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THE VOICES OF MEN: THE SHAPING OF MASCULINITIES IN THREE SUBCULTURAL

CONTEXTS

Thomas F. Matta

A Dissertation Presented to the

FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

(Sociology)

May 1996

UMI Number: 9636358

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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007

This dissertation, written by

Thomas Francis Matta

under the direction of h...is Dissertation Committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re quirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Dean o f Graduate Studies

Date ...A . P . ..2.5,..1.996 ....

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE

Chairperson(

ABSTRACT Much of the research in men’s studies to date has focused on the shaping of

masculinity o f white middle-class men. This study uses life cycle and social constructivist perspectives to explore the subjective experiences of men from varied subcultural contexts.

A theory that has received much attention in feminist and men’s studies circles is Chodorow’s (1978) The Reproduction o f Mothering, which reconceptualizes psychoanalytic notions of personality development to more fully include the impact of the structure of parenting on that process. Chodorow postulates that, due to the Industrial Revolution’s virtual removal of the man from the world of the family, boys’ and girls’ psychological development varies greatly in their paths to gendered beings, resulting in men defining and over-valuing their own separateness. Simply, this results in men who have relational deficits and a lesser capacity for empathy and nurturance than women have. With feminist object-relations theory in mind, this study explores the shaping of masculinities within three subcultural contexts.

A total of thirty in-depth personal narrative interviews were conducted with men from three subcultural contexts. Class was held relatively constant as the men interviewed were from urban and rural working-class backgrounds. The interviewees included men who were members of Amish communities, as well as men from the African-American working-class in Pittsburgh and white working-class men from Erie County, Pennsylvania. In listening to men’s subjective experiences from varied life circumstances and subcultures, embedded in a particular sociohistorical context, the plurality of masculinities was informed and expanded.

Through the interviews with the men from these three subcultures, feminist object-relations theory was further informed and extended. The interviews suggest that gender-making, definition and maintenance is a much more fluid and dynamic process than previously postulated in the feminist object-relations literature. The psychoanalytic concept of ego boundaries was reconceptualized utilizing a systemic framework and redefined as a process of expansion and contraction, with contraction socially constructed as masculine.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION................................................................................................................. vii BIOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS..................................................................... ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................... xiv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................. 1 Expanding to a Plurality of M asculinities......................................................... 2 Chodorow’s Reproduction of Mothering and the Relationally Deficient

M ale ............................................................................................................ 4

CHAPTER 2: METHOD AND E N T R E E ................................................................ 13 Securing Interview R espondents..................................................................... 13 Interview P ro cess............................................................................................... 18 Data Analysis and Interpretation..................................................................... 19 Methodology—A Rationale for the In-Depth In terv iew ............................... 20 Limitations of the Study .................................................................................. 23 Developmental Salience.................................................................................... 25

CHAPTER 3: AMISH SUBCULTURE ................................................................... 31 The History of Amish Families ..................................................................... 33 Education, Employment and In c o m e .............................................................. 35 Fertility and Births Out-of-Wedlock .............................................................. 36 Rites of Passage: Baptism, Marriage and Parenthood ............................... 37 Amish Men: "Men of F a ith " .......................................................................... 40 Masculinity as a Developmental Process and Gender S c h e m a .................. 43

Time Orientation .................................................................................. 45 Ideological Dimension—"The Basic Pulpit of Life" ....................... 47

Farming ..................................................................................... 50 Education .................................................................................. 51 Publications............................................................................... 53

Social/Relational Dimension................................................................ 58 Affective Processes................................................................... 58 A Language of Nurturance...................................................... 60 Acknowledging Dependency Needs Through Spatial

Metaphors ................................................................... 61 Relationships as a Male Responsibility................................. 64 Humility, Male Vulnerability, and Confession..................... 66 H arm ony..................................................................................... 69 Layering Value Lessons Into One’s Being .......................... 70 Restraint as Part of the Amish Masculine Definition-

Renouncing the Sword 74

Community Mentoring ........................................................... 77 "Stand-Bys"............................................................................... 79

Elder M en to r................................................................ 80 Elder/Peer Mentor ...................................................... 82 Peer/Elder Mentor ...................................................... 83 Peer M entor................................................................... 84

Environmental D im ension ................................................................... 85 Skill Building and D e-Skilling.............................................. 85

Psychological D im ension..................................................................... 90 Ego Boundaries ........................................................................ 90 Family Identification................................................................ 91

Patriarchy and the A m ish.................................................................................. 95 Summary ............................................................................................................ 100

CHAPTER 4: BLACK WORKING-CLASS SUBCULTURE................................. 103 The History of Black Families and the Pathology/Resiliency Debate . . 104 Black Families in a Broader C ontex t........................................................... 109 Education, Employment, and Incom e........................................................... 110 Fertility and Out-of-Wedlock Births ........................................................... I l l M arriage............................................................................................................... 112 The Urbanization of Black Families ........................................................... 118 The Strengths in Black Fam ilies................................................................... 119 Black Working-Class Men and Families of the Greater Pittsburgh Area 123 Black Working-Class Men: "Men of H o n o r" ............................................ 128

Masculinity as a Developmental Process ....................................... 136 Time Orientation—"Here Today, Gone Today" ............................ 139 Ideology—"Endure Things A Little Farther" .................................. 141

The Black Church ................................................................ 141 S torytelling ............................................................................. 144

Racism and Demoralization of the Black Working-Class Male . 146 P overty ..................................................................................... 149

Doing Something Vital—The Black Working-Class Work Ethic . 150 Danger on the Job ................................................................ 153

Masculine R o le s .................................................................................. 154 Men as Co-Providers . . . . ................................................... 155 Men as C o-Protectors........................................................... 157 Men as Stem, Nurturant Authorities .................................. 159 Power Differentials .............................................................. 162

Relational Issues ............................................................................... 163 Affective Processes................................................................ 163 A Language of Respect—"It’s Just Not Recognized" . . . . 163 The Impact of Deindustrialization on Intergenerational

M entoring................................................................... 166 Sustaining Relationships ...................................................... 170

W om en........................................................................ 170 Isolation and Alienation............................................ 172 Friendships ................................................................ 175

Hustling .................................................................................. 176 M ilestones............................................................................................ 177

Summary ......................................................................................................... 178

CHAPTER 5: WHITE WORKING-CLASS SUBCULTURE............................ 183 European Migration to Pennsylvania........................................................... 185

Scotch-Irish Em igration..................................................................... 186 German Emigration .......................................................................... 188 Irish Em igration.................................................................................. 191 Polish Em igration............................................................................... 192 Italian Emigration............................................................................... 194

The Conservative Ethos of Erie C oun ty ...................................................... 198 Labor History ................................................................................................. 199 Indentured Servants and Redemptioners...................................................... 199 Further Exploitation of Emigrant L a b o r ...................................................... 201 Exploitation of a Worker’s Wages ............................................................. 203 Protest M asculinity......................................................................................... 204 The Development of Industry and a Working-Class in Erie County . . . 205 Present-Day White Identity as a Function of Class ................................. 207 Embedding Family Life in the History of Capitalism, Class, and Status 208 Classes as Status G ro u p s ............................................................................... 210 White Working-Class Men: "Men at W ork".............................................. 212

Masculinity as a Developmental Process and Gender Schema . . 216 Time Orientation ............................................................................... 218 Ideology—"Work is the Greatest Thing Man H as!" ....................... 219

Asceticism............................................................................... 222 Independence .......................................................................... 224

Relational Issues.................................................................................. 225 Affective Processes................................................................ 225 A Language of Distance ...................................................... 228 Isolation and Loneliness ...................................................... 229 Patriarchy and Power ........................................................... 230

Mentors ............................................................................................... 232 Extended Family Mentors ................................................... 232 Community M en to rs............................................................. 234

Work-Related Is su e s .......................................................................... 237 White Working-Class Careers in a Rural Setting ............ 237 De-Skilling of Youth and Devaluation of Manual Labor . 238

A Creative Response to the White Working-Class Dilemma . . . 239 Summary ......................................................................................................... 241

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 245 Major Themes in the Construction of Masculinities in the Three

Subcultures.......................................................................................... 245 Chodorow R ev isited ....................................................................................... 255 The Mystery of Masculinity ........................................................................ 258 Internal Dimensions .............................................j 259

Reconceptualizing Ego Boundaries as an Expansion/Contraction Phenomenon ........................................................................... 259

Ego Boundary Formation and D evelopm ent.................................. 261 Expansion and Contraction................................................................ 263 Ego Boundary F unctions............................ 264

Social Dimensions ...................... 265 Identification P rocesses..................................................................... 265 Disidentification Processes................................................................ 271 Ego Boundary N orm ing..................................................................... 277

Amish Ego Boundary Norming by P e e r s .......................... 277 Black Working-Class Ego Boundary Norming by Peers . 278 White Working-Class Ego Boundary Norming by Adults 279

A Stage Model of Contracting Ego Boundaries............................ 281 The Socialization o f Ego Boundary Contractions Into Masculine

D efin ition ................................................................................ 288 Sport as Boundary Contraction Simulations .................................. 291 Healthy Ego Boundary Contractions .............................................. 292

Different Patterns of Expansion Contraction Processes in the Three C on tex ts .................................................................................. 293

The Amish Context and Ego B oundaries....................................... 294 The Black Working-Class Context and Ego B oundaries............. 295 The White Working-Class Context and Ego B oundaries 298

Patriarchal Liabilities ..................................................................................... 299 Alternative Masculinities Offered by the Great Wisdom Tradition of

C hristian ity .......................................................................................... 300 Implications for Future Research................................................................... 301 In Conclusion ................................................................................................. 302

APPENDIX A: HUMAN SUBJECTS FORM FOR IRB ..................................... 304 APPENDIX B: CONSENT FORM ....................................................................... 308 APPENDIX C: PRESENTATION TO IRONWORKERS LOCAL XYZ ____ 310 APPENDIX D: INTERVIEW GUIDE...... ............................................................... 311

BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................... 313

DEDICATION

This study is dedicated to the two most influential people in my life. Big Jim,

my grandfather, was a great inspiration to me. My cherished memories include him

singing, telling stories, lifting the front end of an automobile, or greeting me with his

indomitable acceptance as I walked through his door. "Well, how do you do!" was

the common refrain to welcome his grandchildren or other visitors. His rather large

stature was a reassuring presence. It was nothing for my Grandpap to eat a dozen

ears o f corn or a bushel of tomatoes, so I’ve been told. Breakfast with Grandpap was

a nourishing ritual that included more than the food offered: eggs over easy, plenty

of pepper, home fries cooked in bacon grease, a bottle of ketchup, a slice of ham,

Welch’s grape juice, and toast piled as high as I’d ever seen. At times I remember

him standing over a rather large stew pot making fresh vegetable soup, singing Old

Dan Tucker, Sally Dear, or The Preacher and the Bear. Over twenty-five years

later, I ’m still Big Jim’s grandson in my hometown. The unspoken words behind his

presence were, "Leave a mark, son. Whatever you do, give it your best."

This is for you, Grandpap!

"Full of pep, full of steam, if she were a boy she’d make the team." This catchy

prose lies beneath my mother’s high school graduation picture in her yearbook. That

spirit, my mom’s spirit, is very much alive within me. She was an extraordinary

woman.

I was nine years old when we moved back to the Pittsburgh area, and I have

many memories about my mother and the people in her life. One such memory is a

vivid recollection of an elderly black woman who lived nearby calling me to her

side. She said, "So you’s Ruthie’s boy. Let me get a look at you. You pretty good

looking for a white boy. Tell your mom, I sure do miss her, honey. Tell her to come

see me. I ’ll put a fresh pot of coffee on. Just like ol’ times." My mother taught me

to sing, love the Lord, and believe the best in people. I can still see her dancing to

Aretha Franklin’s Respect.

My mom had all kinds of endearing expressions. If she wanted a kiss, she’d

point at her cheek and say, "Heh, come here. Give me a sidewinder!" If she wanted

to tell you how proud she was of you and wanted to make sure it didn’t lead to

conceit, she might say, "Just remember. I knew ya when you weren’t a scrap of

nothing!" Or if she thought one of her children was being mildly disrespectful, she’d

comment, "I can still get up on a chair and hit ya." When great distances made

contact more difficult, she’d say over the phone, "I hug ya to my heart!"

September of 1985, I got a call to fly out to California. My mom was dying.

Only four or five months earlier my mother’s aunt died, and at the wake we all sang

hymns and Negro spirituals, lots of spirituals. My mother made an off-handed

comment, "When I go, I hope the Lord sends me out singing, just like that!" Each

time I went into my mom’s hospital room, I sang to her. She was in and out of

consciousness and couldn’t respond. But when she seemed conscious, she cried.

"Heh, Mom, I miss you. I hug you to my heart!"

viii

BIOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

There are experiences in a person’s life that can be described as defining

moments; they help to formulate, refine or reformulate a person’s worldview. These

moments may be experiences of success or tragedy; they may be positive, negative

or something in between. But these experiences or moments "leave an impression," as

many of the men interviewed reported. One such moment in my life contextualizes

part of my rationale for exploring working-class men’s masculinities.

When I was finishing my sophomore year in high school in 1969, a celebration

was planned to commemorate the 38 years of my grandfather’s employment as a

custodian at our local high school. Along with his responsibilities as custodian, he

was also the trainer for the football team. When I was a young boy, I spent a week

nearly every summer with my grandparents. It was a marvelous adventure to roam

the halls of Scott High School, helping scrape gum off every possible hiding place.

An even bigger adventure included accompanying him to the school at 2:00 a.m. to

turn on the football field’s sprinkler system.

My favorite place was the football locker room. As I reflect on it now, it was a

place for masculinity-making. My grandfather, various coaches, teenage players and

school personnel would hang out there and talk about all facets of life; this was a

rich, ongoing discourse. Just as the pulpit is considered a sacred place for imparting

religious ideology, the locker room in this instance imparts hegemonic working-class

masculine norms.

The celebration ritual was a male-only retirement dinner with almost 500 guests

in attendance. It was an evening of folklore and storytelling—many o f the stories true,

but certainly embellished—about my grandfather, Big Jim. As I reflect on it now over

twenty-five years later, what impressed me most was the capacity of a working-class

man to leave a mark in his world. The public acknowledgment of my grandfather’s

life and contribution is truly the exception.

Most of these kinds of men live their lives in obscurity. Understanding their

struggle at the subsistence level of life offers rich insights to the dominant culture. I

would like to think that each of the thirty men included in my study left a mark. And

even if it was just for a moment, they were held in high esteem, prominent and

acknowledged.

My familial roots are white working-class, embedded in the former industrial city

of Pittsburgh. This biographical context at times created dilemmas in the proper

social distance necessary for sociological inquiry and analysis. My childhood and

adolescent working-class experiences were many times brutal, fraught with male

tirades and violence. The Amish men in the study were in stark contrast to my

biography; they seemed to possess so much male tenderness and warmth. As a

result, I found myself wanting to "go native."

An anecdote provides some insight. In my effort to gain rapport with a particular

Amish community, I felt obliged to honor a request to bring my family for a visit.

Following the bucolic visit, my nine-year-old son made an enlightening comment that

summarized my temptation to "go native." He stated, "Hey, Dad. When I grow up, I

want to be an Amish boy."

Social distance was also complicated by the similarity between the Amish and

me. As a person of faith, my similar Christian belief system provided rapport with

the Amish. But accessing certain personal struggles or disclosures concerning social

problems such as domestic violence was particularly difficult. Because o f the

numerous declines by Amish men to participate in the interviews, I found out that

certain questions (i.e., first sexual experience) were too personal and could not be

asked.

To keep the appropriate distance between the Amish and me, I had to make a

conscious effort to limit my contact to the project at hand. Therefore, beyond the

interviews themselves I only made one family visit and attended one church service

with my participants.

I spent my childhood and adolescence in Pittsburgh, and knew the steeltown

communities in the area. This helped curb the social distance and enhance my

rapport with the black working-class men in the study. Having grown up in an

integrated neighborhood provided me with a familiarity in conversation, as I could

talk and engage the black working-class men in a comfortable manner. I really think

it was this capacity to reduce the distance that permitted these men to teach me what

it was like to be a working-class black man in a racist society. Even so, there were

ways that I found it necessary to preserve the distance. I had to be very careful about

what I expressed beyond engagement, as the reality of disclosing personal

information to a white researcher and the concern for potential negative fall-out was

evident. Several times, I recall different black working-class men pausing after

sharing some information as if to say, "Ah, shit. I wish I could take that one back.

Oh, well. On to something else."

