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Unit 2
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dysfunctions, and perceived losses of control and power (pp. 98-99).
Such men are seen in their society as failures, useless and lazy. For instance, Emecheta‟s male characters are said to be „„irresponsible heads of families who are mostly insensitive to the needs of their wives and children‟‟ (Taiwo 1984:19). This statement, true as it sounds, fails to consider social condition(s) that create these characters in those contexts. The question is, what is the social construction of these male characters in terms of role performance and trait exhibition that make them insensitive and irresponsible? No doubt, certain social conditions have created these men who are products of unrealized ambition and failed aspirations, as social lepers, failures and unlucky beings, the Igbo refer to as agbala.
Emasculation occurs in a variety of ways. For instance, it occurs as a result of the imbalance in human interactions, and exclusion from privileges enjoyed by the others in a social setting. In terms of exercise of power, exhibition of traits and performance of roles, standard has been set in all of those areas against which all men are measured and assessed. This standard actually defines individual‟s hierarchy in masculinity. The emasculated individual is made so because of certain inabilities or deprivation in the social system. By the set standard, the individual or group of individuals cannot measure up. Emasculation crosses gender boundaries to include racial segregation and ethnic subordination.
Any relationship among men in a given society that tends to create for others a complex, and a sense of inadequacy, surely will emasculate. Such tendencies arise often from intimidation and harassment by „„men with the properly sanctioned educational credentials in our society” (Brod, 1985:6). Other men who do not have access to education either because of their economic inadequacy or low social status succumb to the whims of the privileged men who impose their
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opinion on them “with an air of supreme self-confidence and aggressive self-assurance” (Brod 1985: 6). This kind of relationship creates for others a sense of denial and alienation that lead to low self-esteem.
While some will blame themselves for such ill-defined self-identity among fellow men, others simply respond by assuming more deviant to the acceptable social norms. In a society where education or love for learning is a norm, literacy may be considered a “mark of dignity”. Those who are denied that opportunity are, therefore, rendered helpless especially in socio-cultural climes where the certificate is a means to economic independence and higher social status.
Emasculation by race seems to be prevalent at local and global levels. At global level, the masculinity of the developed economy enacts the hegemonic type. According to Kimmel (1995) hegemonic masculinity presents the image of a compradorial bourgeois…
Sitting in first-class waiting rooms in airport or in elegant business hotels the world over, wearing a designer business suit, speaking English, eating „continental‟ cuisine, talking on his cell phone, his laptop computer plugged into any electrical outlet, while he watches CNN international or television (p. 415).
He represents the image of his Asian, African and European counterparts globally. This image contrasts sharply with the image of male peasants or artisans in remote villages battling diseases and abject poverty across the globe. The global economy has emasculated and rendered them
“weak, helpless, effete and incapable of supporting a family‟‟ (p. 420). Kimmel did not, however, explain here whether all men enacting the hegemonic form fit the description above.
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One might be tempted to ask whether it includes the very rich, powerful farmer with the image of the African big man in the village not exposed to sophisticated technology and lifestyle.
Again, among men across races of the world are those emasculated by other men not of their own race. For instance, the colonized men are emasculated socially and economically by their colonizers. The colonized is less masculine by the colonizers‟ estimation. According to Kimmel (1995) „„in many colonial situations, the colonized men were called „Boys‟ by the colonizers” (p.
412). This is a form of de-masculinization of the male gender in a situation where „men ceased to be men.‟
Racism remains a veritable tool for male emasculation in a multicultural, multi-racial environment. A multi-racial country like South Africa will probably have minority white men in control of the means of production, rendering majority black men incapacitated.
The black man has not been able to regain his self-esteem and manhood wounded through the dehumanizing slavery that spanned almost 300 years.
The Jews have been accused of feminizing the American environment by recruiting black women and gay in order to further emasculate American white men. What Kimmel terms “Anti-Semitic slander,” is the radical criticism of “American manhood as soft, feminized, weakened – indeed, emasculated‟‟ (p. 413).
Kimmel describes the downward slope of the emasculation of North American men as alarming citing Ferber (1998) thus:
The number of effeminate males has increased greatly….
Legions of sissies and weaklings, of flabby, limp-wristed, non-aggressive, non-physical, indecisive, slack-jawed, fearful males who, while still heterosexual, in theory and
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practice, have not even vestige of the old macho spirit (p. 136).
The economic and socio-cultural dictates of the society consistently reduce capacity for men to live up to societal billings and expectations as “men.” He is simply inadequate. This, according to hooks (1984), cannot be divulged from the fact that the emasculated man…
does not have the privilege or power society has taught him
„real men‟ should possess. Alienated, frustrated, pissed off, he may attack, abuse, and oppress an individual woman or women, but he is not reaping positive benefits from his support and perpetuation of sexist ideology (and therefore) not exercising privilege (p. 73).
Emasculation is a painful social and psychological condition. Gaylin (1992) refers to it as “social humiliation‟‟ which occurs when “men become depressed because of loss of status and power in the world of men” (p. 22). This study argues that many of the male characters created as the
„wretched of the earth‟ in both male and female authored works are actually emasculated characters. A man becomes emasculated having been deprived, rejected, humiliated, scoffed and disdained by his female partner or fellow men arising possibly from the social system and cultural standard he daily contends with.
3.4. Types of Emasculation