On 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Male Violence against Women, we discussed Ivan Jablonka’s 2019 bestseller A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice.
John and William, who we met at Nordic Model Now’s Women for Sale conference earlier this month, joined our discussion group for the first time in November.
Writing up the notes for this meeting proved quite tricky, in part because reactions to the book varied quite wildly, but also because the book raised more questions for us than it answered. It was probably one of the most divisive book we have read for our discussion group so far, in the sense that opinion about its value was very divided.
In terms of praise, Chris and Robbie particularly liked the historical context Jablonka provided in the first half of the book through a wide range of examples from across the globe. One representation that particularly struck a chord were the representations of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in cuniform, where ‘man’ was depicted as a whole being with body and head, yet ‘woman’ reduced to a triangle and line, representing a vulva.
Prior to the meeting, David sent through a review of the book from The New Yorker called How Toxic is Masculinity by Zoē Heller. Having not felt very enthusiastic about the book, Björn felt Heller quite succinctly captured one issue with first, historical half of the book: “The book’s cocky bid for comprehensiveness proves to be its undoing.”.
Oliver agreed that it seemed to be written in a way typical of French philosophy, being longwinded and we reflected on how this seems to be a theme in European literature / philosophy including for instance Italy or Germany.
Robbie enjoyed the meticulous efforts Jablonka went through and felt they were compelling in terms of explaining the history of patriarchy across the globe and the forces that cemented it over time.
For anyone with an interest in history, we recommend you check out Max Dashu’s Suppressed Histories Archives, for which she has researched and documented women’s history on a global scale since the 1970s.
Robbie then raised the point that Jablonka doesn’t define masculinity, despite the fact that the book is a history on the subject. Having read the book Robbie felt quite confused with regards to what masculinity / masculinities means, whether things have really changed, and where the ‘good stuff’ is when it comes to masculinity.
Robbie also had a question he wanted to explore, related to the idea that ‘things have gone too far’ when it comes to feminism / the liberation of women. We rephrased this and considered this from a a point of view of whether we have forgotten / are forgetting about boys and men.
In that regard, we did speak about the kind of attention and support boys in particular are getting in terms of looking after their welfare and what opportunities we are giving them. Discussing this we definitely had a sense that, as a society, we are not providing boys with enough protection from age-inappropriate content (e.g. pornography and social media), that we are not engaging with them enough on a personal level or supporting them in their development to be the best human beings they can be.
With regards masculinities, Oliver mentioned Richard Reeves (author of Of Men and Boys) who writes about masculinities and has spoken about the concept of ‘toxic masculinity’ having been popularised through a focus on male violence generally and also within a feminist discourse.
In Oliver’s view, one of Reeves’ points is that there is no ‘positive’ masculinity to balance out ‘negative’ or ‘toxic’ masculinity. In addition to that, many aspects of masculinity that could be seen as positive, are also things that women can do and thus not exclusive to the behaviour(s) of men.
This then led us to think about whether women can display / behave in ways that could be characterised to embody ‘toxic masculinity’ in some way.
We considered this briefly before moving on to thinking about whether there is something positive that we can think about that was in some way relatively exclusive to men and we honestly struggled. What came to mind were behaviours / ways of being that we would consider to embody ‘humanity’ rather than ‘masculinity’.
Robbie then spoke about the idea / concept of chivalry, which often course conjures up quite outdated mental imagery like ‘knights in shining armour‘, ‘saving damsels in distress‘ or ‘men opening doors for women‘, as a potential positive way of being as a man.
We also touched briefly on the idea of role models and considered the need for some sort of specificity.
Björn reflected on how chivalry as a word is quite evocative. As it is a historical term, people will have preconceived ideas about what this means for better or worse. Björn thus wondered, whether rather than focussing on a phrase (e.g. chivalry) or specific men as role models, it would be better to think about what specific qualities / ways of being we think are desirable for men more specifically.
One of the issues of having role models can often be a sort of idealisation (or ‘deification’) of the man in question. Then if the male ‘role model’ in question is found to have done something something horrendous (e.g. Huw Edwards, Johnny Depp or Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs), the boys and men who looked up to this individual aren’t really left with much in terms of their own personal identity.
