up the Spanish war is her argument, recounted with very solid evidence, that respect for the supposed valor and nobility on the part of Cuban soldiers trumped racism. Cuba was rightly understood to be an island of black and brown people and the fact that racist Southern papers like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution could describe the martyred Afro-Cuban General Antonio Maceo as "one of the world's greatest warriors," while the Prussian descended Spanish General Valeriano Weyler was characterized as a contemptible gun thug is something which is remarkable to the modern reader familiar with how race relations were in the United States at this time (45-48). Myths of white supremacy, whether believed because of supposed scientific rigor or simply taken on faith, were capable of being trumped by a mythos just as dangerously pernicious. Just as the nobility myth came under a deadly scrutiny when American soldiers encountered Cuban conditions, the oddly unhistorical anti-racism of the Jingoes would die with exposure to Cuban conditions-even if unfairly.

Overall, the book is a creative look at what is an unjustly overlooked period in American history. Furthermore it is a creative look at what motivates young men, and increasingly young women, to pine for war without particularly caring about the cause for which they are fighting.

In a somewhat flamboyant pose with his tails and pinstripe pants, Uncle Sam breaks out of his regular pose . Kristin L. Hoganson uses the illustration to depict a rather loose portrait of American symbolism in her examination of how gender and cultural studies ties in with the historical narrative of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, FIGHTING FOR AMERICAN MANHOOD: HOW GENDER POLITICS PROVOKED THE SPANISH-AMERICAN AND PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN WARS. Hoganson's study is unique, and is yet an additional perspective about US history's most overlooked conflicts and possible blunders. Her interdisciplinary approach defines the roots of the conflict, which relates to the political, social, and cultural atmosphere that occurred during the late nineteenth century - women's suffrage, social Darwinism, and imperialism.

Hoganson's suggests that manhood is the premise of President Mckinley's personality and leadership. It was the driving force that exacerbated engagement in a war that was culturally and politically perplexing. Hoganson touches on noncombatant aspects of the war, jingoism, imperialists, anti-imperialist movement, and economic annexation. However, Hoganson does not indulge in a military study of the war, but she correlates the romanticism of the US Civil War as an inspiration for jingoist behavior during the Spanish-American War as well as the Philippine-American War. Hoganson continuously emphasizes that the war was a response to maintaining fraternalism during a period where social issues engendered the perception and participation in war activity.

With the accompaniment of political cartoons, Hoganson interprets her premise of manliness. The political-propaganda cartoons serve as a metaphor for both the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. This was the period where the mass media and the telegraph emerged as effective means of communication, but also lent itself to misinformation and misconceptions.

I doubt that FIGHTING FOR AMERICAN MANHOOD is supposed to interpret the entire purpose of US engagement in the war. However, it is yet another perspective that delves deep within the historical lens and shows the reader how social influences may have an effect on individual leadership and the actions that are taken to achieve successful results.

This book has offered a very insightful twist to understanding American foreign policy and congressional thought during the Spanish-American and Phillipian-American wars. Hoganson has given a nice view of how manliness and the fear of losing it contributed to war ideas and how the rise of women's suffrage movements pushed a male dominated political cirle into thoughts of war in order to maintain their manhood. Very well written and her sources are extensive and flawless.

Hoganson presents an interesting thesis in her book. Namely, that beliefs about gender the threats to those beliefs, and the need for male whites to reaffirm their political authority at home against the increasing demands of women for citizenship and political participation, contributed to jingoism and the arguments for empire. In short, fear of degeneracy at home contributed to assertiveness abroad and gender ideologies blended themselves with traditional arguments (economic, strategic) for intervention in Cuba and the annexation of the Philippines and how the language concerning such action was heavily influenced with gendered notions about manliness and effeminacy that undercut the position of the anti-imperialists. It also examines how the proper notion of manliness had changed in the post Civil-War period due to a variety of social changes introduced by America's industrialism beginning around the 1870s.

It is important also to note what she does NOT say. She does not claim that ideas about gender Caused the Spanish-American war. Only that these ideas played a big role in mustering support for Cuba before the Maine incident and about notions of American honor afterwards and that the use of this gendered language made it very untenable for politicians such as McKinley to argue against armed intervention, because it would (and did) open them to attacks about the manliness of their character and thus, their ability to wield political power effectively. Thus were opponents of war effectively handicapped to prevent America's slide into war with Spain and the acquisition of the Philippines.

All in all, I think her position is well argued and offers an interesting paradigm for considering America's foreign policy at the turn of the century. A paradigm, we should note, that is only likely applicable in that time-frame as men were fully confident in their political power previous and later the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, made a lot of these fears moot and America's experiences with war made it much more averse to Teddy's brand of aggression.

A well researched and written account of reasons for America's participation in the Spanish American War. The author stirs the reader's interest with numerous primary source citations to support her point and presents revealing information about the American perspective for participating in the Spanish American War.

