Print this article - Hipatia Press [PDF]

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

Advertising, Gender and Health Advice: the Case of Men’s Health in the Year 2000 Arran Stibbe 1 1) University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom Date of publication: October 21th, 2012

To cite this article: Stibbe, A.(2012). Advertising, gender and health advice: the case of Men's Health in the year 2000. Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3),190­209. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.13 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.13

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­Derivative License.

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 190-209

Advertising, Gender and Health Advice: the Case of Men's Health in the Year 2000 Arran Stibbe

University ofGloucestershire, United Kingdom

Abstract This article examines the potential influence of advertising in health magazines through detailed analysis of advertisements contained in 12 issues of the US magazine Men's Health from the year 2000, in the context of the articles which surround the advertisements. Tensions are explored between the role of the magazines in constructing male consumers to deliver to advertisers, and the dispensing of genuine health advice. Tensions are particularly apparent when health advice would go against typical images of hegemonic masculinity, for example advice to drink less alcohol, eat less meat, eat less convenience food, or reduce involvement in risky behaviour. The conclusion considers whether in constructing a male consumer, which in itself threatens traditional masculine images since it involves an interest in fashion, shopping and grooming products, there is potential for magazines to compromise health advice by avoiding further threats to traditional masculinity.

Keywords: masculinity, health, advertising

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.13

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 190-209

Publicidad, Género y Consejos de Salud: el Caso de Men's Health en el Año 2000 Arran Stibbe

Universidad de Gloucestershire, Reino Unido

Abstract

Este artículo analiza la influencia potencial de los anuncios en las revistas de salud a través de un estudio detallado de los anuncios que se incluían en los 12 números de la revista americana Men’s Health desde el año 2000, en el contexto de aquellos artículos que están rodeados de anuncios. Se estudia las tensiones entre el papel que tienen las revistas para ofrecer a los anunciantes potenciales consumidores masculinos, y la oferta de consejos de salud en dichas revistas. Las tensiones aparecen cuando dichos consejos van en contra de las típicas imágenes de la masculinidad hegemónica, por ejemplo los consejos para beber menos alcohol, comer menos carne, comer menos comida preparada, o reducir las conductas de riesgo. Se concluye que si bien se construye un consumidor masculino, que en sí mismo pone en cuestión las imágenes tradicionales masculinas porque implica un interés por la moda, por ir de compras y por los productos de cosmética, estas revistas tienen un potencial en el campo de los consejos de salud para evitar las futuras amenazas de la masculinidad tradicional.

Palabras clave: masculinidad, salud, anuncios

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.13

192

I

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

n 1992, Ronald Collins produced a report entitled ‘Dictating content: How advertising pressure can corrupt a free press’ which provided detailed case studies of the powerful influence that advertisers can have over the content of media. This influence is a particular concern in the area of health magazines, where people rely on the health advice given by magazines in making decisions which can influence their short or long-term health.  As McLoughlin (2000, p. 39) points out, magazines are ‘a vehicle for promoting various commodities through advertisements because this is where the real revenue lies’. The typical health magazine, for example Natural Health, is aimed at women and is full of advertisements for diet products, supplements, health foods, medicines, cosmetics and antiageing treatments. In Natural Health, the articles provide a favourable environment for the advertisers by, for example, allowing advertisements for vitamin pills to appear next to articles which extol their virtues (Consumer Guide, 2001). The line between advertisement and article is sometimes blurred by special advertising sections where advertisers supply their own articles to explicitly promote their goods (Davies, 2001).  The role that advertisers play is sometimes ethically questionable. For example, there is the problem of high protein fad diets such as the Atkins diet, criticised by the American Dietetic Association (2001) for encouraging a low nutrition diet and then selling vitamins pills to compensate. The fact that Atkins is a major advertiser in Natural Health raises the question of whether the editors of the magazine are free to criticise the Atkins diet. When Time magazine decided to produce an issue entitled ‘The Future of Medicine’ sponsored by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, the special-projects editor felt ‘Troubled by…having…big advertisers on subjects where the advertiser is in the same business’ (reported in Kuczynski, 1998).  The ethics of health advertisements themselves are examined by McLaren (1999), who points out that ‘Advertising sells both ills and e’. Against this background of health magazines aimed at women, which sell a wide range of cures, giddily blurring the lines between medicine, nutrition and hygiene. Treatments and ills, both in advertisements and the articles which support them, has come a new kind of magazine, Men’s Health . This article examines the role of advertising in the US

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

193

version of Men’s Health magazine in the year 2000, a time when the gender ideology in the magazine was particularly strong. The discourse of the magazine has, of course, changed and developed since then and future research which compares the findings of this paper with the current discourse of Men’s Health magazine, both in the US and in its international editions, would be useful.

Men's Health Magazine Men’s Health is different from traditional health magazines in many

ways, and ethical issues concerning the relationship between advertisements and content have yet to be explored. Wachs (2000) describes the way that health magazines in general are ‘driven by advertisers who are interested in selling the latest exercise fad, whether it be a new diet or a piece of equipment that promises to get your body closer to its gender ideal’. While this seems to be true for women’s magazines, it is not true for Men’s Health , since health or fitness related products make up only a small fraction of the advertisements. According to the magazine itself, the top 5 advertising categories are ‘1) Apparel 2) Fragrance/Grooming 3) Automobiles 4) Accessories and 5) Footwear’ (Advertisers pack, 2001). This is probably because of men’s general lack of interest in health as a subject, and unwillingness to acknowledge they have medical or body-image problems (Courtenay, 2000, p.83).  However, just because the advertised products are in a different domain from health does not mean that advertisers exert no influence on the health advice given by the magazine. In fact, this paper explores the hypothesis that the entire way that Men’s Health magazine constructs the notion of male health is related to the commercial interests of its advertisers. In the case of Natural Health , it is easy for readers to notice potential influence and be suspicious of, for example, articles describing alleged deficiencies in diet followed immediately by advertisements for supplements to compensate. In Men’s Health, the influence of advertisers is less direct, making it harder for readers to be critical.  The aim of this paper is to investigate the commercial influences in the construction of health by Men’s Health magazine. Influence is not something that can be shown directly, so what is investigated is intertextuality between the discourse of advertisements and articles

194

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

(Fairclough, 1992, p. 101). Qualitative and quantitative analysis of a sample of 14 issues, from June 2000 to October 2001 was conducted. Since the majority of space in the magazine, particularly the ads, consists of pictures and photographs, visual analysis was conducted using the framework described in Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) Reading images: The grammar ofvisual design (henceforth K&V).

Discussion Men’s Health claims to be the ‘Most influential men’s magazine in the

world’ (Advertisers Pack, 2001), and it probably is, given its worldwide circulation of 3,530,000 and (claimed) readership of 15 million men (Advertisers Pack, 2001). The magazine can influence the health choices, and hence the health of its readers, so an important question is who, in terms of advertisers, has the potential to influence the advice given by the magazine?  There were 584 main advertisements in the sample analysed, not counting the occasional small ad and ads in separate supplements. The breakdown of types of ad is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Distribution of ads in Men's Health (June 2000-October 2001)

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

195

 The majority of ads in the fashion, cars, fragrance and electronics sections are for top-of-the-range, high prestige, luxury goods. This reflects the high income of the readers of the magazine, whose median income is $59,270 (Advertisers pack, 2001). As the Advertisers pack (2001) puts it: ‘Men’s Health delivers an affluent, educated, professional reader'. Health related products make up only a small percentage of ads, with medicines and supplements combined making up only 5%, although some of the food and drink ads do mention vitamins or other health related information.

Advertising, masculinity and health Magazines rely on advertising revenue, and have traditionally been targeted at women because of the image of women as ‘consumers’ and men as ‘producers’ in patriarchal society. The first men’s lifestyle magazine was Esquire, which Breazeale (1994, p.1) calls ‘the first thoroughgoing, conscious attempt to organise a male consuming audience’. The ‘commercial orchestration of…readership’ (Greenfield et al., p.462) continued with Men Only, a magazine which ‘embodied great risks, as it involved addressing men as consumers when this role was often disparagingly associated with women’ (Greenfield et al., p.463).  Men’s Health embodies even greater risks: reading lifestyle magazines, looking at pictures of semi-naked muscular men, picking out fashionable clothing, and showing concern with health and looks are anathema to the kind of masculinity which is hegemonic in current US society. Men’s Health seems to compensate for this through articles saturated with images of extreme masculinity, for example, models who have, in the words of Trebay (2000), ‘a washboard stomach and a massive torso’.  Masculine images are also used in ads. Medicines and supplements are probably the least masculine of products to sell to male consumers, which explains why the few ads for medicines which appear contain images from the highly masculine arena of sports. In an effort to say ‘real men take medicine too’, the athlete’s foot cure has pictures of Grant Hill in a baseball game, with superimposed arrows tracing the movement of the ball to show dynamic action (MH2000:6, p.109)1,

196

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

an allergy cure shows a baseball game with the batter poised to hit the ball (MH2001:5:p101), and an ad for a prostate health supplement shows a huge screaming sports fan painted like a devil, next to the words ‘It’s a guy thing’ (MH2000:7/8, p. 67).  Although images of extreme masculinity are found throughout the magazine, in ads as well as articles, hegemonic masculinity is associated with a number of negative health behaviours. These include smoking, dangerous sports, over-consumption of meat, reliance on convenience food, over-consumption of alcohol and unsafe sex (Courtenay, 2000). Men’s Health magazine, of course, does not encourage smoking or dangerous sports. However, as argued in Stibbe (2004), the magazine includes frequent positive images of meat, convenience food, alcohol and unsafe sex, and only occasional warnings as to their dangers. Thus Men’s Health magazine, while containing a certain amount of useful health advice, also appears to promote a type of masculinity that is associated with negative health behaviour (Stibbe, 2004).  Evidence that the magazine is using masculine images to compensate for placing men in the position of consumers can be seen in an issue of Men’s Health which contains a 56 page ‘Guide to Style’ (MH2000:9). The editorial in this issue deliberately tries to distance itself from other fashion magazines: Why We Wear the Pants…Note how we don’t use the word “Fashion”. “Fashion” is a word you find in “fashion” magazines…populated by underfed male models…those snotty stick figures’ (MH2000:9, p. 26)

 The ‘underfed…stick figures’ contrast with the Men’s Health models, who, with their huge muscular bodies, are the epitome of hegemonic masculinity. This suggests that the masculinity of the models is being used in an attempt to compensate for the fact that the magazine revolves around fashion.  The images of masculinity in its muscular form can, in turn, influence the health advice given. For example, throughout sample analysed, the magazine gave the message that eating meat, particularly beef, is masculine and will make muscles bigger: ‘Remember: Meat

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

197

is Muscle…and buying it satisfies your primal urge to boss around big guys in bloody aprons’ (MH2001:1/2, p. 88). This is despite the link between animal fat and both heart disease and prostate cancer, two diseases men are particularly likely to suffer from (Courtenay, 2000, p.90). Given the obesity problem among American men, being ‘underfed’ is one condition that the ‘affluent’ reader is unlikely to be suffering from. Thus the orchestration of masculinity to sell fashion appears, at least in this case, to be correlated with health advice which fails to address a well known area of concern about men’s health.

Meat and class The promotion of meat by the magazine is far from subtle. For example, in the ‘Men’s Health Char-Broil’ promotion, a full page colour photo of four beef burgers on a barbecue grill is accompanied by text which reads ‘Win everything you need for a perfect BBQ: A char-broil grill, some beef, and BEER!’(MH2001:7/8, p.136). The words ‘some beef’ are in the centre, over the largest burger, which is tilted towards the viewer on a spatula as if been offered, the spatula itself forming a vector pointing at the burger.  In this case, the aim is to advertise BBQ equipment, but the frequent positive images of meat cannot be explained by meat related ads alone, since such ads appear only 3 times in all 14 issues. In addition to the muscle tie-in, meat may be promoted because it is, itself, a symbol of extreme masculinity, requiring the death of animals.  There is, however, a third possible reason why meat is being promoted. A clue to this can be seen in an article in the magazine which describes the personality associated with ordering various dinners: the ‘Filet Mignon’ is described as ‘Classy, likes to indulge’ (MH2001:09, p. 49). As Adams (1990) points out, ‘Dietary habits proclaim class distinctions…people with power have always eaten meat’. Since meat requires far more resources to produce than vegetables, it is a symbol of conspicuous consumption, and hence class, just like the oversized gasguzzling luxury cars advertised in the magazine.  The Advertisers Pack (2001) asks the question ‘Who reads Men’s Health?’ and then answers it: ‘ambitious, educated and affluent…men

198

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

who want to look good and who spend the most money on prestige brands’. Notice that the description of the Men’s Health reader did not include ‘wants to be healthy’. The diet of ‘ambitious’ men in current US society is a diet of power, centred around meat, showing ‘affluence’ through indulging in luxury. A magazine which pointed out the health dangers of meat and insisted on reducing meat consumption would not create the right environment for selling ‘prestige brands’. Therefore, as well as masculinity, class seems to be a dimension in the commercial influence on health advice.

Using Muscles to Sell According to McCracken (1997, p. 97), the cover of women’s magazines provides a ‘Window to the future self’, the self the reader will become if she follows the advice of the magazine. Men’s Health, too, seems to provide such a window. All the covers are slight variations of a prototypical format, where a hugely muscular man appears on the right hand side of the cover, the position associated with the ‘new’ (K&V, 1996, p.187). On the left side, associated with the ‘given’ (K&V, 1996, p.187), messages using the pronoun ‘you’ appear in large font. These messages suggest that the man on the right hand side could be ‘you’ if you follow the advice of the magazine. For example ‘Your new body is here!’ (MH2001:9, cover), ‘Find your abs’ next to a picture of a man with huge abdominal muscles (MH2000:10, cover), and ‘Build this body’ with an red arrow pointing towards the model’s torso (MH2000:12, cover).  The composition of the picture reinforces the idea of the ‘future self’: The man is in black-and-white, which reduces the photo-realism and hence modality, showing that the photo is symbolic, rather than just being a picture of a particular man. The background is completely white, which also reduces modality and makes the model in the picture ‘become generic, a ‘typical example’, rather than particular’ (K&V, 1996, p. 166). The horizontal angle is frontal, suggesting engagement rather than detachment (K&V, 1996, p.142), and the shot is mediumclose, positioning the viewer in social distance, but not intimate personal distance (K&V, 1996, p. 134). The vertical angle is eye level, suggesting equality (K&V, 1996, p. 46), and in all but one of the covers

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

199

the model is looking directly at the camera, forming what K&V (p.122) call a ‘demand’ picture, demanding a relationship with the viewer.    The vertical angle, the horizontal angle and the direction of gaze are all consistent with looking in a mirror, with modality reduced to show that the person in the mirror is not the current self, but the future self. Presumably the current self is not good enough, and certainly not muscular enough, as revealed by the imperative statements ordering the current self to ‘Pack on Muscle!’ (MH:2001:6, cover), ‘Muscle up in three weeks’ (MH:2001:3,cover), and get ‘Hard Muscles Fast!’ (MH2001:9, cover). The message is clear, if you read the magazine you will ‘Pack on Muscle’ and become what appears on the right hand side of the cover, which is not a photo of a particular man, but the ‘cultural icon of masculinity’ (Schuler, quoted in Trebay, 2000).  The cover image links with advertisements throughout the magazine, which portray their product being worn by the ‘cultural icon’. The ‘future self’ is not just muscular, he also wears Nike clothing. The advert for Nike (MH2000:9, p.21) shows two muscular men, naked from the waist up, in black and white, completely white background, echoing the style of the cover, but with the Nike shorts given salience by being in colour. The ‘future self’ also uses Ralph Lauren fragrance, as the same black and white muscular image of a man appears with white background next to an oversize (and hence symbolic, K&V, 1996, p.110) colour bottle of fragrance. There are many variations of the theme: sometimes the model appears in colour, sometimes the background has full context rather than just being white, sometimes the model wears a shirt, sometimes he is pictured with friends, however in nearly all cases the model is muscular and there is clear intertextuality with the cover.  For the average reader, the size of the model makes the current self appear severely lacking. However, as a plastic surgeon interviewed by Wheeler (2000) points out: ‘The images out there are not the norm. The average man is not going to attain that’. This leaves the possibility that the images lead to anxiety about body image. A study reported by Wheeler (2000) showed that 43% of American men are dissatisfied with their appearance, up from only 15% in 1972. Debbie Burgard, a psychologist, believes the dissatisfaction is due to a number of factors,  

200

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

including the increase in torso size of boys’ toys like GI Joe, and ‘images in Men’s Health magazine’ (reported in Wheeler, 2000). Body image dissatisfaction, while having the potential to lead to eating problems, use of steroids, over-consumption of meat, and low self esteem, also has the potential to help advertisers sell their goods. If men cannot achieve the body that their ‘future self’ offers, at least they can wear the clothes and use the scent associated with the right image. This is the same as women’s magazines, where the cover model traditionally ‘sustains our envy and feelings of insecurity, predisposing us to be receptive to the products advertised’ (McCracken, 1997, p.98).  The editors of Men’s Health appear to be aware of the problem of pushing muscles to sell magazines and the products advertised in them. The fitness director, Lou Schuler, in a book review appearing on the internet, talks of ‘images of men whose rippling muscles are being used to sell everything from Abercrombie & Fitch shirts to Men’s Health magazine’ (Schuler, 2001a). He even mentions the problems of negative body image in a review of another book, The Adonis Complex:

 

As a result of this bombardment of pumped-up male imagery, American men have been developing eating disorders, working out to the point of obsession, and taking steroids. None of this is for health or sports performance but rather to develop a physique that matches those seen on the cover of Muscle & Fitness … (Schuler, 2001b)

 Ironically, Schuler mentions the cover of Muscle & Fitness magazine, a competitor, but exactly the same can be said about Men’s Health magazine. The difference is that Men’s Health , as a selfdeclared health magazine, has greater power to influence the social construction of health, giving the idea that huge muscles are healthy, whatever price they are gained at.

Muscles and powerful cars Perhaps the clearest connection between muscles and advertising is in car advertisements. The point is made within an article appearing in

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

201

Men’s Health magazine itself:

 

Let’s imagine you are a short, bald accountant with no abs…Don’t expect a great car to turn you into El Duque or Brad Pitt or any combination thereof. But it will bring you a little closer (MH2001:5, p.80).

 The ‘short, bald accountant with no abs’ is, in fact, the reader that Men’s Health appears to be aimed at, an ‘upscale’ reader (Advertising pack, 2001) who needs to ‘Drop 20lbs the easy way’ (MH2000:9,cover), ‘Build abs that show’ (MH2000:7/8, cover) and might buy the antibalding drugs advertised in the magazine.  Before reading the magazine, some readers might not have known that advanced body builders can build a ‘six pack’ of visible abdominal muscles, let alone that this is a desirable thing to do. They might have been unaware that the ideal arms ‘bulge like VW beetles’ (MH2000:10, p.45), and might not recognised the need to add ‘2 inches’ to their chest (‘Add 2 inches to your chest’ MH2000:10, cover). These are set up as ideals in the health advice given by the magazine, but few men have the time or dedication to follow the training schedule of a professional body builder.  However, what readers can easily do is to buy a car that fits the ideal image created by the magazine: a huge, powerful car. Not surprisingly, of all the types of cars advertised in Men’s Health the most common one is the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), which, along with the similar luxury pickup truck, make up 54% of all car ads. These unnecessary large cars are presented as, in the words of Nomai (2001), ‘bigger, tougher, status enhancing freedom machines’. The problem is that the car and the driver’s body are two different things, which, as will be described shortly, advertisers go to great lengths to conflate.  The characteristics of masculinity that the ideal reader is encouraged to want for himself are projected onto the cars in a series of personifications, which give the cars qualities that usually only humans have. The Hyundai is ‘rugged’ (MH2001:1/2, p.21), the Jeep has ‘legendary off-road prowess’ (MH2000:9, p.67) while the Chevy Tracker ‘things big’ (MH2000:10, back cover). The Nissan Frontier ‘doesn’t roll off the assembly line, it struts’ (MH:2001:6, p.43).  

202

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

The owners of the car are entitled to ‘brag’ about the power of the car in the same way as they can brag about the power of their muscles. According to the Nissan Maxima ad, if readers buy the car, the 17% increased horsepower gives the reader 100% increased ‘bragging rights’ (MH2000:7/8, p.1). This echoes an article in the same magazine subtitled ‘add 20 pounds to your bench press’, which will give you ‘something to brag about during lockdown’ (MH2000:7/8, p.30). If readers buy the Subaru Outback, then they will get ‘So much power and control it’s hard to stay humble’ (MH2000:12, p.21). This blurs the line between the qualities of the car and those of the owner.  In the following extract from a Men’s Health promotion sent out by email to potential readers, the slogan ‘Built Ford Tough’, which emphasises the toughness of the cars, is deliberately entwined with the personal physical toughness of the reader: OK, smart guy: You read Men's Health . You can bench press 350 pounds. You dress better than your boss, and your family worships you. We know you're tough. BUT, are you "Built Ford Tough?" Do you have the mental toughness and survival smarts to laugh at adversity? (Email May 24, 2001)

 The pronoun ‘you’ appears 6 times in this extract, addressing an ideal reader who is clearly significantly tougher and more successful than the actual reader. This builds up to the word ‘Ford’, in a key position which would be given contrastive stress if the sentence was read aloud. Even the ‘ideal’ reader cannot aspire to the toughness of the Ford cars, so it could be argued that this paragraph intends to create and play on anxieties about physical toughness to sell the cars.  The blurring of the distinction between personal fitness and cars is also apparent within advertisements in the magazine. An ad for the Ford Escape SUV, which was written in conjunction with Men’s Health magazine, reads: ‘Your mission: to aspire to a whole new level of fitness…To create the Ultimate Personal Fitness Escape’ (MH2000:9, p.27). The name of the car here is deliberately and directly collocated with the words ‘personal fitness’.  

