[This workshop was originally presented at the 1983 American College Personnel Association Annual Conference as a workshop sponsored by the Men’s Committee.  After the presentation, a panel of college professionals reacted to the material presented, leading to a general discussion by all participants.  An invitation followed to present this material as a workshop at the National Organization of Changing Men’s Annual Conference that same year.  This was also the first workshop on men’s issues Dale participated in.]

Good morning and welcome.  This is the workshop, ‘The Demise of the Masculine American Culture’.  I am Dale Ross, a counselor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, a private therapist, as well as the ‘Baby Boom Male’ mentioned in the program summary.

The women’s movement has become a model for a growing number of men who decided it is also time they learned about their individual identities.  This process is slow and usually begins with a painful lack of awareness of oneself.  Eventually, a new sense of self-awareness develops which allows for growth as an individual.  Encouraging this process of self-awareness is the focus of the workshop.

The format will be the presentation of a fifteen minute paper/talk by myself (copies will be available at the conclusion of the workshop), followed by reactions of our panelists and then there will be opportunity for group participation by yourselves to discuss the impact of the issues we have raised.  The content of my talk will follow my development as a ‘model male’ and my own growing awareness of the dissatisfaction and ineffectiveness in following such a prescribed script.  This process is of course incomplete and ever on-going.  I will include some of my anticipations about my future and some generalizations for your consideration, which I think are abstractable. 

Historically, World War II and the escalation of scientific developments helped establish, first) the current pyramid organizational system – you’ve heard of General Motors?, second) competitiveness – notice the amount of organized sports on television lately?, and third) the greater use of natural resources in refined forms – almost any television commercial from a large corporation illustrates how the modern person is ‘supposed’ to live better electrically, chemically and/or electronically.  There had been a drive to see how far we could go, as a group called a nation, since the new frontiers did not appear to have limits.  Our new found power and abilities appeared to be limitless.  This continued until people like Rachael Carson in the Silent Spring and Alvin Toefler in Future Shock pointed out the folly in our assumptions.

Socially, the suburbs became ‘the way of life’.  There was a mass exodus which included my family when I was almost two years old.  I was raised as the Dr. Spock child who attended the school with the newest styles of education.  My parents worked hard and spent their spare time unselfishly giving to their children since ‘we should have a better life than they did’.  My father often commented on ‘the war to end all wars’ and how cars could be built to last twenty years.  My mother was too busy tending to the housework to have time for fun.  We all worked hard to get to the good life which was just around the corner.  John Wayne emerged as a great movie idol because he illustrated the traits Americans cherished, including: the strong man of the Old West where ‘men were MEN’, power ruled, and the goal was always pursued until it was won.  We often referred to ‘New Frontiers’ and how they needed to be explored.  The attitude was somewhat like the mountains that need to be climbed because they were there.  Costs were not considered an obstacle.

Personally, I grew up as a child who succeeded at ‘everything’, was liked by everyone, and matured into adulthood ahead of my peers.  Everyone was impressed with me, but me.  Everyone enjoyed my company, but me.  There was a loneliness, emptiness and lack of fulfillment which was pervasive.  I kept myself busy in school which furthered the myth that more was better and perfection was a worthwhile goal.  Personal development was not raised as an issue.  Because the traditional academic tasks were relatively easy, the challenge and comradeship and sense of purpose were greatly reduced.  My parents encouraged this style out of pride at how well they were doing in raising the successful young adult.   Not fitting the mold resulted in being ignored since to not be a problem was considered being OK.  ‘Of course I was happy’.  Quality of life had not yet been ‘invented’.  Society was too busy overcoming negative social problems like employing the unemployable and feeding the world, to be concerned with an individual’s personal dissatisfactions.  It wasn’t something people thought about.  The world was learning to live like ‘Leave It To Beaver’ and ‘Father Knows Best’.

It is only recently that individuals have begun to want the same opportunities that society has been claiming are worthwhile – a balanced life.  As long as one person (or group) considers only his/her positive returns and immediate costs, there is a strong chance that he/she will overlook and discount others.  Win/lose ideals mean someone loses whenever someone wins.  Until recently, Americans’ resources were considered inexhaustible and we simply put more of them to use to insure success and comfort.  Walt Disney showed how well we could live as we learned to harness more power.  Surface appearances became increasingly important, again without much regard to the costs.  When my parents divorced, while I was in high school, people found it hard to believe.  We appeared so happy together.  I had felt and seen it coming for about eight years, with the costs being a great deal of stress, among other things.