The white working-class men spoke most freely and easily. This was probably

due to perceived similarities. One would expect that that would enhance the quality

or depth of the interview, but such was not the case. The interviews with the white

working-class men were, from my standpoint, the least revealing. They appeared

reluctant to disclose difficult, personal memories and recollections, as doing so could

be considered non-masculine. People might construe this as "complaining." As one

man commented, "Wimps complain. Men do something about it."

Keeping the appropriate detachment seemed easier with this group. I think part of

the reason for the more comfortable social distance was my own lessened concern

about what I as a researcher might represent to these white working-class men. This

was not the case with the Amish and black working-class. In the latter two settings,

subtle and not-so-subtle warnings dotted the interaction prior to or after the

interviews in the form of caution to me on how I should use the information

obtained. The Amish—a religious minority-and the black working-class—a racial

minority—seemed worried that disclosing personal information might lead to a

negative evaluation.

As a white-collar marriage and family therapist who comes from a blue-collar

background, I have interspersed an occasional personal reflection. My style as a

writer and researcher is at times a personal one, and the reflections should be treated

as additional thoughts or insights that help to locate my position to the reader.

Also, throughout the text, I have used pseudonyms to protect the identities of the

men. Other identifying information has also been slightly altered towards this end.

xiii

And herein lies the tragedy o f the age: not that men are poor—all men know something o f poverty; not that men are wicked—who is good? not that men are ignorant—what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little o f men. (DuBois, 1906, p. 174)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When one embarks on a project of this magnitude, one never knows where the

road will lead. Personally, I am not the same person I was before this project.

Sometimes unconscious processes are at work when one chooses a dissertation topic.

Without asking and somewhat unaware of myself, I asked the men from these

subcultures or communities to mentor me, and mentor me they did. Although they

may or may not come to the same conclusions that I make from their contributions, I

want to thank them for their willingness to share their personal lives and stories with

me for this project. Thanks again!

There are many to acknowledge, for to get to this place, many people had to be

there for me. The credits begin with my immediate family: my wife, Cindy, and my

three children, Natalie, Tommy and Scotty. Cindy, you have been the most integral

part of this adventure as I relied on you to ground me and remain secure. There have

been times when this process brought out the very worst of who I am, and I was not

fit to be with. Thank you for standing with me and many times carrying our family.

Your loyalty and commitment to our children and our relationship are your train of

glory! Natalie, Tommy and Scotty, I am grateful for your encouragement and love

during this project. Whether it was Natalie comforting her "stressed out" dad, or

Tommy’s wonderful sense of humor, or dancing with Scotty to Motown tunes, I

xiv

found great solace and emotional nourishment from your presence that helped me

complete this work.

You four are my life!

I am deeply indebted to the members of my committee and have the warmest

regards for them. They guided me through this lengthy process and never gave up on

the lost sheep on the other side of the Rockies. Carlfred Broderick, you are an

honored mentor who knows me well. Thanks for all that came before this project; I

look forward to more of a friendship afterward. Sam Taylor, my hat is off to you for

your excellent critique of the early versions of the chapters and suggestions to better

the work. I especially want to thank the chair of my committee, Mike Messner, for

the incredible way you managed me through this ordeal. Your editorial, intellectual

and organizational feedback was of enormous benefit to me. I regret not knowing

you better when I was at USC, but appreciate this opportunity to be under your

tutelage.

There are some other faculty and mentors who inspired this work and helped me

get to this place. Thanks go to Virginia Satir for laying the systems groundwork on

Gabriola Island in 1986. Linda Fuller’s sociological theory class in the fall o f 1987

provided me with my introduction to Chodorow as well as other feminist thinkers.

Not long after that, Carol Warren’s qualitative research training secured my niche as

I resonated with this form of sociological inquiry. Warm thanks also go to Irving

Borstein for the Bowenian family-of-origin work he graciously encouraged me to do

in his class. That single experience watered the earlier seeds Virginia and Linda

planted and helped give birth to the ideas for this dissertation.

Deep gratitude goes to a number of my family still living in the Pittsburgh area:

my brother Jim Matta, his wife Carla, Uncle Jim Sylves, Mac, and my sister Diane

Esposto. Each of you played a major role in helping me set up the black

working-class interviews. Special thanks go to my brother Jim for going that extra

mile to get me whatever I needed! I hope I can return the substance of your support.

To my California family, I want to thank my dad and step-mom, Tom and Linda

Matta for their support. With all the trips to L.A. for this project, you both always

came through with the hospitality my wife and I needed to be renewed. To my

fictive kin sisters and colleagues from the same 1987 USC sociology cohort, Jane

Bock and Marguerite Koster, your friendship is unparalleled! As a friend, Jane is as

steadfast as they come. And Marguerite really could change the world if she wanted

to. Just look what she did to improve the sociology department. Jane and Marguerite

took all my frantic phone calls during the last four years when the dissertation

distance dealt me some anomic blows. There are many people behind the scenes that

have always had a smile, a warm hug and/or awesome chicken wings. My love goes

to Janet Carey, Almena Cade, and Maeve Inouye for their presence through my

graduate career at USC.

To my Erie County family, I want to thank Cindy’s parents, Reg and Ruth

Lawrence, for what seems like a lifetime of support. It is truly an honor to have been

grafted into your family. Special thanks go out to Cindy’s sister and brother-in-law,

xvi

Julie and John, for making this dissertation possible. John helped me make contacts

with the Amish communities in the tri-state area as well as to key white

working-class men. Additional heartfelt thanks go to Julie and John for providing a

way for Cindy and me to return with our family to the Erie County area. John, our

late-night Meadville excursions in the ’72 Caddy, embracing discourse and hunting

for a big piece of pie will always be memorable. You are a real mensch!

Mark Hogue is to be commended for putting up with my whining all through

these last four years. Mark began his doctorate after mine and will finish days before

me. He always was a speed demon. I am very grateful to Bill Kowalski, my mentor

the last three years, for creating a context in his private practice that provided me

with a theoretical sounding board in our supervision as well as the necessary time to

do this project. Karen Manross did the great majority of the transcripts and is to be

commended for her excellent work with different language patterns that were not so

easy to discern on audio-tape. Her turnaround time for returning the finished products

was truly amazing.

As one invests all of his or her time and energy toward birthing new ideas in

a dissertation, a kind of protective mechanism is activated similar to what I

experienced with my children. As a result, I could only think of one person I would

trust to edit this document. Much thanks and indebtedness go to Jane Bock. As

expected, she gave tirelessly to this end. We will not mention the difficulties

encountered, like setting her laptop on her car and driving away without back-up

copies of her work, or pulling all-nighters to meet deadlines that did not exist. Jane,

xvii

you are the greatest! (Additional notes of thanks go to Eve Bock and Pat Emerson,

who helped Jane with the editing process.)

Thanks go to the various pastors who have provided me with spiritual

nourishment to see this task to its conclusion. Pastors Ron Hoellein, Terry Marden,

and Steve Rhoades, I thank you. Ron inspired me, Terry sustained me and Steve

carried me over the last leg of the journey.

Finally, I want to publicly acknowledge my Christian faith for anchoring me in

an alternative masculinity that I was not very much aware o f until this study. There

have been times in this project that a gentle hand seemed to guide me in the way of

helpful literature or key interviewees. I am grateful for such contact and hope the

culmination of this work and my degree reflect in a small way the investment of

talents with which I have been entrusted.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Since reading Chodorow’s (1978) The Reproduction o f Mothering in a graduate

level sociological theory course in 1987, I have been fascinated with the interchange

between institutional and structural arrangements of society and personality

development, gender identity in particular. This study is an attempt to shed some

light on the limitations o f Chodorow’s object relations theory by exploring

masculinities in a number of different subcultural contexts: Amish, black

working-class and white working-class.

The men’s studies field is burgeoning with writing in a number of related

disciplines, including sociology (Brod, 1987; Fine, 1987; Kimmel & Messner, 1992;

Morgan, 1992), depth psychology (Bly, 1990; Corneau, 1991; Keen, 1991),

developmental psychology (Hart, 1992), and literature (Hoyland, 1992). The focus of

this work has varied from "the making of masculinities" (Brod, 1987) to the lack of

formal initiation rites for men (Raphael, 1988) to the need for men to discover and

rediscover their manhood (Bly, 1990).

I intend to show the importance of this study by embedding it in a larger

intellectual and socio-historical context of previous theory and research. Toward this

end I will include a brief comment on the limitations of present men’s studies

research, some rationale for the present study, and a review of Chodorow’s

object-relations theory. After that I will list specific research questions to be

explored as well as a rationale for the study of the three subcultural contexts I have

chosen.

EXPANDING TO A PLURALITY OF MASCULINITIES

Past research has primarily focused on the white middle-class male, directing

little if any attention to the cultural diversity that is such a part of the American

landscape. Gerzon (1992) wrote almost a decade ago on the changes in "American

manhood." In an afterword to the book’s most recent edition, Gerzon recognizes the

limitations of his previous work. He states,

As Dr. Peggy McIntosh...pointed out to me, the structure of the book was based on overgeneralizations drawn from the lives of white heterosexual males...‘But the weaker part of it from the outset was that it was not sufficiently sensitive to racial, ethnic, and economic diversity. It is very much a white man’s book, a very European-American look at some o f the changing faces of masculinity. A man only a few generations out of slavery, or a man whose parents crossed the border from Mexico, might have a lot of trouble relating to your archetypes’ (Gerzon, 1992, p. 265).

Connell (1987) coined the term "hegemonic masculinities" to describe how

"within a given society there is an array of masculinities which are constructed out of

the combination of the single trait, gender with certain other statuses or

characteristics" (Morgan, 1992, p. 200). According to Connell, certain traits are

prized over others. It seems reasonable to extend the notion of hegemonic

masculinities to include ethnicity and race. Therefore, research on male engenderment

and masculinity must continue with an awareness of this tendency toward hegemonic

masculinities in terms of ethnicity and race as well as statuses and characteristics.

3 Michael Messner (1992) articulates the notion of "gendering identities" as a way

of describing its construction as a dynamic interplay between internal, psychological

processes and those in the external realm of the "social world," rather than the "fixed

identities" inherent in the masculinity/femininity classification. He states,

I view gender identity not as a ‘thing’ that people ‘have,’ but rather as a process of construction that develops, comes into crisis, and changes as a person interacts with the social world...yet it is only through a concrete examination of people’s interactions with others within social institutions that we can begin to understand both the similarities and differences in the construction of gender identities. (Messner, 1992, pp. 161-162)

From the current literature on masculinity, it could reasonably be argued that

masculinity varies according to multiple factors such as race, class and sociohistorical

context. Varied cultures and subcultures offer an excellent opportunity to explore the

shaping of masculinities. Therefore, inclusion of the three subcultures—Amish, black

working-class, and white working-class—should extend that understanding in the

particular contexts as well as enlighten the process of gender identity construction,

maintenance and transformation of the individuals within them.

I chose these three subcultures with Chodorow’s (1978) object-relations theory in

mind. The variation between subcultures can offer support or challenges to her

theoretical assumptions. Following the review of Chodorow’s object-relations theory

some clearer rationale for the selection of subcultures will be provided along with the

primary research questions.

4 CHODOROW’S REPRODUCTION OF MOTHERING AND THE RELATIONALLY DEFICIENT MALE

Nancy Chodorow owes much to many of the scholars who preceded her. The

most notable of these is Margaret Mead. In Male and Female, Mead (1949)

postulates a constructionist notion of gendering identities by commenting on the

potential vulnerabilities of asymmetrical parenting, suggesting that learning might be

hard for boys and girls when they have a mother as sole caretaker and a father who

is absent. Mead states,

When both sexes are cared for more by the mother than by the father, the learning will be different as the boy accepts a first-beloved person who is unlike himself and the girl one who is like herself, as each lives out its first warm contacts with the world with eager little mouths that for one will remain a prototype of adult relationships, but for the other will be reversed, (p. 369)

Mead emphasizes the need for the father’s presence in the process of childhood

socialization and the importance of male nurturing, arguing that men cannot provide

clear gender models for their sons if they are not present and active parents.

Mead describes how in the various cultures that she studied and encountered,

society had a primary responsibility to provide "males with habits and patterns of

nurture" (Mead, 1949, p. 194). It is within this context that a search begins not only

for the nurturing male, but for patterns of nurture in the stories of men’s varied

experiences.

As Mead focuses heavily on the male breadwinning role, her notion of "habits

and patterns of nurture" (p. 194) may seem a bit outdated. With today’s tremendous

inclusion of women in the workplace and their active participation in instrumental

roles, recent years have seen a call for men to nurture. The request is for men to be

more relationally active and accessible, present, and egalitarian in relationship to

women and their families. The call for banishment of power- differentials (Goodrich,

et al., 1988), more shared intimacy in relationships (Luepnitz, 1988), or active and

present fathering and parenting (LaRossa, 1995) can be conceptualized and expressed

as a call for male nurturance.

It is almost impossible to read feminist critiques without some mention of

Chodorow’s object-relations theory. Her theory builds on Mead’s insights into how

differences between boys’ and girls’ socialization processes result in socially

constructed definitions of masculinity and femininity. According to many authors,

Chodorow’s work is considered an important theory of gender development (Carrigan

et al., 1987; Luepnitz, 1988; Sherrod, 1987). Her basic argument is that, due to the

Industrial Revolution and the subsequent asymmetricality o f parenting, Western social

structure reproduces "women as mothers": i.e., women as exclusive parents who are

responsible for reproduction and the life world of the family, while boys are prepared

for the less affective peripheral work world. It is a fascinating exploration of how

the social organization o f parenting contributes to and helps to shape the gendering of

personality.

Similar to Freud (1925), Chodorow delineates the pre-oedipal, oedipal, and

post-oedipal stages as crucial to gender identity. However, she does not

overemphasize the oedipal stage, which is a common criticism of Freud. She argues

that it is during the pre-oedipal stage that one’s gender identity is established:

It...is clear from Freud’s account, though denied by his theory, that the development of gender identity is a precondition of the oedipus complex. In order for a girl to have the oedipal experience she supposedly has, she would have to know her own gender (and about gender differences) in order to connect herself to her mother, to be vulnerable to differences in sexual morphology, and to think these matter. (Chodorow, 1978, p. 151).

According to Chodorow, preoedipal issues for children are primarily concerned

with the development of adequate ego boundaries that are crucial to a separate sense

o f self. Prior to the preoedipal stage in infancy, children are not able to distinguish a

clear sense o f self from the world and the people around them. For boys at this

stage, there is concern with "fundamental feelings of dependence, overwhelming

attachment, and merging with the mother" (p. 106). Chodorow states that these

feelings must be resolved if the boy is to attain "independence and a masculine

self-identification" (p. 106).

Chodorow postulates that, for boys, this preoedipal phase is complicated in two

ways . One includes the mother experiencing her son as "a definite other—an

opposite-gendered and -sexed other" (p. 105). If we couple this gender differentiation

experience on the part of the mother with the absence or emotional inaccessibility of

the father in the familial social structure, it is not surprising that the mother would

"turn her affection and interest to the next obvious male—her son—and to become

particularly seductive toward him" (p. 104).

The mother’s seduction toward her son sexualizes the relationship before the boy

is able to resolve the issues of a separate sense of self from her and from the world

around him. With issues of differentiation intertwined with sexual issues, boys more

than girls must forcefully separate, making rigid and unpermeable ego boundaries.

They switch in identification from mother to father in order to lessen the anxiety and

sense of loss associated with the definitive separation from their mother. Because of

the continuity and sense of sameness between mothers and daughters, this type of

separation is not forced onto girls. Chodorow mentions that the intertwining of

separation and connection makes the preoedipal phase much shorter for boys than

girls. The identification with and renunciation of the mother also make it difficult to

distinguish the preoedipal from the oedipal stage of psychosexual development for

boys.

With regard to the oedipal phase of development, Chodorow comments,

The main importance of the oedipus complex, I argue, is not primarily in the development of gender identity and socially appropriate heterosexual genitality, but in the constitution of different forms of "relational potential" in people of different genders (p. 166).

Chodorow views the primary issues for boys and girls during the oedipal phase

somewhat differently. Regarding boys, she moves from the traditional psychoanalytic

definition of the oedipal conflict consisting "of the desire of the young child to

exclusively possess the parent of the opposite sex with accompanying rivalry and

jealousy directed toward the same-sex parent" (Breger, 1974, p. 152) to "personal

masculine identification" (p. 165). Thus the major goals of achievement for boys in

8 the oedipal phase include "sexuality and gender distinction" (p. 165). More

specifically, the goals include identifying with the father, which leads to a secure

masculine self. This identification is further accomplished through the development

of the superego and the devaluation of femininity. In other words, the boy must

devalue femininity to fully identify with his father. Chodorow argues that boys’

"gender identifications are more the issue; for girls, [the issue is] psychosexual

development" (p. 165).