This train of thought was something Björn was recently more formally introduced to by Michael Conroy. In that sense it is important, that rather than looking at a sort of imitation of a male role model or celebrity, we engage with the personal values of men and boys and work on developing these on a personal level to help men grow and become connected to their (shared) humanity.
There were quite a lot of things about Jablonka’s book we felt very critical of.
David for instance pointed out that whilst Jablonka touched on some of the progress that has been made, lot of basic rights and justices are still absent for women. Sexual assaults and rape for instance are still committed by vast numbers of men, but these offences have basically been decriminalised due to lacking criminal justice responses. Recent data shows that fewer than 3 in 100 rapes (recorded between 1/7/2023 & 30/6/2024) resulted in someone being charged that same year (let alone convicted).
Despite statistics like these, Jablonka says (without substantiation) that:
“The complaint of a woman who has been sexually assaulted is taken seriously; her attacker, if arrested, is prosecuted.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 90)
Reading a book that makes unsubstantiated and untrue statements like these, was enraging in a week in which Conor McGregor was fined a measly £200,000 for rape.
Overall David felt that Jablonka was avoiding this and other problematic issues, which showed that any real liberation of women was still a long long way away.
Björn agreed with David;’s perspective and reflected that some of the issues he had with the book seemed to relate to Jablonka’s approach to current ‘realities’. Jablonka’s statements seemed to be based on legal changes and advances rather than than the lived reality of women. I.e. Jablonka seems to focus on the laws with regards to rape and sexual assault, viewing this as progress and disregards the fact that we live in a world women struggle to be believed when they report sexual assaults and men are rarely arrested and even less likely to be convicted.
But even when bearing this in mind, some of the statements in the book seemed baffling, for instance this one:
“Men frequent pornographic websites and prostitutes much more than women, but their sexuality does not necessarily become more aggressive.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 245)
Whilst one may argue that Jablonka’s claim has some validity if this is approached in a purely ’cause and effect’ way, a statement like this is beyond clumsy. It denies the reality of men’s violence towards women and girls inherent in the production of pornography and the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.
Statements like made it evident that Jablonka is overlooking important nuances. Despite the focus on masculinity and his hope that they will be transformed, there was a significant mismatch between the title and the content of the book. Another example of Jablonka’s carelessness was his inclusion a naked picture of celebrity swimmer Annette Kellerman on page 110 in the section Victoires of Feminism. In the section in which this photograph was places, Jablonka spoke about adaptive clothing in sports for women, hence the inclusion of the photo was totally gratuitous.
That is not to say that there wasn’t anything of merit in the book. Jablonka did make some good and interesting points, like:
“The Hero’s misadventures [in the Iliad] underscore an important characteristic of the masculinities of male domination: a man must constantly prove that he is one. Masculinity carries within itself a fear, that of being unworthy of the male sex. It is therefore intrinsically fragile, self-doubting, afraid of not meeting the standard: hence all the provocations, ostentatious behaviours, sacrifices, all the ‘fine deaths’, which only raise the stakes even more.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 130)
Towards the end of the discussion we wondered whether masculinity was actually the root of the problem. In other words, should we focus on addressing masculinity as a priority or should we focus on capitalism for instance, which is driven by a lot of masculine traits (e.g. competitiveness, aggression, survival of the fittest, individualism etc.).
The assumption in the book is that masculinity needs to be solved and we wondered whether that is true. Particularly as it is quite a difficult thing to define, even though we all have somewhat of an idea what is meant by masculinity / masculinities.
John provided the following as a definition of masculinity: “the fact of being a man; the qualities that are considered to be typical of men“.
This definition, whilst useful, seems impossible to define as ideas about typical behaviour for men will vary across time, space and culture. Though at the same time it is true, that in our current world a certain type of masculinity prevails across the majority of the world.
David felt that perhaps the focus on masculinity was a bit of a distraction and watered down the conversation. He wondered whether in the end masculinity was not simply a set of attributes of ‘maleness’, which underpin patriarchy and posed that even though he would not be able to define this better, it felt easier to spot the problems within this.