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

203

As Barthel (1992, p.144) points out, ‘The male mode of exigence…is most in evidence in car advertisements, where the keywords are masculine: power, precision, performance…As the juxtaposition of shape and power suggests, the car is not simply the Other. It is also an extension of the owner’. This is implicit in all car advertisements, but occasionally appears directly: an ad for the Saturn LS2 says that ‘Like it or not, a car says something about you. Some a lot.’ (MH2000:6, p.3), and the Jeep Wrangler ad reads ‘Take a ride in a rugged Jeep Wrangler…The world will see you like never before. That’s because Wrangler says a lot about you’ (MH2000:7/8, p.93).  What the cars ‘say about you’ is that you are tough and masculine, even if your body does not live up to the unreachable ideals of the perfect body pushed by the magazine. The camera angle in most car ads is extremely low; in fact, to view the cars at this angle would require sitting on the road in front of the car (eg, MH2001:4, p.26; MH2001:3, p.65, MH2000:6, p.16). Traditionally, low camera angle is used to make the subject appear more powerful than the viewer (K&V, 1996, p.146). An extreme case is the Frontier advertisement (MH2001:6, p.42), in which the car faces the viewer straight on, forming a ‘demand’ picture (K&V, 1996, p.122), in this case demanding a relationship of confrontation with the viewer. The angle is such that the viewer is positioned as lying on the road in front of the car, the most powerless of positions. The words of the ad say ‘210 horsepower. Aggressive new design’. The reader, who may already feel anxious because he does not have the abs and torso of the models in the magazine, is bound to lose the confrontation, but might buy the car in order to sit behind the wheel and put other men in the same powerless position.  A final point to note about SUV ads is that many of them, including Ford (MH2000:9, p.27), Nissan (MH2000:9, p.59), and Isuzu (MH2001:63, p.10) ads contain images of extreme sports, including: a man clinging to a cliff above a raging sea (MH2000:9:p59), swimming far out to sea (MH2000:6, p.12), and mountain biking across a log over a white-water river (MH2000:1/2, p.38). This reflects one of the healthrelated traits of hegemonic masculinity: the idea that it is masculine to risk injury and death for the sake of enjoyment (Courtenay, 2000, p.89). However, the framing of these pictures is relevant: all ads of this kind

204

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

contain one large central picture of the car, with small rectangular pictures of extreme sports inserted around the car, clearly framed either by colour contrast or thick black lines. K&V (1996, p.214) describe how framing within a picture leads to the separation of the elements. In this case, the intrepid climber is not shown climbing a cliff next to the car, but separately in an inserted picture. This separation may be to emphasise that this is the image associated with the car, not that ‘you’ are actually expected to do these things. In fact, according to Brown (2001), 97% of SUV owners never even take their car off-road. If the reader’s physical body does not communicate the tough image that the magazine sets up as ideal, at least his car can.

Sex Since sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are an important cause of health problems and death for men (Courtenay, 2000, p.101), it would be expected that sexual health advice would revolve around issues such as reducing number of partners, using condoms, and providing information about STDs. However, Men’s Health provides little such health advice, instead concentrating on ‘lovemaking tips that will rock her world’ (2001:4, p.100), and ‘Gold medal sex’ (MH2000:9, p.81), all described without mentioning condoms. Wachs (2000) points out that ‘Men may get a complex about sexual performance when reading men’s magazines’. Since the actual sex which results from taking the advice in the magazine is likely to fall short of the promise, this has the potential to lead to anxiety. Particularly in its sexual form, anxiety is a powerful way to sell products, both directly, in terms of sex instruction videos (eg, MH2001:5:p139), and indirectly in a wide range of advertisements which use sex to sell. As Smith (2000) points out, ‘It is clear that sex is a strong appeal to sell certain products such as fragrance’.  Many of the fragrance and cosmetic advertisements show a man with an attractive woman. In most ads there are explicit or logical vectors from the woman to the man within the picture. This shows that it is the woman who is being attracted to the man. For example, in one fragrance ad the man is standing holding a woman whose trailing dress forms a diagonal vector showing that she has jumped up into his arms

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

205

In other ads, for example (MH2000:10, p.10) and (MH2000:12, p.117), the man looks off into the distance, while the woman looks directly at him, forming an eyeline vector towards the man (MH2000:10, p.10). Eyeline vectors are part of reaction processes (K&V, 1996, p.66), and in these ads the reaction, seen from the expression on the woman’s face, is sexual pleasure.    Other vectors are formed logically, by anchoring the man and putting the woman in a position she must have travelled towards the stationary man to get into. For example, the man is anchored by sitting on a sofa, with the women approaching him from behind (MH2000:10, p.39), or resting her head on his chest (MH2001, p.25). In other examples, the man is anchored by lying on the floor with woman leaning on him (MH2000:12, p.118), standing with the woman holding him from behind (MH2001:10, p.7), and unseen in a room with a naked woman entering the room (MH2000:11, p.103).  With only three exceptions, two of which are in ads for ‘his and her’ fragrances, the vectors in all ads clearly show that the woman is approaching the man. The product itself, oversized and hence a symbolic attribute (K&V, 1996, p.110), appears at the bottom, the area of the ‘real’ (K&V, 1996, p.193), showing that the attraction is due to the product. At the top, the area of the ‘ideal’ (K&V, 1996, p.193), is the face of the adoring woman.  The commercial message is clear – if you use the product then you will attract beautiful women, who, judging by the expression on the women’s faces, will derive sexual pleasure. Clearly this message would not be enhanced by health advice suggesting reducing the number of partners, using condoms and describing sexually transmitted diseases in detail.

Conclusion  Men’s Health magazine has a dual role. On the one hand it gives advice for improving the health of the men who read it. On the other hand its revenue relies on creating an environment suitable for the selling of fashion, luxury goods and expensive cars. This paper has argued that these dual roles are, to a certain degree, incompatible.  The role of consumer in a patriarchal society is associated with women, and in an apparent effort to compensate for this, both the ads

206

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

and the articles in Men’s Health contain images of extreme masculinity. As Courtenay (2000) shows, however, hegemonic masculinity is related with a wide range of negative health behaviours including excess meat eating, excess alcohol consumption, reliance on convenience food, and unsafe sex. With the exception of an article about the dangers of alcoholism (MH2001:4, p.114), the 14 issues of Men’s Health analysed did very little to counter these negative behaviours, and frequently seemed to give them a positive image. The unrealistic goals of body size set up by the magazine, and the promises of astounding sex are likely to lead to anxiety rather than positive health behaviour. At the same time, the magazine contains numerous ads which show the ideal, muscular, sexually successful man using luxury products which the reader is encouraged to buy to compensate for his own inadequacy.  In addition to the problem of masculinity, there is also the problem of class. The intended readership belongs to a class where indulgence and conspicuous consumption are used as signs of power. In terms of health, it makes no difference whether the watch is a Rolex or a cheap digital; however, in terms of diet, the excess consumption of meat and alcohol are major concerns for health. A physically huge body also symbolises the kind of social power that the Men’s Health readers both have and want more of. But again, creating a huge body is not necessarily a health goal, especially if getting to the required size involves anxiety about body image, eating excess meat, getting used to eating large amounts of food, or taking steroids.  In addition to the ‘meat is muscle’ advice (MH2001:1/2, p.88), the off-hand promotion of alcohol ‘you should be drinking beer and fishing’ (MH2001:3, p.136), the ‘TV dinner diet’ (MH2001:12, p.133), and advice about how to have ‘rock-star sex’ which fails to mention condoms, it must be pointed out that Men’s Health does, in fact, contain some useful health information. The influence of the commercial forces on Men’s Health magazine is therefore a matter of degree, but this paper has presented arguments that at least to some degree Men’s Health appears to compromise the advice it gives men in order to create a suitable environment for selling products.  This raises important ethical questions as to how far advertising should be allowed to influence the content of sensitive issues such as health advice. Baker (1994, p.100) argues for legislation to ‘outlaw an

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

207

advertiser’s attempts to use its economic relationships with a media enterprise to influence the enterprise not to print or broadcast content that it would otherwise choose to present’. However, in the case of Men’s Health , the editors seem to be quite happy to comply with the advertisers, particularly since the same images of masculinity which sell the goods in the magazine also help sell the magazine itself.  Existing legislation is even weaker than that which Baker would like to see. The Federal Trade Commission’s position on advertising was summed up in a health and safety symposium as follows:

 

You must tell the truth and not mislead consumers…the claims you make must be substantiated…you must not engage in…advertising or marketing that causes substantial, unavoidable consumer injury without offsetting benefit to competition or consumers. (Varney, 1996)

This focuses only on the advertisements themselves, and therefore has nothing to say about the far more subtle level where editors of health magazines may create a suitable environment for advertisers through promoting images of masculinity associated with negative health behaviour.  Legislation to ensure that commercial aims do not interfere with health advice and images of health would be very hard to create, since it is difficult to prove that an image was created in response to commercial pressure. A more realistic approach could be education which encourages readers to be critical. It is easy for readers to be critical of ‘special advertising sections’ which look like articles but are written specifically to promote goods. However, readers could also be educated to be aware of the way that commercial pressures operate, to realise that there is no firm barrier between advertisements and content in the media, and to consult a variety of sources when deciding on actions which will influence their future health.

Notes

(MH2000:6:p109) refers to the US edition of Men’s Health magazine, year 2000, month June, page 26. From this point, all references to the magazines follow the same pattern. 1

208

A. Stibbe - Advertising, gender and health advice

References Adams, C. (1990). The sexual politics ofmeat: a feminist-vegetarian critical theory. New York: Continuum. Advertising pack (2001). (June) Available from: Men’s Health International. 733 Third Avenue, 15th Floor, NY10017 and Retrived from http://www.menshealth.com American Dietetic Association. (2001). Fad Diets: What you may be missing. Retrived from http://www.eatright.org/nfs/nfs0200b.html Baker, E. (1994). Advertising and a democratic press. Princeton: Princeton University press. Barthel, D. (1992). When men put on appearances: advertising and the social construction of masculinity. In S. Craig, (Ed.), Men, masculinity and the media. (p.131-151). London: Sage. Breazeale, K. (1994). In spite of women: Esquire magazine and the construction of the male consumer. Signs, 20 (1), 22. Brown, W. (2001). Some SUVs go can go farther off-road. Main Today. Retrived from http://wheels.mainetoday.com/caring/0104suvs.shtml Collins, R. (1992). Dictating Content: How Advertising Pressure Can Corrupt a Free Press. Washington, D.C.: The Centre for the Study of Commercialism. Consumer guide. (2001). Vitamins that protect against ageing. Natural Health. August, 79-86. Courtenay, W. (2000). Behavioural factors associated with disease, injury, and death among men: evidence and implications for prevention. The Journal ofMen’s Studies, 9 (1), 81-111. doi: 10.3149/jms.0901.81 Davies, L. (2001). Floradix for active women. Natural Health May, 40. Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Greenfield, J. O’Connell, S. and Read. C. (1999). Fashioning masculinity: Men Only, consumption and the development of marketing in the 1930s. Twentieth Century British History, 10 (4), 457-476. doi: 10.1093/tcbh/10.4.457 Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (1996). Reading images: The grammar ofvisual design. London: Routledge.

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, 1 (3)

209

Kuczynski, A. (1998). Time Magazine’s one-advertiser issues become an issue for debate. New York Times. November 16th. Retrived from http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/rfitzpatr/articles/time.htm McCracken, E. (1997). The cover: window to the future self. In H. Baehr and A. Gray (Eds.). Turning it on: A reader in women and media. (pp.97-103). London: Arnold. McLaren, C. (1999). How advertising can wreck your health. Stay Free Summer. Retrived from http://www.ibiblio.org/stayfree/archives/16/advg_health.html McLoughlin, L. (2000). The language ofmagazines. London: Routledge Nomai, A. (2001). The SUV Fad: A public menace. Retrived from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/1818/3_1suv.htm Schuler, L. (2001a). Review ofThe Adonis Complex. Retrived from http://www.amazon.com Schuler, L (2001b). Review ofBasic Training: a fundamental guide to fitness for men . Retrived from http://www.amazon.com Smith, S. (2000). Sexual advertising in magazines. Source website: http://www.nku.edu/~issues/sexinadvertising/magazines.html Stibbe, A. (2004). Health and the social construction of masculinity in Men’s Health magazine. Men and Masculinities, 7 (1), 31-51. doi: 10.1177/1097184X03257441 Trebay, G. (2000). Scrawn to brawn. New York Times. August 20th. Varney, C. (1996). To your health: an FTC review ofsafety related marketing. Retrived from http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/law/Health.html Wachs, F. (2000). Men’s and women’s magazines mislead public. Inside UNF. March 2000. Retrived from http://www.unf.edu/whatsnew/00march/research.html Wheeler, T. (2000). Guys get obsessed with self-image. Akron Beacon journal. August 15th.

Arran Stibbe is a Reader in Ecological Linguistics at the

University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, and founder of the Language and Ecology Research Forum (www.ecoling.net) Contact Address: astibbe @glos.ac.uk :

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

American Men’s and Women’s Beliefs about Gender Discrimination: For Men, It’s Not Quite a Zero­Sum Game Jennifer K. Bosson, Joseph A. Vandello, Kenneth S. Michniewicz & Joshua Guy Lenes1 1) University of South Florida, United States of America Date of publication: October 21st, 2012

To cite this article: Bosson, J.K., Vandello, J.A., Michniewicz, K.S. & Lenes, J.G. (2012). American Men’s and Women’s Beliefs about Gender Discrimination: For Men, It’s Not Quite a Zero­Sum Game. Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3), 210­239. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.14 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.14

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­ Derivative License.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 210-239

American Men’s and Women’s Beliefs about Gender Discrimination: For Men, It’s Not Quite a ZeroSum Game Jennifer K. Bosson, Joseph A. Vandello, Kenneth S. Michniewicz & Joshua Guy Lenes University ofSouth Florida

Abstract We surveyed Americans regarding their beliefs about gender discrimination over the past several decades. Men and women agreed that women faced much more discrimination than men in the past, and they agreed that the discrimination gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years. However, men perceived the gap as narrower than women did at all time periods, and reported that there is little difference today in the amount of gender discrimination women and men face. Political ideology moderated these beliefs such that conservative men were most likely to report that anti-Man bias now equals or exceeds anti-Woman bias. Similar to recent research on beliefs about racism, these findings suggest that groups which differ historically in status and power exhibit perceptual differences regarding the changing nature ofdiscrimination.

Keywords: gender discrimination, sexism, gender differences, intergroup conflict, political ideology

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.14

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 210-239

Creencias de los Hombres y Mujeres americanos sobre la Discriminación de Género: Para los Hombres, Esto No Es Precisamente un Juego de Suma Zero Jennifer K. Bosson, Joseph A. Vandello, Kenneth S. Michniewicz & Joshua Guy Lenes University ofSouth Florida

Abstract

Hemos realizado encuestas a personas americanas sobre sus creencias respecto a la discriminación de género durante las últimas décadas. Tanto hombres como mujeres estaban de acuerdo en que en el pasado las mujeres han sufrido mucha más discriminación que los hombres, y también en que esta diferencia se ha ido estrechando en los últimos años. Sin embargo, a los hombres esta diferencia siempre les ha parecido más estrecha que a las mujeres durante todos los periodos, y perciben que ahora hay pocas diferencias entre la discriminación que afrontan hombres y mujeres. Las ideologías políticas moderan estas creencias, de manera que los hombres conservadores son más propensos a afirmar que el sesgo anti masculino es igual o mayor al sesgo anti femenino. Al igual que algunas investigaciones recientes sobre las creencias respecto al racismo, nuestros hallazgos sugieren que grupos que difieren históricamente en estatus y poder perciben de forma diferente la naturaleza cambiante de la discriminación. Palabras clave: discriminación de género, sexismo, diferencias de género, conflicto intergrupal, ideología política 2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.14

212

T

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

he second wave of the American feminist movement brought about substantial changes in Americans’ beliefs and attitudes about women’s opportunities. Between 1972 and 1978, for example, Americans decreased in their endorsement of the belief that “women’s place is in the home,” and correspondingly increased in their endorsement of the belief that “women should have an equal role with men in running business, industry, and government” (National Election Survey, 1982). By the mid-1980s, almost 60% of American adults perceived that women’s opportunities had “improved greatly” over the past 10-20 years (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). At the same time, about 39% reported that women’s employment opportunities remained much worse than men’s, and this proportion did not differ by respondents’ gender. Where American men’s and women’s beliefs about women’s opportunities differed was in their perceptions of the degree of gender bias that women faced: Men were more likely than women to characterize women as facing only “a little” discrimination (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). $ In the current research, our goal is to examine further these gender differences in Americans’ beliefs about the degree of discrimination faced by women over time, in part by broadening our focus to include perceptions of men’s discrimination as well. Our central question is whether American men perceive that women’s gains (in power and status) have come at the direct expense of men’s social standing. Women now earn more academic degrees (Peter & Horn, 2005) and are more likely to enter the workforce (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008) than in the past. Because of these gains in women’s status, Americans’ views of women as the primary targets of gender-based discrimination have likely declined. If so, then people might perceive an overall reduction in gender-based discrimination as the playing field has become more level. However, another possibility is that American men perceive a gradual reversal of gender bias trends such that women’s improved status means that men are increasingly becoming targets of gender-based discrimination. That is, men might perceive that women have only achieved greater social standing at the direct expense of their own status. Such a pattern would mirror recent evidence that White Americans view racism as a zero-sum game in which gradual reductions

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

213

in anti-Black discrimination, accompanied by increases in anti-White discrimination, have resulted in Whites experiencing more race-based discrimination than Blacks (Norton & Sommers, 2011). The goal of this study is to determine whether American men perceive gender discrimination as a zero-sum game that they are now losing, in the same way that White Americans view racism as a zero-sum game. Do Men Perceive Gender Discrimination as a Zero-Sum Game? Groups with greater versus lesser historical social power and status tend to hold different beliefs about the degree of discrimination faced by lowstatus groups, as well as different beliefs about the degree to which lowstatus groups’ fortunes have or have not improved with time (Eibach & Ehrlinger, 2006; Hochschild, 1995; Kluegel & Smith, 1986). For instance, recent findings indicate that Whites, but not Blacks, view racism as a zero-sum game in which one group’s gains are the result of another group’s losses. Norton and Sommers (2011) asked Black and White participants to rate the degree to which both Blacks and Whites were targets of race-based discrimination (on scales of 1 = not at all to 10 = very much) in each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. The zerosum effect was characterized by two specific response patterns. First, Whites perceived that race-based discrimination had changed so much over time that, by the 2000s, anti-White racism exceeded anti-Black racism. Second, Whites perceived that decreases in anti-Black racism were accompanied by increases in anti-White racism, as indicated by negative correlations between their ratings of each group’s discrimination at all time points, as well as across time. In contrast, Blacks reported that although discrimination against Blacks had decreased over time, it was still much greater than discrimination against Whites at any time. Thus, White but not Black participants endorsed the belief that one race’s decreases in oppression came at the cost of the other race’s increases. $ Here, we ask whether a similar type of zero-sum game thinking characterizes American men’s beliefs about gender discrimination. Because men have traditionally had greater status and power than women (Eagly & Steffen, 1984), they may interpret women’s gains (in education, the workplace, government, etc.) as a threat to their social

214

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

standing (e.g., Gibson, 1994). This may be especially true given that manhood, relative to womanhood, is widely viewed as a precarious social status that is difficult to achieve and easy to lose (Bosson & Vandello, 2011; Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & Weaver, 1998). If men interpret women’s rise in power as a challenge to their alreadytenuous manhood status, this may lay the groundwork for the sort of “us against them” mindset that fuels zero-sum competitions. $ Alternatively, although race- and gender-based discrimination share some features in common (e.g., Fiske, 1998; Pratto et al., 2000; Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995), there is good reason to suppose that the zero-sum game pattern obtained by Norton and Sommers (2011) may not replicate quite so cleanly when examining beliefs about gender discrimination. Men and women, on average, have more frequent contact with one another than do members of different race groups (cf. Kluegel & Smith, 1986). Whereas patterns of racial segregation in the United States ensure that some White persons rarely if ever encounter Black persons (Farley & Frey, 1994; Glaeser & Vigdor, 2001; Sidanius, Van Laar, Levin, & Sinclair, 2004), the same cannot be said of men’s tendency to encounter women. Frequent contact with women may provide men with at least indirect knowledge of and/or appreciation for women’s discrimination experiences. Indeed, groups that have more contact with one another tend to harbor less prejudice toward one another (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). $ Moreover, men’s lives are usually more interdependent with women’s, in domains of interpersonal and family relationships, than are Whites’ and Blacks’ lives (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2011). Such interdependence may ensure that men perceive women’s outcomes as inextricably tied to, rather than counter to, their own (e.g., Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991; Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). To the extent that men view their own goals as mutually interdependent with those of women, they may be disinclined to perceive gender discrimination as a zero-sum game in which one gender’s gains are accompanied by the other gender’s losses. This logic is consistent with intergroup conflict theories such as social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), realistic group conflict theory (Campbell, 1965), and relative deprivation theory (Walker & Pettigrew, 1984). In short, these theories all assume that individuals perceived as belonging to one’s ingroup are less likely to be targets of prejudice,

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

215

competition, and resentment than are members of outgroups. If men on average view women as ingroup members to a greater degree than Whites on average view Blacks as ingroup members, then we should not necessarily find that men view gender discrimination in competitive, zero-sum game terms. Potential Attitude Moderators: Modern Sexism and Political Ideology Despite men’s and women’s mutual interdependence, research on modern sexism indicates that men, more strongly than women, tend to downplay the extent to which women endure sexist treatment. Modern sexism refers to a subtle form of gender bias characterized by a denial of discrimination against women, lack of support for policies that assist women in employment and education, and antagonism toward women’s perceived demands (Swim et al., 1995). Perhaps not surprisingly, men tend to endorse modern sexism beliefs more strongly than women do (Swim et al., 1995), and they feel less anxiety than women do after reading statements that downplay the prevalence and severity of gender discrimination against women (Barreto & Ellemers, 2005). Moreover, scores on a measure of modern sexism predict negative attitudes toward “feminists” and a reduced tendency to view workplace sexual harassment of women as unfair and unprofessional (Swim & Cohen, 1997). Given these findings, we treated modern sexism scores as a potential moderator of our effects in the current study. If modern sexism is characterized, in part, by a tendency to deny the prevalence and severity of gender discrimination against women, then those male respondents scoring higher in modern sexism may be especially likely to view gender discrimination as a zero-sum game that men are losing. $ As another potential moderator we considered political ideology, or people’s beliefs about social and political life and how these should be structured (Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009). Specifically, we asked people to identify themselves along dimensions ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative.” These labels encompass relatively broad belief systems characterized by underlying dimensions that reflect the acceptability (versus unacceptability) of social inequity and the desirability (versus undesirability) of social change (Jost, Glaser,

216

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). Whereas those with a more liberal orientation resist inequitable, hierarchical power structures and embrace social change, those with a more conservative orientation tolerate inequity and oppose changes to the status quo (Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008). Most germane to the current study, political conservatism (versus liberalism) is predicted by both a desire to justify hierarchical social structures (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994) and a perception that one’s groups must compete with other groups for access to limited opportunities and resources (Matthews, Levin, & Sidanius, 2009). Based on these findings, we wondered whether men with a more conservative orientation would be particularly inclined to view gender discrimination as a zero-sum game that men are losing. Overview of Current Research We examined whether American men perceive gender discrimination as a zero-sum game in the same way that Whites view racism as a zerosum game. In doing so, we replicated the methods reported by Norton and Sommers (2011) but modified them to capture beliefs about gender rather than race groups. Specifically, we measured men’s and women’s beliefs about the amount of gender discrimination faced by both men and women, across seven different time points from the 1950s through today (2012). We also measured and treated as moderators people’s modern sexism beliefs and their political ideology (liberalism vs. conservatism). To access a sample that is more representative of the American population than a convenience sample of college students, we recruited respondents from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website (MTurk; www.MTurk.com). MTurk respondents generally display greater age and racial/ethnic diversity than American college samples (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011), thus making them an ideal sample for our purposes. Given the diversity of this sample, however, we controlled for various demographic factors in follow-up analyses. $ We entertained two possible, competing hypotheses. On the one hand, if American men view gender discrimination as a zero-sum game that they are now losing, we should observe the same two data patterns found by Norton and Sommers (2011). Specifically, a three way interaction of respondent gender, target gender, and time should reveal

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

217

that men and women both view anti-Woman discrimination as decreasing across time, but that men alone view corresponding increases in anti-Man discrimination such that men’s discrimination now exceeds women’s. Moreover, men but not women should evidence negative correlations between their ratings of men’s and women’s discrimination at each time point and across time (from the first to the last time points). Further, these patterns should be moderated by modern sexism and political ideology such that politically conservative men, and those higher in modern sexism, should exhibit the most pronounced zero-sum game thinking. On the other hand, if the fundamental dynamics underlying race- and gender-based intergroup relations differ in ways that reduce men’s tendency to view themselves in competition with women, then we should observe weak or no support for the zero-sum patterns reported by Norton and Sommers (2011). Method Participants Two-hundred and six participants (117 men and 89 women) were recruited through MTurk and completed the online survey in exchange for $0.40. Table 1 includes a summary of the sample on surveyed demographics. Because our discrimination questions asked specifically about “American society,” we restricted eligibility to persons currently living in the United States. As shown in Table 1, however, three nonresidents somehow participated; including versus excluding their data did not affect any of the findings we report below, so we retained them in analyses.