Masculine identification with the father is hampered due to the father’s absence,

leaving the boy to objectively identify through the idealization of other more distant

masculine role models. These come primarily from movies, sports, and other male

figures in his life (e.g., Rambo, Arnold as the Terminator, Clint Eastwood).

Chodorow claims that "males tend to identify with a cultural stereotype of the

masculine role" (p. 176).

If affective processes between men and boys would be embedded in father-son

identification, relational capacities would be possible. However, according to

Chodorow, boys learn masculine roles without the affective processes. As a result,

"masculine identification processes stress differentiation from others, the denial of

affective relation, and categorical universalistic components of the masculine

role...Masculine identification processes tend to deny relationship" (p. 176).

Part of the difficulty in the present development of masculine identity in boys is

also due to male domination in our society. As mentioned, boys develop their sense

of masculinity primarily in negative relational terms: in opposition to something or

someone. Boys define themselves "as more separate and distinct" (p. 207). This

negation of anything feminine has boys suppressing their attachment to their mother

and repressing relational needs, and it limits men’s capacity for empathy, connection

to others, and general relational deficits. Chodorow summarizes,

When a boy’s mother has treated him as an extension of herself and at the same time as a sexual object, he learns to use his masculinity and possession o f a penis as a narcissistic defense. In adulthood, he will look to relationships with women for narcissistic- phallic reassurance rather than for mutual affirmation and love. Because their sexualized preoedipal attachment was encouraged while their oedipal-genital wishes were thwarted and threatened with punishment, men may defensively invest more exclusively in the instinctual gratifications to be gained in a sexual relationship in order to avoid risking rejection of love (p. 196).

Chodorow argues that the present asymmetrical social organization of parenting

has a limiting effect on the shaping of masculinity. The present familial social

structure has women as exclusive parents and men in the less affective peripheral

work world. This asymmetry is a result of and, in turn, perpetuates male dominance

in society and the unequal sexual division of labor.

Chodorow envisions a qualitatively different future for the development of

relational capacities in boys. She argues against the asymmetrical social organization

of parenting, encouraging more of a balance between the sexes. She also

acknowledges that equal parenting would require radical social reorganization. In

such a different type of social structure, she argues, boys in the preoedipal phase

could differentiate ego boundaries in a less rigid, defensive fashion. A man’s

10 accessibility as a husband and father to his wife and children would reduce the

tendency for the womairto sexualize the relationship with her son. For boys moving

into the oedipal phase, continuity in the relationship with their father would decrease

the likelihood that they must renounce their attachment to their mother. Acceptance

rather than devaluation of the mother-son relationship would provide boys the

opportunity to appreciate dependency needs and learn, through the balanced social

organization of parenting, to be nurturant.

Chodorow’s theory is compelling, but suffers from some of the same criticisms

leveled at psychoanalytic thought in general. Psychoanalytic theorizing has been

accused of falling into circular reasoning (Empey, 1982; Segal, 1990) and does not

generalize well to other cultures. Chodorow is also criticized for her false

universalization of men, women and families (Collins, 1990, p. 8) and her

insufficient emphasis on the "historical dynamic" in masculinity-making. Carrigan et

al. (1987) call for "close-up research that would illuminate" (p. 98) these issues in

Chodorow’s theory.

To address these criticisms of Chodorow, the most appropriate approach

should include the exploration of masculinity-making in varied cultural/class/racial

settings. An analysis of different subcultures may identify other factors as

contributors to the gender identity process beyond Chodorow’s single asymmetrical

parenting dimension and may provide additional insights to the theory’s limitations.

Toward this end, it is my intent to explore the shaping of masculinities in Amish,

black working-class, and white working-class cultures.

11 I chose to study the Amish subculture on the basis o f my assumption that the

Industrial Revolution has had limited impact on this population’s family

arrangements. Are Amish men active in infant care? If so, does their involvement

enable their sons to develop semi-permeable ego boundaries, as Chodorow

articulates? If Amish men are not active in infant care yet have relational capacities

with their sons, what other factors or experiences may account for such capacities?

If such relationships exist, how would Chodorow’s theory account for them?

Although Chodorow makes the point that the Industrial Revolution was

responsible for the structural changes in the social organization of parenting, her

theory says nothing about differences in race, ethnicity, or class. It is for that reason

that I included black and white working-class men.

I chose to study black working-class men from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since

they provide an opportunity to explore the masculinity-shaping o f minority men who

live in a racist society. Since the mothers of black working class men may have had

to rely more heavily on extended and fictive kin for childcare than on the children’s

fathers, how do the men’s experiences enlighten Chodorow’s theory? What would

one expect from the interviews regarding the ego-boundaries and corresponding

relational capacities of such men? If relational capacities exist, what might account

for them?

Most studies on masculinity have focused on white middle-class men. Thus I

chose white working-class men from Erie County, Pennsylvania, to provide a contrast

to the target population of many of the previous studies. I chose Erie County

12 because of its rural industrial base. I chose white working-class men from this

geographical context because doing so provided me with more social distance,

thereby enhancing the analysis.

My research questions focus on the construction of masculinities in the three

subcultures and examine Chodorow’s object-relations theory in these contexts. They

include: (1) What predominant themes emerge from the data that may inform the

construction of masculinities in the three subcultural settings? (2) What similarities

and differences in masculinity-making exist in the three groups? (3) With so much

emphasis in Chodorow’s theory on early development of ego boundaries in gender

construction and definition and on the corresponding relational potential and capacity

that may or may not develop, is it possible that other important periods of the life

course are being ignored in the gender-making process? (4) Given Chodorow’s

tendency to rely very heavily on explaining how women engender men, how do men

engender men? (5) Is it possible that there is much more variation and difference

with regard to gender definition than object- relations theory seems to postulate?

What other variables might account for variation in gendering identities besides the

asymmetrical social organization of parenting? Also, how may the interplay or

intersection of variables result in a particular masculine identity or identities? (6) Are

there any other possible explanations for the gender differences Chodorow articulates

other than the asymmetrical social organization of parenting?

CHAPTER 2

METHOD AND ENTREE

Ten interviews were conducted with men in each of my groups of interest:

Amish men, working-class blacks, and working-class whites. Since I assumed that

older men would have an increased capacity to relate information and stories

regarding their careers than younger men would, I chose to interview men who were

forty-five years of age or older. However, I chose age forty-five as a low-end cutoff

to ensure sufficient availability of black working-class males, given the more limited

number of older black men in the general population (Mirabel, 1995). As a result, I

not only attained an extensive narrative potential from these older interviewees but

was also able to use my resources efficiently.

SECURING INTERVIEW RESPONDENTS

I employed a snowball sampling method (Berg, 1989) to secure potential

interview respondents. Because of variations in availability, contacts, and my own

familiarity with each group, this method of obtaining interviews differed for each of

the three populations. Because of the social class similarities between us, white

working-class respondents were the easiest to obtain. The black working-class men

were more difficult to secure since I had few black contacts in the community. The

Amish were extremely difficult to access.

Because of my own white working-class background, I found it relatively

easy to find willing white working-class participants among my family’s

14 acquaintances. However, not to limit my selection process to my own network, I also

sought prospective interviewees at local unions and churches. One union in particular

invited me to speak at their monthly meeting to get possible respondents. (See

Appendix D for an outline of the presentation.)

Securing black working-class interviewees was more difficult. I asked family and

friends in the greater Pittsburgh area for help, and encouraged them to inquire among

the black working-class men in their friendship networks and places of employment

and see if some would talk with me about their lives and about important men and

experiences that shaped their lives. Since I had grown up in that area, making use of

existing contacts enhanced potential respondents’ willingness to participate, diffusing

suspicion about my intentions and at the same time minimizing my outsider status.

Securing these interviews took much more time because of the need to rely on

contacts for the prospective respondents. After my contacts obtained preliminary

approval, I called the men and made arrangements to travel to the Pittsburgh area on

week-ends. Some week-ends were productive and resulted in one or two interviews.

Other week-ends were lost as prospective respondents changed their minds or found

the idea too intimidating. There were times when no one was at home when I

arrived. This seemed to happen more often on particularly fair weather days.

One experience exemplifies some of the resistance I encountered. It was a

beautiful spring day with temperatures in the upper 70s. I wondered whether the

lovely weather would hamper getting an interview. I had made arrangements to meet

an interviewee at a certain time. When I arrived at his housing project, I noticed that

15 many of the residents were outside washing cars, sitting in lawn chairs, or watching

their children swimming in small plastic pools. I went inside to the door of the

apartment where my interviewee lived and knocked. In my fieldnotes, I wrote:

As I approached the door, I could hear someone inside on the phone having a conversation. I hesitated, not wanting to interrupt the person, but went ahead and knocked softly. The response was immediate. The person inside stated, ‘God damn it. Who the fuck is that? Wait a second, I’m on the phone.’ I was taken aback by the response and stood waiting patiently. Several minutes went by and the person in the apartment continued to talk. I could not hear specifics, but it sounded like a conversation with a girlfriend. After almost ten minutes, I knocked again. Again the response was immediate. ‘Can’t you hear I’m on the fucking phone? You’ll have to wait.’ At this point I was unsure whether to stay or go. A part of me began to feel a little queasy. The person must have thought he had been too harsh and caught himself. ‘Alright. Who is it?’ I said, ‘My name is Tom Matta and I’m supposed to meet Perry here.’ The response from behind the door came. ‘Perry ain’t here. What’s this that Perry wants to do? What’d you say your name was? Heh, look Perry ain’t here. I have no idea when he’s coming back. I have multiple sclerosis and can’t answer the door. Perry goes with my sister and I’m staying here with Perry. So’s I can’t get to the door. Why don’t you come back later? I don’t know where he is and when he’s coming back.’ I obliged and left immediately. As I got into the car, I looked at the window of the apartment and could see a man standing and moving quite freely. I didn’t know if it was Perry, but wondered if I had been had with the handicapped excuse.

On the following day, the girlfriend answered the phone and said that Perry

and she had "some things going on" and he just couldn’t do it. She didn’t offer to let

me speak with Perry and seemed to want me to go away and not call back. I did not

push it, but was quite disappointed as I spent a day and had no interview to show for

it.

16 Some of the black working-class respondents had to warm up to the idea of

meeting with me. Had it not been for the contact person, an interview, in all

probability, would not have occurred. One black working-class respondent stated:

CHARLES: You know I wasn’t sure I really wanted to do this. But I says, ‘Heh, you Cal’s nephew. I know Cal. And Cal was Chuckie’s boy. I’d do anything for Chuckie. Just about anything for Cal. But, I don’t know you. I said to myself, I guess I’ll help him out. This wasn’t as bad as I thought.

With the Amish, I explored and implemented a number of entree avenues.

First, I managed to get some names of non-Amish people in the community who had

dealt regularly with the Amish and might serve as a contact to expedite entree. My

first contact was a man who sold various leather goods to the Amish for their horses.

His territory included much Amish country in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.

After some discussions about what I wanted with the Amish, the salesman invited me

to travel with him into several communities. He stated that he had developed a

number of friends in each community on his route and would be willing to introduce

me. But from there I was on my own. This excerpt from my fieldnotes portrays the

salesman’s concerns about our bargain.

GEORGE: Now let me tell you something. I have known most o f these people for well over twenty years. And although I have agreed to do this, I don’t want you to push ’em too hard. Do you hear me? I can’t promise what their reaction is gonna be. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize my friendship with ’em or my business. That’s more important to me than any doctoral (pause), whatever you are doing. So just remember that. When they say ‘no’, if they do, it’s ‘No.’

17 Over the course of the next six months, I traveled with George, sometimes in his car

and sometimes in mine. We took his car when the trip was more business related, as

he had samples loaded in the trunk. When the trip was more for visiting purposes, we

agreed to take my car. To show my appreciation, I offered gas money or paid for

meals. Even though he would put forth some initial protest ("Well, you really don’t

have to do this"), he generally accepted my gas contributions as part o f our unspoken

bargain. Offering to help seemed to seemed to ward off any wariness George might

have felt about my research intentions.

At the time I was riding around with George, I became aware of an Amish

newspaper called The Budget. Most Amish districts, including Old Order Amish,

New Order Amish, and Mennonite communities, have a writer called a ‘scribe’ who

sends in a short article describing the district happenings of a two- week period. I

wrote to the editor of The Budget, explained my project, and asked him if he knew

any men who might be willing to let me interview them. He called back with the

names of six other scribes in various communities who might be potential candidates.

He also stated that he could not guarantee that they would permit me to audiotape. I

sent each of the six men a letter along with a self-addressed and stamped postcard

asking for a response. Of the six men, four responded affirmatively.

As expected, the Old Order Amish were very reluctant to permit me to interview

them at all, let alone audio-tape the experience. After almost a year of going into Old

Order Amish communities and having only four interviews to show for it, I thought

18 that making use o f New Order Amish might be a reasonable alternative. The New

Order Amish value their lifestyle, but as one respondent noted,

AARON: We do not hang onto to tradition just to hang onto it. We believe a person makes a decision to believe in Jesus Christ and that is most important, not whether we wear buttons or not. Not all Amish are Christian. I hate to say that, but some love the lifestyle and not the Lord.

After repeated contacts with one New Order Amish scribe, men from this particular

district became open to the idea of doing the interviews. In contrast to their Old

Order brothers, these men were fascinating, as they were more open, easier to

engage, and openly curious about outsiders. They did not own cars or trucks,

televisions, radios or cassette players, but had telephones, electricity, and tractors.

Each of the men from this district grew up in Old Order Amish families without the

technological conveniences mentioned; as a result I opted to include them in my

sample of Amish men.

Part of the bargain with these men was the opportunity for them to have a copy

of the interview. Each was offered a finished copy of the transcribed interview, and

each gladly accepted.

INTERVIEW PROCESS

Interviews were approximately one-and-a-half hours in length. This length was

chosen to maximize the opportunity to gather information and give the participants

adequate time to respond to questions and invite discourse. The shortest interview

was an hour and ten minutes; the longest was two hours and fifteen minutes. The

interviews followed an open-ended but focused format. In an effort to keep them

19 somewhat consistent, I used a simple interview schedule. I asked similar questions of

all participants, but encouraged them to elaborate on them in their responses. In using

similar questions with each participant, I tried not to lose sight of the interview as a

rich communication event with dynamic, reflexive processes. (The in-depth interview

questions are in a methods index in Appendix E.)

Interviews were conducted primarily in the homes of respondents, with several

done at neutral settings such as public libraries and universities. All interviews were

audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed for relevant themes. I also compiled fieldnotes

of each interview, documenting my impressions of the respondents, the settings, and

the interviews themselves (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

The use of audiotaping enhanced the quality of the interviews since I did not

have to write notes. This provided for a better flow of words and allowed the

interview experience to be a communication event for both respondent and

researcher. Additionally, audiotaping also helped me recollect the interview more

accurately than I would have otherwise been able to do.

DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

By reviewing audiotapes, transcripts and field notes, the researcher gleans

themes, reflective o f the dynamics of interest (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Themes

developed in the initial phase are explored fully with a more focused approach

(Charmaz, 1983). From the coding can come conceptual categories: in this case, an

exploration of respondent assumptions about the shaping of their masculinities, or a

search for "processes that are fundamental in ongoing social life" (Charmaz, 1983, p.

20 112). I used Ethnograph (Seidel & Clark, 1984) to help in the qualitative analysis.

Ethnograph is a software program that facilitates coding the data, cross-references

codes and locates a particular text. There are other newer software programs available

on the market that could have been used, but I chose Ethnograph because of my

exposure to it during coursework. For the purposes of this study, it seemed

sufficiently appropriate.

METHODOLOGY-A RATIONALE FOR THE IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW

Kimmel and Messner (1992) comment on the relevance of a social constructivist

approach for researching the shaping of masculinities. Brod (1987) concurs, stating

that, "One also finds a determination to listen to the voices of men themselves,

whether they be friends, businessmen, athletes, to capture the ‘ephemeral side,’

‘subjectivity,’ and ‘personal-existential level’ of masculinity... Much of men’s studies

struggles to establish the subjectivity of men’s experiences and thereby validate the

legitimacy of men’s experiences as men" (Brod, 1987, pp. 5-6).

This study explores how masculinities are shaped through the sociohistorical

contexts in which men live. The most appropriate way to gather data on this subject

is in-depth interviewing. The in-depth interview is a communicative/speech event

(Briggs, 1986) or reflexive discourse (Emerson, 1983) with the "essential task to be

identifying and communicating the distinctive interpretations of reality that are made

by members of the group under study" (p. 19).

