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

The mythopoetic men’s movement does not advocate a political agenda. Instead it is a “spiritual perspective” in which personal growth is a central tenet (Clatterbaugh, p. 95). The great popularity of this perspective is the result of a diverse assortment of workshops, retreats, and men’s counseling groups, fueled by the enormous readership of Bly’s book and other books, such as Moore and Gillette’s King, Warrior, Magician, Lover (1991), Sam Keen’s Fire in the Belly (1992), and Michael Meade’s Men and the Water of Life (1993). These authors examine stories, myths, and images and are more symbolic and therapeutic than literal and theoretical in their perspective. The heart of the mythopoetic agenda is the recovery of missing or inadequate masculine initiation rites that facilitate men’s growth into the mature masculine energies (Bly, 1992, p. 35; Clatterbaugh, p. 107; Moore and Gillette, 1990, p. 5).

The mythopoetic men’s movement manifests itself most visibly in the hundreds of men’s retreats held annually by the movement’s authors and leaders. During these weekends, men are initiated into deep masculine archetypes, get in touch with and articulate their grief, and seek support from each other in reformulating a revitalized spiritual perspective for their own personal masculine story and identity. An offshoot of the mythopoetic movement is The New Warrior Adventure Training, a weekend focusing on drumming, dancing, and rituals as a means of recovering positive male energy (Clatterbaugh, p. 110). Overall, the mythopoetic perspective advocates therapeutic, individual, and spiritual changes in the lives of men rather than espousing a platform for political or social reform. It proffers yet another masculine ideal for individual male identity.

The socialist perspective views masculinities as products of “patriarchal capitalism … [and] determined by who does what work, who controls the labor of others, and who controls the products of that labor” (Clatterbaugh, p. 13) There is little socialist perspective literature on masculinity. Adapting the thought of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), this perspective is predicated on three basic tenets. The first is that masculinity is molded and created by the power and productivity alignments of labor inherent in a class-structured society. Secondly, the consequent cost to masculinity because of these alignments is alienation. Thirdly, there can be no alteration in masculinity until the power relations in class structures are changed (Clatterbaugh, p. 118).