John and William, who we met at Nordic Model Now’s Women for Sale conference earlier this month, joined our discussion group for the first time in November.
Writing up the notes for this meeting proved quite tricky, in part because reactions to the book varied quite wildly, but also because the book raised more questions for us than it answered. It was probably one of the most divisive book we have read for our discussion group so far, in the sense that opinion about its value was very divided.
In terms of praise, Chris and Robbie particularly liked the historical context Jablonka provided in the first half of the book through a wide range of examples from across the globe. One representation that particularly struck a chord were the representations of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in cuniform, where ‘man’ was depicted as a whole being with body and head, yet ‘woman’ reduced to a triangle and line, representing a vulva.
Prior to the meeting, David sent through a review of the book from The New Yorker called How Toxic is Masculinity by Zoē Heller. Having not felt very enthusiastic about the book, Björn felt Heller quite succinctly captured one issue with first, historical half of the book: “The book’s cocky bid for comprehensiveness proves to be its undoing.”.
Oliver agreed that it seemed to be written in a way typical of French philosophy, being longwinded and we reflected on how this seems to be a theme in European literature / philosophy including for instance Italy or Germany.
Robbie enjoyed the meticulous efforts Jablonka went through and felt they were compelling in terms of explaining the history of patriarchy across the globe and the forces that cemented it over time.
For anyone with an interest in history, we recommend you check out Max Dashu’s Suppressed Histories Archives, for which she has researched and documented women’s history on a global scale since the 1970s.
Robbie then raised the point that Jablonka doesn’t define masculinity, despite the fact that the book is a history on the subject. Having read the book Robbie felt quite confused with regards to what masculinity / masculinities means, whether things have really changed, and where the ‘good stuff’ is when it comes to masculinity.
Robbie also had a question he wanted to explore, related to the idea that ‘things have gone too far’ when it comes to feminism / the liberation of women. We rephrased this and considered this from a a point of view of whether we have forgotten / are forgetting about boys and men.
In that regard, we did speak about the kind of attention and support boys in particular are getting in terms of looking after their welfare and what opportunities we are giving them. Discussing this we definitely had a sense that, as a society, we are not providing boys with enough protection from age-inappropriate content (e.g. pornography and social media), that we are not engaging with them enough on a personal level or supporting them in their development to be the best human beings they can be.
With regards masculinities, Oliver mentioned Richard Reeves (author of Of Men and Boys) who writes about masculinities and has spoken about the concept of ‘toxic masculinity’ having been popularised through a focus on male violence generally and also within a feminist discourse.
In Oliver’s view, one of Reeves’ points is that there is no ‘positive’ masculinity to balance out ‘negative’ or ‘toxic’ masculinity. In addition to that, many aspects of masculinity that could be seen as positive, are also things that women can do and thus not exclusive to the behaviour(s) of men.
This then led us to think about whether women can display / behave in ways that could be characterised to embody ‘toxic masculinity’ in some way.
We considered this briefly before moving on to thinking about whether there is something positive that we can think about that was in some way relatively exclusive to men and we honestly struggled. What came to mind were behaviours / ways of being that we would consider to embody ‘humanity’ rather than ‘masculinity’.
Robbie then spoke about the idea / concept of chivalry, which often course conjures up quite outdated mental imagery like ‘knights in shining armour‘, ‘saving damsels in distress‘ or ‘men opening doors for women‘, as a potential positive way of being as a man.
We also touched briefly on the idea of role models and considered the need for some sort of specificity.
Björn reflected on how chivalry as a word is quite evocative. As it is a historical term, people will have preconceived ideas about what this means for better or worse. Björn thus wondered, whether rather than focussing on a phrase (e.g. chivalry) or specific men as role models, it would be better to think about what specific qualities / ways of being we think are desirable for men more specifically.
One of the issues of having role models can often be a sort of idealisation (or ‘deification’) of the man in question. Then if the male ‘role model’ in question is found to have done something something horrendous (e.g. Huw Edwards, Johnny Depp or Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs), the boys and men who looked up to this individual aren’t really left with much in terms of their own personal identity.