The in-depth interview provides a proper research context to explore men’s

subjective experience. As Berger (1966) states:

21 Language is both the foundation and the instrumentality of the social construction of reality. Language focalizes, patterns and objectivates individual experience. Language is the principal means by which an individual is socialized to become an inhabitant of a world shared with others and also provides the means by which, in conversation with these others, the common world continues to be plausible to him...Society orders experience. Only in a world of social order can there develop a ‘collective consciousness’ that permits the individual to have a subjectively meaningful life and protects him from the devastating effects of anomie (p. 107)

Spradley (1979) also comments that "every culture, and every cultural scene,

is more than a jumble of parts. It consists of a system of meaning that is integrated

into some kind of larger pattern" (p. 186). Since "meaning" is of tremendous

importance in this study, it is important to discuss at least briefly the history of

qualitative research methodology as it is embedded in sociological theory of the

mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Max Weber spoke about the importance of verstehen or interpretive

understanding in "systematic sociological research." According to Turner (1989),

Weber delineated two kinds of understanding. The first was an empathetic

understanding based on observation (such as a tearful facial expression). The second

was a contextually-based understanding that recognized social action as embedded in

a larger context of meanings (tears as preceded by an insult).

Turner (1986) continues by crediting Alfred Schutz for more fully developing

Weber’s notion of verstehen. Schutz spoke about "how" and "why" people come to

share a commonality of meaning/s, and developed the concept "stock knowledge at

hand" (as cited in Turner, p. 329) to describe the method whereby an individual

22 organizes, integrates, and gives meaning to his/her experiences. Another explanation

o f this notion might be that "stock knowledge" represents an individual’s frame of

reference for interpreting events and/or orienting oneself to the social world. It is

impossible to separate the frame of reference from the social relations in which it

was developed.

Alfred Schutz argues that verstehen is never an inner meaning but a co-created

reality that combines the inner reality with the cultural meaning given to

experience/s. Gregory Bateson (1979), an anthropologist and a pioneer in family

therapy, wrote that a person’s epistemology is embedded in one’s own subjective

experience. He argued that "all experience is subjective" (p. 31), and challenged the

prevalent Western epistemology that is based on a notion of objectivity as reality. He

says that "very few persons, at least in occidental culture, doubt the objectivity of

such sense data...Our civilization is deeply based on this illusion" (p. 131).

Bateson has had tremendous impact on the development of theories and therapies

as they relate to families. His work is partially responsible for the relatively recent

emergence of two family therapy schools that look to the conceptual reality o f the

family for understanding family processes. These schools include the new

epistemology (Keeney, 1982) and constructivism (Hoffman, 1990; Watzlawick, 1984;

White, 1989).

The new epistemologists show concern that family theory and therapy’s emphasis

on cybernetics without the collective minds of the family actually decontextualizes

the family—something that was never intended by Bateson. According to the new

23 epistemologists, viewing the family only through a cybernetic lens results in an

epistemological error. As a result, the family is viewed as devoid of meaning and

history, resulting in an incomplete and potentially faulty understanding.

Michael White (1989), arguably the most notable proponent of constructivism, is

concerned with the personal narrative of the members of a family. He proposes that it

is the narrative that is the family’s reality; re-writing the family story should be the

therapy’s aim. Like Bateson, his background is also rooted in anthropology,

highlighting the consonance between ethnographic studies and present qualitative

methodology.

Other constructivists (Hoffman, 1990; Watzlawick, 1984) are resonate with

White’s notion of narratives as a better temporal analogy with which to view the

process of change. Hoffman (1990) states,

social construction theory posits an evolving set of meanings that emerge unendingly from the interactions between people. These meanings are not skull-bound and may not exist inside what we think of as an individual "mind." They are part of a general flow of constantly changing narratives. Thus, the theory bypasses the fixity of the model of biologically based cognition, claiming instead that the development of concepts is a fluid process, socially derived, (p. 3)

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

There are a number of possible limitations that must be mentioned here. The

most obvious is the limited number of interviews, particularly given that there are ten

interviews for each subculture. A second involves the tendency towards memory

lapses in retrospective data and telescoping. As it relates to in-depth interviews, I

24 think the notion of developmental salience is a more appropriate explanation, and it

appears appropriate to take this opportunity to elaborate.

The reader is to be cautioned about generalizing these results as representative of

a particular group. For example, in the Amish interviews, a number of different

communities were included, ranging from the most conservative in the Old Order

groups to the more liberal in the New Order groups. Also, Hostetler (1993)

comments about an ongoing "dialectic" between Old Order groups and New Order

groups. This "dialectic" expresses itself as "intuitive versus verbal orientation" (p.

387). The more conservative or orthodox Old Order groups are on the intuitive end

of the spectrum, and the more liberal New Order groups are on the verbal orientation

end. For this reason, one must be careful about generalizing to all the Amish when

using verbally transmitted data. The Old Order subcultures prize non-verbal

communication.

I may have interviewed a subset of the Amish population given more to verbal

means of communicating than to the "silent way" to which Hostetler refers. It is

interesting that of the Old Order Amish groups represented in my interviews, none

requested a copy of the transcribed interview. One blacksmith declined the offer by

saying, "What will I do with it? I don’t think that’s necessary." The New Order

Amish men each wanted and received one.

Some caution is necessary in regard to the black working-class, as the

majority of the respondents were steelworkers and thus represent only one of many

blue-collar careers in which blacks are employed. This is important, because from a

25 constructivist’s perspective, gendering an identity is a reflexive process, and the

specific working-class career with which a person identifies may change the

masculine definitions used (Messner, 1992). These interviews are therefore not to be

thought of as representative of all black working-class men.

In the white working-class, many more trades exist than are represented in the

interviews. Again, given the limited variety in careers, caution is in order about

generalizing to any group.

DEVELOPMENTAL SALIENCE

In his developmental treatise The Seasons o f a M an’s Life, Levinson (1978)

states, "The life cycle is an organic whole and each period contains all the others" (p.

321). He develops this further by citing Proust:

For man is a creature without any fixed age, who has the faculty of becoming, in a few seconds, many years younger, and who, surrounded by the walls of the time through which he has lived, floats within them but as though in a basin the surface level of which is constantly changing, so as to bring him into the range now of one epoch, now of another, (as cited in Levinson, 1978, p. 321)

Although this was my rationale for interviewing men in their later life cycle, it

did not always translate into communication events that included the retrieval of

information I was looking for. As men age, they forget, and the saliency of a given

period o f time seems to influence what they remember. Previous criticism of

retrospective studies and the effects of telescoping on memory bear this out.

Carl-Gunnar Janson (1989) cautions researchers using retrospective longitudinal data

26 about the pitfalls of retrieving autobiographical information. Concerning the problems

of such data on instant longitudinal studies he states,

Among [the problems] are telescoping of dates, recall of gradual change, past abilities, attitudes and opinions as well as recalling evaluated actions. Hindsight can be a major source of error. Positively evaluated actions may be overreported, whereas socially undesirable and threatening episodes tend to be underreported. The latter categories often demand short recall periods in surveys but remain problematic even when non-retrospective, (p. 1)

Although this concern about retrospective studies was written in regard to

longitudinal survey studies, it has some application for in-depth interviews as well.

I expected the white and black working-class men to make references to

alcohol use as either a rite of adolescent passage or a key part of the

masculinity-making and maintenance process. There were few references to it at all.

When I asked about alcohol, the question was either diverted, not answered at all, or

declined politely by the respondent. Although some did admit to alcohol use, they

provided little detail to indicate its importance in their life course. Surprisingly

enough, it was the Amish who spoke about alcohol most freely.

During the interviews, the men made frequent references to physical abuse they

experienced as cnildren. In most stories, they perceived themselves as the victim. In

only one instance did a man mention himself as the perpetrator of abuse; in that

instance he talked of a murder for which he spent more than twenty-five years in jail.

From the interviews it became apparent that, as a man ages and is further

removed from the need for male display behaviors, he recalls less and less of that

27 part of his life when compared to his younger counterparts. The men who were

closer to forty-five recalled fights, competition, bantering, and the like much more

readily than could the men in their sixties and seventies. It appears that men beyond

sixty minimized much of that part of their history as it was no longer salient.

Listen to a number of younger respondents as they relate recollections about male

aggressive displays they participated in, observed, or had insights about; contrast the

perception, content, and memories with some of the older men in my sample. Here

are excerpts from Paul, a forty-five-year-old white foundry worker:

PAUL: I love my brother Brian dearly. I mean that wholeheartedly. But when we grew up, we were quite close. It’s like they say, the closer you are, the more you’ll fight and things like that. He would probably on the average whoop me daily. I can remember back when I was in the age five and six, we slept in the same double bed in the upstairs o f our place in Meadville. One night I was tee-heeing and he wasn’t in the mood for it, and he socked me in the eye to the point I just seen stars. I mean, he just nailed me. And I hollered for the longest time over that. But through the years, he was known as "the boat," when we grew up... because he was the biggest. And I suppose it had something to do with being older and all. But he whooped me almost daily.

Paul continued with more vivid recollections regarding salient aggressive themes:

PAUL: Yeah, I wanted to be a tough guy. But I wasn’t a tough guy because I was pretty small...We’d go to my cousin’s and I’d see how big he’d got and, Oh, boy! I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be able to lift them weights and show them big muscles and all and box. He put the gloves on us. And I sent several of the neighbor kids home with a bloody nose...he’d say, ‘Thata boy. Thata boy.’ So I guess that kind of really started the tough guy stuff.

28 Paul later added:

PAUL: I took a whooping when I was in seventh grade from this Ralph Hooter. He came in from Cleveland. And I thought, ‘Well, here’s some new kid. I’ll fix his clock,’ you know. He wasn’t very big, wasn’t very big at all. And I was talking some junk to him. ‘Come on, come on. ’ So we go down there and we get down to the boys’ room and he tried to grab me by the leg, I mean, a wrestling type thing. And I didn’t want to wrestle. I’m going to punch him in the head and stuff. So I give him a big shove back and we started going and he just literally pounded me to a pulp. I never touched him. And he punched me probably about twenty times. And my nose was bleeding, my lips were bleeding. And I remember the embarrassment of walking back into that class after I cleaned my face up...I knew when I walked into that classroom, every kid in there knew that I took a whooping down there from that new boy...He partially deadened the nerves in one of my front teeth. And it still has a little tinge o f gray to it from that. So there’s something that Ralph Hooter gave me. He was only in our school for maybe two years, but he gave me a memory that I’ll never, never forget.

Jesse, a forty-seven-year-old black, college-educated machinist articulated his

own insights in this regard:

JESSE: No matter where you go, the rules are kind of spelled out early, where the only thing that comes to mind was the pecking order... Because of someone’s stature, because of someone’s strength, any given situation you run into, we know what the rules are as we’re there. If you have a young man that happens to be very virile, very massive, we know right away he gets number one. Right away. There’s no question because of his size. The only situation in jockeying is where it comes where you have two individuals the same size, the same weight, and the next question is, where does he fit? Is he number two or is he number three? Now, obviously there’s no sense in fighting number one because we know who number one is.

29 When I asked Jesse his position in the pecking order, he responded:

JESSE: Before the growth spurt? In the dungeon...We had three hundred and about forty-five students in junior high school. Out of all the students that were in there...I couldn’t even make the team. And by not making the team, there’s a pecking order that exists regardless of the academics. There’s who’s number one?...Where was I? Couldn’t make the basketball team. Couldn’t make the soccer team.

Isaac, a forty-six year old Amish harnessmaker, recalled,

ISAAC: I had a brother that was older than I that (laugh) we’d fight. Well, I don’t hold anything against him but I couldn’t handle him at all. And if I knew something that he wanted to know and I didn’t want to say it well, he’d, I’d say it (laugh). But not that teeth flew or blood flew, nothing like that.

On the other hand, here is an irritated response from Jim, a seventy-year-old

retired coal miner, when I asked whether teasing or fighting was much of his

boyhood experience:

JIM: Never. Boy, I’m telling you, just like I told you. My God, you know, they’d do anything for one another, you know. Help. Nothing to discourage or anything like that. No. My brothers and that—everyone was wonderful to me and got along.

Bill, a retired custodian, basically avoided my inquiry about childhood

fighting:

BILL: No. I got along with all the kids in the neighborhood. My brother and I used to fight...I mean, most brothers do. I mean, when we were kids, we’d disagree on something... Although I remember when [my brother] was home before going overseas, he wanted to do something and I didn’t want to. He said, ‘Now, I’m going to be going overseas and there’s a good possibility I won’t come back,’ he says, ‘and you won’t even do this.’ He was trying to leverage me.

30 In this instance it appears as if a number of similarly related issues already

mentioned were at work. First, the respondent seemed unwilling to speak openly

about the recollections lest they be perceived in a socially undesirable fashion.

Second, his response to the time frame of the recollections sought after referred to

the very distant past. And his last comment implies that the topic was not important,

and that he did not want me to pursue the subject anymore.

These issues suggest further study will be needed to get at the shaping of

masculinities all along the life cycle continuum. Although I acknowledge that some

re-writing of recollections on the part of the men occurred, for the purposes of this

study the personal narratives enlighten the shaping of "gendering identities" in men.

CHAPTER 3

AMISH SUBCULTURE

As a lead-in to the discussion about Amish culture and the interviews, a story may

add support to my rationale for including the Amish in my study. During the initial

stages o f my entree process into Amish communities, I consulted with a number of

non-Amish contacts. To a person, almost everyone had some memorable encounter with

the Amish. One shared with me the following experience: He happened to stop at a

roadside stand to purchase some fresh produce, and saw a group o f children next to the

road. An Amish man, assumed by the storyteller to be the children’s father, saw a

truck coming up the road. He positioned himself safely off the road onto the grass,

turned to the children with open arms, and called, "Come to the river." In response, the

boys and girls ran into his arms. The storyteller communicated to me that he was

overwhelmed by the experience and by the father’s metaphor o f a river to describe

himself. It was clear to him that both the father and children knew that the father was

the "source o f all good things."

I included Amish men because they offer an opportunity to explore masculinity-

shaping in a unique way—a continuity seems to exist between fathers and sons, and in

many instances over three generations. The contribution men make appears to go beyond

the nuclear family and extend to the entire community. One could assume that the

affective ties so necessary in developing an empathetic, relationally skilled male would

32 be enhanced in such a context. It is then possible that, in this subculture, manhood is

defined in nurturing terms, as the story related above indicates.

Chodorow (1978) identifies capitalism and the Industrial Revolution as the

pivotal period when families started to change. She writes, "Capitalist industrialization

removed grown children, grandparents, and nonfamily members from the household and

sharply curtailed men’s participation in family life" (p. 5). This industrialization reduced

the availability and accessibility of the extended family and isolated parenting to the

nuclear family. As a result, children’s socialization was affected.

Thus it seems appropriate to include the Amish in this study. Their economic

base has remained agrarian, and they did not permit technology to impinge on their

familial and community lifestyle. Nolt (1992), a Mennonite historian, states, "the Old

Order groups which emerged...rejected most completely both the spirit and practice of

North American industrial society in the 1800s. The members of these Anabaptist

fellowships chose the way of simple, nonconformed life-often for similar reasons" (p.

190).

Technology is managed by the Amish church district with a sensitivity to how it will

affect the faith and the lifestyle of its members. Wendell Berry (1977), a noted essayist

and poet, discusses the balance between technology and family life:

To argue for a balance between people and their tools, between life and machinery, between biological and machine-produced energy, is to argue for restraint upon the use of machines...The only people among us that I know of who have answered this question convincingly in the affirmative are the Amish. They alone, as a community, have carefully restricted their use of

33 machine-developed energy, and so have become the only true masters o f technology. (Hostetler, 1992, p. 289)

THE HISTORY OF AMISH FAMILIES

Amish culture is rooted in the Italian Renaissance and in the intellectual disturbances

that preceded the Reformation. In tracing Amish history, Hostetler (1963) claims that

Amish roots also lie in the long-standing and ever-present danger of a Turkish invasion

and the extensive social upheavals resulting from the devastating effects o f the Black

Plague. Because of this unstable situation, poor commercial opportunities displaced many

traders and farmers. All of these forces together set the stage for "journeymen and

landless people without homes or masters...to become followers of radical religious

sects" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 24).

The Roman Catholic church was held responsible by common people and peasants

for most of the social ills of the time. It was during this time that Luther openly

challenged the church. Simultaneously another movement developed by the Anabaptists,

who wanted to "reform the Reformers" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 26). During the early years

of the sixteenth century, some separatists resorted to an all-out rebellion dubbed the

Peasants’ War, which took place in the territory around Munster, Germany. As pacifists,

the Anabaptists were not interested in a national war, but openly debated "Catholic

theologians and the Protestant Reformers, and by their submissive and simple obedience

to the Bible, it was clear that they wished to return to a primitive, early type of

Christianity" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 25).

