XX = XY?

A Book Review of Manliness, by Harvey Mansfield
Yale University Press, 304 pp. Twenty-Seven Dollars, Fifty Cents.

I believe that politically incorrect is the best way to describe Professor Harvey C. Mansfield of Harvard University. And he’s damn proud to be. You know, in a boastful sort of way. A manly sort of way.

Published for American readers on February 20, 2006, Manliness is Professor Mansfield’s most recent and perhaps most controversial book. The subject of the book, as evident in the title, is manliness and its current role in our society. Writes Professor Mansfield of this deeply ingrained yet commonly dismissed value, “Manliness seeks and welcomes drama and prefers times of war, conflict, and risk. Manliness brings change or restores order at moments when routine is not enough, when the plan fails, when the whole idea of rational control by modern science develops leaks. Manliness is the next-to-last resort, before resignation and prayer” (ix).

Now, Professor Mansfield goes into far more detail and analysis than those three sentences, but they adroitly typify the virtue that he describes throughout his book. This virtue, manliness, is hardly something that one can quantify, though its presence in the world can be readily detected. Manliness is also the sworn enemy of the gender-neutral society that has been constructed in modern times, for it directly attacks the premise that men and women have equal abilities and inclinations in all aspects of life. As anticipated, manliness is just plain stubborn.

This gender-neutral society, which Professor Mansfield alternates between deriding and accepting with caveats—for example, if we are to live in a gender-neutral society, he advises that a distinction be made between public law and private custom—bases itself on the premise that sex differences are merely social constructs. Certainly there are organ differences, the gender-neutral society will concede, but supposedly power structures impose every other difference on the sexes. And such power structures have allegedly been enforced by those in power—men. (But how did men achieve this power in the first place? The deconstructionists don’t seem to have an answer.)

One of the central questions that Professor Mansfield addresses in his book is whether the traditional stereotypes concerning the sexes are, in fact, accurate. Is it true that “men are hard, women soft; men assertive, women sensitive; men seek risk, women security; men are frank, women are indirect; men take the lead, women seek company…”(23)? Well, as Professor Mansfield points out quite bluntly, yes. He remarks that even though the deconstructionists claimed that a gender-neutral society could be built, social science has refuted that assertion. After all, why is it that, in an age when gender neutrality has been forced on the population, women still do two-thirds of domestic housework? Could the answer be that, generally, women are more biologically oriented to the home than men? Social science seems to answer that question in the affirmative.

Professor Mansfield even makes appeals to evolutionary biology, demonstrating that (surprise!) men do, in fact, possess more strength than women, as well as more aggression. Commenting on how a man’s natural physical superiority over a woman leads to his dominance of the household and his “turf,” Professor Mansfield posits that as the reason men have typically dominated such occupations as business and politics. For, in business, one must take myriad risks and assert control over an entire organization; and in politics, one must assert oneself and one’s beliefs to a public that may be hostile to change. The current, in addition to the historical, disparity of representation between the two sexes (in favor of men) in those two professions is more likely to be the result of natural, fixed realities than constructed, changeable structures.

Further, the Professor analyzes the many different forms in which manliness can manifest itself. He writes of President Theodore Roosevelt and his “strenuous life,” which aimed to induce progress through challenge and risk in the outdoors. He even addresses the professorial William James, who searched for the “moral equivalent of war.” These manly paradigms, Professor Mansfield contends, are in stark contrast to the more radical forms of manliness that have, unfortunately, resulted in some of the 20th century’s worst atrocities. This form of manliness, first seriously propagated by the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, relied on the existentialist principle that man has no meaning unless he himself supplies it.

And though Nietzsche’s view of this “will to power” had been horribly perverted by Nazi Germany, Hitler’s inspiration nonetheless originated from Nietzsche’s conception of manliness. Mansfield writes of this connection, “Although Nietzsche himself would never have been a Nazi, his influence helped create what has been called ‘German nihilism’…German nihilism in action at its worst was Hitlerism, and Hitler deliberately incited a low, worse-than-vulgar manliness with no finer features and no restraint, a manliness that was nothing but manliness” (118).