This train of thought was something Björn was recently more formally introduced to by Michael Conroy. In that sense it is important, that rather than looking at a sort of imitation of a male role model or celebrity, we engage with the personal values of men and boys and work on developing these on a personal level to help men grow and become connected to their (shared) humanity.
There were quite a lot of things about Jablonka’s book we felt very critical of.
David for instance pointed out that whilst Jablonka touched on some of the progress that has been made, lot of basic rights and justices are still absent for women. Sexual assaults and rape for instance are still committed by vast numbers of men, but these offences have basically been decriminalised due to lacking criminal justice responses. Recent data shows that fewer than 3 in 100 rapes (recorded between 1/7/2023 & 30/6/2024) resulted in someone being charged that same year (let alone convicted).
Despite statistics like these, Jablonka says (without substantiation) that:
“The complaint of a woman who has been sexually assaulted is taken seriously; her attacker, if arrested, is prosecuted.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 90)
Reading a book that makes unsubstantiated and untrue statements like these, was enraging in a week in which Conor McGregor was fined a measly £200,000 for rape.
Overall David felt that Jablonka was avoiding this and other problematic issues, which showed that any real liberation of women was still a long long way away.
Björn agreed with David;’s perspective and reflected that some of the issues he had with the book seemed to relate to Jablonka’s approach to current ‘realities’. Jablonka’s statements seemed to be based on legal changes and advances rather than than the lived reality of women. I.e. Jablonka seems to focus on the laws with regards to rape and sexual assault, viewing this as progress and disregards the fact that we live in a world women struggle to be believed when they report sexual assaults and men are rarely arrested and even less likely to be convicted.
But even when bearing this in mind, some of the statements in the book seemed baffling, for instance this one:
“Men frequent pornographic websites and prostitutes much more than women, but their sexuality does not necessarily become more aggressive.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 245)
Whilst one may argue that Jablonka’s claim has some validity if this is approached in a purely ’cause and effect’ way, a statement like this is beyond clumsy. It denies the reality of men’s violence towards women and girls inherent in the production of pornography and the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution.
Statements like made it evident that Jablonka is overlooking important nuances. Despite the focus on masculinity and his hope that they will be transformed, there was a significant mismatch between the title and the content of the book. Another example of Jablonka’s carelessness was his inclusion a naked picture of celebrity swimmer Annette Kellerman on page 110 in the section Victoires of Feminism. In the section in which this photograph was places, Jablonka spoke about adaptive clothing in sports for women, hence the inclusion of the photo was totally gratuitous.
That is not to say that there wasn’t anything of merit in the book. Jablonka did make some good and interesting points, like:
“The Hero’s misadventures [in the Iliad] underscore an important characteristic of the masculinities of male domination: a man must constantly prove that he is one. Masculinity carries within itself a fear, that of being unworthy of the male sex. It is therefore intrinsically fragile, self-doubting, afraid of not meeting the standard: hence all the provocations, ostentatious behaviours, sacrifices, all the ‘fine deaths’, which only raise the stakes even more.”
Ivan Jablonka – A History of Masculinity: From Patriarchy to Gender Justice (p. 130)
Towards the end of the discussion we wondered whether masculinity was actually the root of the problem. In other words, should we focus on addressing masculinity as a priority or should we focus on capitalism for instance, which is driven by a lot of masculine traits (e.g. competitiveness, aggression, survival of the fittest, individualism etc.).
The assumption in the book is that masculinity needs to be solved and we wondered whether that is true. Particularly as it is quite a difficult thing to define, even though we all have somewhat of an idea what is meant by masculinity / masculinities.
John provided the following as a definition of masculinity: “the fact of being a man; the qualities that are considered to be typical of men“.
This definition, whilst useful, seems impossible to define as ideas about typical behaviour for men will vary across time, space and culture. Though at the same time it is true, that in our current world a certain type of masculinity prevails across the majority of the world.
David felt that perhaps the focus on masculinity was a bit of a distraction and watered down the conversation. He wondered whether in the end masculinity was not simply a set of attributes of ‘maleness’, which underpin patriarchy and posed that even though he would not be able to define this better, it felt easier to spot the problems within this.
