Crossing into Manhood: A Men’s Studies Curriculum By Christopher ...

This gender ideal became the focus of questioning and critiquing on the part of both the women’s and the men’s movements. The term men’s movement is somewhat of a misnomer because it is not a monolithic movement, but rather a number of different movements subsumed under one label (Clatterbaugh, 1997). The men’s movement coalesced, however, around men’s reactions to the anger the women’s movement directed toward men (Williamson, 1997). While each strand has its distinctive characteristics and perspectives, “each has emerged and taken form in response to modern feminist movements as well as other components in the aggregate men’s movement” (Clatterbaugh, p. 9).

Clatterbaugh (1997) identified eight major strands that make up the modern men’s movement, each of which contributes a unique historical and ideological perspective. What all the strands have in common is that each starts by defining itself in respect to the feminist viewpoint and by finding some important connections between men and women. Additionally, each strand asserts that its platform is best for both men and women while seeking to address positively and support the specific issues and concerns of men (Clatterbaugh).

The conservative perspective affirms traditional social institutions and mores and the traditional roles for men as protectors and women as homemakers and caregivers (Clatterbaugh). This group contends that traditional notions of masculine and feminine roles are biologically and genetically determined in which men are naturally disposed to dominate in the public sphere of work and world, and women are naturally disposed to prevail in the private sphere of home and family (Clatterbaugh). The antecedents of the conservative perspective can be found in the writings of Edmund Burke (1809–1882), who affirmed the wisdom of societal traditions founded in such institutions as the family, the church, and the community. Burke and thinkers like him advocated a moral conservatism based on natural law that contains a set of absolute values upon which society is built and maintained.