As with our national budget, there needs to be an eventual balancing.  People need to do this balancing in their own lives as well.  Holistic medicine is catching on rapidly as we now look to the more economical and effective methods of prevention rather than curing the ills.  I have been attempting to discover my strengths and weaknesses, desires and tolerances, as well as my needs and wants.  This began in undergraduate school, with the help of a counselor, when I ran out of things I was supposed to do and like.  I was faced with saying what I wanted and I did not know.  Priorities need to be set as we learn we cannot afford to do it all.  When we thought we could always win we did not need to learn to compromise.  To be human, I have been learning, is to compromise the giving and taking of oneself with others, so both get a ‘fair share’.  The new adage is not whether it is what you want but whether you can live with it.  Without such cooperation people will burn themselves out and burn up their resources trying to always win, at whatever price.

This former process leaves us with a society of lethargic, susceptible to illness, disengaged people who look to high cost short-term solutions.  As I look to the costs I paid in being ‘the good American male’ I continually decide that the costs were (and still are) too high physically, emotionally and socially. 

I didn’t exercise and rest as I needed.  It was during periods I intellectually decided I could afford – called a vacation.  Friends were also located in convenient business settings and seen around professional needs – not personal ones.  To consider alternatives I have had to find them, learn what they had to offer, and evaluate the cost/benefit of each, according to my own standards of quality living.  This has meant discovering what I like/dislike and what I am willing/unwilling to do as a male.  This is hard as society has tried to do it for me, unsuccessfully, for my entire life.  Ultimately, I am the only one who can answer these questions on a personal basis.  This has been difficult for me and others to accept.  For me it meant returning to college and getting a degree in social work so I could work with people – not things.  As society is willing to tolerate more alternatives and compromises (out of need for cooperation, as well as out of kindness), people will need to take the time to understand themselves, if satisfying decisions are to be made.  To begin at the level of understanding of what it means to be a ‘male’ is necessary, I believe, since most attributes beyond this are social conditionings.  The behavioral sciences have been trying to teach us this for a long time.  Just as we learned to refine the processes which lead to more effective use of our natural resources, we need to develop processes which allow for effective use and expression of ourselves as well.  Slowly, individuals like myself, have begun this important task.  The returns are great and very satisfying.  By helping each other, this task can be speeded up so more can experience the satisfaction of leading personally rewarding lives as males who understand what the word means to them individually.

This process has lead me to conclude that there is a demise of the traditional masculine American male in progress.  I believe this has largely occurred and what we are currently seeing is the first stage of the mourning process – denial.  If you look back over the short time span I began this talk with (World War II) there is much evidence for it.

Socially, the male traits of ‘strength’ and ‘not with feeling’ illustrated in the John Wayne Syndrome are not what encourages closeness and cooperation.  They can encourage envy and fear – the ‘stuff’ that personal and international conflicts are made of.  We have always benefited from cooperative efforts and mutual goal setting.  Social, political and economic increases are happening to those countries and powers who cooperate.  An additional deficit of our exaggerated maleness is our current social lack of interest and involvement.  This apathy is demonstrated in our declining quality of work, lack of motivation and social callousness.  We are just now recognizing what has been growing for a long time – a need for quality in our daily lives, along with the quantity.  Women have been the traditional quality people – our teachers, homemakers and generally sensitive people.  Since World War II we have been attempting to escalate these male and female model to new heights.  They have recently begun to tumble.  There needs to be a blending of both for a balanced person, unique for each individual.

Economically, the philosophy of winning at all costs has been inappropriate for some time.  Politicians are claming our current budget problems have been in existence for a long time and we have been ignoring the warning signals – possibly further denial?  We are currently so interdependent on each other that we cannot afford to compete and try to win, as we have been doing.  The costs are so high that we may bankrupt ourselves by continuing our outdated practices.  The costs of our current arms race is an excellent example of this.

Personally, the newly discovered problems of stress is another example of a long ignored cost.  We have been literally killing ourselves to get ahead socially.  While in a small business I owned, I developed hypoglycemia and was taking 20 ml/daily of valium to control it.  I was told I could only keep it under control until it eventually became diabetes.  The decision to try a new career that I liked better was successful enough in better meeting my needs that the hypoglycemia stopped the week I finalized plans with my attorney.  Stress management has become a multi-million dollar industry.

We have made many assumptions about what men and women ‘really are like’.  Women have been successfully breaking their molds for several years.  Men have been trying to keep their same mold which becomes increasingly more inappropriate.  The distance between men and women has been growing and creating more friction, stress and unhappiness.  There are biological ‘givens’ to maleness and femaleness for human beings, as well all animals.  Beyond these ‘givens’, however, the whole range of possibly viable variations is enormous.  Many variations still to be discovered.  We continually try to put men into narrow little segments of behaviors, with highly restricting rules of conduct without giving them a choice.  The information, the means, and the support for men to expand their molds is here now – if we will only get up the courage to try them.

We will need to, first) create an awareness in men of the negative costs of the present trends, second) show them the positive benefits of new alternatives, third) teach them how to manage trying out various models, and finally, fourth) emotionally support and encourage these people who are being forced from a home (or lifestyle) they have lived in for many generations.