218

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Table 1

Sample Demographics.

Characteristic Gender Men Women Age (Md = 25 years) 18 - 24 25 - 34 35 - 44 45 - 54 55 64 Income < $10,000 $10,001 - $15,000 $15,001 - $20,000 $20,001 - $35,000 $35,001 - $50,000 $50,001 - $75,000 > $75,000

N (% )

117 (56.5%) 89 (43.0%) 89 (43.3%) 65 (31.6%) 18 (8.4%) 20 (9.3%) 15 (7.2%) 18 (8.7%) 12 (5.8%) 19 (9.2%) 43 (20.8%) 39 (18.8%) 35 (16.9%) 36 (17.4%)

Characteristic Race / Ethnicity White Black / African American / Caribbean Hispanic / Latin (o/a) Asian / Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Other Highest Education Completed 9 th Grade or below 10th or 11 th Grade High School Some College / Special Training Bachelor’s Degree Graduate Degree

N (% )

160 (77.3%) 13 (6.3%) 8 (3.9%) 18 (8.7%) 2 (1.0%) 1 (0.5%) 4 (1.9%) 2 (1.0%) 2 (1.0%) 27 (13.0%) 80 (38.6%) 70 (33.8%) 25 (12.1%)

Current Country of Residence United States 203 (98.1%) Other 3 (1.5%)

Native Language English Not English

Continent of Origin Africa Asia Australia Europe North America South America

Sexual Orientation (1-7 scale) Exclusively Heterosexual (1) 141 (68.1%) Between Heterosexual and 32 (15.5%) Bisexual (2, 3) Bisexual (4) 11 (5.3%) Between Bisexual and 17 (8.3%) Homosexual (5, 6) Exclusively Homosexual (7) 5 (2.4%)

1 (0.5%) 10 (4.9%) 1 (0.5%) 5 (2.4%) 187 (90.8%) 2 (1.0%)

192 (92.8%) 13 (6.3%)

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

219

Measures $ Political Ideology. Participants completed two items gauging their political ideology both “in general” and “when it comes to social issues.” Answers to both items were made on continuous scales from 1 (Extremely Liberal) to 7 (Extremely Conservative). These two items were highly correlated (r = .84, p < .001, α = .91) so we averaged them to yield an index of political ideology. $ Modern Sexism Scale. The 8-item Modern Sexism Scale (MSS; Swim et al., 1995) measures beliefs about women that reflect subtle forms of sexism (e.g., disagreement with public policies to reduce discrimination against women). Sample items include “It is rare to see women treated in a sexist manner on television,” and “Women often miss out on good jobs due to sexual discrimination” (reversed). Answers were provided on continuous scales ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree) and were averaged across all items (α = .87). $ Perceptions of Discrimination. Participants retrospectively estimated the amount of gender discrimination (defined as “unfair treatment based on one’s gender”) experienced by both men and women “in American society” over several decades. On scales of 1 (Not at all) to 10 (Very Much), participants estimated the extent to which both men and women were targets of discrimination in the United States during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and the current year (2012) for a total of seven estimates. Procedure Interested account holders on Amazon’s MTurk followed a link to our online survey hosted by Qualtrics (www.Qualtrics.com). All participants first indicated their gender (male or female) and then completed the measures of political ideology and Modern Sexism. Participants were then randomly assigned to estimate men’s and women’s discrimination experiences in one of four order conditions. First, approximately half of participants rated the gender discrimination faced by one gender at all seven time points before making the same ratings for the other gender; the other half rated the gender

220

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

discrimination faced by both genders at the first time point, then by both genders at the second time point, and so on. Second, we counterbalanced the order in which each gender was evaluated so that some participants always rated “men” first and others always rated “women” first. These order variables did not produce any main effects, nor did they moderate any of our primary effects, so we collapsed across them in all analyses reported below. Finally, participants completed some scales not relevant to the current purposes and then provided several pieces of demographic information (see Table 1). Method Tests of Zero-Sum Game Effects To test the whether men view gender discrimination as a zero-sum game, we submitted ratings of discrimination across time to a 2 (Participant gender: men, women) x 2 (Target gender: men, women) x 7 (Time point: 1950s through 2012) mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures on the last two factors. This analysis yielded main effects of time and target gender, Fs > 123.00, ps < .001, fs > .79, as well as two-way interactions of time x participant gender, F(6, 1158) = 3.87, p < .01, f = .14, time x target gender, F(6, 1158) = 260.02, p < .001, f = 1.16, and participant gender x target gender, F(1, 193) = 12.05, p < .01, f = .25. The three-way interaction, however, did not reach significance, F(6, 1158) = 1.19, p > .30, indicating that these data do not replicate the strong zero-sum pattern reported by Norton and Sommers (2011). Notably, as shown in Figure 1, men’s ratings of current-day discrimination (i.e., in the year 2012) against men (dotted gray line) are significantly lower than their ratings of current-day discrimination against women (solid gray line), F(1, 193) = 7.90, p < .01, f = .20. This is different from the pattern obtained by Norton and Sommers, who found that Whites reported significantly more race-based discrimination against Whites than against Blacks when rating the current year. When we re-ran the ANOVA but entered as covariates the demographic variables listed in Table 1 (race/ethnicity, age, income, education, native language, continent of origin, country of residence, sexual orientation), all of the main and interactive effects reported above remained significant (ps < .05) except the main effect of target gender (p < .58).

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

221

Figure 1 .

Men’s and women’s perceptions of discrimination against men and women in each decade.

Although these data do not support the strong version of the zero-sum hypothesis, the means in Figure 1 are consistent with a modified version of the zero-sum hypothesis as evidenced by the significant interaction of participant gender and target gender on perceived discrimination. Specifically, men perceive a substantially smaller gap between their own and women’s experiences with gender discrimination than women do. To be sure, men and women both agree that discrimination against women decreased significantly between the 1950s and today (solid lines, ps < .001), and that discrimination against men has increased in that same time span (dotted lines, ps < .02). When considering 2012, however, men claim that women’s discrimination experiences exceed their own by only 0.73 scale points, whereas women claim that their discrimination experiences exceed men’s by 2.25 points. Also in 2012, men rate discrimination against men significantly higher than women do, F(1, 193) = 8.40, p < .01, f = .21, whereas they rate discrimination against women non-significantly lower than women do, F(1, 193) = 2.59, p < .11. Thus, although men’s ratings of men’s discrimination in 2012 do not exceed their ratings of women’s discrimination, the trends illustrated in Figure 1 indicate a gradual approach toward this crossover effect. Extrapolating beyond the present, the lines depicting men’s

222

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

ratings of men’s versus women’s discrimination should cross (if ever) before women’s lines do. In fact, a subset of individuals does think that American men today face more discrimination than women do. We categorized people’s 2012 discrimination ratings to reflect whether they rated women as experiencing more discrimination than men, the same level of discrimination as men, or less discrimination than men. As shown in Figure 2, fully 17% of respondents rated anti-Man bias as exceeding anti-Woman bias in 2012 (bars at far right), while another 19% perceived men and women as facing equal amounts of gender bias today (bars in middle). Importantly, however, these beliefs were moderated by participant gender such that men were significantly more likely than women to report that men today face as much discrimination as, or more discrimination than, women, X2(2, N = 205) = 9.41, p < .01. In total, nearly half of men surveyed reported that men face gender discrimination at rates that equal or exceed women’s experiences. Compare these data to people’s ratings of the 1950s where only 5% of respondents rated men’s discrimination as exceeding women’s, 2.5% rated men and women as facing equal discrimination, and these percentages did not differ significantly by respondent gender, X2(2, N = 204) = 3.53, p > .17.

Figure 2.

Percentages of men and women endorsing the belief that women face more discrimination than men, women and men face equal discrimination, and women face less discrimination than men in 2012.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

223

Next, we computed correlations between respondents’ ratings of men’s and women’s discrimination at each time point and across time, separately by participant gender (see Table 2). Recall that Norton and Sommers’ (2011) zero-sum game pattern was reflected in negative correlations between Whites’ ratings of Whites’ and Blacks’ discrimination at every time point, as well as a negative correlation between the change across time experienced by Whites and Blacks. In contrast to this pattern, our findings show that men and women both perceive gender discrimination in zero-sum terms in earlier decades (1950s, 1960s), but men view men’s and women’s discrimination experiences as positively correlated from the 1980s to the present. In a sense, men’s ratings suggest a “we’re in it together” view of gender discrimination such that higher levels of discrimination experienced by one gender correspond with more discrimination experienced by the other gender as well. Women do not display a similar tendency to view men’s and women’s discrimination experiences as linked. Table 2

Correlations between Ratings of Anti-Man and Anti-Woman Discrimination, Split by Participant Gender.

Decade

Men

Women

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2012 Change across time

-32** -13 -05 20* 22* 25** 42*** 02

-21* -22* -08 00 15 12 03 06

Note.

Change across time = (Discrimination in 2012 – Discrimination in 1950).

* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

224

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

When we recomputed these correlations but partialled out the set of covariates, the pattern displayed in Table 2 remained quite similar overall although several of the positive correlations observed in the men’s data dropped to marginal significance. Controlling for the demographic variables reduced men’s correlation for the 1980s to nonsignificance (p > .17), and it reduced men’s correlations for the 1990s and 2000s to marginal significance (ps < .10). Men’s correlation for 2012, however, remained significant (r[102] = .35, p < .001), demonstrating an “in it together” effect that could not be accounted for by variance on any of the demographic variables. Moderation by Modern Sexism To test whether modern sexism scores moderated our effects, we dichotomized MSS scores at the scale median (Md = 3.63) and categorized participants into low MSS and high MSS groups1 . We then submitted discrimination ratings to a 2 (Modern sexism: low, high) x 2 (Participant gender: men, women) x 2 (Target gender: men, women) x 7 (Time point: 1950s through 2012) mixed-model ANOVA with repeated measures on the last two factors. The four-way interaction did not approach significance, F < 1, p > .54, indicating that men and women did not differ in their perceptions of men’s and women’s gender discrimination across time as a function of their modern sexism levels. We therefore did not examine this variable further. Moderation by Political Ideology To test whether political ideology moderated the effects reported above, we dichotomized political orientation scores at the median (Md = 3.00) and categorized participants as either liberal (scores below the median) or conservative (scores at or above the median). We then submitted discrimination ratings to a 2 (Political ideology: liberal, conservative) x 2 (Participant gender: men, women) x 2 (Target gender: men, women) x 7 (Time point: 1950s through 2012) mixed-model ANOVA with repeated measures on the last two factors. The four-way interaction was significant, F(6, 1146) = 3.91, p < .01, f = .14, indicating that the ratings provided by liberals and conservatives assumed different patterns.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

225

Notably, this four-way interaction remained significant when we controlled for the sample demographic variables, F(6, 1080) = 2.98, p < .01, f = .13. To decompose the four-way interaction, we plotted the three-way interactions of participant gender, target gender, and time point separately for liberals and conservatives (see Figures 3a and 3b).

Liberals’ perceived discrimination against men and women in each decade. Figure 3a.

Among liberal participants (Figure 3a), the participant gender-by-target gender interaction displayed in Figure 1 did not reach significance, F(1, 89) = 1.18, p > .27, indicating that liberal men and women do not differ from each other in their perceptions of the gender discrimination faced by men versus women. In contrast, the same participant gender-bytarget gender interaction was highly significant among conservative respondents, F(1, 102) = 14.93, p < .001, f = .38 (Figure 3b). It appears that the weak form of the zero-sum game pattern observed in the combined dataset (and displayed in Figure 1) is driven primarily by conservative respondents.

226

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Comparing Figures 3a and 3b, the most notable difference between liberals’ and conservatives’ ratings of gender discrimination is found in men’s ratings of anti-Man bias (gray dotted lines). Among liberals, men’s perceptions of anti-Man bias started out lower than women’s (black dotted line) and increased significantly over time (p < .001) to surpass women’s perceptions at the 1990s. By 2012, liberal men viewed anti-Man bias as non-significantly higher than women did, F(1, 89) = 1.38, p > .24, but as significantly lower than they viewed anti-Woman bias (gray solid line), F(1, 89) = 10.66, p < .01, f = .35. Conversely, conservative men’s perceptions of anti-Man bias were higher than women’s at every time point (Fs > 5.00, ps < .03, fs > .24), and they increased significantly over time (p < .001) such that, by 2012, conservative men perceived no difference in the gender discrimination faced by men versus women, F < 1. Still, however, the three-way interaction of participant gender, target gender, and time point among conservatives was not significant, F(6, 612) = 1.31, p > .24.

Figure 3b

Conservatives’ perceived discrimination against men and women in each decade.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

227

Next, we examined the percentages of conservative and liberal men and women who estimated that discrimination against men exceeds discrimination against women in 2012. Among liberals, men and women did not differ significantly in their likelihood of rating women’s discrimination as more severe than men’s (73.2%), men’s as more severe than women’s (14.4%), or women’s and men’s as equal (12.4%), X2(2, N = 97) = 2.71, p > .25. Conversely, among conservatives, the proportions of people in each response category differed significantly by gender, X2(2, N = 108) = 6.92, p < .04. Whereas 25.4% of conservative men reported that men today face more discrimination than women, only 8.9% of conservative women espoused this belief. Moreover, only 47.6% of conservative men claimed that men face less discrimination today than women do, compared to the 71.1% of conservative women who made a similar claim. In short, a small majority (52.4%) of conservative men believe that men’s gender discrimination experiences today are greater than or equal to women’s. Finally, we computed correlations between respondents’ ratings of men’s and women’s discrimination at each time point, separately by participant gender and political orientation. As shown in Table 3, the “in it together” effect displayed in Table 2 appears to be carried primarily by conservative men: From the 1980s through the current year, these men perceived a moderately strong positive correlation between the gender discrimination faced by men and women. No other group of respondents viewed men’s and women’s discrimination experiences as so closely tied, for so many decades. Moreover, partialling out the set of covariates did not substantially change the pattern of correlations displayed in Table 3. Even when controlling for the demographic variables, conservative men’s ratings of discrimination faced by men and women were positive and significant for the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and today, rs > .30, ps < .03.

228

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Table 3

Correlations between Ratings of Anti-Man and Anti-Woman Discrimination, Split by Participant Gender and Political Orientation .

Decade 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2012 Change

Liberal

Men

n = 54

-22 -16 -24 -12 -15 -03 +32* +28*

Women n = 43 -51** -46** -23 -10 00 06 04 04

Conservative Men Women n = 62 n = 45 -32* -04 12 41** 45** 44** 49** -10

11 01 08 06 28† 17 03 -09

Note. Change = (Discrimination in 2012 – Discrimination in 1950). †p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.

Discussion People’s reactions to their social positions are driven less by their objective status than by their perceptions of their position relative to others (Smith, Pettigrew, Pippin, & Bialosiewicz, 2012; Walker & Pettigrew, 1984). American women have made objective gains in power and status during the past half century that likely cause people to perceive anti-Woman discrimination as less pronounced than it once was. However, if men interpret women’s gains as a direct threat to their own social standing, then men might perceive the gap between antiWoman and anti-Man bias to be closing at a faster rate than women do. In essence, women’s gains might be seen by men as coming at the cost of their own status. Along these lines, our primary goal was to examine whether men see gender discrimination as a zero-sum game in which one group’s gains bring about the other group’s losses. To test this, we asked men and women about their perceptions of anti-Man and anti-Woman gender bias across the past several decades. Several findings stand out. On the one hand, men and women largely agree that discrimination against women was much greater in the past compared to the present and

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

229

compared to discrimination against men. That is, men and women generally agree that anti-Woman discrimination continues to be greater than anti-Man discrimination. On the other hand, we found a robust gender difference in the perceived degrees of discrimination faced by each gender group over time. Men perceive the discrimination gap (the relative degrees of discrimination facing women versus men) to be smaller at all time periods than women do. Moreover, men believe that there is now relatively little difference in the amount of discrimination facing men versus women. Thus, although we did not find evidence for a strong zero-sum game pattern similar to that reported by Norton and Sommers (2011) – i.e., that most men believe that men now experience more gender discrimination than women – we interpret our findings as evidence of a weak zero-sum game pattern in which men believe that the discrimination gap is closing more quickly than women do. Parsing the sample further, we found that a subset of individuals does believe that contemporary American men face more discrimination than women. Who are these people? By and large, politically conservative men are more likely to hold this belief (25.4%) than are conservative women (8.9%) and liberals of both genders (12.4%). This suggests that political ideology may be critical to understanding men’s beliefs about gender and discrimination. As noted earlier, research by Jost and colleagues finds that political conservatism is characterized by two underlying attitudinal tendencies: tolerance of social inequity and resistance to social and political change (Jost et al., 2003). To the extent that gradual reductions in anti-Woman discrimination reflect both widespread sociopolitical change and a leveling of the (uneven) playing field, these reductions should doubly evoke conservatives’ ire. What remains unknown is which attitude dimension, inequity vs. change, underlies some conservative men’s belief that they are now the primary targets of gender discrimination. It is also possible, of course, that the causal arrow operates in the reverse direction: Perceiving that one’s group is in competition with others for access to limited resources may be a cause, rather than a consequence, of political conservatism (e.g., Matthews et al., 2009). Additional research is therefore needed to establish more clearly the links between political ideology and men’s beliefs about the reversal of the discrimination gap. Interestingly, we found little evidence of zero-sum game thinking in

230

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

the correlations between people’s perceptions of anti-Man and antiWoman discrimination. Recall that Norton and Sommers (2011) found that Whites’ ratings of anti-White and anti-Black bias were significantly and negatively correlated at every time point, as well as across time. In contrast, we found evidence of a “we’re in it together” pattern that was moderated by both participant gender and political orientation. Specifically, ratings of anti-Man and anti-Woman bias were moderately and positive correlated among conservative men for the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and the current year. At first glance, the emergence of these positive correlations seems to contradict the findings based on means, as shown in Figure 3b. After all, conservative men are the subgroup to which we attribute our “weak zero-sum game” pattern: They perceived the smallest discrimination gap at each time point, and were most likely to rank men’s discrimination experiences as more extreme than women’s in 2012. And yet, of all subgroups examined here, they are also most likely to yoke men’s and women’s gender discrimination experiences together, perceiving that increases in one gender’s oppression are associated systematically with increases in the other gender’s oppression. On second glance, however, this pattern might reflect something about the different dynamics underlying inter-race and inter-gender group relations. As noted earlier, gender relations differ from race relations in both frequency of contact (Kluegel & Smith, 1986) and levels of mutual interdependence (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Given this, men might find it difficult to conceive of themselves as directly competing with women for status in a winner-takes-all game. Conservative men in particular might find it difficult to assume such a competitive stance against “women” as a whole. Consider the finding that conservatism (as indexed by a measure of right-wing authoritarianism; Altemeyer, 1998) is a moderately strong predictor of benevolent sexism, or the tendency to view women as morally virtuous and needing of men’s protection (Christopher & Mull, 2006). Conservatives relative to liberals also hold more hostile, angry attitudes toward women they perceive as nontraditional (e.g., feminists; Jost et al., 2008), but we would argue that such women are not likely to be the ones with whom conservative men maintain high-contact, mutually interdependent relationships. Thus,

