There's an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while which is hard to put into clear thoughts. I apologize in advance for the fragmented presentation and less than ideal wording of things. But I figure better to put it out there than keep it to myself.
Anyway, there seems to be this cultural idea of men becoming men by rejecting all that is female/feminine. There's a concept in psychology (maybe just pop-psychology or pseudo-Freudian psychology) that both boys and girls start out feeling very attached to their mothers. Then boys start to realize they are different and they go through a crisis, where they separate their identity from that of their mother's.
Here's my thought on this: That true manhood, or really, true adulthood, actually DOES depend on separation from "mother". But I need to quickly clarify, because I don't mean what that typically means.
I get the impression that many men (and women too, actually) are attached to the notion of "mother" as object/ideal. We want someone to cater to us, anticipate our needs, and care for us in a totally unselfish unconditional way. Eventually, as a boy grows the natural desire for sex gets lumped in wth all his other needs and wants. But if the maternal attachment remains, then this gets projected (in a warped sort of way) to all women. Sex is something women can give him, and their humanity becomes second to his need for them. (Kind-of like a baby or young child regards its mother.) If he doesn't get what he wants and feels rejection, then that intense attachment turns to anger & hate (guys who shoot up fitness clubs?).
True manhood (or perhaps, I could say true adulthood) requires a real separation/detachment from "mother". And when I say separation, I mean it as quite different from rejection of actual mothers, or women or feminine things. In fact, men's rejection of the cultural feminine is really just continued attachment, expressed in a different way.
A real "separation from mother" requires a recognition of your role as a distinct human being. Caring becomes something you DO as well as receive (at least to the extent of your ability). This separation also means you are capable of looking at a woman as a partner or friend, not as a replacement mother or a breathing sex doll. As a man, you may have (on average) more energy and strength than a woman, but this does not define you or your general interests and hobbies.
Thus, the more "macho" a man is, or the more he "performs" masculinity, and puts down women, the more I get the impression that he is still actually very attached and needy. People (men and women) who feel threatened by assertive women feel that way because they so desire the giving, sacrificing mother ideal. They don't want ANY woman to step out of line because it will upset their vision of things. Women, especially when they become mothers, feel tremendous pressure and judgment to be completely selfless in almost every way.
I also think this is especially true in the abortion debate. People are not that concerned about embryos. They just aren't (because if they were, they'd be a lot more upset about the ones dumped by fertility clinics. They'd also be more concerned about born babies and children). Instead, they are absolultely frightened of a rejecting mother. A woman who does not want her child is an abomination. Women MUST want children and LOVE their children, because if they don't... well... we just can't handle that.
I have no good way to end this so I'll just stop here. Thanks for reading this far!
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Not a bad theory. The jury is still largely out as to how the impact of our parents shapes the relationships we seek. Clearly it does matter, but whomever I'm attracted to isn't necessarily an identical carbon copy of my mother or my father. Sometimes a desire not to emulate one's parents pushes one in an opposite extreme but even so I think whomever we find attractive has some similarities with one or both parents. It would be unnatural if it were not so.
For some men, the attachment to mother is strong, but this presumes that the attachment was a positive one. Not every man has a particularly nurturing mother.
Who we find attractive is also partially a reflection of ourselves or at least a reflection of how we view ourselves. It's difficult to know what motivates people who are unwilling to be introspective.
A strong attachment to a mother does not presume a positive relationship or a particularly nurturing mother at all. In fact, it has very little to do with mothers as actual people, but with mothers from the perspective of infants/children. They are there to serve, and this becomes the ideal for women in all walks of life.
Hmmm...
True manhood (or perhaps, I could say true adulthood) requires a real separation/detachment from "mother".
One of the masculine ideals I think you are grappling with is independence. There are different societal expectations on someone depending on their sex, and the standard is higher on men.
So a man could be attached to a woman (mother, lover,otherwise) and so long as he is not dependant on her, he is fine.
But really the same is true for a man's relationship with other men. Its just that the nature of a man's relationship with is mother is generally one of previous dependence (something a mother is apt to remind him of, by the way).
Thus, the more "macho" a man is, or the more he "performs" masculinity, and puts down women, the more I get the impression that he is still actually very attached and needy. [....] Women, especially when they become mothers, feel tremendous pressure and judgment to be completely selfless in almost every way.
Those are the flip sides of the same coin of doing gender.
A real "separation from mother" requires a recognition of your role as a distinct human being.
You may find Sarte's existentialism in Being and Nothingness addresses the idea of the role of being a district (authentic) human being interesting. He comes at it from a different angle than you are. It is a long read, but reading the secondary, condensed versions don't really do the work any intellectual justice.
