Shrinking the Phallus
Contemporary Research on Masculinity (I)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23671187 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lynne Segal (Universidad de Londres, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Pages | 50-68 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Slow Motion (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/9780230582521_3 |
| OpenAlex | W2487476668 |
| ISBN | 9780230582521 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
Until recently the idea of masculinity, to the extent that it was discussed at all, seemed relatively straightforward. What was not written in the genes was, increasingly from the 1940s, understood to be bred in the social expectations of ‘sex roles’. Today, however, in the light of the complex input from psychoanalytic thinking and feminism, men and masculinity have become more mysterious, more perplexing and worrying. For some at least, ‘masculinity’ has replaced ‘femininity’, as the problem of our time — a threat to civilisation itself. Accordingly, we might well parody fragments of Freud’s essay on femininity and his celebrated enquiry ‘What is it that women want?’, to ask some questions which he never asked of men and their motives — and mourn (in parody also of Jacques Lacan) men’s unresponsiveness: What is it that men want? If only they could tell us. If only they could communicate at all about their feelings. Throughout history we, who are women, have knocked our heads against the riddle, have been begging men on our knees, and still we cannot learn from them why they present to us such sinister contrasts — the baby and the bully, the rapist and the romantic, the hard and the soft, the terrifying and the ridiculous. Those of you who are men have escaped worrying about this problem — you are yourselves the problem. 2 It is women who have taken the initiative in beginning to explore what men want, in explaining the ways of man to man. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Aesthetics · Art · Feeling · Femininity · Masculinity · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Romance · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
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