Masculine Performance: David Leverenz's "Men Writing in the Early Republic"

The relationship between the American male and masculinity has been of great interest to me since an undergraduate, so naturally, I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. Leverenz's exploration of gender as performance and a socially constructed phenomenon in relation to marriage and having children was of particular interest to me. I also thoroughly enjoyed reading about authors I'm actually familiar with like Poe and Hawthorne. However, I want to frame my conversation today around my own interest in what it means to be masculine today and how masculinity is still a performative act and expectation today.

Some of my favorite novels--Revolutionary Road (Yates), Kavalier & Clay (Chabon), The Corrections (Franzen), Angle of Repose (Stegnar), The Age of Innocence (Wharton)--are so because of the male protagonist's/character's struggle to be a good father, husband, worker (especially if he ends up in the same profession or position as his father like Frank in RR), and/or gay male in a society that feminizes men who love other men. Over the last 40 years, the focus on feminist studies and equal opportunites and rights has (I think) caused many of us to forget something incredibly important: men suffer too. Men are human. Men can be objectified, even white ones (just look at the Twilight series and the lack of clothing on the actors who play Edward and Jacob). And, being a "manly man" is still an expectation and performance that we consistently see asked of men today. An easy example, advertisements; one that sticks out in my mind is the Dockers "Men Wear The Pants" advertisements. Below is an ad on their website and that still pops up in a number of magazines:

The above ad is an adequate example of what Leverenz is discussing when he asserts that men feel the pressure to behave a certain way to be considered a man: "Irving...felt a lifelong lack of manliness because he had not marreid and established a family" (354) and how the struggle between a life as an author vs. life as father/husband was one that carried a heavy burden: "The trope of failed paternity continued to frame some American male writers' negative sense of manliness even if they had begotten children" (354).

 I'm not sure if this was just a problem for American writers; the most apt example I can give off the top of my head is that of J.M. Barrie. The film Finding Neverland illustrates the tension he feels to produce plays and how it causes him to neglect his wife and never have children; yet, it is through his interaction with the father-less Davies children that Barrie found success, since they inspired him to write Peter Pan. The community criticized Barrie for playing with children, neglecting his wife and made accusations that he was either/both in love with the widow and pedaphile.

Overall, I think masculinist studies is currently on the rise with the publication of books like Robert Bly's 2004 Iron John: A Book About Men (I highly recommend). I hope that the Humanities continues to explore the pscyhosociological role of gender performance and authors' exploration of such tensions within works of literature. I agree with Docker's statement that the world still needs Men; however, unlike the Dockers ad, I recognize that men can and do struggle with the social pressures of moving from boy to man and what it means to be androgenous. But these are phenomena that need to be understood, not criticized. If a dude wants to do the disco, let him. Afterall, John Travolta looked pretty good doing it in Saturday Night Fever!