The author approaches her subject from an interesting perspective. So-called masculine myths have always heavily influenced male roles in both domestic and foreign policy. For all recorded time, the ruling classes constantly produce the so-called 'idle rich," most of whom chose to remain remain comfortable idle, while others, with the benefit of that very idleness begin to question their place in society and the wider world. Some decide that they must play a significant part on the local-to-international stage. Whether Greek, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Zulu, Roman, Incan or European, some of these patricians of their respective societies will have a driving ambition and will chose a path to leadership and this times means picking up a rock or spear or G4/M16/AK-47 and fighting. What role does gender politics play in these decisions? Sure - but only to a point - gender identification and gender roles sometime play a dominant part, but some of them have displayed no insecurity about their manliness at all. Think of Julius Caesar, captured by pirates and warning them, even as they laughed at him, that he'd return and punish them. Was he asserting his manliness. I think the pirates just picked up the wrong kid - someone who didn't like to be humiliated, regardless of his gender. If the hostage had been a female celt, she might have returned herself to avenge her honor. A lot of this has to do with the place of the warrior in society. For the Romans, that was almost the exclusive role of men. But for non-Romans of Europe, women were very much in the mix. Think of tribes in Britain where women could succeed men and rule. In all these societies, a case can be made that these young male patricians are just asking themselves, "What is my place in the universe?" and "Why has the Deity placed me in a situation of obvious advantage over my fellows?" and "What can I do to leave my mark on my world?" These questions transcend gender and are as much philosophical and theological as they are gender-induced. Not only are they questions asked by the elites, but they are often questions asked by anyone who wants to make a difference in his/her world. They transcend gender and have been asked throughout human history. Some known and unknown examples: Consider this - Was Joan of Arc a male, insecure about his masculinity? No. Was she even an elite patrician insecure about her masculinity? No. She was neither. The maide of Orleans simply saw the evils and injustices of the English occupation and destruction of France and decided that the Deity had selected HER to DO something about it. And remember those Celts? Go back to Roman-occupied Britain. Was Boudica, British Queen of the Iceni tribe, though an obvious patrician, insecure about her masculinity? What motivated her to take on the most powerful country in the world in an almost hopeless struggle? She was fighting for HER crown as Queen of her tribe because both the Roman culture and law refused to recognize female heirs. The wild and warlike Iceni and most other Celtic tribes DID recognize female rulers as well as the right of women to fight beside their men. Indeed, the Romans describe the incredible ferocity of these women in combat - female fighters who fought beside their men. When Boudica's husband died and the Romans responded to her just (under Celtic law and culture - though not Roman) claim to the throne by flogging her (a intentionally degrading and also non-lethal Roman approach) and her daughters were raped, and when Roman financiers called in their loans to the Iceni, Boudica rose up and led her people. She fought for HER own - her honor, her crown, her daughters' honor and her people. Boudica did just what Joan of Arc did. Was masculine insecurity driving her? She was fighting (and not in some symbolic 21th Century way) for HER place in HER world. Before her final attack, Boudica exhorted her troops from her chariot, her violated daughters standing beside her. She presented herself not as an aristocrat avenging her lost wealth, but as an ordinary person, avenging her lost freedom, her battered body and the abused chastity of her daughters. She told the men that their cause was just, and the gods were on their side. If the men wanted to live in slavery, that was their choice, it was not hers. She fought and died for a cause transcending some masculine inferiority complex or gender-role insecurity. Consider the Russian women who rose up and fought in both the First and Second World War. One woman, Maria Bochkareva fought so well that she was decorated 4 times and allowed to create an all-women volunteer battalion that fought in several engagements, even capturing 3 successive trench lines and a group of completely surprised German soldiers who were marched back to Russian lines. The French resistance in both WW-I and WW-II and Israeli experience have shown that some women, when feel pushed to the edge of endurance are willing to fight for causes altogether transcending gender. As this is being written, there is probably some young Arab Muslim woman training to be a suicide bombers in Iraq. Think about it. Even in the almost totally male-dominated Arab culture, women are picking up AK-47s, RPGs or strapping on bombs to do their "fair share" in their particular struggle. Does masculine insecurity-induced "gender politics" explain their actions? Of course, we're not even talking about the women in today's modern armies. Some of whom are flying high-performance combat aircraft and have participated in combat in numerous places including Iraq. Conclusion. Yes, so-called "masculine insecurities" and "male aggressive myths" of idle elites and even those other not so idle men, should be studied, but it has to be within a much larger context. From ancient times to today, if you get some women mad enough, they'll pick up a rock or a sword or a spear or a musket, or Mosin-Nagent or an AK-47 or an M-16 or strap on an F-16 or F-22 or a bomb and fight, gender-politics be damned .

I bought this book out of my interest in foreign policy. I was very surprised by the stupidity of the title. Well, once you read it it just becomes more stupid. Its amazing that it was published and that this lady ever got a contract and a PHD. This probably shows how useless and pointless current historical debates are. Don't buy it!!