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

Oscar Wilde and his character Dorian Gray prefigure the postmodern man perfectly with Gray’s endless pursuit of the beautiful with a narcissistic desire for personal gratification coupled with materialistic consumption.

During the 1970s, the feminist movement’s first critiques of masculine gender roles and expectations questioned and criticized traditional masculine gender explanations. Males have historically been the focal point of most psychological research, which viewed the male gender as representative of all humanity. However, feminist scholars who have revised the notions on women’s psychological development have criticized and attacked this traditional assumption. Joseph Pleck’s The Myth of Masculinity (1981) meticulously deconstructed the male sex role model with its representative empirical literature and concluded that the male sex role paradigm was an inadequate model of masculinity. He posited the following ten propositions in his “sex role strain” paradigm:

1. Sex roles are operationally defined by sex role stereotypes and norms.

2. Sex roles are contradictory and inconsistent.

3. The proportion of individuals who violate sex roles is high.

4. Violating sex roles leads to social condemnation.

5. Violating sex roles leads to negative psychological consequences.

6. Actual or imagined violation of sex roles leads individuals to overconform to them.

7. Violating sex roles has more severe consequences for males than females.

8. Certain characteristics prescribed by sex roles are psychologically dysfunctional.

9. Each sex experiences sex role strain in its paid work and family roles.

10. Historical change causes sex role strain. (Pleck, pp. 135–152)