34 The challenges by the Anabaptists to both the Roman Catholic church and the

Reformers resulted in much persecution and death of Anabaptist believers. Anabaptists

were interested in re-establishing the kind of church fellowship that they believed had

existed in the early church. The Sermon on the Mount became their ethical code. With

this belief system, they began to live lives of non-resistance, renouncing violence even

when their lives or those of their family members were at stake (Hostetler, 1963).

In the last decade of the seventeenth century, a controversy developed about the

degree of religious conformity the various congregations would practice. Jakob Ammann

challenged congregations throughout Switzerland and Germany about their positions on

the Meidung, i.e., the shunning of excommunicated members. Ammann believed that

those who tell a falsehood should be excommunicated and shunned. Also to be shunned

were the noble-hearted—those Anabaptist sympathizers who held Anabaptist beliefs but

did not openly become members of Anabaptist congregations.

"Of the sixty-nine preachers known to have taken sides in the division, twenty-seven

sided with Ammann" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 38). With Ammann’s success, variations in the

Anabaptist movement developed. Those of the original movement included the Amish,

the Mennonites, and the Hutterites. The Amish had two major settlements in Switzerland

and one in Germany, but eventually they lost their identity or merged with the

Mennonites. "It is only in North America that the name and distinctive practices of the

Amish have survived" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 38).

The Amish came to America to escape the intense persecution of both the state and

the established church in Europe. While in Europe "the Amish were forbidden

35 citizenship and thus could not own land. Therefore, they were generally unable to

establish permanent, stable communities or to develop a distinctive social structure"

(Huntington, 1988, p. 368). The Amish must be given much credit for some of our basic

rights regarding freedom of religion and the separation of church and state (Hostetler,

1992).

EDUCATION. EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME

The typical Amish person receives an eighth-grade education and supplements the

high school years with a kind of "community-based vocational" training. Such training

generally involves working on the family farm under the tutelage of either one’s parents

or of other Amish adults.

Almost half of the elementary school-age children are taught in parochial schools

of the Amish community’s own creation and maintenance. The schools are "designed,

built and staffed by members of their own church" (Huntington, 1988, p. 392). The other

children attend public schools, but the Amish make every effort to keep their children

in "relatively small village schools." The tendency toward larger and larger public

schools works against the socialization process of the Amish child and the parents take

steps to minimize the potential influence and disruption. Huntington (1988) explains,

In the community schools the Amish children learn the three R’s in an environment in which they are protected from the assumptions o f twentieth-century America, in which they can learn discipline, humility, simple living and cooperation. The Amish schools emphasize shared knowledge rather than individual knowledge, the dignity of tradition rather than the importance o f progress. The Amish schools do not teach religion, rather a style of living...it is the role of the family, not

36 of the school or even the church, to make Amish Christians of the children." (p. 382)

Given the limited specialization in Amish culture, employment and income are

very much related. "Family farming is both the typical and the ideal occupation for a

head of household with growing children" (Huntington, 1988, p. 381). Some of the more

specialized craftsmen include the village blacksmith, harnessmaker, buggymaker,

ropemaker, and carpenter. Hostetler (1993) compares the Amish to the rural

working-class with regard to income; however, since the Amish do not pay social

security taxes, purchase health insurance, or believe in going into debt, their income base

may actually be larger than that of their non-Amish rural working-class counterparts in

the broader society.

FERTILITY AND BIRTHS OUT-OF-WEDLOCK

The average Amish family consists of a husband, wife, and seven children. It is not

all that unusual for a family to have ten to fifteen children. "Recent demographic studies

of the Amish...have shown that there has been no reduction in Amish fertility over time;

in fact there may have been a slight increase in fertility" (Huntington, 1988, p. 372).

Births outside of wedlock are almost nonexistent. I was fascinated by a courting

behavior, an institutionally-sanctioned adolescent sexual experience known as "bundling."

Hostetler writes, "The old way of spending time together was for a boy and girl to lie

on the bed without undressing" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 160). Some communities have

abandoned the practice due to the disapproval o f outsiders, but in many communities the

practice continues as a courtship rite. When out-of-wedlock pregnancies occur, they are

37 viewed as sexual transgressions and require a public confession before the entire

congregation. The pregnancy generally does not require the couple to marry, although

this varies from community to community. The woman may choose to keep the baby

and not marry the father, have an Amish couple adopt the baby, or marry the baby’s

father. In instances where the couple marries, the community insists that the couple

marry prior to the baby’s expected arrival.

RITES OF PASSAGE: BAPTISM. MARRIAGE AND PARENTHOOD

The first rite of passage is baptism, which constitutes bringing the adolescent into

proper formal relationship with the fellowship of the church. Without baptism, which

signifies not only a personal decision but also a commitment to join the community

congregation, "no young person could be married in the Amish church." (Hostetler,

1963, p. 52)

Marriage is the second rite of passage for young Amish adults. "The ceremony of

marriage admits the individual to the privileges of sex experience, procreation, and

family responsibility. The ceremony gives social sanction to the new social status of the

individuals involved" (Hostetler, 1963, p. 171).

According to both Hostetler (1963) and Huntington (1988), the respective ages for

men and women to marry have remained quite constant over the last four decades. "The

median age of first marriage for Amish women...was 22.1 and 24.7 for their husbands"

(Huntington, 1988, p. 375). Given the fertility rates, one might have expected an earlier

median age at marriage. But the rationale for delaying marriage seems more related to

the need to accumulate sufficient capital and land.

38 The husband-wife relationship, based on respect rather than romantic love, is similar

to that described by Thomas and Znaniecki (1927) about Polish peasants in Europe and

America. Hostetler (1963) adds, "The norm of respect from wife to husband includes

obedience, fidelity, care for the husband’s comfort and health; from husband to wife,

good treatment, fidelity, not letting the wife do hired work if it is not indispensable" (pp.

152-153). Roles are defined along Biblical lines. The man is the head of the woman as

Christ is the head of the Church (I Corinthians 11:3). This gives the husband a

leadership role in the family. The woman is to be subject (I Corinthians 11:10) and

submissive to her husband. Hostetler (1963) and Huntington (1988) state that the

relationships are much more egalitarian than the Scriptures indicate.

Women are not the property of men; a woman’s first commitment is to God. If the

husband were to transgress, the wife does not have to follow after him. In case of a

serious transgression, she would join the rest of the church community in shunning him

until such time as he repented.

Adulthood is not fully secured until the Amish couple become parents. In

parenthood, they are responsible for the continuation of Amish culture into the next

generation. Children are viewed as a gift from God and are always welcomed. Hostetler

(1963) mentions that in the first two years of life the infant "is given permissive care

with great amounts of love from mother, father, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles,

grandfathers, grandmothers, and cousins" (p. 153). Huntington makes another interesting

comment regarding childrearing: "Children are motivated primarily by concern for other

39 people and not by fear of punishment" (p. 385). This suggests that empathy is actively

nurtured in the children.

Another story from my search for possible contacts for entry into Amish culture may

shed some light on the degree of care and concern given to children. A woman who

owned and ran a craft shop in a neighboring town was approached by an Amish man

and his wife. They had just found out that their four-year old boy was deaf. The parents

were told that this woman taught sign-language, and requested her teaching services.

Arrangements were made for her to come to their home for ten consecutive weeks. To

her surprise, there were twenty-seven people present for the first lesson. Every member

of the family and extended kinship network attended each and every lesson during those

ten weeks.

When a child reaches adolescence, some deviation from the prescribed norms is

tolerated by the parents and the greater Amish community. This is viewed as the time

a young adult must decide on his individual commitment to God and the Amish church

community. Hostetler (1963) discusses the existence of adolescent rebellion in Amish

culture:

Antisocial behavior and rowdyism are experienced as community becomes threatened by a large number of its young members’ leaving. Young people who cannot follow the example of the ex-Amish person appear to turn to other forms of deviation. Parents tend to be ignorant of the tough behavior of the young people, and their ignorance serves an important social function in maintaining existing patterns of behavior. Knowledge of the facts in many cases would be socially disorganizing and might lead to conditions of anomie, (p. 265)

40 Included in the kinds of "rowdyism" Amish boys engage in are practical jokes, swearing,

"filthy stories," drinking, and buggy racing.

Huntington (1988) claims that it is the tolerance of this period and the continuity of

the parent-child relationship throughout the life of the Amish male that solidifies the

decision to be baptized, marry and remain embedded in the culture. Thus the cycle

continues.

AMISH MEN: "MEN OF FAITH"

Kimmel and Levine (1992) assert that masculinity is a social and cultural

construction. Within the masculine construct of U.S. culture exist "expectations of

gender behavior" and "norms of manliness" (p. 320). These definitions are "culturally

and historically specific" with great variation/s depending on the culture, period/s of

time, or life course of the individual.

This cultural construction of masculinity indicates that men organize their conceptions of themselves as masculine by their willingness to take risks, their ability to experience pain or discomfort and not submit to it, their drive to accumulate constantly (money, power, sex partners, experiences), and their resolute avoidance of any behavior that might be construed as feminine. (Kimmel & Levine, 1992, p. 320)

Imagine a place in stark contrast to our prevailing norms, a place where men

define themselves by their capacity for nurturance and restraint; a place where

deference and humility are primary qualities valued and sought after in social

relations; a place where men take mutual responsibility with women and other men

for emotion work, relationships and harmony, whether they be in their family, their

community or the world at large. Imagine men who can accept and acknowledge

41 their dependency needs, view them as healthy, and find active outlets for their

expression. The language they use is a language of nurturance. Restraint and

moderation in all things supplant risk-taking and the accumulation of goods and

wealth as proper male expression and definition.

I visited a number of such men in the various Amish communities to which I

was fortunate enough to gain access. The men whom I interviewed provided me with

a glimpse into the world of men whose culture and society create and re-create an

ideology, family organization, and lifestyle that supports male nurturance in most

spheres of life.

I do not want to romanticize the Amish too much: there are also problems

apparent underneath the smooth surface. Since I chose to interview those embedded

in the Amish culture, I was limited to a predominantly pro-Amish presentation of

self. Most of the men spoke of relatives, brothers, parents or friends who had left the

"Amish way." In some cases, leaving meant going from an Old Order lifestyle to a

New Order which offered more conveniences. In other cases, it meant leaving the

church altogether. Some oppressive elements find expression in the present gender

order. Discussion regarding patriarchy and the Amish will follow later.

Abraham, a blacksmith in his mid-forties, succinctly articulated many of the

dimensions or themes to be explored in this study:

ABRAHAM: What is a man? I guess I had to think that a man is something or someone that’s much more than just a macho figure with hair on his chest and big bulging biceps. That doesn’t make a man. A man is just that, he’s a man. Mere man created by God, but still something precious in the

eyes of God. So therefore, not only just a man, something special. But when he gets away from the fact that he thinks himself something special, then he better be careful. A man is someone that takes time to enjoy the beauty of a rainbow. Or maybe with rough, calloused hands pick up a rose and feel the velvetness of a rose and yet gentle. And realizing that he must take time for the things in life that are important. To love his wife more than himself, to give time to his children when they need it. A man thinks of others before himself and a man always gives God glory for everything and looks to God for all strength. And when decisions are ahead in his life then God is the one whose advice he seeks first. And a man is never afraid to say he’s sorry. And last o f all, but not least because I could go on and on, but it takes a man to cry. And I’m not saying that because I have to cry. And I guess the reason that this stands out so clear to me is that as a little boy I thought that when I would grow up you would leave so much behind you, you would become a man. And then whatever you faced in life you would be able to handle because you were big and you’d be strong. Because that’s the way I always thought that daddy could do. But now that I’m a man, so to speak, I realize that being a man is not something that becomes formed and stays as such, perfect in its form; it’s something that has to be nurtured and nursed each day. It’s something that has to keep growing...Some days I’m a man, some days I want them to think I am. And I think I have to keep ahold of being a little boy just enough so that when I look at my little boys I understand what they’re feeling. When I’m with the youth, I still feel how they do. I still feel the pain of growing up. And that’s all part of being a man to me. And maybe I lied. Realizing that I’m a daddy now, married, a married man so to speak, a husband, but yet feeling so small sometimes. So alone.

Abraham laid out an ideal of Amish masculinity in a more complete way t

any of the other Amish men I interviewed. Others covered much of the same

territory, but with various emphases.

This excerpt summarizes many of the dimensions of Amish masculinity that I

explore subsequently in this chapter. Abraham outlines the process of becoming a

43 man, a process to be nurtured to ensure its growth and expanding maturity.

Components o f this process include ideological, social/relational, environmental, and

psychological dimensions, as well as a time orientation that includes the present and

past. The "ideological" dimension refers to a man’s faith and belief system: a

personal relationship with God is seen as a primary focus. Abraham reflects this best

in his statement, "When decisions are ahead in his life then God is the one whose

advice he seeks first." He is sure that God values each individual person as precious

and special. His ideal of a man includes gentleness, tenderness, and a capacity to

express oneself emotionally. Note his capacity to express his own vulnerability. He

can see pain in his own life and permit it to be there rather than deny, distort, project

or ignore it.

The "psychological" and "relational" dimensions are intertwined. Abraham is

aware of the affective processes he needs in order to socialize his boys to become

empathic persons. He is also aware of the importance of taking time for the

important things: those aspects of life which involve his wife and children.

MASCULINITY AS A DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESS AND GENDER SCHEMA

As Abraham states, the process of becoming a man begins in childhood with an

acknowledgment of the most obvious external signs of masculinity: size, strength,

and hair. Yet he knows that this creates an incomplete picture. Abraham’s analysis

supports cognitive development theorists like Piaget, who delineated various stages of

cognitive development (Breger, 1974). Piaget claims that a child begins with an

egocentric view focused on sensorimotor experiences and gradually develops a

44 capacity for making associations and internal representations or symbols. For most

children, the capacity for abstraction is somewhat limited until adolescence. During

the formative years, a boy organizes his experiences in a way that tells him what a

man is. This cognitive structure can be described as a gender frame (Goffman) or

gender schema (Piaget). It provides the boy with a convenient way to categorize and

summarize perceptions regarding early role expectations. Cultural definitions of the

ideal male help provide him with an early frame in which to fit his experiences.

Various messages and experiences create the gender schema; it is modified time and

again throughout the life course as the boy assimilates and accommodates the

schemas with his experiences. Once a gender schema exists, the child tries to force-

fit all experience into the existing cognitive structure (assimilation). New experiences

that do not fit the existing schema require it to be expanded and altered to include

the new information (accommodation). As necessary as these schemas are for

organizing experience, they also present a person with a dilemma: there is a danger

in stereotyping another person or an experience for the sake of convenience or

efficiency. As an outcome, a person may make assumptions too quickly, base

associations and generalizations on insufficient or ambiguous information, or try to

force-fit the other person or experience into a faulty schema.

Note how Abraham began with a more childlike gender schema and expanded it

to include nurturing and relational qualities. He said that "being a man is not

something that becomes formed and stays as such, perfect in its form; it’s something

that has to be nurtured and nursed each day." As part of his male definition, he has

45 adapted his gender schema to include qualities and experiences that are traditionally

thought of as feminine.

Mose, a ropemaker, talked about his process of becoming a man:

MOSE: I started learning then and I’m still learning. I mean I have a turning point everyday. (Laugh) Yeah. Seriously. I mean that’s about all I could say. I mean, I learn natural, right in business everyday. I learn in family everyday, and I learn in the spiritual life everyday. And I don’t believe it’s ever gonna quit. And it’s kinda interesting, the more I know, the less I know. Now you know what I mean?

For Mose, becoming a man has daily milestones and is a continual process

oriented in the present, rooted in the ideological, economic, and relational

dimensions.

Time Orientation

The Amish orientation to the present and the active re-creation of the past

contrast in many other ways with other subcultures in the United States where the

primary time orientation is the future. Margaret Mead (1949) states, "For the

American family is oriented towards the future, towards what the children may

become, not towards the perpetuation of the past or the stabilization of the present...it

is a dream of the future rather than an attempt to reproduce the past" (pp. 253, 255).