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

231

conservative men may experience relatively high levels of ambivalent sexism, or a mixture of positive and negative attitudes toward and beliefs about women (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2011). Such ambivalence could render intergroup zero-sum games unsuitable. If viewing gender discrimination as a zero-sum game is inconsistent with conservative men’s benevolent, paternalistic attitudes toward women, we propose that they may achieve a similarly motivated goal by yoking their gender discrimination experiences to women’s. In doing so, they acknowledge the gender bias experienced by women but simultaneously downplay its severity by claiming comparable discrimination on the part of their own gender group. In the language of game theory, this could reflect a tit-for-tat (Axelrod, 1984) rather than zero-sum approach to gender discrimination. That is, conservative men recognize women’s claims of discrimination but respond to them in kind (tit-for-tat), instead of conceiving of gender discrimination as a game in which one party’s gains represent the other’s losses. Such a response pattern could account for conservative men’s means in Figure 3b (the relatively fast shrinking of the discrimination gap) and their positive correlations in Table 3 (the “in it together” effect). At this point, of course, we can only conjecture about the reasons behind the unpredicted, positive correlations observed between conservative men’s ratings of anti-Man and anti-Woman bias. What is clear, however, is that conservative men do not view gender discrimination as a zero-sum game in the same manner that Whites view racism as a zero-sum game. On average, they view men as experiencing just as much gender discrimination as women, and they perceive increases in anti-Women bias as being accompanied by increases in anti-Man bias. One puzzling finding – or lack thereof – was the failure of the Modern Sexism Scale (Swim et al., 1995) to moderate our results. Given the nature of the beliefs measured by the MSS, we expected people’s scores on this scale to predict their discrimination perceptions such that high scorers, more than low scorers, should downplay the gender bias experienced by women, relative to men, over time. Indeed, looking just at the zero-order correlations, the MSS correlates negatively with perceptions of anti-Woman discrimination at all time points (rs = -.29 to -.54, ps < .001), and it correlates positively with perceptions of anti-Man

232

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

discrimination (rs = .21 to .28, ps < .01). Although these correlations speak to the predictive validity of the MSS, our failure to find evidence of statistical moderation suggests that high and low MSS scorers do not differ substantially in the overall patterns of anti-Man and anti-Woman bias that they perceive. We find it particularly interesting that a scale that measures specific beliefs about the attitude object under investigation here (i.e., gender discrimination) did not moderate our findings, whereas a scale that measures a broader and more abstract construct, i.e., political ideology, did. It appears that perceptions of men’s and women’s gender discrimination across time reflect people’s broad-based assumptions about the social world and how it should be structured, rather than their specific beliefs about the sexism currently endured by women. Concluding Remarks In recent decades American women have become more involved in the workforce (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011), earned increasingly higher wages (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012), and exceeded men in terms of the numbers of undergraduate and graduate degrees earned (Department of Education, 2010). Despite such objective gains, however, discrimination against women remains. Consider the following facts: American women earn about 81% of what men earn (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011), and are underpaid relative to their male counterparts even in specialized professions like management and medicine (Hesse-Biber & Carter, 2005). Only 3.6% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women (Bosker, 2012). Women constitute only 17% of members of the U.S. Congress, 23.7% of state legislators, and 12% of state governors (Center for American Women and Politics, 2012). In the home, women do onethird more childcare than men (Bianchi, Robinson, & Milkie 2006; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2003) and they spend two-thirds to three-quarters more time than men do on housework (Grote, Naylor, & Clark, 2002; Robinson & Godbey 1999; Shelton & John, 1996). Despite women’s continued underrepresentation in high-status government and industry positions, and their over-contributions to

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

233

domestic and household tasks, the results reported here indicate that men on average, and conservative men in particular, view the discrimination gap as negligible (and in some cases, reversed). We maintain that men’s views thus indicate a pattern of motivated social cognition (e.g., Kunda, 1999) whereby groups historically higher in status interpret social and political gains by lower status groups as a threat to their standing. Although we did not replicate recent findings indicating that Whites view racism as a zero-sum game that they are now losing (Norton & Sommers, 2011), we nonetheless found that men perceive the discrimination gap to be dwindling at a much faster rate than women. The present results also suggest that this perception is held most strongly by men with conservative political ideologies, the same men who claim that men’s experiences with discrimination rise and fall with women’s. Such perceptual gaps between men and women may make women’s continuing struggle to achieve equality problematic, as women’s efforts may be met with resistance and backlash by some men. Indeed, when asked recently whether they thought a strong women’s movement was still needed, only 34% ofAmerica men said yes, as compared to 48% of women (CBS News, 2009). We suggest that the current findings shed light on this gender difference in views: If men perceive discrimination against their own gender group as steadily rising and anti-Woman discrimination as steadily decreasing, they may question the continual need for social changes that equalize women’s opportunities.

Author Note We thank Elizabeth Vaquera and Carlos Garrido for their assistance with Spanish translation.

Notes

Median splits are problematic because dichotomizing continuous data typically leads to a loss of statistical power (Cohen, 1983). However, a popular solution to this problem – using regression analyses to test for interactions of continuous and categorical variables (Aiken & West, 1991) – was not feasible for analyzing our full design given that Time point is a within-subjects variable. We therefore used median splits despite the problems associated with them. 1

234

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

References Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Altemeyer, B. (1998). The 20-item RWA scale. Unpublished manuscript. Aron, A., Aron, E. N., Tudor, M., & Nelson, G. (1991). Close relationships as including other in the self. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 60(2), 241-253. doi:10.1037/00223514.60.2.241 Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution ofcooperation. New York: Basic Books. Barreto, M., & Ellemers, N. (2005). The perils of political correctness: Men’s and women’s responses to old-fashioned and modern sexist views. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(1), 75-88. doi:10.1177/019027250506800106 Bianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P., & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing rhythms ofAmerican family life. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Bosker, B. (2012). Fortune 500 list boasts more female CEOs than ever before. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/fortune-500-femaleceos_n_1495734.html Bosson, J. K., & Vandello, J. A. (2011). Precarious manhood and its links to action and aggression. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(2), 82-86. doi:10.1177/ 0963721411402669 Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3-5. doi:10.1177/1745691610393980 Bureau of Labor Statistics (2008). Changes in women’s labor force participation in the 20th century. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2000/feb/wk3/art03.htm Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011). Women in the labor force: A databook. Retrieved from: http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook2011.pdf

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

235

Campbell, D. T. (1965). Ethnocentric and other altruistic motives. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 283-311). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. CBS News (2009). Poll: Women’s movement worthwhile. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/22/opinion/polls/main9 65224.shtml Center for American Women and Politics (2012). Women in elective office 2012. Retrieved from http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/documen ts/elective.pdf Cohen, J. (1983). The cost of dichotomization. Applied Psychological Measurement, 7(3), 249-253. doi:10.1177/014662168300700301 Christopher, A. N., & Mull, M. S. (2006). Conservative ideology and ambivalent sexism. Psychology ofWomen Quarterly, 30(2), 223230. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00284.x Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). The condition ofEducation 2010, Table A-23-2 (NCES 2010-028). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010028.pdf Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 735-754. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.46.4.735 Eibach, R. P., & Ehrlinger, J. (2006). Reference points in men’s and women’s judgments of progress toward gender equality. Sex Roles, 63 , 882-893. doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9846-7 Farley, R., & Frey, W. H. (1994). Changes in the segregation ofWhites from Blacks during the 1980s: Small steps toward a more integrated society. American Sociological Review, 59(1), 23-45. doi:10.2307/2096131 Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook ofsocial psychology, Vols. 1 and 2 (4th ed.) (pp. 357-411). New York: McGraw-Hill. Gibson, J. W. (1994). Warrior dreams: Paramilitary culture in postVietnam America. New York: Hill and Wang.

236

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Glaeser, E. L., & Vigdor, J. L. (2001). Racial segregation in the 2000 Census: Promising news. Brookings Institution Survey Series. Washington: Brookings Institution. Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491-512. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.3.491 Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2011). Ambivalent sexism revisited. Psychology ofWomen Quarterly, 35(3), 530-535. doi:10.1177/ 0361684311414832 Grote, N. K., Naylor, K. E., & Clark, M. S. (2002). Perceiving the division of family work to be unfair: Do social comparisons, enjoyment, and competence matter? Journal ofFamily Psychology, 16(4), 510-522. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.16.4.510 Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Carter, G. L. (2005). Working women in America: Split dreams. New York: Oxford University Press. Hochschild, J. (1995). Facing up to the American dream: Race, class, and the soul ofthe nation . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jost, J. T., Federico, C. M., & Napier, J. L. (2009). Political ideology: Its structure, functions, and elective affinities. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 307-337. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707. 163600 Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin , 129(3), 339-375. doi:10.1037/00332909.129.3.339 Jost, J. T., Nosek, B. A., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Ideology: Its resurgence in social, personality, and political psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3 (2), 126-136. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00070.x Kelley, H. H., & Thibaut, J. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory ofinterdependence. New York: Wiley. Kluegel, J. R., & Smith, E. R. (1986). Beliefs about inequality: Americans’ views ofwhat is and what ought to be. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

237 Kunda, Z. (1999). Social cognition: Making sense ofpeople. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Matthews, M., Levin, S., & Sidanius, J. (2009). A longitudinal test of the model of political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Political Psychology, 30(6), 921-936. doi:10.1111/j.14679221.2009.00733.x National Election Survey (1982). Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research. Norton, M. I., & Sommers, S. R. (2011). Whites see racism as a zerosum game that they are now losing. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 215-218. doi:10.1177/ 1745691611406922 Peter, K., & Horn, L. (2005). Gender differences in participation and completion of undergraduate education and how they have changed over time. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/das/epubs/2005169/index.asp Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.90.5.751 Pleck, J. H., & Masciadrelli, B. P. (2003). Paternal involvement: Levels, sources, and consequences. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The role ofthe father in child development (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley. Pratto, F., Liu, J. H., Levin, S., Sidanius, J., Shih, M., Bachrach, H., & Hegarty, P. (2000). Social dominance orientation and the legitimization of inequality across cultures. Journal ofCrossCultural Psychology, 31(3), 369-409. doi:10.1177/ 0022022100031003005 Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M. & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 741-763. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.998 Robinson, J. P., & Godbey, G. (1999). Time for life: The surprising ways Americans use their time. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Shelton, B. A., & John, D. (1996). The division of household labor. Annual Review ofSociology, 22, 299-322. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2083433 MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

238

Bosson et al. - Beliefs about gender bias

Sidanius, J., Van Laar, C., Levin, S., & Sinclair, S. (2004). Ethnic enclaves and the dynamics of social identity on the college campus: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 87, 96-110. doi:10.1037/00223514.87.1.96 Smith, H. J., Pettigrew, T. F., Pippin, G. M., & Bialosiewicz, S. (2012). Relative deprivation: A theoretical and meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16, 203-232. doi:10.1177/1088868311430825 Swim, J. K., Aikin, K. J., Hall, W. S., & Hunter, B. A. (1995). Sexism and racism: Old-fashioned and modern prejudices. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(2), 199-214. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.2.199 Swim, J. K., & Cohen, L. L. (1997). Overt, covert, and subtle sexism: A comparison between the Attitudes Toward Women and Modern Sexism Scales. Psychology ofWomen Quarterly, 21 (1), 103-118. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00103.x Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology ofintergroup relations (pp. 7-24). Chicago: Nelson. U.S. Census Bureau (2012). Historical income tables: People. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/ Vandello, J. A., Bosson, J. K., Cohen, D., Burnaford, R. M., & Weaver, J. R. (2008). Precarious manhood. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 95(6), 1325-1339. doi:10.1037/a0012453 Walker, I., & Pettigrew, T. F. (1984). Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique. British Journal ofSocial Psychology, 23 (4), 301-310. doi:10.1111/j.20448309.1984.tb00645.x

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

Jennifer K. Bosson, Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, United States ofAmerica. Joseph A. Vandello, University of South Florida, United States of America. Kenneth S. Michniewicz, University of South Florida, United States ofAmerica. Joshua Guy Lenes, University of South Florida, United States of America. Contact Address: Direct correspondence to Jennifer K. Bosson, Department of Psychology, PCD 4118G, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, FL, 33620-7200, United States, or at [email protected].

239

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

Spartan Mirages: Fat, Masculinity, and “Softness” Christopher E. Forth1 1) University of Kansas, United States of America Date of publication: October 21st, 2012

To cite this article: Forth, C. (2012). Spartan Mirages. Fat, Masculinity, and "Softness". Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3), 240­266. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.15 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.15

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­Derivative License.

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 240-266

Spartan Mirages. Fat, Masculinity, and "Softness" Christopher E. Forth

University ofKansas, United States

Abstract

Building upon previous research on structural tensions between the male body and certain features of ‘modernity’ as well as more recent inquiries into fat and gender in the West, this cross-disciplinary ‘thought piece’ argues that fatness and certain ‘masculine’ ideals have existed in a state of tension since ancient times, and that recurring references to the therapeutic violence of ‘Spartan’ techniques reflect the extent to which such ideas continue to circulate in the present. The first section shows that this tension is most clearly illuminated when we consider how the qualities of fat – as well as the act of fattening – have related to classical ideals about masculinity. The second offers examples of how references to Spartan ‘hardness’ have been cited since the eighteenth century as methods of restoring otherwise ‘soft’ males to a more appropriately vigorous mental and bodily state. Without arguing for an unbroken or unproblematic continuity between ancient and modern culture, it suggests that classical references represent what Pierre Bourdieu sees as ‘the product of an incessant (and thus historical) work ofreproduction’.

Keywords: fat, spartan, body

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.15

MCS – Masculinity and Social Change, Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 240-266

Espejismos Espartanos. Gordura, Masculinidad, y "Debilidad" Christopher E. Forth

University ofKansas, United States

Abstract

Sobre la base de investigaciones previas alrededor de las tensiones estructurales entre el cuerpo masculino y ciertas características de la "modernidad", así como las investigaciones más recientes sobre la gordura y el género en Occidente, esta interdisciplinar “forma de pensamiento" argumenta que la gordura y ciertos ideales masculinos han existido en continua tensión desde la antigüedad, y que las referencias recurrentes a la violencia terapéutica de las técnicas “Espartanas” reflejan el grado en que tales ideas siguen circulando en el presente. La primera sección muestra que esta tensión se observa más claramente cuando consideramos cómo las cualidades de la gordura -, así como el acto de engorde - se han relacionado con los ideales clásicos acerca de la masculinidad. La segunda sección ofrece ejemplos de cómo las referencias a la "dureza" Espartana ha existido desde el siglo XVIII como método de recuperación de los hombres “blandos” a un estado mental y corporal más vigoroso. Sin abogar por una continuidad ininterrumpida o libre de problemas entre la cultura antigua y moderna, en esta sección se sugiere que las referencias clásicas representan lo que Pierre Bourdieu ve como «el producto de una constante (y por tanto histórico) trabajo de reproducción".

Palabras clave: gordura, espartano, cuerpo

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.15

242

I

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

f people remember anything from the action film 300 (2006), quite often it’s the abs. Based on Frank Miller’s 1999 graphic novel, 300 offers a stylized dramatization of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE) in which a small band of Spartan warriors heroically fail to prevent the much larger Persian army from invading Greece. The superior virtue of the Spartans is vividly displayed in their bodies, whose hardness and muscularity pose a stark contrast to their Persian enemies, who display nearly every imaginable form of monstrosity, deformity and perversity. Despite the questionable politics of a film that, when viewed against the backdrop of tensions in the Middle East, could seem to contrast the hardness of freedom-loving ‘American’ troops against the ‘Oriental’ perversity of Iran (present-day Persia) (Stevens, 2007; Fotherington, 2012; Nisbet, 2012), moviegoers marvelled at the spectacle of abdominal muscles seemingly shrinkwrapped in skin. Reviewer after reviewer noted the ‘phalanx of washboard-stomached Spartans’ (O’Connell, 2007) who ‘look more like underwear models than warriors’ (Andrade, 2007). One predicted that women who see the film will ‘swoon over the hundreds of ripped abs and statuesc [sic] bare bodies posed and on display throughout the movie’ (Tyler, 2007), while another called it ‘the gayest thing I’ve ever seen. . . . if you like pecs and abs then this is definitely the movie to see’ (Dobres, 2007).   After much speculation that those washboard abs were generated by computers rather than exercise, fitness devotees were introduced to the ‘ 300 Spartan Workout’ which was developed to help the actors get into shape before shooting. Featured on the cable sports channel ESPN and in the pages of Men’s Health magazine before making its way to YouTube and local gyms, the workout itself has nothing to do with the Spartans. In fact the ‘300’ in the name simply refers to the number of reps a person would need to achieve after weeks of training (Doheney, n.d.). Naturally this tough workout is not recommended for most people, but for an elite few and those who like to think of themselves that way.   However one assesses the political and homoerotic subtexts of 300, the mobilization of ‘Spartan’ techniques in our current ‘war on obesity’ seems well-timed and perhaps inevitable. In fact criticisms of fat have often looked backwards to the idealized physiques of classical antiquity, sometimes with admiration for the harsh measures practiced by the  

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

243

Spartans. What is sometimes called ‘Laconophilia’, an admiration for the warrior people whose city state was located in the Greek region of Laconia, has a long history in the West, notably among those lamenting a perceived decline of tough and physically fit masculinity under the ‘softer’ and refined conditions of more complex social conditions. Stories of how the Spartans refused to tolerate excess body fat have been a recurring feature of this mystique. According to Plutarch (1934), who criticized the ‘effeminate’ luxury of his first-century Roman contemporaries, the greatest innovation of the Spartan statesman Lycurgus was the creation of common messes in which freemen dined together rather than in the comfortable seclusion of their homes. Corrupting softness could find no foothold in bodies that were prevented from ‘reclining on costly couches at costly tables, delivering themselves into the hands of servants and cooks to be fattened in the dark, like voracious animals, and ruining not only their characters but also their bodies by surrendering them to every desire and all sorts of surfeit’ (p. 234). Every ten days young men were required to present themselves naked before civic leaders who scrutinized their physiques for signs of slack effeminacy, which was most evident in ‘a corpulence that made [one’s] belly prominent’. On one occasion a certain Nauclides was hauled before the Spartan assembly because ‘his body was overlaid with excessive flesh, having become obese through luxurious indulgence’. Condemned as a ‘wanton profligate’, Nauclides was threatened with banishment if he failed to reform his life (Athenaeus, 1933, p. 495-7). The enslaved population of Helots supposedly had it much worse. It was reported that they could be killed if they became too fat and their masters punished for allowing it to happen.   Since much of what we know about Sparta was produced by critics and admirers living outside the city state, reports like these form part of what classicists call the ‘Spartan mirage’ (Ollier, 1933), a haze of myths, half-truths, and misunderstandings that has generated polarized accounts of what life was really like in that warrior state and, more crucially, whether any of it could or should be adopted by non-Spartans. Even if we cannot verify these tales of Spartan hardness, the fact that they have been retold many times over the centuries reveals an almost institutionalized insistence in the West that measured doses of discomfort, discipline and pain are potentially beneficial experiences

244

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

that shield people – and men in particular – from the ‘softening’ potential of material pleasure and wellbeing (Forth, 2008).   Of course pleasure and pain are complex and intertwined psychosomatic experiences, especially when it comes to fitness regimens (Crossley, 2006), which is why the ubiquitous gym slogan ‘No pain, no gain’ need not indicate a pathologically negative stance towards the body. Yet despite the expansion and endorsement of consumer pleasure since the eighteenth century, there remains in Western culture a peculiarly ‘masculinist’ fetishization of pain and violence that, when not connected to overtly ‘fascist’ political agendas that self-consciously invoke the harshness of Sparta (Theweleit, 1987; Losemann, 2012; Roche, 2012), often takes aim at fat as a form of ‘feminine’ softness and even ‘rot’ that needs to be eradicated from the personal body if not from the body politic more generally. Thus if a t-shirt for the US Marines Corps (currently available on Amazon.com) allows latter-day Spartans to proclaim to friends, family and passers-by that ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body’, similar slogans proliferate on those fields on which the ‘war on obesity’ is waged. After all, according to the fitness slogan one may find on posters and t-shirts in Britain and North America, ‘Sweat is fat crying’. This is an example of what sociologist Lee Monaghan (2008) calls ‘obesity warmongering’ taking aim at a maligned and ‘feminized body tissue’ (p. 2) that, when present in certain quantities or in the wrong place, is ‘routinely discredited as female or feminizing filth’ (p. 68). But what does it mean for a bodily substance to be gendered in this way? And what can classical antiquity teach us about this on-going cultural tendency to denigrate fat in such terms?   This article offers a preliminary and cross-disciplinary approach to questions that require more careful and extended research in order to be adequately understood. It is thus more of a ‘think piece’ cast in a broadly historical vein. Building upon previous research on structural tensions between the male body and certain features of‘modernity’ (Forth, 2008) as well as more recent inquiries into fat and gender in the West, it argues that fatness and certain ‘masculine’ ideals have existed in state of tension since ancient times, and that recurring references to the therapeutic violence of ‘Spartan’ techniques reflect the extent to which such ideas continue to circulate in the present. The first section shows

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

245

that this tension is most clearly illuminated when we look beyond matters of appearance to consider how the qualities of fat – as well as the act of fattening – have related to classical ideals about masculinity. The second section offers select examples of how references to Spartan ‘hardness’ have been frequently cited as methods of restoring otherwise ‘soft’ males to a more appropriately vigorous mental and bodily state. Without arguing for an unbroken or unproblematic continuity between ancient and modern culture, it suggests that classical references represent what Bourdieu (1998, p. 40) sees as ‘ the product of an incessant (and thus historical) work of reproduction ’ (emphasis in original). This historical dialectic of continuity and novelty must be a central challenge when approaching the relationship between deeply entrenched warrior images of ‘masculinity’ and the prospect of social change that might being about the conditions of possibility for fundamentally different realities. Looking beyond appearances With few exceptions (Gilman, 2004; Hill, 2011) historical approaches to fat place such emphasis on corpulence as a matter of appearance that they sometimes insist that our current obsessions reflect a purely ‘modern’ development, as if very fat bodies had been largely unproblematic in earlier times (Rogers, 2010; Farrell, 2011). LevyNavarro (2008) even describes the entire premodern era as a ‘time before fat’, claiming that ‘fat does not signify’ prior to the focus on appearances that emerged around the sixteenth century (p. 37). Grounding itself in the assumption that ‘modern’ fat stereotypes revolve mainly around aesthetics, much critical work on fat understandably emphasizes the burden that girls and women have been made to bear (Chernin, 1981; Hartley, 2001).   While not entirely incorrect, of course, such claims for the largely ‘modern’ and gynocentric nature of fat stereotyping warrant some qualification when viewed across a longer time line. While it is indeed true that fat bodies in earlier periods were never scrutinized and condemned as they are today, it is incorrect to assume that ‘excessive’ fatness was therefore accepted without reservation.

