Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity [Hardcover]

Professor David D. Gilmore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1990

In this cross-cultural study of manhood as an achieved status, the author finds that a culturally sanctioned stress on manliness - on toughness and aggressiveness, stoicism and sexuality - is almost universal, and deeply ingrained in the consciousness of men who otherwise have little in common.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In most societies, asserts anthropologist Gilmore, professor at State University of New York, being accepted as a "real man" involves tests of action, proofs of individual worth. For Andalusians of Spain, machismo is earned by procreating offspring and financially providing for dependents. In New Guinea, the village "Big Man" is ideal warrior and pillar of social cohesion. Yet some cultures contradict the general rule that manhood is a prize to be won. In India and China, for example, cooperation and deference soften virile, sexist gender roles. And among the gentle, androgynous Polynesian Tahitians or the Semai of Malaysia, the notion of masculinity as a test is virtually absent. In a provocative, rewarding cross-cultural survey, Gilmore concludes that men are not so innately different from women: it takes culturally enforced norms of manhood to prod males into assertiveness.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (March 11, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300046464
• ISBN-13: 978-0300046465
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,433,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent academic work., October 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (Paperback)

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.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What makes a man?, November 21, 2000

By 

Peter Gray - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (Paperback)

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.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Of some interest., August 9, 2004

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (Paperback)

Most of the book consists of Gilmore's summary of anthropological studies of "primitive" cultures, and these accounts are reasonably interesting in themselves, and good background for readers interested in subjects like evolutionary psychology. I respect the author as being objective. I also accept his conclusion, that most of the traditional values associated with manhood had their genesis in the needs of society, e.g. for protection. I presume he writes about the Mediterranean ideals of machismo (in one of the less interesting chapters) rather than Middle Eastern ideals because he was more comfortable with them, but it does not take a feminist to believe some of the concepts of manhood were used to oppress women. Gilmore does not sufficiently distinguish between the origin of values, and their functionality within changed environments, or between the core values and their subsequent distortion. Most provocative were the two studies of cultures in which all the "normal" concepts of manhood are lacking: does this really show there is no genetic basis for gender differences, or that neither genetics or environment by itself determines behavior?