Mead believes that the dissatisfaction of many Americans is rooted in this

never-ending striving for the ideal—and the failure to realize it. The Amish, on the

other hand, integrate the past, present and future, creating and recreating their

lifestyle. As a result, a continuity is present in the people, their belief system, and

46 their surroundings. From Mead’s perspective, it is this continuity that permits

affective processes to be steeped in attachment and healthy dependency:

Perfect relationships between oneself and one’s surroundings, between oneself and other people, depend upon this long loving habituation, as first the infant’s eyes, then those of the child, absorb the same patterns, as layer over layer of meaning is laid down in its mind, each layer being consistent with each other layer, however counterpointed or apparently contrasting, (p. 256)

Listen to David, a harnessmaker, speak about how he helps his son develop new

skills:

DAVID: That’s one reason I’m glad that we done our own farming last summer. I put [my son] out on the cultivator...[and] he’s doing the milking...I want to teach him all those. We’ve got a couple of hogs. It’s cheaper for me to go over to the sale here and buy some hogs to butcher. But how will he ever learn to feed hogs or raise hogs and be around them, if I don’t have a few hogs for him to take care of?...And he asked me the other day, ‘Don’t you think you better kill those hogs? I think we better just feed them out. That way we’ll see whether you can get good fat hogs to butcher.’ So he’s taking interest in it. Let him go ahead and raise the hog. But now he’s up there in the shop. He can take care of the shop real good at thirteen years of age. He’ll get onto it that he can take the shop on...But every once in a while you’ve got to tell him.

David sees the importance of passing on farming skills because of their own

value, not necessarily for the money his son can make raising hogs. A skill, as we

will discuss later, becomes part of the process for Amish male definition. It provides

a connection between the son, his father and his father’s ancestors. This connect

between present and past is also present in the Amish rearing of their young. The

47 first tongue the children speak is German; many Amish children can speak little or

no English until they begin school.

As I talked with Menno, a harnessmaker, one day, three young boys entered

his shop. The oldest boy appeared to be five or six years old, and the younger boys

appeared to be four and two. Menno spoke to them in German. Later he explained:

MENNO: You know, they don’t know English yet. They can’t tell a word you say. They won’t learn English until they become scholars and go off to school. We teach ’em High German first here at home. That way they know where they come from. They learn to read and write High German first. When they study the Good Book, it will be in German, not English...We don’t want them forgetting where they come from.

Ideological Dimension—"The Basic Pulpit of Life"

The Amish ideology is based on faith and belief in God. They define themselves

as Christian.

We are not Amish, we are Christians. Amish is just a nickname. We don’t need to be ashamed that people call us that but we shouldn’t build on the name Amish." (Yoder, as cited Hostetler, 1992, p. 265)

But being faithful is an encompassing endeavor as the lifestyle, relationships,

work, business, and even the code of dress support its definition, expression and

regeneration. Their faith influences every facet of their lives and, unlike the dominant

culture, there is no obvious separation of public and private or of secular and

religious spheres. They believe they are called to live a separate life from the rest of

the world. This "call" to separateness is an effort to live a holy life, undefiled by the

48 negative influences of the prevailing worldly or capitalistic ideologies of greed,

consumption, and pride.

Ideology is taught informally, very early on in family relationships embedded in

the Amish community. It is taught through story-telling, family devotions, farming

and work. In formal ways, the church, school and Amish publications support and

further the existing ideology of the Christian faith.

While I was questioning an Amish man about the possibility of an interview, he

shook his head in disbelief that some Christians attempt to remain faithful while

living in the predominant culture. He said, "We live our faith daily and do not leave

it at anybody’s door, the way you would some dirty boots." In other words, Amish

ideology encompasses all aspects of a person’s life, and is not merely a Sunday

activity. Amish faith is used as the basis for all o f the other spheres, whether they

relate to the environment, to social relations, or to psychological development.

God, the Bible, and the Golden Rule were mentioned and referred to freely and

frequently. In the apparent congruence between ideology, self, and lifestyle, deep and

rich meanings are not stripped from family life, the educational process, work or the

Amish community at large. As a result the sacred is preserved in everyday life.

Abraham, a tractor and machinery mechanic from a New Order Amish

community, communicated the role of faith as ideology and its active influence on

his everyday life.

ABRAHAM: I had...a very, very strong feeling that God wanted to do something with my life. I can’t really put a finger on why I sometimes felt that way. One time if someone

49 would ask me, I would’ve said that I feel as though God’s telling me I’m gonna be a minister. That’s something that I’ve hardly ever told anybody. But now I can’t exactly say, I don’t know what’s in my future, but with everything else that has happened I do realize that whether it’s behind the pulpit...or whether it’s behind the basic pulpit of life, just reaching out to people, showin’ ’em you care, showin’ ’em you love ’em while you can, that is my calling, and if I run from that I ’ll never be happy. And no matter what path I take, I’m gonna be there when I get there because I can’t get away from myself. And I came to the realization that someday I’m gonna stand before an almighty God and I’m gonna have to give account for my soul.

As Abraham explained, it is important to reach out to people, "show ’em you

care" and to "show ’em you love them while you can." The call is clearly nurturant

and relational.

The ideology is taught very early and often. It is reinforced through "studying the

Scriptures," "telling Bible stories" and teaching "the Golden Rule." Abraham and

several other men repeated these themes, adding layer upon layer of meaning.

Abraham’s earliest recollection enriches this discussion:

ABRAHAM: My memory probably goes back in the eighteen- month range...I do remember...standing in my crib...I had three brothers older than me. There’s four boys and we all slept in the same bedroom. And we got a double bunk bed...I can remember hearing about Jesus and the cross first on that bunk bed. [My brothers] were climbing up, and for some reason I remember them climbing up and me standing on the bed talking about Jesus being nailed on the cross. But I do remember that.

Similarly, Eli shared a story in which he gave credit for his religious upbringing to

his mother:

50 ELI: [My mother] tried to bring us up where we shunned the worldly things. Now that was planted right in us...These worldly things that don’t amount to bean soup. Things that isn’t a necessity in your life. She taught us all the same. To respect people, to love people, the Golden Rule at home, do unto others as you wish to be done by. That’s one thing Mother always tried to tell us...That is one of the main things that she tried, and Dad, of course, too, brought us up to that.

From this religious ideology, relationships were given priority over the "drive to

accumulate," resulting in affective processes that are layered experiences of male

nurturance, caring and friendship.

Farming

Hostetler (1992) cites a 1940 U.S. Department of Agriculture study written by

Kollmorgen. In it Kollmorgen argues that the Amish ideology and beliefs helped the

religious communities develop good farming practices and control for the negative

effects of unmanaged capitalism. Kollmorgen says,

The Amish farmer is wedded to the land not only by a deep and long tradition of good agricultural practices, but farming has also become one of the tenets o f the Amish religion. A rural life is essential to these people so that their nonconformist practices may be perpetuated. Their desire to live on the land, and to live together as well as separate from the world, has been an ever-present stimulus to good farming practices...The aged farmers in the Amish and Mennonite communities in Lancaster County are a rich depository of the lore of agricultural experience which reaches back to early colonial days. Many of them, particularly in the Mennonite community, occupy farms that have been in the family for more than 200 years, and were acquired directly from William Penn or his land agents. Buildings may have been built, at least partly, shortly before or after the Revolutionary War. As the farm place was handed down from father to son, so were many experiences handed down from generation to generation and with them a good deal of wisdom

51 Biblical injunctions concerning love and mutual aid were given practical application, and this gave them strength and integrity. The poor were helped as a matter of course, but the help that was extended enabled the poor to become productive and to help themselves. Begging was not tolerated...The rule o f love, which was translated into everyday life, prohibited unnecessary competition and rivalry, (as cited in Hostetler, 1992, pp. 58-59)

Education

The family is not alone in its socializing influence; schools also teach the

ideology of the Amish traditions, beliefs, and lifestyle. Amish education differs

greatly from that of the dominant culture, as the process is not decontextualized and

the meanings and values are not stripped from the information. Here are several

examples from the interviews.

The respondents spoke of teachers as important mentors who not only

provided them with a great deal of information but also taught them about "life."

MOSE: I had a real good teacher. He was an outstanding teacher...If I think back I remember he taught us what life is about. What I ’m saying in general, we had respect, and he had a lot of interesting things going on and it kinda opened my eyes outside...He was interested in geography. He would tell us about other countries; how it is down there compared to here...He taught us...to respect all people. I mean, when you see a black guy come in the school house there’s nothing to grin. Better not! You respect that fella! Whether he was an Indian. No matter what...It’s something that really kinda opened our eyes, and it kinda led on to business in general after that I would say...On top of that he...taught us what our lessons were about, but...as far as making a man out of a guy, you don’t become a man just through add[ing] two and two...There’s a lot more involved in that...I’d consider his education he gave me, or his teachings he gave me, a good bit in that sense, I’d say.

52 Aaron also valued one of the teachers from his youth:

AARON: Back in school, one person in that school that really left an impression on me was the [teacher and the] methods that she used to teach school. Now I’ve visited a lot of schools since that...and I never had a teacher...that I respected more, or [who] was respected more by all the children than what she was. And I never saw her paddle a child...We learned a lot as far as school work but we also learned a lot in respect, getting along with each other, and what we can get away with and what we can’t.

Both of these men clearly seemed to appreciate the model of Christianity

presented by their teachers. As the following excerpt illustrates, the qualities that

these teachers possessed were exactly those desired by the Amish community:

A Good Teacher Needs'. A. Love, above all else; love of God, love of children and of humanity in general; love of occupation. Love takes care of some of the other characteristics. B. Firmness, or strict discipline. C. Adequate education. D. Willingness to accept advice or constructive criticism. E. Humility and meekness. F. Courage. G. Patience. H. Cheerfulness. I. Impartiality. J. Unselfishness. All these will make a good character and personality.

A Good Christian Schoolteacher Should'. Be modest in dress and actions, setting a good example. Be free of filthy habits such as foul talk, drinking, or smoking. Have sufficient education and understanding of teaching and learning. Accept the task as a challenge to help prepare young souls for a successful life pleasing to God, that they may be an asset to the church and the community in the years to come. Have an interest and liking for children. Be able to administer discipline fairly and successfully.

A Successful Teacher Is: Alert to the needs of the pupils, the wishes of the parents, and the will of God. Concerned that school life be not only a learning of the 3 R’s, but also a living of life’s 3 R’s—faith, hope, love (I Cor. 13:13). Inspired by the challenge of her responsibilities. Kind to her pupils and to herself. Courteous to all visitors, especially those not of our

53 faith, so that they have no just cause to consider us other than we profess to be. Apt in teaching; if native ability is somewhat below the desired level, it can be improved by practice and self-discipline. Educated, for it is indeed difficult for a teacher to teach others what she herself does not clearly understand. Relaxed but on her toes. Forgiving toward pupils and parents, for grudges are a heavy and useless burden to carry, and are a poison to the heart and spirit. Above all, Christian in word and deed and thought, that the children follow the footsteps of their teacher’s Saviour, (as cited in Hostetler, 1992, p. 151)

Publications

There are usually three publications in the homes o f the more orthodox Amish

(Old Order) and in the New and liberal settlement (e.g., the Hutterite or Mennonite

settlements). These are Family Life, Young Companion, and Blackboard Bulletin.

Each magazine has a particular purpose in supporting and clarifying the Amish

ideology and its subsequent regeneration.

Family Life is a magazine primarily for parents. It includes stories of

encouragement for dealing with Amish social problems, poetry, recipes, Amish

family histories and science. Young Companion is written with pre-teens and

adolescents in mind. It is filled with stories of other Amish youth struggling with the

issues current in the Amish lifestyle and faith. This publication is also a way of

indicating to these young people that there are many Amish communities and

fellowships throughout the Americas. This may help reduce the feeling of isolation

that some of them may have. Blackboard Bulletin is a magazine that addresses the

educational issues of the communities.

54 Here is a brief example from the December 1994 edition of Family Life.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOME -By Joe S. Wurtz

An old adage says, ‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ O f course this refers to mothers, but it is the father’s task to train, discipline, and teach the children the way they should go.

At the head of every home, unless the father has died, there is to be a leader found in the husband. A wife wants a strong husband with courage, conviction, concern, and a caring attitude. God ordained the husband to be the head of the family. No, he is not to be a dictator but a leader and an example to follow. As Jesus is the head of the church, so a husband is to be the head of the home. God’s plan is for a man to be in submission to God, the wife to submit to her husband, and the children to be in subjection to the parents.

Loving our children is so very important but it is not enough. Along with love, our children need a proper example and basic truths taught to help them go the right way.

Every parent needs to spend time talking to God about the family and to the family about God. And be assured it will avail little to talk to your children about God until you have first talked to God in prayer about your children.

A house is built of wood, glass, mortar, and stone; but a home is made of much more than that. A solid Christian home is built on faith, love, care, initiative, honesty, knowledge, and Bible truths.

It is desirable to have a good, solid house, but far more important than that is a home where the essentials of a godly character are allowed to grow, mature, and bloom. In this, parents carry the responsibility for the children, for the children tend to follow the examples of Mom and Dad.

Cut Knife, Saskatchewan

55 Note the patriarchal ideology modified by some refinements. Fathers and

husbands are expected to be the leaders, but not dictators, in the home. They are

encouraged to lead by example. Wives want husbands who are empathetic and

sensitive to the children’s needs. Throughout this publication are pieces o f this sort

admonishing parents what the power structure should be.

The following are brief excerpts from two separate stories from Young

Companion. One is the conclusion to a story of a boy who disobeyed his father’s

wishes and bought himself a bow for hunting. In the story he realizes the "folly" of

his ways and sells the bow at a loss. The other is an excerpt from a story where a

young man makes a choice about a companion and reflects on it later in his life.

From Aaron’s Mistake by Noah Hershberger (Nov. 1994)

Dad had seen Aaron take the bow to town, and he saw him come home without it. When they were alone in the barn, Dad asked him about it.

‘I wanted to sell it and buy a new harness,’ Aaron blurted out, almost bitterly. ‘But he only gave me a fraction of what it was worth new.’

Dad listened with sympathy as Aaron emptied his feelings. In a way Aaron was ashamed o f himself because he knew Dad had advised him against buying the bow, but it still made him feel better to be confiding in someone.

You made a mistake,’ Dad said after Aaron had finished. ‘But you’re not the first person to make a mistake like that. The important thing is if you learn a lesson from your mistake and don’t make the same one again. You didn’t need that bow and arrow and you don’t need a new harness. Your money can be put to better use than that.’

Aaron stood there, his eyes on the ground. He knew in his heart that what his dad was saying was true.

‘You lost some money from this mistake,’ Dad went on. ‘But it was not that much. Later in life when you are making bigger decisions you can get into a lot of trouble by making this same mistake - buying what you want instead of what you need.’

Afterwards Aaron thought about what Dad had said. He felt bad about the money he had lost, but he felt even worse that he had gone against his father’s advice. That was the biggest mistake of all.

After supper Aaron went up to his room. A moment later he reappeared. ‘Here is my money, Dad,’ he said, handing it over. ‘I want you to keep it until I’m twenty-one.’ ‘All right,’ Dad said.

By the expression on Dad’s face, Aaron knew that his father was happy with his decision. As he went to bed that night, Aaron still felt the sting of remorse. But the tension between him and Dad was gone, and Aaron felt better than he had for a long time.

From Life Is Not Fair Author unknown (Sept./Oct. 1994)

The wedding of Herman and Minerva was held at the Byler home on Thursday in early spring...And thus life moved on in the Bursh Mountain settlement. One week followed another and turned into years. Children were born to Herman and Minerva, confronting them with the awesome responsibility of parenthood. As the years passed, their love for each other as husband and wife deepened. The joys and sorrows of married life drew them closer together until they were truly one flesh - a part of each other in every way.

Linda Weaver, soon after Herman and Minerva were married, moved to a neighboring state. Years went by and it was as if she had dropped out of their lives. The report did come though that Linda had gotten married.

And then one Sunday when Herman and Minerva arrived at church, Linda was there with her husband and family. Minerva invited Linda to come home with them for the afternoon and for supper.

The afternoon passed pleasantly enough, yet Herman could hardly believe the change that had come over Linda. ‘Perhaps,’ thought Herman, ‘I am the one who has changed the most!’ Linda was still

57 friendly and talkative and the dimples in her cheeks were as pronounced as ever. But she had aged and there were wrinkles under her eyes. Linda was more nervous than Herman remembered, and when her two-year-old got into the cupboard doors, Linda scolded him in a harsh high-pitched voice.

Linda’s husband was a meek and quiet-spoken little man whose compelling purpose in life seemed to be to please his wife. Linda and Minerva were busily visiting, while the two husbands listened.

Herman felt guilty, but he could not stop the thoughts that kept coming to his mind. Where now was the beauty he had once seen in Linda? Where was her charm? There was such a contrast between the two women that Herman could hardly believe that once upon a time he had been plagued with indecision.

To Herman, his own dear wife Minerva was so radiant with inner beauty that she stood apart from all others. She was so motherly and unselfish, so loyal and loving, so adept and skilled with her hands, so conscientious and filled with faith.

‘It just doesn’t seem fair that God has been so good to me,’ thought Herman as he sat there. He could feel the tears pushing at his eyelids and knew it would not take much more to make him cry.