246

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

Claims that, unlike today, fat bodies were revered in the past simply do not stand up to historical scrutiny (Fischler, 1987; Stearns, 1997; Vigarello, 2010). Moreover, insofar as it has historically been considered more appropriate for men to act rather than be seen, it is true that men’s relationship to the cult of appearances has left them greater latitude when it comes to body size and shape. Yet there is compelling historical and contemporary evidence that males have also been adversely affected by negative ideas about fat (Gilman, 2004; Bell and McNaughton, 2007; Monaghan, 2008; Pyle and Loewy, 2009; Hill, 2011). This section examines some of the tensions that have historically existed between fatness and masculinity by considering a few examples from antiquity. To do this it approaches fat less with reference to appearance than to the qualities of the substance itself and the fraught nature of the act of fattening itself.   To look beyond appearances means considering fat less in terms of its morphological effects on the body (that is, ‘corpulence’) than its qualities as a substance that alters the size and shape of the body while also motivating a host of other cultural responses. After all, disgust – the emotion most often linked to perceptions of fat today – is not primarily linked to visual stimuli, but is more ‘closely connected to all three of the senses that the philosophical tradition regards as “tactile” senses. . . touch, smell, and taste, rather than sight or hearing’ (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 92). Capable of shifting between solid and liquid states, fat is an ambiguous material that mobilizes a wide range of sensory, symbolic and metaphoric associations. Connected in a number of cultures to ideas about fertility, vitality, increase, or transformation, fat participates in the ambivalence that often attends such concepts. As such it is capable of eliciting feelings of pleasure as well as disgust, depending upon context and circumstance (Forth, in press). Thus when Hill (2011) probed the status of fatness in antiquity she did not discover unequivocally ‘positive’ responses to corpulence. Rather she found an unstable idea that ‘spills over conceptual binary boundaries and functions much like a cultural trickster, connecting with both life and death’ (p. 13). So whereas male corpulence was to some extent a matter of appearances, it was unstable enough to be aligned both with the monumental physiques of the rich and powerful (Smith, 1997; Varner, 2004) as well as the

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

247

‘grotesque’ bodies and characters of slaves (Weiler, 2002).The perhaps irreducible ambiguity of fat as a substance arguably offers the material preconditions for a host of ambivalent responses. The ambiguous gender implications of fat come into focus when we consider the links between fatness and recurring gendered concepts of ‘softness’. While the encounter with soft things is certainly capable of eliciting positive responses – indeed ‘softness’ offers a welcome relief from tension and its yielding and insulating tendencies may be comforting and reassuring – Braziel (2001) shows how in the Western intellectual tradition the porous, weak, and yielding have been consistently employed as negative markers of the feminine. An unstable hierarchy of substances and textures thus exists in the West, subtly inflecting the ways in which bodies are experienced and represented. Aspects of this may be detected in some modern ways of explaining disgust. Claiming that ‘the tactile impression of flabbiness, sliminess, pastiness, and indeed of everything soft, should count among the disgusting [emphasis added]’, the phenomenologist Kolnai (2004) cites ‘the feel of a flabby body’ (alongside ‘a putrid smell’ and ‘a belly ripped open’) as a sensation that particularly elicits disgust. This is less of a reaction to fat per se than to its location within (and perhaps its capacity to signify) what he sees as a wider pool of potentially – but, he insists, not necessarily – repulsive or contemptible qualities: ‘everything soft’ (pp. 49-50).   Flabbiness and softness thus seem to link up with the feminine in important and culturally durable ways, and to some extent this link between the tactile experience of fat and a more generalized ‘softness’ reinforces Bordo’s (1993) proposal that anorexia crystallizes the longstanding Western philosophical denigration of a ‘feminized’ body in favour of a concept of mind that has been historically gendered as ‘masculine’. Clinical experience complements Bordo’s point by revealing the gendered typology of textures that affects how many anorexic women relate to their bodies. Many of the women studied by Heywood (1996) registered extreme misgivings about ‘soft’ body fat that seemed to reinforce traditional ideas about the ‘feminine’. This is why she claims that ‘Femininity is interchangeable with softness; softness is represented by bodily fat; and all of these things – femininity, softness, and fat – are “disgusting.” The reason for the symbology of

248

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

this anorexic’s language is no mystery. Anorexia is a reaction to pervasive cultural symbols related to femininity’ (p. 68).   Even if ideas about softness and the feminine are frequently interwoven, however, the former remains an expansive quality that points beyond femininity per se. The reasons for this make sense when we recall that fat is a substance that cannot be reduced to the human body, but has historically been located in agricultural products as well as in the earth itself. This is one reason that it has offered such potent ways of thinking about vitality and increase as well as excess and decay (Forth, in press). Thus Kolnai’s (2004) analysis of the ‘feel of a flabby body’ does not refer explicitly to femininity, but derives from what he sees as a more basic response to organic putrefaction or ‘corruption’ in general, what he calls ‘the soft gushing type of life which resists all solid formations’ (p. 71). Insofar as fat also refers to a soft substance capable of manifesting certain unsettling properties redolent of organic decay and contamination, perhaps deep-seated cultural associations between softness and femininity also rest on a more basic (and perhaps especially masculinist?) response to decay and mortality that has been frequently connected to women since antiquity (Bynum, 1995; Miller, 1997). Thus if women in numerous cultures become ‘vehicles for the expression of male loathing of the physical and the potentially decaying’ (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 113; see also Belkin, 2012), then – in addition to being ‘a feminist issue’ (Orbach, 1978) – negative responses to fatness raise serious questions about the ‘masculine’ imaginary that constructs fat as being so abjectly ‘feminine’ and ‘filthy’ in the first place. In this expansive cultural sense misgivings about fat and fatness may illuminate a particularly ‘masculine’ issue.   Space limitations do not permit a full consideration of this issue, but select examples from antiquity show how ‘soft’ fat was often treated as a ‘feminized’ and potentially ‘rotten’ bodily substance. Medically speaking, moisture and fatness were among the most conspicuous signs of the ‘cold’ female body (Dean-Jones, 1994; Soranus, 1991). If male physiques were said to be naturally more slender, it was because their innate heat and greater activity tended to ‘melt’ away much of their fat. But fatness had other possible connotations, for the tactile properties of the substance beneath the skin played an important role in constructing the moral category of ‘softness’ as well as the gendered distinctions that    

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

249

it enabled. The classical discourse of muscularity that arose at some point between the Hippocratic and Galenic periods reinforced this cultural validation of the hard and taut, establishing a connection between muscles and willpower that has arguably shaped our Western sense of the self ever since. Kuriyama (1999) proposes a fundamental emphasis in Greek medical thought on well-articulated muscles and joints that defined the virtues of (primarily male) willpower over against that which seemed flabby, ill-defined, and ‘womanish’ in other peoples. In fact certain non-Greek peoples were often criticized for the ‘softness’ of character that was sometimes related to the moisture and fleshiness of their bodies and, as in the oft-cited case of the Scythians, was linked to the fatness and ‘effeminacy’ wrought by custom and climate (Hippocrates, 1957; Forth, in press). This tendency to align flabbiness on the side of effeminate ‘others’ persisted in the Roman world, where tales of immensely fat ‘Asiatic’ monarchs were designed to illustrate and reinforce the morally soft and softening aspects of Eastern lifestyles (Athenaeus, 1933; Aelian, 1997).   If ‘softness’ thus implied certain ‘feminine’ qualities, it was implicitly connected to organic, moral and physical decay. This slippage between excessive fecundity and rottenness is a common feature of the ‘softness’ that flesh has generally manifested in Western culture (Bynum, 1995; Tétart, 2004). Less often acknowledged are the subtle but durable links between such images and cultural anxieties relating to consumption, but these too have roots in organic concepts. The now obscure term luxuriance denotes superabundant growth or development with origins that are clearly agricultural. While the luxuriant could also refer to flesh that had grown to excess (and not necessarily in a negative or unhealthy way), it is also the etymological root of the luxuria despised by ancient moralists (Gowers, 1996). Luxury was what happened when the unchecked quest for physical pleasures and comforts followed its natural course from overripeness to decay. The menace of luxury was most problematic when observed in the bodies and characters of men who, it was widely assumed, had been rendered so ‘soft’ or ‘effeminate’ by pleasures that they possessed no courage, could endure no pain, and would be unable to defend the city from attack (Berry, 1994). Given the military image of masculinity that was implicit to classical republican thought, anxieties about the ‘softening’ effects of luxury combined

250

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

 

archaic ideas about organic decay with the closely related concerns about effeminacy.   Whether occurring in fields or bodies, corruption and decay represented the furthest reaches of abundance. That decay of this sort could have implications for warrior manhood was certainly operative during the Middle Ages, when the troubadour Bertran de Born expressed contempt for any king who, by failing to engage personally in battle, ‘relaxes and fattens up’ and thus ‘becomes fat and rotten’ (quoted in Pfeffer, 1997, p. 56). This gender deviation was not fully reducible to a collapse into femininity, and traditional connections between excessive fatness and putrefaction were renewed and accentuated from the early modern era onward. By the late eighteenth century bourgeois notions of cleanliness were targeting sweat, grime and fat (both inside and outside of the body) as forms of ‘filth’ that interfered with health, beauty and morality (Forth, 2012a) and were projected onto more ‘primitive’ groups both within the West and in other parts of the world (Forth, 2012b). This is one reason that Kolnai (2004) claims that disgust about ‘softness’ refers to organic processes that have exceeded the bounds of ripeness. Insofar as disgust is a violent reaction to ‘ life in the wrong place [emphasis in original]’ (p. 62), Kolnai maintains ‘that all living material that as such makes itself too conspicuous only too easily becomes suspected of beginning a process of putrefaction’ (p. 71).   Related to such concerns about ‘effeminate’ softness and decay were misgivings about the kinds of power relationship that were implied by the act of fattening. From an agricultural perspective the acts of eating and fattening have historically implied a spectrum of ‘lesser’ life forms that seem docile or unintelligent (as in the case of domesticated animals) or those whose apparent raison d’être is to be ‘consumed’, whether figuratively in the case of women (sexual desire has been described since antiquity as a form of ‘hunger’ just as females have been metaphorically likened to ‘food’) or literally as in the case of domesticated or hunted animals. After all, the bounty that fat fields and fattened animals could provide for humans was grounded in the fact that plants and animals were meant to be consumed or devoured, and thus necessarily must have been mastered on some level, whether by being gathered, harvested, hunted, or slaughtered. Hence the tradition of seeing large elite bodies as evidence of wealth, status, and happiness,

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

251

but also the popular tendency to describe certain individuals or groups as fearsome predators who ‘devour’ or ‘grow fat’ off of others (Montanari, 1999).   According to ancient models of appetite the act of consumption could easily drift from the moderate enjoyment of sensual pleasures to excesses reflecting a ‘slavish’ submission to one’s desires (Davidson, 1997). Moreover, situations in which one’s control over the process of consumption might be called into question – as revealed in the case of ‘fattened’ animals – could imply very different traits. Domesticated male animals, as every farmer knew, tended to grow fatter once they had been castrated, with the result being that their flesh became more tender and palatable while their dispositions were said to grow softer (Vialles, 1994). The same held true for any kind of animal fattened for consumption, which necessarily placed them in a position of weakness vis-à-vis their human keepers. Indeed, fattened animals were also burdened by the physical presence of their corpulence, which functioned as a second-order form of subjection. The Roman farming authority Varro (1934) had no doubt of the subordination that fat entailed for barnyard fowls: ‘These are shut into a warm, narrow, darkened place, because movement on their part and light free them from the slavery of fat’ (pp. 481-2). To be fattened signified a loss of agency reinforced by the material constraints of the substance itself.   Ancient moralists registered contempt for those who seemed to emulate the more placid of beasts, as if elite males – often imagined as predators capable of ‘devouring’ others – instead allowed themselves to be consumed by their own appetites and to become easy prey for more powerful men. Plato (1980) wondered what people would be like in society that freely provided basic necessities and eliminated the need for vigorous effort to obtain them: ‘is each of them to live out his life getting fattened up, like a cow?’ In his view such people had fattened themselves for the kill by stronger and harder types: ‘it’s appropriate that an idle, soft-spirited, and fattened animal usually is ravaged by one of those other animals who have been worn very hard with courage and labors’ (pp. 196-7). The Stoics extended these ideas in their sharp criticisms of luxuries that threatened to reduce men to the level of the most ignoble of beasts. Seneca (1979) described how dissolute fat who keep late hours and get no exercise are like birds

252

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

being fattened for the slaughter, except that such men are personally responsible for the fact that ‘their idle bodies are overwhelmed with flesh’ (pp. 412-3). And, as Plutarch (1934) claimed, the contempt that the Spartans felt for luxury partly sprang from seeing males whose idle pleasure-seeking reduced them to docile beasts being ‘fattened in the dark’ (p. 234) for their eventual slaughter.   Male corpulence thus functioned as an ambiguous sign of social privilege that could celebrate or denigrate, depending on the status and conduct of the individual involved. To be fattened by someone else, in the manner of a pig or goat, suggested mindless passivity and a resemblance to livestock destined for the chop. To grow fat through good living could signify agency, status and enjoyment. It could even indicate a predatory role in which a person or group might ‘devour’ others in a manner commensurate with their power. But this impression of agency remained haunted by another possible interpretation: that such a man had abdicated self-mastery by succumbing to more powerful appetites, thus bringing about an internal reversal of power relations resulting in a sort of self-fattening that could be condemned as ignoble and demeaning. When combined with the idea that fatness signified degree of effeminacy and even rottenness, all of these scenarios involved some degree of ‘softness’ that could be seen as contemptible. Spartan moments Fantasies about Spartan hardness as an antidote to the ‘softening’ potential of fat reflect the extent to which some of these ideas have been ingrained in Western culture since antiquity. Obviously it would be anachronistic to suggest that ancient ideas have circulated in a continuous manner through Western culture. While the conduits through which classical ideas were transmitted to medieval and modern culture are too complex to be properly discussed at the moment (Cadden, 1993), the modern West has indeed retained and reimagined a number of ancient ideas about the tense relationship between fat and masculinity that have been crystallized in periodic references to the warrior virtues of Sparta. More research is needed on this subject, and since space limitations do not allow more than a

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

253

cursory glance at the ways in Spartan images recur in the anti-fat discourses of the modern West, a few examples will need to suffice.   If the concept of luxury was often vilified by classical republicans it underwent a profound transformation by the eighteenth century. It was during this period that Anglo-American societies began to embrace the idea of ‘comfort’ as a physically pleasing relationship between the body and its immediate physical environment, a development that encouraged the search for consumer goods that would help to enhance these pleasurable experiences (Crowley, 2001). Related to this development was the formal ‘demoralization’ of the concept of luxury which, at least when moderately pursued, was increasingly defended as a spur to industry that produced the ‘opulence’ and ‘ease of body’ that Adam Smith saw as proof of a positive social condition. Smith and others insisted that the ‘martial spirit’ that drove masculine bellicosity need not be diminished by this softening of everyday life (Berry, 1994).   Yet despite the apparent endorsement of moderate luxury, Western perceptions of masculinity have not fully shrugged off assumptions that sedentary lifestyles and excessive consumption can render men’s bodies and characters ‘soft’, womanish, and incapable of those most central of traditional male deeds, physical exertion and combat. Ever since the eighteenth century numerous moralists and reformers have expressed concern that overly ‘civilized’ men in the West had such easy lives that they were growing ‘soft’ in ways that weakened their bodies as much as they corrupted their morals and willpower. Hence the vigorous measures that would be gradually adopted in a variety of European countries to counteract the negative effects of a pleasure society, from the nationalistic gymnastics developed in German-speaking cultures and the team sports perfected in Great Britain to the even more intense sports that became the rage across the West from the late nineteenth century onward (Forth, 2008). Through such strenuous and sometimes painful practices, it was widely held, males would be able to ‘inoculate’ (Bederman, 1995) themselves against the softening/feminizing potential of their own cerebral and sedentary society. When dispensed in measured doses, pain and violence have thus continued to be valued for the prophylactic and therapeutic potential they may exercise on the minds and bodies of males. Thus, despite this apparent endorsement of

254

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

material pleasures since the eighteenth century, echoes of an idealized warrior past continue to haunt Western images of masculinity, constituting what may be seen as a structural tension within Western perceptions of the male body (Forth, 2008).   It was against this backdrop of increasingly comfortable and sedentary conditions – as well as a resurgence of interest in classical antiquity – that the Spartan mirage arose once more in Europe. This was especially so during the eighteenth century, which is also when debates about luxury raged in many European countries (Mason, 2012). In France one of the most outspoken and prolific Laconophiles to write for the Encyclopédie, the chevalier Louis de Jaucourt (1765b) declared that the very name ‘Sparta’ called to mind ‘the greatest virtues’ of all Greek city-states (p. 428). For reasons that are not entirely clear, in his article on ‘obesity’ Jaucourt (1765a) informed readers that the ancient Spartans ‘could not suffer such massive embonpoint’ among the young and imposed strict regimens to keep them fit. This appreciation for corporeal and mental ‘hardness’ was even built into the Encyclopédie’s article on ‘cowardice’. Given that the French word for coward, ‘lâche’, is semantically linked to a generalized moral and physical lâcheté (looseness, slackness, softness), one contributor (Anonymous, 1765) wrote that lâche can denote flabby stomachs while being ‘synonymous with the abject and shameful’ (p. 165). Here too we see a slippage from the softness of the male body – exemplified partly through fatness – to the more troubling prospect of shameful cowardice.   The socially meliorist and proto-eugenic proposals of some French physicians encouraged a fascination with reforming and, if need be, eradicating unfit bodies. Antoine le Camus (1754) had railed against excessive fatness in his campaign to reform the bodies and minds of the his countrymen, condemning it as a source of ‘disgust’ as well as a symptom of weakness, stupidity, and even barrenness.Although stopping short of recommending such measures himself, Le Camus (1753) admired ho w, this wise nation’ Sparta would punish fat men because they were suspected of having ‘little prudence or understanding’ (pp. 14-5). Others, like Joseph-Adrien Lelarge de Lignac (1774), suggested that a man who was ‘flabby, soft, and covered in fat’ was not really capable of reproducing anyway: ‘too weak for extracting his subsistence from the bosom of the earth, too weak for daring

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

255

attempt to serve his country with warlike weapons in his hands, who is a bad labourer and a bad soldier, can [such a man] be a good spouse?’ (p. 60). Blaming the emergence of such flabby fellows on the comforts and conveniences of modern civilization – ‘Moral depravation! Luxury! Softness [mollesse]! behold your work!’ (p. 59) – Lelarge de Lignac proposed that fat men might eventually be eliminated through selective breeding practices (p. 61).   These examples are symptomatic of a wider phenomenon. Weaving in and out of discourses about fat, consumerism and softness, Sparta functioned as a prototype of the warrior hardness that European men often liked to imagine in themselves. These harsh verdicts on fat weaklings were delivered against the background of a hardening of attitudes toward non-Western peoples. Of course many Europeans did become fat, but when discussed in a global context this was often explained with reference to personal deviations from the norm rather than any cultural acceptance of fat. Such distinctions were sharpened in the early nineteenth century to form a regular, albeit highly unstable, series of distinctions between ‘Europe’ and its ‘others’. In Western eyes both the fact of corpulence and admiration for fat bodies formed part of a wider cluster of ‘soft’ qualities attributed to non-Western peoples, a tangible example of the moral looseness, sensuality, indolence, effeminacy, and other defects that were often cited as the inverse of modern, civilized, culture. Corpulence provided a lens through which Europeans could emphasize their own difference with reference to cultures that perversely confused ‘deformity’ for female beauty and ‘obesity’ for male power, especially in Africa, India, and China (Forth, 2012b).   Overseas examples figured prominently in French and British medical discussions of fat, notably after 1815 and often with Spartan references thrown in to reinforce impressions of European hardness. Adding Egypt to the list of cultures that, in his view, foolishly admired fat without understanding that it prevented intelligence, agility, and strength, the influential physician Julien-Joseph Virey (1815) felt the need to explain that this is ‘why the Spartans would punish fat soldiers’ and monitor the feeding of children (p. 509). Decades later a similar gesture appeared in another medical dictionary. Explaining that ‘In China a man held in dignity regards

256

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

embonpoint and even obesity as one of the requirements of his rank’, a custom that contrasted sharply with European gender ideals, J.-P. Beaude (1849) described how the Chinese generally perceive in great corpulence evidence of superiority linked to soft lifestyles and rich food. For no apparent reason Beaude then explained how in ‘certain republics of antiquity obesity, far from being an honor, was regarded as a vice. In Sparta they would beat the soldier who, having an overly pronounced embonpoint, seemed to prefer the softness of a succulent life to the rough profession of arms’ (p. 52930). Ideas like this cropped up in a number of related discourses, many of which called attention to a Chinese appreciation of fatness as proof of a hopelessly ‘soft’ masculinity. Thus Davis (1837, p. 254) deemed the Chinese notion of male ‘power’ to be laughable since it referred to great folds of fat rather than the hard muscularity that supposedly defined English manhood.   The British experience in India offered multiple opportunities to allege the defective manhood of its colonial subjects (Sinha, 1995; Streets, 2004), a key symptom of which was the propensity of well-todo Indians to deliberately become fat (Forth, 2012b). Dispelling suspicions that normally vegetarian Brahmins might have been eating meat to achieve such ample proportions, Johnson (1818) revealed that ‘all is accomplished by ghee [clarified butter] and indolence!’ (p. 391). Physicians like Cornish (1864) cited, in addition to ghee, rice consumption as the key to the problem, maintaining that it makes Indians weak and cowardly as well as ‘fat, bloated, and incapable of much exertion’ (p. 68). This is supposedly how carnivorous Britons were able to subdue the Indians so easily, for ‘every people who have ever conquered the lowlands of India, have acquired their chief sustenance from food superior in nutritive value to rice’ (p. 70). Dietary factors notwithstanding, Indian fat was especially linked to allegations of native weakness, cowardice and, above all, ‘indolence’, which, according to The Imperial Dictionary (Ogilvie, 1859), referred to ‘Habitual idleness; indisposition to labour; laziness; inaction or want of exertion of body or mind, proceeding from love of ease or aversion to toil . . . . a constitutional or habitual love of ease’ (p. 1000). If some Britons recommended team sports as a way of using controlled violence as a means of ‘curing’ Indians of their softness, others praised more

