A CONTEMPORARY MAN

      Olga Zdravomyslova

Among recent social and political shocks some not so obvious changes escape attention of the public. Nevertheless they exert profound and long-term influence on our life as a whole involving ideas inhereted from the past, ideas about what is normal and what is abnormal, about obligations and freedom, about social roles a human being should play. Transformation of the role of a man in society going on before our eys is one of such phenomena.
A "double support" - professional employment and family - is needed for successful functioning of a man in society. However in the end of the this century self-affirmation of a man both in family and in his profession gets more and more complicated.
A problem how to achieve and enjoy a status of a husband and a father became a seriuos problem for a man due to the fact that number of divorces increases as well as number of natural children. The following figures tell about the extent of this process: between 1968 and 1992 rate of divorces per one thousand of the population increased thrice in the "prosperous" countries-members of the European Community. During the last 5 years the rate of this process slows down. However the reason of this fact is that number of wedlocks decreased and not because a tendency of strenghthening of family is observed. Number of children born out of wedlock in the countries of the European Community increased from 8.8% in 1980 up to 20% in 1992. Number of families with one parent (a mother as a rool) was in the beginning of the nineties 11.2%.
Together with the threat of losing a role of a husband and a father a role of a man as a professional also is being eroded. First of all it deels with increasing of the threat of unemployment and its scale. Experience of losing a job or shifting it accompanied by forced decreasing of ambitions becomes an integral part of the life experience of the growing number of men. Besides competition between men and women in the field of professions becomes more fierce. This kind of competition penetrates into family as well. In the beginning of the seventies Western sociologists made an attempt to investigate and describe a family of working husband and wife and a family with two "careers" as principally new types of family as a result of which a new kind of relations and conflicts in the field of the power in a family arises. Changes inevitably going on in these families produce an effect on both roles, roles of husband and wife and roles of parents.
The growing number of investigations in the West describes a process of transformation of a role of a man in the society using the term "masculinity crisis". It is expressed first of all by the fact that the so called traditional patterns of masculine behaviour which compose a stereotype of masculinity, being adopted by boys and youths in the process of sociolization, to more and more lesser degree enable a success or even just an adaptation of an adult man in the society. Several main patterns, on the basis of which an image of "a real male" appears, are defined:
- an avoidance of any allusion to "femininity" in behaviour, a ban on emotionalness,
i.e. an extreme restraint in expression of feelings (first of all such as tenderness, love, credulity, kindness),
- permanent yearning for achievements and social status, self-confidence,
- aggressiveness,
- intolerance towards homosexuals,
- high and "rash" sexuality.
A man with this set of qualities appears as authoritative and hard conquerer, destined for domination in family and society. He is supposed to be always able to achieve set purposes, were they as high as possible, to beat his opponent, who for one reason or other proved to be unable to meet demands made on a real man. Such a hero obviously needs a female friend with absolute opposite behaviour patterns. Their fields of activity do not cross each other in any way.
There is no need to prove that reality we live in rejects rigid patterns both of feminine and masculine roles. However feminine role patterns turned out to be much more flexible, changeable and femininity is identified in people's minds to much greater degree with weakness and passiveness than masculinity is identified with physical strength, yearning for domination and high social achievements. Secret of this phenomenon is that for the long time these very qualities of a man enabled him to perform his key social role, a role of a bread-winner in family. A famous investigator of culture, ethnographer Margaret Mead called this role "a social invention" and a special human value. Its essence is like this: "a man to be acquires that when he would grow up, one of his main obligations he would be obliged to do in order to become a full and equal member of the society, would be providing food for a woman and her posterity. Even in the most primitive societies not many men may avoid to fulfil this obligation and become a vagabond, a misanthrope, living alone in forests." (Margaret Mead, Culture and childhood, Moscow, 1988, p.312).
Investigating the structure of "primitive societies" and observing transformation of life of conemporary societies Margaret Mead warned that the male role of bread-winner "might be lost" (ibid, p.309). May be it is this subconscious fear of mankind which determines persistent preserving of the image of "classic" masculinity and even some kind of Renaissance it periodically goes through. In Russia this fear is expressed much more distinctly than in modern Western countries.
Let us examine the conemporary Russian experience of socialization of boys and young men. The basis is the image of the heros of thriller films, "new" heros of the modern Russian business. We can see more and more obvious compromising of the "classical" intellectual who is unable to achieve a success in "hard" business. That is the reason why he loses all his attractiveness and prestige in sight of young men. As if the society were asking a man: if you are not a winner in the cruel struggle for money and influence, who is you? And gives quite definite answer: you are not a man because you can not even keep your family "on the proper level". Similar to the "primitive societies" described by Margaret Mead, a demand to keep family is according to our society not just the main, but the only obligation of a man.
In the beginning of the ninenies we have conducted an comparative investigation "Family: East-West" in Russia and in some European countries. Its results have shown that the highest share of family men oriented exclusively towards the professional sphere - 11% - was among the Russian respondents. In West Germany their share was 5%, in Poland - 4%, in East Germany - 3% and in Hungury and Sweden it was just 2%.
By the share of the "family-oriented" men Russia is similar only to West Germany (18%), the only country in our study with the highest share of husbands of non-working wives, in others words "the only bread-winners". In all other countries this group of the "family-oriented" men was as half or twice as much. The answers of the respondents to the questions about family life have showed that the tendencies of shaping a new role of a man, common for the European countries, in Russia is much less distinct and "masculinity crisis", as some results demonstrate, is much more evident. For example the Russian men twice as frequently declare their unsatisfaction about their relations with children and wives. At the same time they four times as ofhen claim that "participation of the father in bringing up a baby poses a lot of problems." Overwhelming majority of the Russian men considers the period when their wives were on baby care leave of absence as a very hard time complicated with frequent family conflicts. By and large their answers give a distinct impression that family men in Russia live within extremely strict standards and practically total absence of any choice. They are forced to be either traditional "bread-winner" or complete and hopeless failures.