The first story deals with the difference between want and need and also the

importance of obedience to one’s parents. Note the relational quality in the

interaction between father and son, the awareness of the need to express oneself to

those close.

The second story challenges the tendency for youth to focus too heavily on

outward appearance or beauty. Looking for inner beauty in choosing a companion is

encouraged for it reflects the character of the individual. Outward beauty is seen as a

worldly value to be guarded against. Note also the awareness of male emotional

58 reactions to various situations, in this case Herman’s gratefulness for the blessing of a

good wife, a wife with character.

In each instance, the primary male characters show their vulnerability. Such male

vulnerability is encouraged in personal and relational terms in Amish culture.

Social/Relational Dimension

Affective Processes

Religious ideology structures all facets of life, particularly the relational one. In

the following excerpt, David addressed his nurturing and empathetic philosophy for

life. This particular interview was conducted on a sunny day in late summer,

alongside a rural road. From time to time a bull could be heard in the background.

Numerous people waved with warm smiles to David, a harnessmaker who was selling

peaches and returning the waves of those who drove by.

DAVID: I know most of them. Most of them know me. I never forgot the old rhyme that I learnt when I was going to school. The Village Blacksmith. ‘Let me live by the side of the road and be a friend to man.’ You can’t be a friend to everybody, but then you can try to be.

This caring philosophy is rooted in the history of the Amish. Nowhere is their

limit-setting more evident than in the rejection of forms of technology thought to

hamper or destroy the relationships or affective processes between members of a

family and/or community.

Hostetler (1963) articulates the Amish rationale for limiting the fragmenting

effect of industrialization on affective processes in this way:

59 We live in a world that is being transformed before our eyes by new inventions, new forms of communication, and new folkways. If hunger and disease are abolished by industrializing, mechanizing, and urbanizing the population o f the world, is the cost not sometimes too great? What is the use of introducing a tractor or an automobile if in so doing the human qualities of Gemeinschaft (the natural groupings) are cut into shreds? If mankind knows how to survive in larger numbers, to prolong life, and to transform tribal communities into urban ones, what is the cost in terms of the human spirit? How much destruction of old values, of alienation of parents from children, of neighbor from neighbor, of the spirit of man from the faith of his traditional culture, must there be? How fast dare we change? (p. viii)

What originally drew me to include the Amish was the potential for a

relational male. As Chodorow (1978) hypothesizes, if a man is to have the capacity

for empathy and relatedness, he must first experience loving attachments with men as

well as women. Loving attachments cannot be the sole domain of the woman if a

boy is to become a relational male. Ideally, these attachments with men have some

continuity through time, from infancy through childhood, adolescence and into

adulthood. They include men within the family and extend to include the community

at large. "The layer over layer of meaning laid down in its mind" to which Mead

(1949, p. 256) refers, speaks of the continuity of meaning/s given to and about the

attachments. From Chodorow’s (1978) work then, identification processes and

masculine role learnings are "likely to be embedded in relationship with their fathers

or men" (p. 177); such a statement acknowledges the importance of affective

relationships with both mothers and fathers, women and men.

With meaning-laden, rich, loving attachments, the ego boundaries that develop

may be semi-permeable. Chodorow stated that semi-permeable ego boundaries, unlike

60 rigid boundaries, permit an extending of the self to others in the family and then to

the world at large.

A Language o f Nurturance

Nurturance is very much a part of the Amish belief system. When reviewing the

Amish as a socioreligious ethnic minority, Huntington (1988) states, "The Amish

have an attitude of nurturance for their land, their children, and their people. The

Amish nurturing lifestyle is in harmony with nature and functions to keep ‘the

machine out of the garden’" (p. 383). Wendell Berry (1977) contrasts the exploiter

or individual who considers land a commodity with the [Amish] nurturer who

considers land a trust.

The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s goal is health—his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s...Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) (Berry, 1977, as cited in Huntington, 1988, p. 383)

In a culture or subculture that values individuals with relational skills and

nurturing capacities, a linguist might expect to find a language that reflects such

qualities in both male and female discourses. From these interviews I can testify that

this is indeed so. As one would expect, the Amish language includes references to

caring and friendship, but extends to statements of male responsibility for relational

harmony, acknowledgments of dependency needs, restraint of aggressive impulses,

61 and respect for the dignity of all human beings. These reflect the psychoanalytic

notion that semi-permeable boundaries are necessary for the capacity to nurture.

Acknowledging Dependency Needs Through Spatial Metaphors

Amish metaphors illustrate an ideology where life should flow in graceful

harmony and mutual dependence when people relate to each other. David

commented:

DAVID: I always fell back on [the bishop] pretty good...I took him to be a man that you can ask anything, although he kept saying all the time he’s a person like anybody else. But I would still fall back on the bishop. And I’ve never heard my parents complain about any of the ministers or the bishops. They always praised them: ‘What would the bishop say?’ or ‘What would one of the ministers say?’

David spoke about "falling back on the bishop" for advice and direction when he

was facing life questions and decisions. He used an expression that creates a mental

image of a situation that requires a dependency on another person. He was

responding to my questions about most influential men in his life. He referred to the

past, but acknowledged that if he needed something now, the bishop is no longer the

person upon whom he would depend:

DAVID: I’d go back to Dad...but...he’s not living anymore...If I was really up against it, I would go ask my brother Mose... we’re [pretty close] (pause). I don’t know. He knows what kind of a mischief I was, so I don’t know whether he’d ask me. And I’ve got a brother-in-law that’s pretty good, pretty dependable too.

62 This excerpt evokes a mental image of some situation causing David some distress.

As he continued, he talked about an experience where he perceived his father as

insensitive and uncaring:

DAVID: I was seventeen years when I started working at the blacksmith shop for ten cents an hour. In the evening I worked two and a half hours for a quarter. I had all the spending money I needed. I had a girlfriend at that time and I wanted to buy her a small cedar chest for a Christmas present. And I told dad, ‘I would like to buy this big cedar chest.’ Dad says, ‘Well, you only been going with her for two months... What’s that cedar chest cost?’ I says, ‘Two dollars and fifty cents.’ He says, ‘Well, if you want to lose your two dollars and fifty cents, go ahead and buy her a great big expensive Christmas present.’ So I thought dad was pretty blame awkward there.

"Awkward" seems to be the antithesis o f how an Amish life is expected to flow.

Another antithetical term that aptly describes the opposite o f a graceful life flow is

"mismoves": mistakes that one has made in one’s life:

DAVID: I would have probably been around twenty-six years old when I realized how I acted when I was eighteen, nineteen and twenty. Then you’d be kind of ashamed of yourself with the mismoves you made. Then when I get up to forty, I looked back to when I was thirty and, man oh man, ‘Why did I let this salesman talk me into this?’and so on and so forth. Man, I was too childish to even realize what he was trying to pull over on me. And as you get older you look back and you see all the mistakes you make in your younger days. You wonder, ‘Well, why in the world, how come I know how to pay my bills?’ Because, man, I made some goofy mistakes all right.

David had a particularly picturesque way of speaking, a way that helped me

imagine the scenes about which he spoke. As he continued, he used movement

images to talk about conflicts in his marriage:

63 DAVID: If you’re honest with the people, you’re going to be honest with your wife and you’re going to be honest with your children. Naturally, you know that there is no two mans alike, two minds alike and your wife is going to have ideas, and maybe she has a different idea than what you’ve got. But always weigh the two ideas together and try and take her idea if you can possibly do it. But if you don’t see your way clear, it’s better to explain to her why you don’t see it clear and get to something...I always thought what’s in the house, she’s got to work with try and get it that way. Even if you wouldn’t want it that way for yourself. Just try and get it the way she wants it in the house. But then she should let you do out in the barn whatever, how you see it fit, too. I don’t think there’s any call for too many arguments between men and women, man and wife. Because they can always get to something.

As David spoke, I had a mental picture in my head of two people not able to

negotiate a small area, trying to maneuver around one another in a way that was

acceptable to each, and moving toward a solution. This is an excellent example o f a

spatial metaphor; it expresses David’s wish to live in harmony with his spouse and

avoid potentially damaging conflicts in the process.

As the interview progressed, David continued to use quaint idiomatic expressions

as metaphors for handling such everyday life experiences as arguments:

DAVID: Don’t argue with anybody. If he wants to argue with you, you just shut up and walk away...from him, and whenever he’s ready to start talking...then you talk to him. Dad always said, ‘A smart man always admits that he was wrong.’ And even though you thought you was right, you always admit you was wrong...I don’t think I fought [physically] with any of my brothers [or other boys in the community]...We didn’t dare... Because if you went into any fighting with any of the boys in school, Dad would take care of us. If we would have hurt somebody in school, I’m almost positive that Dad would have taken us on the buggy and we would have went over to that boy’s parents and we’d have

64 had to admit it that we, and apologize to them. He says, ‘There’s no use falling out with anybody. This is not necessary.’ Yeah, he was a nice old man.

The idiom "falling out" evokes images of an awkward person. As I heard

David speak, I had a picture in my own mind of someone falling over, having little

body control, losing balance, and bumping into another person.

Relationships as a Male Responsibility

For the Amish male, the importance of relational skills is embedded in the

religious ideology. He cultivates restraint and deference, renounces violence, and

accepts responsibility for relational harmony among individuals, families,

communities and the world at large. By serving as an active mentor and socializer of

boys, he molds their emotional make-up and attempts to model an ideal of Amish

masculinity.

The following excerpts offer examples of the importance of having and

transmitting relational skills; of teaching boys the qualities of humility, restraint, and

honesty; and of taking responsibility for harmony and peace. The examples also show

the Amish method of protest: non-violent, passive resistance similar to that seen

during Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

The following excerpt illustrates the value placed on relational skills. Aaron, a

farmer, shared stories about his grandfather, a bishop of an Old Order community.

Apparently the grandfather was known for relational skills, and tales about him had

become part of the family folklore.

65 AARON: He was very tactful with working with people...Some of the young ones that wanted to be a little bit spruced up and so on, they shaved their beard down partways. So one day he met one of these brethren on the street and he stopped to chat with him. He said, ‘Jake, would you do me a favor?’ And he says, ‘Sure.’ ‘Leave your beard full, don’t shave part of your beard off.’ And that man said, ‘He asked in such a nice way and I promised him I would do him a favor if I could. What could I do or what could I say?’...He had a nice way of approaching somebody. I remember at my grandpa’s funeral, the bishop...was talking about...the first time he went with Grandpa to talk to this person, then grandpa told him... ‘Now if we can’t leave this place with good feelings, with mutual feelings and talk to this man and leave here with good feelings, we better wouldn’t have came tonight’...And I remember this bishop said that he remembers that was what Grandpa said the first time, when they met.

Note that the concern here was on how to deal with a sensitive situation so that

"good feelings" would result. This made quite an impression on the boy. That

impression was not the result of one particular experience but of the whole process of

growing up "right beside him." Aaron spoke to me at some length about time that he

spent with his grandfather:

AARON: My grandpa lived within a couple hundred yards and...After Grandma passed away, he was living by himself. But my dad, well, the brothers and sisters didn’t want Grandpa to stay alone at night. So there was four or five of us boys, so we would take turns sleeping at grandpa’s house overnight. And then we’d usually stay there for breakfast. Whoever slept there why he’d stay there for breakfast.

Looking after Grandpa was a male responsibility in this house. This typifies the

experience of many Amish men with whom I spoke. Thus it appears that Amish

boys learn relational skills early on in their lives, and in a number of ways. They are

taught humility, deference, and male vulnerability as an expression of Amish faith.

66 They are also taught to restrain angry impulses, e.g., the impulse to either physically

or verbally fight. "Getting along" as a value is internalized into the norms o f what is

expected from an Amish man.

Humility. Male Vulnerability, and Confession

David, a sixty-year old, recalled his father’s admonitions regarding humility and

pride during the time that he was employed by a local blacksmith.

DAVID: While I was over at the blacksmith shop, he was fixing engines, old Magnitas, stuff like that for these old International engines...And I thought I was getting pretty well up to it now that I know just what it takes for an engine to run. But every once in a while, I’d work with a motor and I couldn’t get it going. Dad would just laugh at me. ‘See, you’re not as smart as you thought you were.’ He would never call any of his children smart. No. He always said, ‘Well, that’s all right if you happen to get it right’...But he’d never call them smart. He says that a person’s mind is too weak to take any praise like that. It’s too weak. I understand it now. I didn’t understand it at the time. Several times I was kind of mad at Dad, you know.

At a different point in the interview, David also joked about his youthful pride:

DAVID: But Granddad would set on the porch and sing. And I’d help him sing...[We’d sing] in German. And it was interesting for me to hear Granddad sing, and I could sing just as good as he could, he would tell me. And I thought that was getting me up to where I was Mike with Pete’s pants, [which means] ‘a little bit thinking I’m smart.’ That’s our expression for saying you’re smart. You don’t say you’re smart because you might think you’re somebody special. So you say you’re Mike with Pete’s pants.

For David, humility provided a check or balance to the creation of egocentric or

arrogant views of himself. Hostetler (1992) comments on the importance of humility

in the life of the Amish individual and community:

67 The Plain People run the risk of developing an inflated view of their own superiority. Excessive ethnocentrism can lead to nationalistic arrogance and racism. The checks against such excesses are not the destruction of the mother group but self-correction from within. One such restraint is the practice of humility and moderation as key values in human associations. Among the Amish people an old saying, ‘Self-praise stinks,’ has worked effectively in checking both individual and group arrogance, (p. 11)

There were few direct references to humility in the interviews, but the idea was

expressed along the lines of not thinking of one’s self as "too smart" or of having

"all the answers."

ELI: There is always somebody that knows a little more than you do. I don’t care if you’re 100, gets 150 years old. You can learn till the end of your days.

The reader may also recall the comments of Mose (earlier in the chapter), who stated,

"The more I know, the less I know." He later added, "I wish all children would be

smart enough to realize they’re dumb."

Hand in hand with humility is the value on male vulnerability. The

community and family teach this by encouraging confession for wrongdoing. Male

vulnerability is prized as a virtue; it is thought to keep a boy honest and on guard for

"the devil, who like a lion seeks to devour you" (I Peter 5:8). Confessions to parents

or other adult community members about inappropriate behaviors or attitudes are

viewed as evidence of maturity.

I present here several excerpts concerning this subject. First Joseph, a New

Order Amish man, speaks about his son’s confession to him:

JOSEPH: I just had an experience...[with] one o f the boys, actually the oldest one who was seventeen...All at once 1 heard footsteps and he came in our bedroom and made a confession for the things that he wanted to confess before he could go to sleep and I could help...We talked it over and we knelt and we prayed about it, and he went to bed and had a good night’s sleep and so did I. And I mean things like that really touch your heart...After he left I thought back to my life at that age. I would not have had the nerve to go up in my dad’s bedroom and ask him about things. I thank God for privileges like that. Those are some of the goals in my life to where I want my boys to grow up to be able to confess their wrongs, because everybody’s going to do wrong, and openly confess and make wrongs right and be honest...That’s about the main things in a Christian’s life.

The ritual of confession can be done either publicly or privately. Listen to the

respect and concern Joseph had for a younger confessee:

JOSEPH: We lived here only a year but there was a young boy in our church district...that...made a confession...in church, and I highly respected him for being willing to admit they were wrong, willing to start over and take hold, and start their life over again, and he did this...I knew what an impact it would have on the younger boys, because peer pressure at that age is so great. And I knew I should tell him about this thing, that I really respect him for this, but I didn’t know when I would get a chance. I didn’t want to do it when he was amongst the other boys. I didn’t wanta do it in a way that he would feel... I didn’t know him that well. So I just wrote him a letter and I told him how I appreciated this, and I left it at that...I hoped that my life shows him that I care and support him...One evening that boy stopped in to play ping pong...He opened up and he really told me a lot of his personal feelings...and his struggle through life...He thanked me for caring...And I shared some with him, and it was really touching. A boy that I hadn’t known a year ago and I told him I cared and he shared with me. And...we have a mutual understanding over each other. Every time we meet we know how we feel. And I told him before he left, ‘I feel good that you shared this, not that you had to, but I’ll gladly help you in any way I can and I don’t feel that it will benefit any on

69 your part by...telling other people these things so I’ll keep it to myself.’ So I did. I think we have a mutual understanding...and, I think things like that go a pretty long way.