Professor Mansfield also greatly criticizes the approach of modern science to manliness. Primarily, he is disappointed with science’s attempt to quantify and control something that would balk at any attempt to humble and hinder it, seeing as manly men are hardly a meek bunch. He is, however, pleased that science has validated what is simply common sense, such as the fact that, generally, men think more abstractly and women more practically. But, he is not wholly satisfied with science’s handling of manliness. For instance, he expresses great disappointment with science’s attempt to categorize male and female abilities into broad, inflexible subgroups. Mansfield offers this criticism: “The [scientific] studies lack nuance and subtlety (39).” As such, science would say that men possess greater spatial ability and women better verbal ability, but would then proceed to abdicate its duty to describe by merely measuring.

Several other notable sex differences are explored throughout the book, including an analysis of how each defines humor. For, as we all are probably aware, men have a monopoly on vulgar behavior when compared to women’s behavior. As a man who played hockey two to three times a week during the winter from the age of 3 to 15, as well as baseball during the summer months, I can corroborate this fact with much confidence. Remarks were made in those locker rooms that would cause Chris Rock to blush. Almost always, those remarks were jokes and stories that related to bodily functions, sexual activity, and sometimes a combination of the two. The girls that I knew growing up usually discussed boys they liked in their locker rooms.

In a vacuum, this fact may appear meaningless. However, Professor Mansfield has this to say on the matter of humor as it relates to the sexes: “Women do make jokes, only not so noticeably as men. Women have the humor of the wise; they observe and remark in subdued or ironic fashion. Men have the humor of the powerful; they expect everyone to laugh aloud” (70). Trust me, we laughed with much exuberance in those locker rooms. After we left, though, the testosterone levels settled a bit, and we made our way into our more gentlemanly selves. Yet the fact remains that we did tell those jokes and stories to seem like tough guys, like macho men. It was important to us. We thrived on being boisterous and causing a ruckus in the locker room. I don’t ever remember Jenn, a girl hockey player whom I knew, having the need to do that.

There is much, much more discussion in Professor Mansfield’s book, and I have only scratched the surface of his intellectual treatise. Other covered topics include womanly forms of manliness (“raising consciousness”), manly forms of liberalism and individuality (manifested in such infamous political thinkers as Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill), and an in-depth analysis of the philosopher’s understanding of manly virtue.

The Professor succeeds in showing that there are, in fact, differences in the sexes, differences that are quite pronounced. Men and women are equal, without a doubt, but they are not the same. They are complements for each other, not substitutes. Feminism, according to the Professor, has attempted to do such a thing, that is, it has attempted to create a society in which men and women are viewed as interchangeable entities. Social science, evolutionary biology, and simple common sense fly in the face of this wholly modern endeavor.

Manliness is superbly written, with a scholarly style that is contained in only the most erudite of works. However, it is certainly not a self-help book for society. Professor Mansfield claims, “My book is for thinkers, and I say this not so much to flatter ourselves that we can think originally as to get us to address the problem of manliness” (229). In other words, he wants us to think, to question, and to be unafraid to confront an issue that many find “sensitive.” Political correctness would have us run from such topics, as questioning the substitutability of the sexes is among the most heinous of heresies in this country, especially at the elite academies.

Just look at Professor Mansfield’s employer, Harvard University, to see the paragon of political correctness—after all, their former President, Larry Summers, was recently removed from office because he dared to suggest that women might be intrinsically less apt at mathematics and science. Further, Summers suggested that modern society be unafraid to investigate whether it was nature, not nurture, that accounted for the great disparity between men and women in those fields. From this disappointing example, we may draw the conclusion that freedom of expression and inquiry no longer rank as the most important values in the Academy.

All things considered, Manliness is an excellent read and a highly stimulating work. As the inner flap of the book asserts, “This book invites—no, demands—a response from its readers. It is impossible not to be drawn in to the provocative (often contentious) discussion that Harvey Mansfield sets before us.” The Professor engages his readers and leaves them without a choice concerning a reaction—you simply must have one. So, if you are a thinker who does not toe the PC-line, pick up a copy. But, if you do tackle this deeply academic work, consider throughout the book this truth-filled aphorism, “A free society cannot survive if we are so free that nothing is expected of us” (244).