Man is forming'': problem of masculinity under gender research

New kind of researches is begun under the so-called ''second wave'' of feminism force after the middle of the 20th century. Researches under consideration deal with the man nature, i.e., the standard of masculinity to fit the general conditions of man and his socialization. Initiators of ''man problem'' are men themselves, who have been gradually become conscious of their deep personality needs and the objectively changed social interactions incompatible with the tradition of ''real masculinity''. Classical ''canon of masculinity'' became doubtful, it is detected contradictory and unachievable as such. One of the most outstanding results of man studies was the ''discovery'' of male, i.e., the realization of the fact that man is not a human in general, but a human with certain sex indicators dependent on culture representations of how a man should behave, or what he should be like. In traditional culture the man image was often identified with the human image, with woman recognized as a deviation of the human. Frenchwoman researcher Elizabeth Badenter determines two main defining factors of traditional masculinity: formation and negation. 1. Formation. E. Badenter, using the analysis of the use of the category of masculinity and its characteristics in language, concludes that masculinity cannot be understood as a biological given a group of individuals has from birth or acquires in the process of natural development. There is no doubt that the main part in the standard structure of masculinity is formation of a man, i.e., the natural process of getting the status of a ''real man''. In other words, masculinity is not a biological given, but a cultural, discursively defined goal. 2. Negation. The general property of man formation is its mainly marked negation character. Negation supposes existence of the Negated or Another, by means of rejecting it formation is possible. E. Badenter detects three main images of Another significant for man formation: child, woman, homosexual. All of these three negations may and must be relate to one negation: the woman element. It is the man who gradually proves his principle distinguished feature from female sex through the manifold tests during all his life.

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