I think you're on to something so long as "mother" is defined as "unconditional care and love". Dependence/Independence works into that, but I think that it's finding a way to have unconditional care and love for you and for others while also not threatening one's own autonomy (in Westernized cultures).
I think this really only applies to traditionally European cultural groups (Anglo at the very least) where independence is valued very heavily and familial or community bonds are seen as important but true success is "striking it out on your own".
I, personally, wouldn't say it's a struggle between mother and other, but between independence and community for masculine expectations. Men are expected to be able to "hold their own" which, of itself, is an anti-community attitude. They're also supposed to provide, which is the mixing of holding your own but also of supporting others (an imperfect mix, but it's there). Being supported is what brings in the community aspect ("Hey, let's grab a beer" etc.), but it comes down to the autonomous choice is being in that community when he wants to be.
Part of this has to do with the imposed gender binary expectations whereby to be supported fully by your friends and family emotionally or financially is seen as feminine because women are coached to be the emotional ones who needs others while men are supposed to "figure it out". Part of this also has to do with a general American cultural expectation of Rugged Independence.
(sorry, that was a bit of a ramble, hopefully I made sense x_o)
"Anyway, there seems to be this cultural idea of men becoming men by rejecting all that is female/feminine."
I honestly think this depends on what culture you are looking at, and which individuals you interview. From my perspective the world today seems very fractured, and thus generalities like this are kind of meaningless. I live in a modern Canadian city ( Toronto, Ontario ), and I would expect to get a wide variety of opinions on your statement from the first fifty people I asked on the street.
To demonstrate how fractured modern society is, try asking the first fifty people you meet to define what feminism is. Even the self-declared feminists I know ( both men and women ) have a variety of different answers for this question.
Most often I see patriarchy disguised as tradition, be it social, religious, or cultural traditions that are more than happy to uphold male privilege as the highest ideal. And I am kind of dumb-struck that many women unconsciously support some of these misogynistic traditional ideas.
From my experience (admittedly in rural Vermont, USA), the idea that "men" become "masculine" by rejecting the "feminine" is still true. Phrases like "you throw like a girl" or "that's girl stuff" reflect that, I think - as does, in a weird way, homophobia. Like, when a guy tells another guy he's "acting like a fag" or something equally homophobic, the other guy is usually doing something "feminine," like, I don't know, expressing his feelings. Sexism and homophobia get mixed into one clusterfuck of prejudice - all in the name of being "macho."
"And I am kind of dumb-struck that many women unconsciously support some of these misogynistic traditional ideas."
Unconsciously? Hell, I'm dumb-struck that many women conciously support some of these misogynistic traditional ideas.
Here's some of the theory that this cultural mythology is based on. Bear in mind that much of my Freud comes via Lacan and various French feminists and Judith Butler...
One basic idea in this tradition is that women are cooperative and empathetic because their childhood experience is characterized by identifying with the mother, but the childhood experience of men is of differentiating themselves from the mother, so they're competetive and independent. All of this assumes that the main caregiver is the mom, and that there is a father in the picture, of course.
Another aspect of this theory is that we all crave the symbiotic relationship we had with our mothers prior to birth and in very early infancy, so much of our psychological and social energy throughout life is spent attempting to reestablish that kind of relationhsip. Since the father is the main obstacle to this relationship with the mother, there's the tension with the father that's the driving force behind things like the Oedipus complex, and the existence of the father and his disruptive impact on the mother-child relationship is what forces the child to acquire language, which is (in a Lacanian view) the framework which introduces and embeds the child in the patriarchy.
Also, since there's an obstacle to maintaining the symbiotic relationship with the mother, the child pursues it with others. And of course, because it's Freudian thinking we're talking about here, the phallus is the means by which you establish this kind of relationship. Hence penis envy in girls, and the role as active pursuer of sexual relationships for boys. Also, this penis envy and drive to reestablish a symbiotic relationship drives women to desire a male child, because through carrying a male child the mother can get her very own phallus, for a brief time, anyway.
Charming, ain't it? But I agree with you that you can see a lot of residue of this kind of ideology in pop culture today. I think it's also driven by the cross-cultural taboo on intimacy with one's mother which leads to this need to openly reject the mother and by extension all things feminine in order to avoid looking like a mama's boy.
My friend who was a phone sex operator said that her top two requests from men were having sex with their mother and getting fucked by her imaginary boyfriend.
I thought this was just weird....from your idea, this just means that they're not getting any love from real women so they might as well fantasize about having sex with their mother cuz mostly likely their mom has taken care every other need in their life, so they might as well take care of that one too! Make sense now.