The Art of Misogyny?
After discovering it while researching a theater piece on toxic masculinity, I initially thought that “The Art of Manliness” must surely be a joke. I assumed it was a satirical website, poking fun at generational nostalgia.
Boy, how wrong I can be.
Instead, I found myself lost on a hypnotic trail of clicking, wondering if this could actually be the way some men think. A glance at the site’s “About” page shows a slew of white men who are the website’s contributors, and one white woman who is not mentioned at all except as the wife of the site’s founder. The website was founded on the principle of nostalgia: the founder is nostalgic for the man he perceives his grandfather to be, and is quick to note:
Many men today feel adrift and have lost the confidence, focus, skills, and virtues that men of the past embodied. In an increasingly androgynous society, modern men are confused about their role and what it means to be an honorable, well-rounded man.
There is no attempt made to define honorable, and no background given beyond the lamentation of men’s magazines for the author’s following statement that “ The Art of Manliness seeks to fill this void and offer an alternative to those who believe there’s more to being a man than expensive clothes and the hot babe of the month.”
In addition to many sepia-toned images and far too many mustaches, The Art of Manliness comes complete with a “Random Post” button. I couldn’t help but click, and was greeted with a “Manvotional” (is this supposed to be a play on ‘motivational’? Probably, but the word play is poor and it sounds more like emotional. Something tells me that the men reading this site would not like that at all). As luck would have it, my Manvotional, published in 2009, was entitled “Report from the Attack on Thebes.” It is an uncited translation of Euripides’ Suppliant Women, and is prefaced with the remark that
In Euripides’ Suppliant Women, a messenger reports the bravery of the seven men who died while trying to take back the city of Thebes. All the men who died were not only great warriors, but they lived exemplary lives of honorable manliness.
These exemplary lives, it turns out, include things like “a man of means, he never/flaunted his wealth but kept an attitude/no prouder than a poor man’s” and “although he had many lovers,/and women flocked to him, still he was careful/to cause them no offense.” I must argue that while those these things do indeed make good men, they also make good people.
Finally, I will comment on another gem: The 100 Skills Every Man Should Know. Including everything from “Read a Book” to “Survive a Bear Attack,” none of the things listed are overtly misogynist; it is in the language itself that the underlying misogyny punctuating this article and this website as a whole becomes clear. Below are some examples.
36. Iron Your Clothes: …Many men don’t know how to iron their pants or their shirt because dear old mom did it for them and once they got married, the Mrs. took over the chore. But every man is going to have a period in his life when he’s on his own and he’ll have to do his own ironing…
The author assumes his wife, who he calls “the Mrs.”, will do the ironing for him. I also resent the naming of “dear old mom.”
24. Change a Flat Tire: … Knowing how to change a flat will save your own butt when you’re out on some lonely stretch of highway, and will come in handy when helping a damsel in distress or a hapless traveler on the side of the road.
Damsel in distress. Need I say more?
21. Sew a Button: … While sewing may seem like a skill purely in the ladies’ realm, knowing this simple clothing fix can come in mighty handy when you’re in a pinch.
This one is self explanatory as well. Finally, though not directly misogynistic, it would be remiss of me to not include this gem of a quote:
7. Survive a Bear Attack: … Believe it or not, just weeks after I compiled the research for our AoM guide on the topic, I encountered not one, but two black bears on a popular trail in Rocky Mountain National Park. It does happen. I was surprisingly calm with this useful knowledge at hand, and I felt confident I could have taken down those black bears should necessity have called. Alas, it didn’t, and I mourned the loss of the new rug I was looking forward to for my living room.
Wow.
What we see in this website is the gender essentialism at the center of mainstream society today. The site is interesting in that it recognizes the mainstream “manliness” of society, yet instead of interpreting it in a manner which champions the removal of the stereotypes placed on men, it simply decides to place upon them different, old school stereotypes. This is a very real website which gives an interesting insight into the perspective of the “modern gentleman,” and truly shows how progress has not been so consistent in the societal norms of “being a man.”