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

257

overtly punitive measures. in 1872 the Times of India reported that a ‘very distinguished and very fat Sikh officer of a cavalry regiment has been removed from the service on the ground of undue obesity’, the Anglophone Indian Daily News (Anonymous, 1872) responded approvingly, claiming that ‘they are but reverting to the system pursued in olden days. Spartans who presumed to get fat were soundly whipped’ (pp. 138-9).   Such flirtations with therapeutic violence as a method of creating men continued into the twentieth century as critiques that had been levelled against native people were turned on the colonizers themselves. The Strand Magazine (Anonymous, 1906) asked a number of eminent physicians to answer a series of questions about improving British health. Question number nine concerns us: ‘Are the youth of the age too softly treated, and would a more Spartan regimen be advantageous?’ (p. 297). Of course the editors weren’t asking whether doctors recommended beating children who failed to exercise and eat moderately, but whether harsher measures generally should be taken to instil in them dietetic principles and healthy choices. While several felt that such methods were unnecessary, with one observing that many children played so hard that they were already ‘outdoing Sparta itself’ (p. 303), many responded affirmatively. ‘Most assuredly our youth are too softly treated, pampered, and over-indulged’, responded one expert, adding that ‘Discipline is sadly lacking, and a more Spartan regimen is what is they require to make men of them’ (p. 298). ‘A more Spartan regimen would be advantageous’, agreed another (p. 300) while still others recommended more ‘manly sports’ and walking, while all warned against the perils of overeating.   Such examples may be multiplied throughout the twentieth century as classical exemplars became ubiquitous in Western perceptions of the ideal male body (Carden-Coyne, 2009). For a final example we turn to the United States, where psychologist William H. Sheldon’s (1940) famous division of male bodies into wispy ‘ectomorphs’, fat ‘endomorphs’ and splendid ‘mesomorphs’ was warmly received by the general public and physical education teachers (Vertinsky, 2002). Seeking to demonstrate connections between character and physique, Sheldon linked the endomorphic body type to the ‘viscerotonic’ temperament, which consisted of such traits as a love of food, comfort,

258

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

and sociability, an aversion to pain and effort, a tendency toward emotional display, and an ‘untempered characteristic’. The latter trait revealed itself by ‘a certain flabbiness or lack of intensity in the mental and moral outlook...a dull, vegetable-like quality [and] lack of purpose beyond the elementary biological purposes’. Rather than demonstrating action and solidity such a man ‘gives off the general impression of soft metal’ (Sheldon, 1944, pp. 43-44) and, in extreme cases, may end up being beyond treatment, ‘hopelessly bogged in the marshes of viscerosis’ (pp. 119-120, 356).   To illustrate his claims, Sheldon described a ‘case of extreme viscerotonia’, a twenty-two year old named Aubrey. Everything about Sheldon’s description of Aubrey evoked the gendered tactile impressions implied by the idea of softness. His facial expression is flaccid, his hands ‘hang like a seal’s flippers’, and watching him sit down is like ‘resting a loosely filled sack of beans on a chair’ (p. 98). Emotionally speaking Aubrey was devoid of heat and vitality: ‘There is no temper in him, no fire, no intensity. He gives the impression of utter flabbiness of mental and emotional fiber’. Evidently wallowing in merely animal functions, this was not a man committed to anything beyond mere biological life: ‘There appears to be no purpose beyond the elementary purposes of existence and comfort. If people were metals, Aubrey would be lead’. All one had to do was to shake the man’s hand to gain access to this inner malleability: ‘At handshake his hand seems as cold and nerveless as a piece of fat pork’ (p. 100). And, as one might expect, Aubrey scored quite low when it came to what Sheldon called a ‘ Spartan Indifference to Pain’ [emphasis in original]. Sheldon found ‘No trace of this trait. If anything he is oversensitive to pain. He has always been a crybaby’ (p. 102). There was only one kind of world in which a man like this might be improved: ‘it is possible that such person as Aubrey would make a better adaptation in a more disciplined society, where he made his way under sterner conditions’ (p. 120).   While not exactly a man without qualities, the traits that Aubrey possessed were inconsistent with the masculine ideals that Sheldon and, no doubt many other Americans, believed should be encapsulated in a certain physique and temperament. Thanks to the efforts of Sheldon and others, the idea that fat boys displayed ‘inadequate

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

259

masculine physique’ (Schonfeld, 1950) and a ‘feminine’ character was well established by the mid-twentieth century. This is not the place to trace such ideas as they have resurfaced periodically since that time, but suffice it to say that, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was sometimes depicted as an austere and hardy Sparta that – while tyrannical and warlike – remained uncorrupted by the rampant consumerism that had overtaken Americans. This prompted politician Adlai Stevenson to warn that ‘If in our fat, dumb, happy complacent way we are sure we can’t lose, we might recall that in the case ofAthens vs. Sparta a much superior culture went down...We might get licked’ (quoted in Hodkinson, 2012, p. 347). Conclusion As this brief historical overview suggests, Laconophilia never seems to go out of style for long in the modern West. Although often lampooned on YouTube (Nisbet, 2012) and in spoof films like Meet the Spartans (2008), the feverish images of 300 tap into many contemporary anxieties, from the related crises of masculinity and American national identity to the ‘war on obesity’ and the War on Terror. As Hoberman (1984) has observed, as an athletic and sportive ideal ‘“hardness” is ambiguous in that it may be directed inward or outward; that is to say, that its demands may be inflicted on the self or others’ (p. 102). Insofar as this implicitly ‘masculine’ hardness is also expected of girls and women, we latter-day Spartans admire the commitment and discipline required to pull off fantastic feats of heroic self-transformation, applauding time and again the application of hardness against ‘soft’ flesh or character. Yet a key distinction between Spartan and neoSpartan contempt for fat is the latter’s erasure of any serious connection between form and function. If Spartan bodies were made for war, neoSpartan physiques seem to be built mainly for looks.   Even if our everyday contempt for fat echoes that of Sparta, we have not yet gotten to the point of banishing fat members of the underclass. Nevertheless calls for the application of hardness on others continue to surface from time to time. When Greg Critser (2003) laments the proliferation of elastic waistbands and ‘relaxed fit’ trousers he is promoting the value of discomfort as a potential therapy for bodies

260

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

gone soft, specifically in the sensation of a firm resistance to expanding bellies and hips. In a much attenuated form he is recommending something quite ancient. Yet more overtly punitive measures have also been implemented. In 2008 the Japanese government required that state offices and companies begin measuring employee waistlines to ensure adherence to federal standards of health and, implicitly, appearance. State employees who allow their waists to become too wide (33.5 inches for men, 35.4 for women) now stand to lose their jobs (Onishi, 2008). Whether or not the Spartan lawmaker Lycurgus would have approved of such banishment from the workplace, such measures endorse the widespread assumption that becoming fat springs from an overly ‘soft’ stance in relation to the body.  

References Aelian. (1997). Historical Miscellany. Edited and translated by N.G. Wilson. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Andrade, A. (2007). 300 movie review. Stylus Magazine, March 13, 2007. Retrived from http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/ movie_review/300.htm. Anonymous (1765). LACHE. In D. Diderot and J. le Rond d’Alembert (Eds.), Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Neufchâtel: chez Samuel Faulche, IX. Anonymous (1872). Foreign Notes. Every Saturday. Journal ofChoice Reading, 1 , 138-9. Anonymous (1906). How to be Healthy at All Ages: A Symposium of Eminent Doctors. The Strand Magazine, 31 , 297-308. Athenaeus (1933). The Deipnosophists. C.B. Gulick (Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bederman, G. (1995). Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Beaude, J.-P. (1849). OBESITE. In J.-P. Beaude (Ed.), Dictionnaire de médecine usuelle à l’usage des gens du monde (pp.529-30). Paris: Didier, II.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

261

Belkin, A. (2012). Bring me men: military masculinity and the benign façade ofAmerican empire, 1898-2001 . New York: Columbia University Press. Bell, K. and McNaughton, D. (2007). Feminism and the Invisible Fat Man. Body & Society, 13 , 107-31. doi: 10.1177/1357034X07074780 Berry, C.J. (1994). The Idea ofLuxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bourdieu, P. (1998). La domination masculine. Paris: Seuil. Braziel, J.E. (2001). Sex and Fat Chics: Deterritorializing the Fat Female Body. In J.E. Braziel and K. LeBesco (Eds.), Bodies out ofBounds: Fatness and Transgression (pp.231-54). Berkeley: University of California Press. Bynum, C.W. (1995). The Resurrection ofthe Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336. New York: Columbia University Press. Cadden, J. (1993). Meanings ofSex Difference in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carden-Coyne, A. (2009). Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chernin, K. (1981). The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. New York: Harper. Cornish, W.R. (1864). Observations on the Nature of the Food of the Inhabitants of Southern India, and on Prison Dietaries, in the Madras Presidency. The Madras Quarterly Journal ofMedical Science, 8, 1-73. Critser, G. (2003). Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Crossley, N. (2006). Reflexive embodiment in contemporary society. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press. Crowley, J.E. (2001). The Invention ofComfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Davidson, J. (1997). Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions ofClassical Athens. New York: Harper Perennial.

262

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

Davis, J.F. (1837). La Chine, ou description générale. A. Pichard (Trans.), Paris: Librairie Paulin, I. Dean-Jones, L. (1994). Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dobres, J. (2007). 300: More abs than you can handle. jon22.net, Retrived from http://www.jon22.net/300-more-abs-than-you-canhandle/ Doheney, K. (n.d.). The 300 Workout: Can you Handle it? WebMD: Better Information, Better Health . Retrived from http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/the-300workout-can-you-handle-it. Farrell, A.E. (2011). Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. New York: NYU Press. Fischler, C. (1987). La symbolique du gros. Communications, 46, 25578. Forth, C.E. (2008). Masculinity in the modern west: gender, civilization and the body. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. Forth, C.E. (2012a). Melting Moments: The Greasy Sources of Modern Perceptions of Fat. Cultural History, 1 , 83-107. doi: 10.3366/cult.2012.0007 Forth, C.E. (2012b). Fat, Desire, and Disgust in the Colonial Imagination. History Workshop Journal, 73 , 211-39. Forth, C.E. (in press). The Qualities of Fat: Bodies, History, and Materiality. Journal ofMaterial Culture. Fotherington, L.S. (2012). The positive portrayal of Sparta in latetwentieth-century fiction. In S.Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris (2012), Sparta in Modern Thought (pp.393-428). Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Gilman, S. L. (2004). Fat boys: A Slim Book. Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Gowers, E. (1996). The Loaded Table: Representations ofFood in Roman Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hartley, C. (2001). Letting Ourselves Go: Making Room for the Fat Body in Feminist Scholarship. In J.E. Braziel and K. LeBesco (Eds.), Bodies out ofBounds: Fatness and Transgression (pp.6073). Berkeley: University of California Press.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

263

Heywood, L. (1996). Dedication to hunger : the anorexic aesthetic in modern culture. Berkeley: University of California Hill, S.E. (2011). Eating to Excess: The Meaning ofGluttony and the Fat Body in the Ancient World. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. Hippocrates (1957). Airs, Waters, Places, in Hippocrates I. W.H.S. Jones (Trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hoberman, J. (1984). Sport and political ideology. London: Heinemann. Hodkinson, S. (2012). Sparta and the Soviet Union in U.S. Cold War foreign policy and intelligence analysis. In S.Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris, (Eds.) Sparta in Modern Thought (pp.34392). Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Hodkinson, S. and Macgregor Morris, I. (2012). Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture. Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Jaucourt, L. chevalier de (1765a). OBÉSITÉ. In D. Diderot and J. le Rond d’Alembert (Eds.), Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Neufchâtel: chez Samuel Faulche, XI. Jaucourt, L. chevalier de (1765b). SPARTE OU LACEDEMONE. In D. Diderot and J. le Rond d’Alembert (Eds.), Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers

(pp.428-32). Neufchâtel: chez Samuel Faulche, XV. Johnson, J. (1818). The influence oftropical climates on European constitutions. London, T. & J. Underwood. Kolnai, A., Smith, B. and Korsmeyer. C. (Eds.). (2004). On Disgust. Chicago: Open Court. Kuriyama, S. (1999). The expressiveness ofthe body and the divergence ofGreek and Chinese medicine. New York, N. Y.: Zone Books. Le Camus, A. (1753). Médecine de l'esprit. Paris: Ganeau, II. Le Camus, A. (1754). Abdeker: or, the art ofpreserving beauty. London: A. Millar. Lelarge de Lignac, J.-A. (1774). De l'homme et de la femme, considérés physiquement dans l'état du mariage. Lille: J.B. Henry, I. Levy-Navarro, E. (2008). The Culture ofObesity in Early and Late Modernity. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.

264

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

Losemann, V. (2012). The Spartan tradition in Germany, 1870-1945. In S. Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris (Eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought (pp.253-314). Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Mason, H. (2012). Sparta and the French Englightenment. In S. Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris (Eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought, (pp.71-104). Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Miller, W.I. (1997). The Anatomy ofDisgust. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Monaghan, L.F. (2008). Men and the War on Obesity: A Sociological Study. London: Routledge. Montanari, M. (1999). Peasants, Warriors, Priests: Images of Society and Styles of Diet. In J.-L. Flandrin and M. Montanari (Eds.), Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present, (pp.17885). New York: Columbia University Press. Nisbet, G. (2012). ‘This is cake-town!’: 300 (2006) and the death of allegory. In S. Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris (Eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought (pp.429-458). Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Nussbaum, M. (2004). Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press. O’Connell, S. (2007). 300 movie review, Retrieved from http://www.contactmusic.com/new/film.nsf/reviews/300. Ogilvie, J. (1859). The Imperial Dictionary, English, Technological and Scientific, Vol. I. Glasgow: Blackie and Son. Ollier, F. (1933). Le mirage spartiate. Étude sur l'idéalisation de Sparte dans l'antiquité grecque de l'origine jusqu'aux cyniques. Paris: Éditions du Boccard. Onishi, N. (2008). Japan, seeking trim waists, measures millions. New York Times, June 13. Orbach, S. (1978). Fat is a feminist issue. New York: Paddington Press, Pfeffer, W. (1997). Proverbs in Medieval Occitan Literature. University Press of Florida. Plato (1980). The Laws. T.L. Pangle (Trans.), New York: Basic Books. Plutarch (1934). The Life ofLycurgus, in The Parallel Lives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

265

Pyle, N.C. and Loewy, M.I. (2009). Double Stigma: Fat Men and their Male Admirers. In E. Rothblum and S. Solovay (Eds.), The Fat Studies Reader (pp.143-150). New York: NYU Press. Roche, H. (2012). Spartanische Pimpfe: The importance of Sparta in the educational ideology of the Adolf Hitler schools. In S. Hodkinson and I.Macgregor Morris (Eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought (pp.315-342). Swansea: Classical Press ofWales. Rogers, P. (2010). Fat is a Fictional Issue: The Novel and the Rise of Weight-Watching. In E. Levy-Navarro (Ed.), Historicizing Fat in Anglo-American Culture (pp.19-39). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Schonfeld, W.A. (1950). Inadequate Masculine Physique: A Factor in Personality Development ofAdolescent Boys. Psychosomatic Medicine 12, 49-54. Seneca (1979). Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. R.M. Gummere (Trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, vol. III Sheldon, W.H. (1940). The Varieties ofHuman Physique: An Introduction to Constitutional Psychology. New York: Harper & Brothers. Sheldon, W.H. (1944). The Varieties ofTemperament: A Psychology of Constitutional Differences. New York: Harper & Brothers. Sinha, M. (1995). Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Smith, R.R.R. (1997). The Public Image of Licinius I: Portrait Sculpture and Imperial Ideology in the Early Fourth Century. Journal of Roman Studies, 87, 170-202. Soranus (1991). Soranus’ Gynecology. O. Temkin (Trans.), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stearns, P.N. (1997). Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West. New York: NYU Press. Stevens, D. (2007). A Movie Only a Spartan Could Love: The Battle Epic 300. Slate Magazine (8 March). Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/id/2161450. Streets, H. (2004). Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

266

C. Forth - Spartan mirages

Tétart, G. (2004). Le sang des fleurs: une anthropologie de l’abeille et du miel. Paris: Odile Jacob. Theweleit, K. (1987). Male Fantasies, Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History. S. Conway (Trans.), Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tyler, J. (2007), 300 Movie review, March 1. Retrieved from http://www.cinemablend.com/reviews/300-2149.html. Varner, E.R. (2004). Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture. Leiden: Brill. Varro (1934). De Re Rustica. W. D. Hooper and H. B. Ash (Trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vertinsky, P. (2002). Embodying Normalcy: Anthropometry and the Long Arm ofWilliam H. Sheldon's Somatotyping Project. Journal ofSport History, 29, 95-133. Vialles, N. (1994). Animal to Edible. J.A. Underwood (Trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vigarello, G. (2010). Les métamorphoses du gras: histoire de l’obésité. Paris: Seuil. Virey, J.-J. (1815). EMBONPOINT. In Dictionnaire des sciences médicales (pp.508-11). Paris : C.L.F. Panckoucke, XI. Weiler, I. (2002). Inverted Kalokagathia. In T. Weidemann and J. Gardner (Eds.), Representing the Body ofthe Slave (pp.11-28). London: Frank Cass. Christopher E. Forth is the Jack and Shirley Howard Chair of Humanities & Western Civilization, Professor of History, and Courtesy Professor ofWomen, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Kansas, United States. Contact Address: Direct correspondece to Humanities & Western Civilization Program, University of Kansas, Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 308, Lawrence, KS 66045-7574 or at [email protected]

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

Gender, Masculinity, Femininity and Help Seeking in College Heath Marrs, Ellen A. Sigler, Robyn D. Brammer 1 1) Central Washington University, United States Date of publication: October 21th, 2012

To cite this article: Marrs, H., Sigler. E.A. & Brammer, R.D. (2012).Gender, Masculinity, Feminity and Help Seeking in College.Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3), 267-292. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.16 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.16

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non-Commercial and Non-Derivative License.

MCS – Msculinities and Social Change Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 267-292

Gender, Masculinity, Femininity and Help Seeking in College Heath Marrs& Robyn D. Brammer Central Washington University

Ellen A. Sigler

Western Carolina University

Abstract

The current academic performance struggles of college men is gaining increasing research attention (Sax, 2008a, 2008b), but few studies have explored the possible impact of gender-related attributes such as masculinity and femininity on academic help-seeking behaviors and academic performance. In this study of 567 college undergraduates, students who classified themselves as androgynous on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were more likely to engage in academic help-seeking behaviors than those classified as male sex-typed, female sex-typed, and undifferentiated. No significant differences were found for academic performance. These results highlight the importance of exploring the potential influence of gender-related constructs on academic behavior and performance. Keywords: academic help-seeking, gender differences in achievement, college students, androgyny

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.16

MCS – Msculinities and Social Change Vol. 1 No. 3 October 2012 pp. 267-292

Género, Masculinidad, Feminidad y "Help Seeking" en la Universidad Heath Marrs& Robyn D. Brammer Central Washington University

Ellen A. Sigler

Western Carolina University

Abstract

Los resultados académicos que están obteniendo los chicos universitarios está siendo una temática que despierta cada vez más el interés de la investigación (Sax, 2008a, 2008b), pero pocos estudios han analizado el posible impacto de los roles de género como la masculinidad y la feminidad en las actitudes ligadas al "help-seeking" académico y a los resultados académicos. En el presente estudio de 567 estudiantes de grado, estudiantes que se clasifican a si mismos como andróginos en el Inventario de roles de género de Bern, están más implicados en el "help-seeking académico que aquellos que están catalogados como hombres o mujeres, e indiferenciados. No se han diferencias respecto a los resultados académicos. Los resultados subrayan la importancia de explorar la influencia potencial de la construcción del género en los resultados y el comportamiento académico Palabras clave: "help-seeking" académico, diferencias de género en los resultados, estudiantes universitarios y androginia

2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.16

A

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

269

topic that is gaining increased attention in recent years is the educational status of boys and men in a number of industrialized societies (Weaver-Hightower, 2003). Relative to girls, boys are struggling in terms of behavior (higher rates of ADHD and behavioral disorders) and academic performance (girls earn higher grades and are more self-disciplined in K-12 education) (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006); also, women are more likely to engage in better study skills while in college, graduate from college, and pursue graduate education (Buchmann & Di Prete, 2006; Kinzie, Gonyea, Kuh, Umbach, Blaich, & Korkmaz, 2007; Sax, 2008a). Although the overwhelming focus in discussions of this new gender gap has been on differences between males and females, some researchers have suggested that a focus on gender, and more specifically on notions of masculinity and femininity, would be helpful in developing a better understanding of current gender differences (Laker & Davis, 2011). This focus acknowledges the fact that although on average there are significant gender differences in many educational outcomes, it may be more useful to focus on which variables influence differences in academic achievement within each gender (Sax, 2008b).   Although research indicates that male students are on average struggling academically, it may be important to determine how specifically this is manifesting itself, and exactly what characteristics are more related to academic problems. When examining academic success, it is important to understand the many components that make up such a complex phenomenon. That is, ability is simply one aspect of success in higher education; study strategies, time management, and psychological characteristics such as self-efficacy and anxiety are among the many other variables that play a role in academic achievement. In addition, seeking help in the academic environment, such as asking a professor for help or going to the university writing center, also plays a role (Karabanick & Newman, 2006). Academic help-seeking is a concept that has been relatively unexplored in the research literature on gender differences in educational achievement and it may prove useful in better understanding academic difficulties among men. Although a foundational research base has emerged on academic help-seeking (Karabenick & Newman, 2006), the question of how

