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

Because of patriarchy’s ubiquity and influence over all of Western culture’s history as a defining principle of gender roles and expectations, it is important to review briefly the historical development of patriarchy and its influence on masculine role models.

Doyle (1995) identified five different male models that have shaped Western masculine self-identity: the epic male, the spiritual male, the chivalric male, the renaissance male, and the bourgeois male. Although each model represented an exaggerated ideal impossible for any one man to attain completely, nevertheless, each model shaped the masculine identity and role expectations of males of the time and supported the patriarchal social order.

The first masculine model was the epic male of the Greek and Roman periods as depicted in the literature of Homer and Virgil. The epic male was characterized primarily as a man of action, a leader, and a fighter. Males who fulfilled this gender identity exhibited masterful skill in warfare and possessed great strength, courage, and loyalty to his comrades. A man’s loyalty was hierarchically determined: first to king and leader, second to comrades in arms, and finally to clan and family. Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey glorified the Greek heroes of the Trojan War as exemplars of the best of ideal manhood. Achilles and Odysseus take leading roles in Homer’s epic tales depicting the best and brightest of the Greek nation’s masculine role models. Achilles embodies the best in warrior manhood and loyalty to king and comrades. Not only does Odysseus exemplify these qualities, but also he models the manhood ideals of fierce loyalty to clan and family during his twenty-year odyssey to return home and retake his homeland. At the psychological level, The Odyssey represents the encounters Odysseus must face and successfully negotiate with his unconscious psyche in order to return home—a classic metaphor for the journey of self-discovery that all men must make in their lives in order to become authentic selves (Edinger, 1994).

In a similar manner, Virgil’s Aeneid spotlights the Roman hero Aeneas as the warrior-adventurer who returns home to Italy from Troy and becomes the founder of Rome. Aeneas’ adventures parallel those of Odysseus’ exploits. Escaping from ruined Troy, Aeneas and his faithful crew wander for seven years before arriving in Italy.