Such a result is quite enexpected considering that numerous studies of the Soviet period demonstrated dominating tendency towards equality of rights in family in our recent past. A "basic" Soviet pattern - a family where husband and wife both have a job - evidently was imperfect but its principal novelty in comparison with the past was that a wife working out home was sufficiently self-dependent and could play a role of an independant and sometimes the main bread-winner in family. It is interesting that in the Soviet equal family, functioning by and large due to the double employment of a woman, nostalgia for traditional foundations was felt and their real reproducing first of all in socialization of boys and youths was maintained.
In 1995 I conducted a public-opinion poll among Moscow students of economics. They have described a successful Russian businessman as if the abovementioned standards of a "real" man were before their eyes. The young men stressed that he should be strict and cruel, imperious and aggressive, persistent in achieving his purposes, self-confident and secretive. They explained that the world is for "strong men". As you see, the contemporary Russian society has actualized traditional male behaviour patterns: to live outside of his family, which nevertheless is a significant index of the socil status of a man who is obliged to keep it. Deviations from these standards could turn out to be a failure and even a life collapse really. And since keeping on the normal "average level" is becoming more and more complicated task for a man in Russia, a risk to lose his status - a family one as well - is successively increasing.
However if we take not only "financial dimension" of life in spite of its vital importance nowadays in Russia, but a wider perspective and recollect our own recent experience, we shall see that "masculinity crisis" is not at all an invention. It is an urge of the culture to modify rigid patterns of masculine behaviour and to consolidate different social and psychological skills in the consciousness and experience of the new generations, opposite to traditional masculine behaviour patterns.
The recent studies have demonstrated that contemporary young men in the West began to bind self-realization with family life to a much more extent than their fathers, and to a lesser extent with self-fulfilment in the professional field. We may even claim that they do not want just "to have" a family as a tool of confirmation of their social status, but want "to be" in it. One of the evidences of this phenomenon is the fact that contemporary fathers to much greater degree are involved in bringing up their children and even take some traditionally "maternal" responsibilities in regard of their children.
This tendency turned out to be quite significant in order to turn to description of modern family-oriented men as a social phenomenon of the post-industrial society. For example, Norwegian sociologists Holter, Aarset and Nilson have defined fore types among "family-oriented" men. First, a man for whom a family is a part of his career, and he through his relations with children somewhat increases his general social competence. Second, "a considerate man" who is really, in a deeply emotional way involved into his family life, communication with children, a family for him is the main sphere of self-realization. Third, "a just man", he takes some part of family responsibilities and fulfil them strictly and regularly. And forth, "a family idealist" who adores his family, declare it his essential value, but in practice draws a pronounced distinction between family and professional life, in the first one he takes part just by word of mouth, on the level of admitting a significance of "the family ideology".
New demands of life are reflected in contemporary ideas of an ideal man. Investigations, conducted in 1995 in Sweden by B.Bergsten and M.Beck-Wickling, have shown that this "ideal" usually includes 12 features. Order of the most frequently mentioned qualities reflects their significance for the men and women being polled.From the point of view of the men themselves an ideal man should be honest, well educated, just, buoyant, considerate, responsible, energetic, self-confident, calm, resourceful, able to be cofeeling.
But from the point of view of women a modern ideal man should be honest, considerate, able to be cofeeling, well-educated, resourceful, buoyant, energetic, responsible, independent, just, generous and reliable.
As we can see, men and women draw an image which has little in common with traditional masculinity standards. First of all it does not include "an avoidance of any allusion to femininity" and "a ban on emotionalness". On the contrary men themselves and especially women underline an emotional openness and those qualities which make a man first of all be able to communicate with women abd children, to understand others, not to bend them to his will. This new ideal does not contain not a hint of imperiousness, aggressiveness, it does not includes force as well. Let us remember that family life becomes for a man a part of his career and even "a second career", not as just a mean of confirming his social status, but in the sense that his relations with his wife and children, his valuable participation in family life become for him a tool of self-realization not to a lesser (sometimes even to a greater) degree than his profession. It is obvious even in those cases when a man, living apart of his family, remains to be a real father of his child. Such situation becomes more and more common and "normal" in the West.
There is no doubt that both "masculine" and "feminine" cultures, traditionally distinctly divided, are drawing nearer and mixing together. Women spare more and more time to professional activities and men find more and more of their personal time for home life. Due to this the role of the "bread-winner" becomes not so rigid and determined, its bounds are gradually dissipating.
Evidently it creates great difficulties for the male socialization because the latter as usual is combined with the traditional pattern of the bread-winner". Such situation is extremely typical for contemporary Russia. People in this country prefer for the time being to speak and wright rather about coming back to certain traditional patterns, distorted in the Soviet period, than about crisis of these very patterns, crisis of an ideal masculinity conception. That is why a danger of marginalization is much more real for the Russian men, a danger to become a failure from the point of view of the traditional male role demands and a failure in their contemporary role, unsteady and open for experiments up to now.

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