270

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

concepts of masculinity and femininity relate to academic help-seeking has not been addressed. Considering the well-established finding that men are less likely to seek psychological help (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Chang, 2007; Quinn, Wilson, McIntyre, & Tinklin, 2009), it makes sense to examine whether men might also be less likely to seek help for academic issues. For example, are men who tend to endorse more traditional masculine norms also less likely to seek academic help, as the research on seeking out psychological help has documented (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Graef, Tokar, & Kaut, 2010; Mansfield, Addis, & Courtenay, 2005)? Although cultural and societal change has opened up the possibility for new conceptualizations of masculine behavior, the pressure on boys and men to act “masculine” continues to be strong (Pollack, 2006). In the current study we explored the potential impact of gender-related constructs by examining academic help-seeking behavior among students endorsing various gender role attributes as identified by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (masculine, feminine, androgynous, undifferentiated). If differences in academic help-seeking behavior are connected to gender-related constructs, then there may be multiple ways of addressing the current educational struggles of boys and men. The Paradox of Male Underachievement Traditional male role stereotypes emphasize competition, yet in academics, many male students do not seem to be competing for higher grades and academic recognition (Sax, 2008b). Concern for conforming to various gender roles approved by the culture and peer group intensifies and reaches a high point during adolescence, but the influence continues to be strong into the college years (Arnett, 2010). The combination of poor academic performance and an emphasis on winning, achievement, and competition among male students presents an interesting paradox. Despite the emphasis on competition in some conceptions of masculinity, many college men continue to struggle academically. This presents a need for a better understanding of the various potential influences on male underachievement.   Although the vast majority of the help-seeking literature in psychology has focused on the relationship between masculinity

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

271

and physical and mental health (Addis & Mahalik, 2003), recent research has opened the question of how gender-related constructs, including masculinity, relate to academic help-seeking. Wimer and Levant (2011) explored the relationships between various masculinity constructs and academic help-seeking behavior in psychology courses in a sample of 193 male undergraduates. They found that greater conformity to masculine norms and endorsement of some aspects of traditional masculinity ideology (self-reliance and dominance) was associated with engaging in fewer help-seeking behaviors. Wimer and Levant suggested that additional research is needed to test the generality of these findings beyond the particular context studied (help-seeking in psychology courses).   Previous research on help-seeking has also helped establish the importance of gender role (including masculinity) when considering possible sex differences in help-seeking behavior. Johnson (1988) examined the role of sex and gender attributes (as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Identity Questionnaire) on help-seeking attitudes (or attitudes towards counseling) among college undergraduates and found that both gender and sex role were important for understanding attitudes. As noted in other research, Johnson found that women were more open to seeking professional help, and students classified as feminine or androgynous were more likely to recognize a personal need for help and more confident in a professional’s ability to help with personal problems. No interactions were found between gender and sex role, leading Johnson to conclude that gender role in itself is an important variable to consider when examining help seeking behaviors. Johnson stated that when studying help-seeking behaviors it is important to consider sex role in addition to gender; a focus on gender may miss important ways in which men and women differ. Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny An important conceptual distinction in research on gender roles is the difference between the terms of sex, which refers to the biological status of being male and female, and gender, which refers to the social categories of male or female (Arnett, 2010). Rather than being rooted in biology, the term gender acknowledges the importance of cultural

272

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

beliefs, socialization, and other influences on how individuals experience being male or female. Although gender identity is relatively fixed and addresses how people perceive their own sense of being male or female, gender roles (or sex roles) may be more fluid. One way to explore gender roles among individuals is to measure their endorsement of traits that are typically considered masculine or feminine. The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) is a popular measure of traits that are viewed by individuals in American culture as masculine, feminine, and androgynous. For example, typically masculine traits include selfreliant, assertive, and ambitious while typically feminine traits include yielding, sympathetic, and warm . Bem referred to individuals who tended to endorse masculine sex roles as masculine-typed, and those who endorse feminine sex roles as feminine-typed. Individuals could also be classified as androgynous when they endorsed both masculine and feminine traits. A large body of literature has highlighted the potential benefits of androgynous sex roles for both men and women, as it allows individuals to express both masculine and feminine traits that are adaptive for various situations (Arnett, 2010). Role of Masculinity in Academic Motivation Although some studies have explored the relationship between masculinity and help-seeking (Farrimond, 2012), other research on the impact of masculinity on broader academic constructs is emerging. Kahn, Brett, and Holmes (2011) explored the role of masculinity for men's academic motivation in college. They emphasized the importance of focusing on gender-related concepts rather than sex when examining the significant difficulties men are facing in higher education. In a sample of 188 male students at a small liberal arts college, they found that conformity to various masculine norms was related to academic motivation. To measure conformity, the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (Mahalik et al., 2003) was used. Using canonical correlation analysis, two functions were significant. For the first function, as the variable of primacy of work decreased and playboy and violence increased, three types of intrinsic motivation decreased. For the second, as emotional control, disdain for homosexuality, self-reliance, and

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

273

winning decreased, two intrinsic motivation scores increased. Khan, Brett, and Holmes suggested that college men who conform to the masculine norms of violence and playboy (objectifying relationships) may tend to reject attributes perceived as feminine, such as positive academic behaviors.   Another related area of research is that focused on the concept of effortless achievement. In a qualitative study, Jackson and Dempster (2009) studied the reaction of high school and college age males to academic underachievement in Great Britain. They described the term effortless achievement as the notion that for a male student, it was “uncool” to work hard academically to succeed; it was acceptable to achieve as long as that achievement was attained without much effort, an accomplishment that only a few male students could attain. Although Jackson and Dempster found that this acceptance of effortless achievement was less prominent in higher education compared to the high school level, it was still evident in the responses of the college students in their sample. The concept of effortless achievement may be relevant to understanding academic help-seeking behavior. In contrast to effortless achievement, seeking out help for an academic challenge is an effortfull behavior. Male students influenced by the notion of effortless achievement may be less likely to seek out help when facing an academic difficulty.

Gender Attributes and Academic Achievement Gender attributes may also impact academic achievement and cognitive performance, although the research on this question has been inconclusive over the years (Olds & Shaver, 1980; Burke, 1989; Basu & Chakroborty, 1996). While Olds and Shaver (1980) found that feminine identity was associated with lower academic performance for both girls and boys, Burke (1989) found that feminine identity was associated with improved performance. Still other studies, such as Brewer and Blum (1979), found relative benefits in specific fields by gender; i.e., androgynous females (but not males) reported greater success in math and science, but not in other fields.

274

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

  Culture can also affect the way androgyny affects achievement. In a study of 121 undergraduate accounting students in Scotland, Paver and Gammie (2005) found that masculinity and femininity as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were not significantly related to academic performance. However, Shin, Yang and Edwards (2010) found that in a sample of American college females, students identifying as Androgynous scored significantly higher on the American College Test (ACT) than students identifying as feminine. It appears that androgyny and masculinity are associated with improved academic self-efficacy (Choi, 2004), but androgyny, in particular, may lead to a wider range of career options and academic choices (Long, 1982). This benefit for androgyny leading to increased options appears to hold true for girls more than boys (Braza, Carreras, Braza, & Muñoz, 2002). Considering the conflicting results in the literature, we also examined the possible influence of gender role on academic performance. Summary and Research Questions Research on the various possible impediments to help-seeking is important considering the difficulties men face in higher education. Compared to women, men are less likely to graduate from college, engage in less effective study strategies, and struggle with a variety of maladaptive behaviors (Marrs & Sigler, 2012; Sax, 2008a; Wilson, 2007). Although there is a large body of research on the relationships between masculinity and help seeking (Addis & Mahalik, 2003), it has focused primarily on help seeking for mental health or health-related issues. With the exception of Wimer and Levant (2011), no published research on masculinity, femininity and academic help seeking was found in the literature. The current study was conducted to help further explore the possible connections between gendered attitudes and academic help seeking among a sample of college undergraduates. Students reported their gender role and also how frequently they engaged in various academically-related help seeking behaviors, such as seeking out tutoring or visiting the writing center on campus. This study has the added benefit of asking students to report how often they engaged in various academic help-seeking behaviors, rather than their

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

275

attitudes towards seeking help (as many of the studies focused on psychological help-seeking have done).   The following research questions were explored: 1.Are gender and gender attributes related to the academic help seeking behaviors students engage in during college? 2.How are gender, masculinity, femininity and help seeking behaviors related to academic achievement? 3.Are there differences in academic performance based on gender and gender attributes? Method Participants

A total of 560 students (184 men (32.5%), 376 women (66.3%)) volunteered to participate from the psychology department research participation pool at a midsize university in the Western United States. For ethnicity, 18 students reported Asian (3.2%), 45 Hispanic/Latino (8.1%), 27 African-American (4.8%), 438 White-Caucasian (78.4%), 5 Native American (.9%), and 26 Other (4.7%). Year in college was 48.3% freshman, 18.2% sophomore, 21.3% junior, 11.3% senior, and .9% grad student or other. Instruments

Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem,

1974). The Bem Sex-Role Inventory is a widely-used measure of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. For this study, the 30-item Short Form version was used. Previous studies have demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency reliability, ranging from .75 to .90 (Hoffman & Borders, 2001). For the current study, Cronbach’s alpha was .83 for masculinity and .88 for femininity.   Academic Help-Seeking Behaviors Inventory. An eight-item rating scale of academic help-seeking behaviors was created for this study. Participants were asked to rate on a 4-point Likert-type scale how often they engaged in various help-seeking behaviors, such as gone to professors for assistance or asked other students for help (See Table 1 for items). Cronbach's Alpha for the scale was .76.

276

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

 

Demographic Questionnaire. Students were asked a number of demographic questions, including year in college, ethnicity, gender, and whether students transferred from another school. In addition, students were asked to provide their names and student ID numbers in order to obtain academic information from the registrar; 501 students (88%) gave consent to obtain academic records and provided the information, while 71 students (12%) declined.

Table 1

Items in the Academic Help-Seeking Scale

1. Gone to professors for assistance 2. Asked other students for help 3. Sought help from friends 4. Sought help with my general study skills this semester 5. Sought help from support services 6. Gone to the University Writing Center on campus 7. Sought tutoring on campus 8. Gone to career services

Procedure Students selected the study from a list of potential studies on the psychology department research participation website. After consenting to participate, students completed the web-based survey instrument online. Students were asked to provide their name and student ID number in order to access records from the university registrar. At the completion of the study, a variety of academic performance data were obtained, including current college GPA, high school GPA, number of units completed, and SAT or ACT scores. Results Research Question 1: Are gender and gender attributes related to the academic help seeking behaviors students engage in during college? A

two-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if there were significant differences in help-seeking behaviors by gender (male of female) or

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

277

Bem sex role classification (Androgynous, Female Sex-Typed, Male Sex-Typed, Undifferentiated). A help-seeking behaviors composite score was created by averaging the ratings of the eight help-seeking behaviors. The interaction between gender and sex role was not significant, F(3, 550) = .40, p = .78. Also, the effect of gender was not significant as there were no significant differences between men (M = 17.1, SD = 4.21) and women (M = 17.0, SD = 3.84) on help-seeking behaviors, F(1, 550) = .46, p = .50. However, the effect of sex role was significant, F(3, 550) = 8.50, p < .001. See Table 2 for means by gender and sex role. Post Hoc tests (Tukey) revealed that students classified as Androgynous (M = 18.15; SD = 3.97) were significantly (p < .05) more likely to engage in academic help-seeking behaviors than students classified as female sex-typed (M = 16.34; SD = 3.70; Cohen's d = .47), male sex-typed (M = 15.93; SD = 3.73; d = .57), or undifferentiated (16.45; SD = 4.22; d = .42). Each of the effect sizes as measured by Cohen's d (.47, .57, and .42 respectively) would be considered medium effects (Cohen, 1992). No other differences were significant.

278

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

Table 2

Means and Standard Deviations for Help-Seeking Behavior by Gender and Bem Sex Role Classification

Male   Androgynous   Female Sex -Typed   Male Sex - Typed   Undifferentiated   Total

N

M

SD

75 53 29 27 184

18.00 16.47 16.00 16.96 17.10

4.34 3.68 3.67 5.03 4.21

Female   Androgynous   Female Sex - Typed   Male Sex – Typed   Undifferentiated   Total

152 165 26 31 374

18.22 16.30 15.81 16.00 17.02

3.79 3.71 3.87 3.38 3.84

Total   Androgynous   Female Sex – Typed   Male Sex – Typed   Undifferentiated   Total

227 218 55 58 558

18.15 16.34 15.93 16.45 17.05

3.97 3.70 3.73 4.22 3.97

Note:

Effect sizes (Cohen's d) for differences for the total sample were: Androgynous/Female Sex-Typed: .47, Androgynous/Male Sex-Typed: .57, Androgynous/Undifferentiated: .42.

  In order to examine more specifically the contributors to the significant effects, a two-way ANOVA (gender by sex-role classification) was run separately for men and women. For men, sexrole was not significant F(3, 180) = 2.20, p = .09. For women, sex-role was significant F(3, 370) = 8.95, p < .001, with women who were classified as Androgynous (M = 18.22, SD = 3.79) scoring significantly higher (p < .05) on help seeking than those classified as female sex-

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

279

typed (M = 16.30, SD = 3.71; d = .51), undifferentiated (M = 16.00, SD = 3.38; d = .60), and male sex-typed (M = 15.81, SD = 3.87; d = .63). As with the total sample, each of the effect sizes (.51, .60, and .63 respectively) would be considered medium effects (Cohen, 1992).   An additional analysis was conducted to see if there were differences in the percentage of students who ever reported seeking out various services on campus based on sex-role classification. Responses of “never” were considered one group, while responses of “rarely”, “sometimes”, and “always” were collapsed into another group, creating a variable of “did” or “did not” seek out services. Chi-square tests were conducted to test for significant differences in the distributions of “did” or “did not” seek out services based on sex-role classification. Sex-role classification was significantly associated with four help seeking behaviors, including “Gone to professors for help” (χ2 = 8.2, df = 3, Cramer’s V = .12), “Asked other students for help” (χ2 = 14.6, df = 3, Cramer’s V = .16), “Sought help with my general study skills this semester” (χ2 = 16.0, df = 3, Cramer’s V = .17), and “Sought help from support services” (χ2 = 13.7, df = 3, Cramer’s V = .16). For each of the behaviors, students classified as androgynous had the highest percentage (See Table 3). Follow-up post hoc 2 x 2 chi-square tests were conducted to examine how androgynous students differed from the others. To control for Type I error while conducting multiple comparisons, a Bonferroni correction was applied (.05/12, setting the significance level at .004). Androgynous students (99%) were significantly more likely to “ask other students for help” than male sex-typed (89%) and undifferentiated (91%). Androgynous students (81%) were significantly more likely to endorse “sought help with my general study skills this semester” than female sex-typed students (66%), and androgynous students (69%) were significantly more likely to endorse “sought help from support services” than female sex-typed students (54%).

280

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

Table 3

Percentage ofStudents who Sought Help On Campus

Help-Seeking Item

Androgynous Female Male Undifferentiated Pearson Chi(n = 227) Sex-Typed Sex-Typed (n = 58) square (n = 218) (n = 55) P 95

P 89

P 86

P 91

8.2*

Asked other students for help

99

96

89

91

14.6**

Sought help from friends

96

96

93

98

2.4

Sought help with my general study skills this semester

81

66

66

66

16.0**

Sought help from support services

69

54

49

35

13.7*

Gone to the University Writing Center on campus

37

30

27

28

3.9

Sought tutoring on campus

30

22

26

31

3.6

Gone to career services

36

30

26

31

3.0

Gone to professors for help

Research Question 2: How are gender, masculinity, femininity, and help seeking behaviors related to academic achievement?

In order to address this question, simultaneous multiple regression analyses were conducted with gender, masculinity, femininity, and help seeking behaviors as predictor variables and college cumulative grade point average (GPA) as the outcome variable. The regression model was significant F = 6.24, p < .001, R2 = .05, adjusted R2 = .04. Significant predictors were gender (beta = .10) and help-seeking total (-.19). Gender

281 (female) was a positive contributor to academic performance, while help-seeking total was a negative predictor. Although the variables explained a relatively small proportion of the variance, they did contribute in ways consistent with previous research. Gender differences in academic performance are well-documented (Sax, 2008b); also, it makes sense that students who are having difficulty academically would be most likely to seek out help such as tutoring or the writing center.   Research Question 3: Are there differences in academic performance based on gender and sex-role classification? In order to address this question, a 2 (male, female) x 4 (masculine sex-typed, feminine sextyped, androgynous, undifferentiated) ANOVA with college cumulative GPA as the dependent variable was conducted. No significant effects on GPA were found for gender (F(1, 373) = 3.50, p = .06), sex-role classification (F(3, 473) = .80, p = .50), or the interaction of gender and sex-role classification, F(3, 473) = .99, p = .40). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

Discussion This study explored various questions related to the relationship between gender attributes (as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory) and academic help-seeking behavior and performance. Although there is considerable discussion of gender differences in the research literature on academic achievement, there has been less of a focus on genderrelated constructs that may help illuminate the considerable variations within each gender (see Sax, 2008b). In the current study we explored the potential role of gender attributes in academic help-seeking behavior and academic performance. Gender Attributes and Academic Help-Seeking Although there were no differences between men and women in this study in academic help-seeking behaviors, there was a significant effect for masculinity and femininity. As predicted from the broader literature on the benefits of androgyny and trends in help-seeking behavior in men, those students who were classified as androgynous on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were more likely than students classified as female sex-typed, male sex-typed, or undifferentiated to report seeking help in college. Also, students who were classified as masculine-typed had the

282

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

lowest mean help-seeking score, although there were no significant differences between feminine sex-typed, masculine sex-typed, or undifferentiated students.   In addition to examining the benefits of androgyny for total academic help-seeking behavior, we also examined differences for specific helpseeking behaviors. Consistent with the results for the total score, students who were classified as androgynous were significantly more likely to report engaging in four specific help-seeking behaviors, including going to professors for help, asking other students for help, seeking help for general study skills, and seeking help from support services. For some of these behaviors, the differences in the percentage of students seeking that type were fairly large. For example, for the item “sought help from support services,” 69% of students classified as androgynous reported seeking help, while the corresponding percentages for female-sex typed, male-sex typed, and undifferentiated were 54%, 49%, and 35%, respectively.   One possible explanation for the significant differences between Androgynous and other participants is the concept of “effortless achievement” identified by Jackson and Dempster (2009). In their study of high school and college men in England, Jackson and Dempster found that male students generally were not engaged in academic activities unless the activities they were pursuing came easily or without much effort. Male students generally agreed that academic success was acceptable, but only if someone was naturally good at it. Having to work hard to achieve was not acceptable for a male student, as it implied that the student was not as capable as others and was a sign of weakness.   Female students, while increasingly academically successful, also contend with what it means to be a “good girl.” Skelton, Francis, and Read (2010) argue that girls must blend pressures to succeed in school with mastering feminine frameworks such as fashion, make-up, dating relationships, and socials. The authors contend that if girls lacked the physical beauty to “do girl” and excel at social settings, they may opt for more “masculine” traits like cleverness. When demands to be acceptingly feminine become increasingly important, some of the girls in their study would learn to be quiet in class and avoid showing their

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

283

intelligence. This finding could help to explain why androgyny appeared to benefit female students more than boys in this study. Androgynous girls may be more likely to disregard appearing geeky and simply show their cleverness. Gender, Masculinity, Femininity, Help-Seeking and Academic Performance Another research question addressed in this study was the relationship between gender, masculinity, femininity, help-seeking, and academic performance. Although gender and academic help-seeking (but not masculinity and femininity) were significant predictors of academic performance as measured by cumulative college GPA, the predictors accounted for only a small proportion of the variance (4%). This means that the majority of the variance in academic performance was predicted by other variables. This lack of significance for masculinity and femininity was surprising considering the previous research findings addressing masculinity and academic performance. The majority of the current literature on masculinity and academic achievement is qualitative (Archer, Pratt, & Phillips, 2001; Connell, 1989; Jackson & Dempster, 2009; Morris, 2011), so there is little in terms of previous quantitative estimates of how important masculinity is to predicting achievement in comparison to other variables. The general findings of the qualitative research on the relationship between masculinity and academic-related variables is that masculinity is an important variable for academic engagement, particularly for those students who subscribe to traditional notions of masculinity in modern, Western societies (such as Great Britain and the United States). These studies have noted that male students are influenced tremendously by the pressures of 'hegemonic masculinity', and many male students may pay a tremendous social cost among male peers if they engage in 'feminine' behaviors such as reading, studying, and showing interest in intellectual or academic matters.   In this study, masculinity as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory was not a significant predictor of academic performance. Future research is needed to help clarify the potential relationships between aspects of masculinity (gender role, masculinity ideology,

284

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

conformity to masculine norms) and academic performance. Although qualitative research has identified numerous ways that conceptions of masculinity may impact the academic experience, more quantitative research is needed. It may be that masculinity and femininity are related to academic performance, but only in particular contexts. For example, at the college level gender attributes may be related to performance in certain academic majors, but not others. The lack of significant findings in the current study may also be reflective of the considerable limitations of the Bem Inventory as a measure of masculinity. Recent research has noted the changing trends in the endorsement of masculinetyped and feminine-typed characteristics over the years (Twenge, 1997), with women becoming more likely to endorse masculine-typed characteristics and men continuing to resist feminine-typed characteristics. Because of the significant cultural changes in the years since the Bem was first developed, the instrument may be less sensitive to characteristics of masculinity and femininity. Also, many new instruments measuring masculinity-related variables have been developed, enabling a more detailed examination of the various components of masculinity (Levant, 2011). Sex Role Classification and Academic Performance Previous studies found conflicting results regarding the relationship between sex-role classification and academic performance, with some studies finding that feminine identity was associated with lower academic performance (Olds & Shaver, 1980) and other studies finding it associated with improved performance (Burke, 1989). In addition, more recent studies (Paver & Gammie, 2005) have found no relationship between sex-role and academic performance. In the current study, no significant differences in academic performance (as measured by cumulative college GPA) were found based on sex-role classification. Considering the results of the current study and those of Paver and Gammie (2005), it appears that sex-role classification has little if any impact on academic performance as measured by GPA.   The lack of significant differences based on sex-role classification is interesting considering findings from various qualitative studies

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

285

identifying the resistance to education among many male students who take on highly traditional, masculine roles (Archer, Pratt, & Phillips, 2001; Connell, 1989, Jackson & Dempster, 2009; Morris, 2011). In the current study, male sex-typed men achieved at about the same level academically and were no less likely to seek out help than males who were female sex-typed or undifferentiated. These results indicate that further research is needed to explore which aspects of masculinity are related to disengagement and poor academic performance. It is possible that some masculine attributes (such as those measured by the Bem Sex Role Inventory) have minimal to no relationship to academics, while other aspects, such as the notion of effortless achievement identified by Jackson and Dempster (2009), may be central to understanding academic achievement. Future qualitative and quantitative research would help clarify which variables are important. Implications A key finding of the current study is the apparent educational benefit of androgyny for college students. Students who were classified as androgynous were more likely to report engaging in a number of behaviors helpful for academic success, such as going to professors for assistance, asking other students for help, and seeking out various support services. Androgyny has been identified by previous research as being beneficial for a number of developmental attainments (Arnett, 2010), and the current study provides evidence for its important in seeking out academically-related help.   The results of the current study raise the question of the relevance of gender attributes to not only personal development, but also the academic development of students. If future studies also find connections between gender attributes and academic-related variables (i.e. academic help-seeking, engagement), then a greater focus on gender identity development in school settings may be warranted. For example, O'Neil and Luján (2009) outlined a proactive prevention approach for addressing the interpersonal and achievement problems of boys. They proposed a psychoeducational program that focuses on life skills and the ability to deal with issues of masculinity and gender role conflict.

