Redefining Manhood in America - a guest blog by James Hornor

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Does the word "Theme" make you throw up your hands and run away? Does it conjure images of your junior English teacher droning on about Moby Dick or Nathaniel Hawthorne? Fear not, for I'm here to tell you "theme" is just something a writer wants to explore in his or her work. 

Debut novelist (and college professor) James Hornor started with a story of adventure, love and crime, set in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Bombay (now Mumbai.) But as he wrote VICTORIA FALLS, he discovered what he really wanted to explore was a particular strain of American masculinity - what forms it, what are its strengths and weaknesses, and how can a man change himself? In a time when "toxic masculinity" is popping up in news stories everywhere, Jim has some interesting things to say.

My sixteen year old daughter and my thirteen year old son go to a progressive, independent school in Portland, Maine, where they routinely discuss issues around diversity, gender fluidity, and respect for women—including #metoo and violence against women. I applaud their school for nurturing an egalitarian culture where all voices are heard and all points of view are considered.

As a college professor and a lifetime educator, I often remind my students that the model for our democracy and our democratic values emanate from Greek culture, specifically Athens. Athenians valued family and community, prized the intellect and related rhetorical skills, and were cognizant of an afterlife where their core values would live on. The concept of courage for a young male Athenian included physical prowess as well as an intrinsic appreciation for human justice and the rights of an individual. The arts thrived in ancient Athens as individual self-expression and an aesthetic awareness were both encouraged and rewarded.

  Young men in Athens were inculcated with those values, and the concept of manhood included assuming responsibility for family and for a just society. Becoming a skillful rhetorician (from the Greek word rhetorikos) was associated with becoming a complete human being. Rhetorical acumen in government discourse or a court of law was more highly prized than even military conquest. Mastering the art of rhetoric was a confirmation of an individual’s place in the body politic which included ongoing discussions on social justice and the moral responsibility of government. These markers of Athenian manhood were well defined and unlike Spartan culture, they were multi-dimensional eclipsing the monolithic Spartan ideal of bravery in battle as the primary affirmation of gender identity.

Our present cultural milieu defines gender identity as a spectrum, and indeed it recognizes that as human beings we are a mixture of both masculine and feminine qualities. As a society, we have labored to acknowledge the equality of individuals regardless of their gender identity. As factions of our American culture spiral towards a simplistic, monolithic understanding of what constitutes a successful human existence, the identity markers of what distinguishes adults as role models for a democratic society are now under siege.

For both my daughter and my son the absence of those societal markers that were integral to the fabric of ancient Athens have been replaced by the incessant distraction of social media. Our children are bombarded by the imagery and pablum of a societal model that dismisses intellectual inquiry as “fake news,” and where the underlying theme of “might makes right” has become synonymous with the mission statement of America. Civil and political discourse has been devalued, and teenagers begin to assume that gaining the expedient advantage is the way successful adults navigate the world.

In my recently published novel, Victoria Falls (Green Writers Press, January, 2019), I explore American male identity issues via the middle-aged crisis of an outwardly successful World Bank official. Mired in unsuccessful relationships with women, the male protagonist transitions from an egocentric womanizer to a human being capable of empathy and unconditional love. While it takes a prison sentence for the transformation to occur, the novel suggests that American men possess the innate capacity to redefine their own manhood in ways that reaffirm all of the highest ideals of humanity.

In our current political climate the idea of defining “true manhood” as including kindness and empathy suddenly seems countercultural. To champion those values is regarded by some as even un-American. What it means to be a man or a woman— what it means to be human—have been the touchstones of democratic societies since the fifth century B.C. Like the Athenians, we can choose to be role models of a personhood that values inclusion, social justice, and a respect for social and political discourse, or we can acquiesce to a distortion of that model where moral relativity and political expediency become the acceptable markers of our national character. 

JULIA: Dear readers, are there traits you associate with 'manhood', for good or ill? How would you define masculinity in the US? How would you like to see it changed? Join us in the comments, and you'll have a chance to win a copy of  VICTORIA FALLS!

James Hornor teaches English at Southern Maine Community College where he also directs the Mid-Coast SMCC Writing Center. His novel, Victoria Falls, (Green Writers Press) was published in January, 2019. You can read more on Jim and his work at his website, VictoriaFalls.com