286

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

  These results may also have implications for interventions for male academic performance issues. For example, a popular current approach is to focus on the unique learning styles of boys, as promoted by Gurian (2011). Although the evidence of a unique gender-based learning style is still mixed, it may be helpful to also think about how beliefs about gender may impact men's and women's behavior in academic settings. Perhaps a greater focus on how conceptions of masculinity and femininity (i.e. what behaviors are considered appropriately masculine or feminine) might impact the educational experiences of male and female students would be a useful addition to the discussion about possible gender differences in learning.   These findings also reinforce the notion of feminist counseling interventions, which include assertiveness training. Highly feminine females in this study were significantly less likely to seek help than androgynous females. There is some evidence that assertiveness and feelings of academic self-efficacy may be associated with adjustment within college settings (Poyrazli, Arbona, Nora, McPherson, & Pisecco, 2002). Raising androgyny scores may increase assertiveness in females and social skills in males, which could lead to better interconnectedness and improved retention rates. Suggestions for Future Research The results of this study indicate that continued research on the impact of gender attributes for academic development may be useful in understanding the unique experiences of all students in the college environment. More research on all aspects and variations of gender would be useful, but a focus on the experiences of men may be an especially helpful contribution to the discussions of gender differences in achievement. Harris and Harper (2008) noted that little research attention has been paid to male gender identity development.   Another promising research direction would be to explore these same questions in an adolescent sample. As adolescence is a time when gender concerns intensify (Arnett, 2010), there is potential for even stronger effects than those found in the current college sample. Is androgyny associated with more adaptive academic help-seeking at the

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

287

high school level? How might adherence to masculine, feminine, or androgynous sex roles impact the achievement related behavior of adolescents? Exploring these questions would likely help inform approaches to encourage healthy identity development for all adolescents. Limitations A number of limitations should be considered when evaluating the results of this study. The male participants in this study did not follow national trends, and they were more likely to identify as feminine than masculine. This could have affected the way masculinity and femininity were conceptualized. Additionally, the self-report nature of the academic help-seeking measure is a limitation. Students self-reported how frequently they sought various types of help on campus (i.e. from professors, the writing centers, etc.). It is possible that students who were more likely to endorse feminine or masculine-typed traits were also more likely to report seeking help, regardless of the actual frequency of help-seeking behaviors. Although this is a limitation of much self-report research, future studies could incorporate actual attendance records to verify the frequency of behaviors. Also, although the Bem Sex-Role Inventory is the most popular measure of sex-role in the research literature, recent developments in the conceptualization of the concepts of masculinity and femininity have highlighted the limitations of viewing these concepts of 'masculinity' as a single construct. Future research using instruments that measure the multiple dimensions of masculinity and femininity would be helpful in identifying which aspects of masculinity and femininity are associated with academic help-seeking.

288

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

References Addis, M.E. & Mahalik, J.R. (2003). Men, masculinity, and the contexts of help seeking. American Psychologist, 58, 5-14. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.58.1.5 Archer, L., Pratt, S.D., & Phillips, D. (2001). Working-class men's constructions of masculinity and negotiations of (non)participation in higher education. Gender and Education, 13 , 431-449. doi: 10.1080/09540250120081779 Arnett, J.J. (2010). Adolescence and emerging adulthood: A cultural approach . Boston: Prentice Hall. Basu, J., & Chakroborty, U. (1996). Effect of sex role identity on academic achievement of late adolescents in India. The Journal ofSocial Psychology, 136, 257-259. doi: 10.1080/00224545.1996.9714001 Bem, S.L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal ofConsulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162. doi: 10.1037/h0036215 Braza, P., Carreras, R., Braza, F., & Muñoz, J. (2002). Androginia, amplitud de comportamiento y ajuste social en niños y niñas de educación infantil. Avances En Psicologia Clinica Latinoamericana, 20 101-110. Available at: http://www.revista iaf.abacolombia.org.co/es/pdf/v1n1/v1n1_10.pdf Brewer, M. B., & Blum, M. W. (1979). Sex-role androgyny and patterns of causal attribution for academic achievement. Sex Roles, 5, 783-796. doi:10.1007/BF00287938 Buchmann, C., & DiPrete, T. A. (2006). The growing female advantage in college completion: The role of family background and academic achievement. American Sociological Review, 71 , 515541. doi: 10.1177/000312240607100401 Burke, P.J. (1989). Gender identity, sex and school performance. School Psychology Quarterly, 52, 152-169. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2786915 Chang, H. (2007). Psychological distress and help-seeking among Taiwanese college students: Role of gender and student status. B ritish Journal ofGuidance & Counselling, 35(3), 347-355. doi:10.1080/03069880701418789

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

289

Choi, N. (2004). Sex role group differences in specific, academic, and general self-efficacy. Journal ofPsychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 138, 149-159. doi:10.3200/JRLP.138.2.149-159 Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155-159. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155 Connell, R.W. (1989). Cool guys, swots, and wimps: The interplay of masculinity and education . Oxford Review of Education, 15, 291-303. doi: 10.1080/0305498890150309 Duckworth, A.L., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2006). Self-discipline gives girls the edge: Gender in self-discipline, grades, and achievement test scores. Journal ofEducational Psychology, 98, 198-208. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.98.1.198 Farrimond, H. (2012). Beyond the caveman: Rethinking masculinity in relation to men’s help-seeking. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study ofHealth, Illness and Medicine, 16(2), 208-225. doi:10.1177/1363459311403943

Graef, S. T., Tokar, D. M., & Kaut, K. P. (2010). Relations of masculinity ideology, conformity to masculine role norms, and masculine gender role conflict to men's attitudes toward and willingness to seek career counseling. Psychology OfMen & Masculinity, 11 (4), 319-333. doi:10.1037/a0019383 Gurian, M. (2011). Boys and girls learn differently! San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Harris, F., & Harper, S.R. (2008). Masculinities go to community college: Understanding male identity socialization and gender role conflict. New Directions for Community Colleges, 142, 2535. doi: 10.1002/cc.322 Hoffman, R.M., & Borders, L.D. (2001). Twenty-five years after the Bem Sex-Role Inventory: A reassessment and new issues regarding classification variability. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 34, 39-55. Available at: http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/listing.aspx?id=2192 Jackson, C., & Dempster, S. (2009). ‘I sat back on my computer … with a bottle of whisky next to me’: constructing ‘cool’ masculinity through ‘effortless’ achievement in secondary and higher education. Journal ofGender Studies, 18, 341-356. doi: 10.1080/09589230903260019

290

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

Johnson, M.E. (1988). Influences of gender and sex role orientation on help-seeking attitudes. Journal ofPsychology, 122, 237-241. doi: 10.1080/00223980.1988.9915510 Kahn, J.S., Brett, B.L., & Holmes, J.R. (2011) Concern with men's academic motivation in higher education: An exploratory investigation of the role of masculinity. Journal ofMen's Studies, 19, 65-82. doi: 10.1080/00223980.1988.9915510 Karabenick, S.A., & Newman, R.S. (Eds.) (2006). Help-seeking in academic settings: Goals, groups, and contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kinzie, J., Gonyea, R., Kuh, G.D., Umbach, P., Blaich, C., & Korkmaz, A. (2007, November). The relationship between gender and student engagement in college. Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Conference ofthe Association for the Study ofHigher Education , Louisville, KY. Laker, J.A., & Davis, T. (Eds.) (2011). Masculinities in higher education: Theoretical and practical considerations. New York:

Routledge. Levant, R.F. (2011). Research in the psychology of men and masculinity using the gender role strain paradigm as a framework. American Psychologist, 66,765-776. doi: 10.1037/a0025034 Long, V. O. (1982). Ending the perpetuation of sex-role stereotypes in our schools: A possible consequence of psychological androgyny. Psychology in the Schools, 19, 250-254. doi:10.1002/15206807(198204)19:23.0.CO;2-3 Mahalik, J.R., Locke, B.D., Ludlow, L.H., Diemer, M.A., Scott, R.P.J., Gottfied, M., & Freitas, G. (2003). Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory. Psychology ofMen & Masculinity, 4, 3-25. doi: 10.1037/1524-9220.4.1.3 Mansfield, A.K., Addis, M.E., & Courtenay, W. (2005). Measurement of men’s help seeking: Development and evaluation of the Barriers to Help Seeking scale. Psychology ofMen & Masculinity, 6, 95108. doi: 10.1037/1524-9220.6.2.95 Marrs, H., & Sigler, E.A. (2012). Male academic performance in college: The possible role of study strategies. Psychology ofMen & Masculinity, 13 , 227-241. doi: 10.1037/a0022247

MCS – Masculinities and Social Change 1 (3)

291

Morris, E.W. (2011). Bridging the gap: 'Doing gender', 'hegemonic masculinity', and the educational troubles of boys. Sociology Compass, 5, 92-103. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2010.00351.x Olds, D.E., & Shaver, P. (1980). Masculinity, femininity, academic performance and health: Further evidence concerning the androgyny controversy. Journal ofPersonality, 48, 323-341. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1980.tb00837.x O'Neil, J.M., & Luján, M.L. (2009). Preventing boys' problems in schools through psychoeducational programming: A call to action. Psychology in the Schools, 46, 257-266. doi: 10.1002/pits.20371 Paver, B., & Gammie, E. (2005). Constructed gender, approach to learning and academic performance. Accounting Education: An International Journal, 14, 427-444. doi: 10.1080/06939280500347142 Pollack, W.S. (2006). The “war” for boys: Hearing “real boys” voices, healing their pain. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37, 190-195. doi: 10.1037/0735-7028.37.2.190 Poyrazli, S., Arbona, C., Nora, A., McPherson, R., & Pisecco, S. (2002). Relation between assertiveness, academic self-efficacy, and psychosocial adjustment among international graduate students. Journal ofCollege Student Development, 43 , 632-642. Available at: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2002-04434-002 Quinn, N., Wilson, A., McIntyre, G., & Tinklin, T. (2009). People look at you differently: Students experience of mental health support within higher education. British Journal ofGuidance and Counselling, 37, 405-418. doi: 10.1080/03069880903161385 Sax, L. (2008a). Her college experience is not his. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 55(5), A32-A33. Sax, L. (2008b). The gender gap in college: Maximizing the developmental potential ofwomen and men . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shin, K.H., Yang, J.A., & Edwards, C.E. (2010). Gender role identity among Korean and American college students: Links to gender and academic achievement. Social Behavior and Personality, 38, 267-272. doi: 10.2224/sbp.2010.38.2.267

292

Marrs, Sigler, Brammer - Gender and help seeking

Skelton, C., Francis, B., & Read, B. (2010). “Brains before 'beauty'?” High achieving girls, school and gender identities. Educational Studies, 36(2), 185-194. doi:10.1080/03055690903162366 Twenge, J.M. (1997). Changes in masculine and feminine traits over time: A meta-analysis. Sex Roles, 36, 305-325. doi: 10.1007/BF02766650 Weaver-Hightower, M. (2003). The “boy turn” in research on gender and education. Review ofEducational Research, 73 , 471-498. doi: 10.3102/00346543073004471 Wilson, R. (2007). The new gender divide. The Chronicle ofHigher Education, 21 , A36-A39. Available at: http://www.nkms.com/articles/Chronicle%20Gender%20Article. pdf Wimer, D.J. & Levant, R.F. (2011). The relation of masculinity and help-seeking style with the academic help-seeking behavior of college men. Journal ofMen's Studies, 19, 256-274. doi: 10.3149/jms.1903.256 Heath Marrs is assistant professor of Psychology at Central Washington University. Ellen Sigler is associate professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University. Robyn Brammer is associate professor of Psychology at Central Washington University and director of School Counseling and Mental Health Counseling Programs. Contact Address: Direct correspondece to Heath Marrs, Department of Psychology, Central Washington University, 400 E. University Way, Ellensburg, WA, 98926, USA, or at [email protected]

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

Excess and masculinity in Asian cultural productions Beatriz Villarejo1 1) Departamento de Periodismo y Ciencias de la Comunicacion, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, España Date of publication: October 21st, 2012

To cite this review: Villarejo, B. (2012) Excess and masculinity in Asian cultural productions. Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3),293 ­295. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.17 To link this review: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.17

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­ Derivative License.

MCS – Masculinity and social change, Vol. 1 No. 3, October 2012 pp. 293- 295

Reviews (I) Lo, K. (2010). Excess and masculinity in Asian cultural productions. Albany: New York Press. ISBN: 978-1-4384-3209-0 La lectura de Lo a través de esta obra nos sirve para situarnos por duplicado en la relación existente entre los medios y la masculinidad en Asia y, a la vez, en el papel socializador masculino que juegan los medios en todo el mundo. Nuestra sociedad global necesita de propuestas atrevidas como ésta que analicen detalladamente el papel de los medios en la construcción de masculinidades tradicionales o alternativas.   En su propuesta, Kwai-Chung Lo se sitúa desde una perspectiva en la que mezcla ideario Marxista, así como afirmaciones lacanianas, desde la teoría de género en la descripción de los productos culturales del Este Asiático. Desde la traducción china de la marca ‘Coca-Cola’, hasta las más genuinamente asiáticas como las religiones y su trascendencia nacional y transnacional. En algunos momentos también destaca su abordaje, desde la perspectiva de género marxista-lacaniana que le caracteriza, –a través de los diferentes capítulos– de productos culturales como: libros sobre paternidad, películas asiáticas de gánsteres, mujeres luchadoras y su masculinidad dominante o las fantasías literarias ligadas a experiencias de transgénero.   El libro está estructurado/dividido en 7 capítulos –incluyendo la introducción-. En el nos habla sobre la modernidad asiática y su inasimilable exceso masculino donde presenta la totalidad del libro viajando desde la superpoblación de hombres frente al menor número de mujeres y las connotaciones que eso tiene también en la producción 2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.17

294

Bea Villarejo - Excess and masculinity

cultural y en las diferentes maneras en las que los asiáticos diseñan la socialización en lo masculino, contraponiéndolo a la supuesta feminidad que, desde los países occidentales, se ha otorgado a la cultura asiática. Kwai-Chung nos ofrece con este libro una oportunidad para desmontar, a través de la mirada de un asiático todos los prejuicios que pudiéramos tener desde occidente. También nos enfrenta ante otra socialización mediática en los valores más tradicionales de la masculinidad, poniendo de manifiesto cómo ésta también se fomenta desde la perspectiva cultural asiática.   Este libro es, pues, un compendio de ideas que nos ha de ayudar a crecer en el entendimiento de la importancia del trabajo teórico y práctico hacia una masculinidad alternativa. No hallaremos muchos ejemplos de esto segundo en el libro de Lo, pero sí un sinfín de todo lo que queda por abordar y cuestionar desde posturas alternativas al orden masculino establecido, también en Asia. Esto Lo lo hace desde los siguientes títulos: Fantasmas étnicos en la concha asiática: mezcla racial y cine transnacional (Capítulo 1); El otro racial y la hombría violenta en los escritos de Murakami Haruki sobre China (Capítulo 2);

Convirtiéndose en una mujer en los escritos masculinos de la Sociedad China de Hong Kong (Capítulo 3), La masculinidad luchadora de las mujeres: Modernidad y antagonismo en las películas de mujeres guerreras (Capítulo 4); Exceso étnico en las películas sobre minorías (Capítulo 5) y Modernización limpia, el juego del matrimonio-web y los hombres chinos en la realidad virtual (Capítulo 6).

  En todos estos capítulos, encontraremos una interesante exposición sobre las repercusiones del crecimiento económico en Asia desde la perspectiva particular de Lo, dónde veremos cómo el autor argumenta la relación entre el exceso de la producción capitalista y su influencia sobre la producción mediática y cultural a gran escala, con la generación de una masculinidad transnacional en Asia.   Una propuesta que, tras su intensiva descripción, abre la puerta a la necesidad de abordar el crecimiento de la producción cultural asiática desde una perspectiva crítica que sea capaz de tener más en cuenta la importancia de los roles de género que se defienden y su impacto en la sociedad. Según Lo esa responsabilidad recae en aportar nuevas ideas que puedan superar la aportación cultural hegemónica del capitalismo global desde la construcción transnacional de una modernidad global

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

295

crítica capaz de ofrecer alternativas culturales que superen el exceso de masculinidad tradicional. Beatriz Villarejo. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona [email protected]

Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com

Transformar a los hombres: un reto social Miguel Ángel Pulido1 1) Facultad de Educación Social y Trabajo Social, Universitat Ramon Llull, España Date of publication: October 21st, 2012

To cite this review: Pulido, M.A. (2012) Transformar a los hombres: un reto social. Masculinities and Social Change, 1(3),296­298. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2012.18 To link this review: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2012.18

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Non­Commercial and Non­ Derivative License.

MCS – Masculinity and social change, Vol. 1 No. 3, October 2012 pp. 296-298

Reviews (II) Gabarró, D. (2008). Transformar a los hombres: un reto social. Lleida: Boira Editorial. ISBN: 978-84-612-6387-5 Mediante una presentación clara y directa, Gabarró nos ofrece la oportunidad de profundizar sobre lo que significa ser Hombre hoy día y las diferentes maneras de vivir la masculinidad. El enfoque, muy cercano a la perspectiva iniciada por autores como Michael Kimmel o Raewyn Connell y James Messerschmidt, ofrece de manera clara y bien estructurada datos y pautas que sirven para comprender la configuración y el efecto negativo de lo que Gabarró llama Identidad Masculina Machista. Por suerte, Gabarró no se queda en la mera descripción de ese tipo de identidad sino que también enumera las distintas razones que deberían llevarnos a trabajar para enfrentarnos al gran problema social que se deriva de ese tipo de identidad a la vez que nos acerca propuestas para llevarlo a cabo.   En la primera parte del libro, la intención de Gabarró es acercar al lector o lectora a los conceptos fundamentales que sustentan su exposición: sexo y género, género e identidad y las características clave de nuestra sociedad en base a tres modelos actitudinales represivos y opresivos como son el sexista, el patriarcal y el heterosexista. La segunda parte, la más extensa de la publicación, entra a fondo a analizar las consecuencias sociales de la hegemonía en los hombres de la Identidad Masculina Machista. Especialmente relevante es la demostración que, a través de datos concretos, hace el autor sobre la necesidad de abordar esa construcción y ejecución de la masculinidad como un problema social y no como una realidad personal de algunos hombres a la que dar respuesta de manera individual y aislada. Para ello, 2012 Hipatia Press ISSN 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.2012.18

MCS - Masculinities and Social Change, 1 (3)

297

previamente desarrolla lo que se entiende por lo que es un hombre de verdad desde la perspectiva de la identidad masculina machista, enmarcándolo en tres grandes premisas: el 'hombre de verdad' es: distinto a la mujer, superior a la mujer y está obligado a usar la violencia.   Gabarró ofrece argumentos que sitúan a la identidad masculina machista y los valores que impregna en el hombre que se socializa en ella como principal responsable de consecuencias como: el fracaso escolar, las conductas disruptivas escolares, el bulling, la población penitenciaria, la ejecución de la violencia de género , el acoso sexual y las violaciones, la homofobia, e incluso los accidentes laborales y de tráfico , entre otras. Mediante su aproximación correctamente argumentada -los datos que ofrece son especialmente reveladores- el autor va ofreciendo claros argumentos sobre la necesidad de abordar cada uno de estos apartados desde la perspectiva de género y de análisis de la masculinidad con una actitud transformadora que pretenda superar el legado hegemónico y destructivo. El autor enumera también otro tipo de intuiciones que pueden ser también de utilidad en la hora de plantear futuros proyectos de investigación en el ámbito. Dentro de un grupo que ha pasado a llamar 'Otras consecuencias' expone: Coste sanitario y menor esperanza de vida, relaciones personales insatisfactorias, Conductas de riesgo y analfabetismo emocional, entre otras.

  Finalmente, en la tercera y última parte del libro, 'Construyendo propuestas', una vez fundamentado y aclarado el gran problema social que genera la identidad masculina machista, Gabarró muestra tanto ideas como realidades que han de ayudar o, en el mejor de los casos, están ayudando ya a transformar y superar el poder negativo de esa masculinidad hegemónica. Remarcable es la continua orientación a lo largo de todo el libro y que, en esta parte final, gana enteros, hacia el enfoque social y no individual que debe dársele al estudio práctico y académico de la masculinidad. En esta parte el autor cierra su exposición ofreciendo ejemplos de proyectos basados en valores de nuevas masculinidades que, por suerte, ya están en marcha desde hace algunos años y con resultados exitosos en su puesta en práctica. Algunos de ellos son: Hombres por la igualdad, Gizonduz o AHIGE (Asociación de Hombres para la Igualdad de Género).

298

Miguel Ángel Pulido - Transformar a los hombres

En definitiva, una obra breve pero clara e impulsora, sin duda, de un cambio social fundamental en la orientación de la masculinidad. Un libro que debe dar respuesta a lo que el propio autor declara en sus conclusiones: Colectivamente, debemos promover cualquier acción que

promueva identidades masculinas no misóginas, ni homófobas. Es imprescindible construir hombres realmente igualitarios para poder construir una sociedad justa y libre. (. . . ) Se trata de una obligación política y colectiva porque tiene consecuencias sociales que no deben ser ignoradas. (Gabarró, 2008, p. 116)

Miguel Ángel Pulido, Universitat Ramon Llull [email protected]