Confessions can be made throughout one’s life and can be made in writing as

well as face to face. Here Joseph, a former teacher, told me that he still hears from

his former students:

JOSEPH: And I’ve had former pupils write me letters, maybe they had a confession to make for things they did while I was teaching school that I never even knew about, but how easy it is to forgive people like that...Sometimes I think I didn’t do everything wrong when I was teaching, because if they got the desire to do what was right in later years, it makes you feel good. (Laughs)

Harmony

A masculine definition that includes humility, deference, male vulnerability and

semi-permeable ego boundaries sets the stage for an empathetic, relational male who

makes relationships a priority. Conflict is managed with a concern about mutuality

and reciprocity in mind.

Here David, a harnessmaker in his sixties, remembers how his father taught

him the futility o f arguing:

DAVID: If [my brother and I]’d go teasing and then start blaming each other, why [Dad]’d give both of us a spanking. We knew we couldn’t blame him too much. There was no blaming to be done. We was always afraid of Dad. Mother would go a little easier on us. When dad said ‘Yes,’ why, it was ‘yes.’ And when he said ‘No,’ it was ‘no.’ And if he come to us to straighten an argument, we’d expect that both of us would get spanked. Because if we argued, that would be our own fault. Don’t make any difference if my brother

70 started the argument, that doesn’t make any difference: I have no business arguing with him.

Harmony is a male responsibility in the Amish subculture. It is often achieved

through deference and obedience. In the dominant culture we tend to view deference

as placating, but amongst the Amish it appears to be an awareness and

acknowledgment of mutuality and reciprocity in relational processes.

The reader may recall that, in an earlier passage, David had referred to his father

as "a nice, old man." His fear of a spanking, however, indicates his awareness of the

tremendous power differential between his father and himself. The men were quick to

clarify that corporal punishment was not abusive and was not administered in anger.

In fact, it was often accompanied by an explanation. Men spoke of spanking as a

"gentle admonishment" (fieldnotes).

ABRAHAM: My daddy always loved me. And when I did wrong, Daddy punished me. But he took time to sit down, take me on his knee and explain to me what I did wrong and why he was punishing me.

Laverine Value Lessons Into One’s Being

The Amish men spoke of lessons they had learned in their youth that had left an

impression on them. David described to me several important lessons he had learned

about honesty. In the first story, David described how, without his father’s

permission, he had bought tail lights and had put them on the family buggy:

The same evening I put them on, we was milking, and...Dad asked me, ‘How did those lights get on your buggy?’ I says, ‘I put them on.’ Well, he says, ‘If you put them on, you know how to take them back off. So just take them off and put on what was on there. That’s my buggy. That’s not your

71 buggy’...So I took them off. I said to my mother, ‘I can’t understand why Dad wouldn’t allow me to have those lights. It would save battery.’ So my mother says, ‘Can you take a little bit of advice?’...She says, ‘Ask Dad first. Just ask Dad for them and he might just let you put them on.’ So the next morning we was milking, and I says, ‘Dad, can I have those lights that I put on there?’ He says, ‘Whose lights are they?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘they’re my lights.’ ‘Well, what did you pay for them?’ I says, ‘A quarter apiece.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ll think it over.’ So after he was done milking and we was all done...he reached in the pocket and gave me fifty cents and he says, ‘Now, do you understand the lights are mine?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can put them back on’...The lesson I got out of it was don’t ever put anything on the buggy or onto any other property unless it belongs to the man that owns the property... That’s just one of those lessons he gave me. It’s just a small item but then it amounts to a big item if you keep it for life.

As a second lesson, David learned that one should not destroy property that does not

belong to him, no matter how well-intentioned:

DAVID: I cut the tree on dad’s property, took the log over, got it cut into lumber, and I took and made a wood box and so on and so forth. Dad says to me, he says, ‘Well, David, I see you made a wood box.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘You made a wood box for me. Whose lumber was it?’‘ Well,’ I says, ‘I cut the tree and I just never thought about buying the lumber.’ He says, ‘Do you understand the tree was on my property?...What would you do if you wanted a tree...on Sam Buchanan’s property?’...I says, ‘If I get it off of Sam, I’d have to pay him for it, sure.’ ‘What about this?’ He says, ‘You didn’t get that tree off of your property...If I furnish lumber for you...I’ll have to furnish lumber for all [my other] children. I might not have it. For that reason,’ he says, ‘I can’t do more for you than I can for the other children’...I says. ‘How much do you want for the lumber?’ He says,‘Give me one dollar. I just want you to know don’t ever take lumber off of somebody that don’t belong to you and make something for you and think it’s yours.’ It was just one of those things that you remember. He done it in the idea that he wanted to teach me

72 that, I didn’t understand it at that time, but then that’s what it would all add up to. He didn’t want me to go stealing.

As David continued, he listed another lesson he had learned from his father. In this

story, the focus is on the importance of monetary responsibility.

I started selling apples. And Dad come out and he says, ‘Are you keeping track of the money you are taking in on these apples?...The orchard belongs to me.’ I says, ‘Yeah, I’m keeping track of it. I think you get the half of it, don’t you?’ And he says, ‘Well, how much did you sell?’ I says, ‘I sold six hundred dollars’ worth of apples, so...here’s your three hundred. I’m keeping it separate. I’m dividing this half and half.’ He says, ‘That’s all right. You just keep on selling apples. But... are you sure your giving me all my share?’ I says, ‘Well, I’m trying to.’ He says, ‘That’s all that’s necessary. Just so you tried to. That’s all that’s necessary.’

On the flip side, David also learned that one must share with those who do not have

all of life’s advantages:

So I had an Uncle Sam...He didn’t have no money. He was a cripple and he wanted some apples to make cider. So I told Uncle Sam, ‘I don’t know whether I’m going to charge you for these apples. I don’t know what Dad would say.’ Sam says, ‘I stopped in and talked to Dad.’ And I says, ‘All right. As long as you talked to him...You just pay my dad. You can have the apples for cider, but then you pay my dad.’ Dad was wondering what I’d do...whether I’m going to let Sam have the apples or not, whether I was going to charge him or not. A man that don’t have no money, you don’t keep him from going in there and getting something like cider apples...So it was just one o f those things. I hated like everything to let Sam take those apples. I was a tight wad. I hated to do it, but I had that fear that Dad wouldn’t okay it for me not to give Sam all the apples he wanted.

These lessons are experiences that require integration into one’s identity. This

is well summarized in his comment, "It’s just a small item, but then it amounts to a

73 big item if you keep it for life." Note that each of the four story lessons has

relational concerns that are to be the norms for how to conduct oneself within one’s

family as well as in one’s own business.

One interesting aspect of this was response of David’s mother to the crisis. She

asked, "Can you take a little bit of advice?" She encouraged him to ask his father for

permission regarding the buggy lights rather than intruding on his father’s authority

and ownership. By asking, David acknowledged the father’s property rights and

created a context for collaboration. The lumber story revealed the father’s concerns

about being fair with all his children. David learned an important lesson about

fairness here, and also learned that there were limits to his father’s resources and that

taking things without permission constitutes stealing, even if the owner was a

member of one’s own family. A similar theme ran through the last story: since the

father owned the land, he needed to be consulted about the donation o f apples to a

cripple. This experience served as a lesson in honesty and charity.

Earlier in this chapter I also shared David’s story about buying a cedar chest

for his girlfriend. David’s father was concerned about spending so much money on

an elaborate gift for a girl who may not become his son’s wife: "If you quit that

girl or if she quits you, don’t you require that back because once one thing is given

away, it’s given away and never required back." In this way harmony was to be

preserved regardless of the eventual outcome of the relationship, as the girl had rights

to the cedar chest as her property.

74 Restraint as Part o f the Amish Masculine Definition—Renouncing the Sword

Violence and aggression are viewed as "the work of the Devil." Contrasting norms

between the dominant culture and Amish subculture can be seen in Abraham’s

account o f the difficulties he encountered when his father divorced his mother and

married a non-Amish woman. Abraham had to attend a public school for several

years. He viewed his non-Amish peers’ aggressive impulses from a social

construction perspective: the boys were not misbehaving out of biological impulses—

they were simply adapting to the essentialist cliche that "Boys will be boys"

(Miedzian, 1991).

ABRAHAM: [My stepmother] had three children of her own that were raised much different than we were. So, where we were used to caring and sharing, they were used to jumping in and whoever got the biggest piece was the winner...When I went to the public schools, I pulled into a shell. I was tremendously insecure, and that follows me around to this day. It’s a battle that’s constant. I was small in stature: I think in eighth grade I weighed ninety-eight pounds. Just a little guy...My first day in homeroom, starting out in seventh grade, [a] short stocky kid sitting beside me... reaches over and says. ‘Meet me behind the busses after school. I wanta fight ya.’ I wasn’t very big and I wasn’t used to this kind a stuff. I looked him over and I guess some reel started spinning up here. ‘How am I gonna get out of this one?’ Well, I think he had a football jersey type of shirt on, and I took him for a football guy, because I could just see it in him, so I bragged him up to the teeth and he didn’t want to fight me anymore. But I faced that throughout school...I guess I got to the point where I was honest with them and I told ’em, ‘What sense does a fight make? Who’s really the winner?...In the end, what’s gonna be important?’ And I guess they respected me for that in a way.

75 This restraint can be seen in the Amish interaction with the dominant culture.

When they feel a need to protest and issue, they use the philosophy of non-violent

passive resistance. Eli, for example, declared himself a conscientious objector during

the Korean conflict. His employer had received and ignored a letter from the U.S.

government about assignments for IW service. Since no response was made, Eli got

into trouble at first, but later reported for service. He told the story of his struggle to

preserve his beard and hair from the barber’s razor.

ELI: I was shaking like a leaf. These big guys there, you know? [The MP said] ‘And you will work there regardless!’ [Eli responded], ‘No. If I have to shave my beard and cut my hair, I will not work. I’ll take jail before I’ll take that. That’s my religion.’ And he got real red faced mad. Quick! ‘So you will report!’ I says, ‘Yeah.’ ‘And work!’ ‘If they accept me as I am. Yep.’ They left me there and says, ‘Okay, sign these papers.’ So I signed them.

The same scene was repeated when Eli reported for service on the appointed date.

About fifty Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites, and other conservatives stood by their

principles. They were informed that they had fifteen minutes to comply or "the

paddy wagon’s coming to take us to jail." His wife encouraged him to stand by his

faith. Eventually, "this information girl come over and [says], ‘Well, you boys can

go back to Ohio. We can’t use you.’" As Eli reflected on this incident, he said:

ELI: Yeah, [I] stood my ground. Which was another experience in my life, but I was shaking like a leaf that time! Yeah. So, no, the Bible says you can, you can do as the law says till it interferes with your faith in religion, then you’ll have to object.

Eli used the same passive resolve at a later date, this time to deal with racism:

76 ELI: My wife worked down there in the hospital, in the kitchen, made meals ready for the patients. And she fell in love with a little colored girl named Rebecca. And we thought so much and she thought so much of us that we took her home on the farm with us on the weekends! And we had a driver...And this driver...said, ‘Wait a minute!’ to Rebecca, the colored girl. ‘You’re not riding in this car’...I says, ‘If she can’t, we don’t, either.’ He was not gonna haul colored people. I says, ‘She’s our friend’...And that was that...[he let her ride].

Restraint is held in high esteem in many situations. Holding onto one’s faith and

its values is equated with being "victorious"; giving in means succumbing to the

world’s standards. John, a blacksmith, talked about the restraint he used while he

was on Alternative Service in a hospital:

JOHN: Then there was a young girl that tried to get me off of my faith, name of Betty. Beautiful woman. Her husband was in the Korean War and she was lonesome. So I was making a bed in my ward and she come in and helped me. Pulled the curtain. Come in and helped me...So after we was about done fixing beds, she leans over and says, ‘Johnny will you go out with me tonight...to a movie?’ ‘Betty, I’m a married man.’ ‘Well, so what? Everybody else is doing it.’ So I says...‘Everybody else is doing it, but Johnny isn’t doing it!’ I left the room! That’s one thing my daddy-in-law...said...He put his hand around my neck and said, ‘Johnny, act like Joseph in the Bible’...So when she said, ‘Will you go out with me tonight?’ Abe’s words come into my mind. ‘Act like Joseph’...That was all there was to it. But I always thought, ‘Here I have a nice, loving woman, [I’m] married to her. What if I’d have listened to Betty?’ All she wanted was sex, probably. Ugh! I always thought...‘Oh, the good Lord, [I] can’t thank you enough.

Another Amish man who had done Alternative Service (IW) during the Korean

conflict said that he had known perhaps seventy or more Amish men who had

married nurses or other female personnel in the hospitals to which they were

77 assigned. He thought it was a combination of the women’s loneliness and the "meek

and humble" spirit of the men. He commented, "[The women] just couldn’t get over

what gentlemen our boys were. [The women] were on the prowl. We lost over half

our boys I went in with." The restraint the Amish farmer displayed with the young

nurse was no easy task, given the fact that he served for two years.

Community Mentoring

The phases or stages of development in the Amish boy’s life are comparable to

those a boy in the dominant culture. Childhood and school experiences are quite

similar. However, an important rite of passage, one not given much emphasis in the

literature, is the completion of school. This is a critical time, for decisions must be

made regarding employment, apprenticeships, and careers within or outside of the

family. For Amish boys, this decision takes place after the eighth grade, four years

earlier than it does in the dominant culture. Thus it affects youth who are

approximately fourteen years of age.

The time between completing school and joining the Amish church or

community spans most of adolescence. According to Amish beliefs, this is the time

for young people to reach the "age of accountability." Prior to this time, they live in

a state of grace and are not held responsible for their actions. They are granted "free

passage" to God and heaven. There does not appear to be a set age for this

accountability; it depends on the maturity of the individual. Once this period is

reached, young people are held responsible for their own thoughts and behavior.

78 Sometime following formal schooling and throughout the adolescent years, it is

presumed that the "age of accountability" will be reached. The Amish adults are

concerned about the choices the adolescents will make. They know that it is a

critical time for them. Therefore they display an additional awareness or sensitivity

in their dealings with Amish youth. In particular, the men in the community "look

out for the boys."

Two Amish men revealed something about this critical time in their lives:

MOSE: I was like fourteen or fifteen years old. I guess I was kinda going through my boyhood to manhood and what I have picked up now that there’s quite sensitive times, I guess. You get hurt real easy or you get upset real easy, you know.

JOSEPH: It was through a very critical time of my life... That’s the time when I was so unstable and if I wouldn’t a had guidance at that time I don’t know where I’d be today. That’s the problem. I mean... That’s the critical time for my boys, our children right now...I went through some tough times.

The time between formal schooling and full adulthood is a time when Amish

boys are mentored by non-family members of the community. This does not appear

to be a conscious mentoring decision, but is based on the economic needs of the

family or on particular circumstances that necessitate alternative living arrangements.

"Working out and away" is not unusual, given the limited number of farms in any

Amish community and the need for additional family income. In the case of a

father’s untimely death, divorce (a rare occurrence), or other such disruptive

circumstance, a boy may move in with and work for a neighbor or family friend and

79 thus remain in the community. As a result, the potentially negative influences of a

father’s absence is limited, and the development of the young man is extended.

"Stand-Bys"

Amish boys develop ideals about what it means to be an Amish man. This

process begins within their immediate family and extends, very naturally, to other

extended family members: e.g., grandfathers, uncles, or cousins. If left with these

models, the masculine identity would be limited. One Amish man coined the term

"Stand-by" to describe a role model to whom a boy might gravitate in a natural way.

A Stand-by offers masculine definitions beyond those that the youngster learned in

his own family; such definitions either extend, expand, or enrich the boy’s existing

gender definitions. When the models are positive, this process has the potential of

clarifying the basic roles Amish youth are to assume to solidify a secure Amish

masculine identity. David talked about his experience with a Stand-by:

DAVID: Mose Hostetler was just one of those guys, he could tell me anything and it wouldn’t make me mad if he told that I’m altogether wrong and I’m doing the wrong thing and so on and so forth...I didn’t ask [Mose] too much advice because I knew he would just come out plain and tell me what he thought. And any horse that Mose had, ‘Hey, that’s the kind o f a horse to have.’ His machinery, ‘Hey, that’s the kind of machinery to have’ rather so than my dad’s.

I asked David the importance of Stand-bys. He responded:

DAVID: I’ve talked to several people about it, and they [agree that it is important to have] somebody that you just kind of look up to. Now, my brother, Eli, he just kind of took a liking to Sam J. And whatever Sam done. Well, Sam had his faults the same as anybody else. But...Eli had a liking for Sam. So Sam had Jersey cows. So when Eli bought cows,

80 he went and bought Jersey cows because Seim J. had Jersey cows. Then Sam done away with his Jersey cows and got Holsteins. So Eli decided it’s time he does away with his Jersey cows and get Holsteins. It just automatically falls that way. And I asked Eli one day, ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t know...But if Sam J. can’t make a living with Jersey cows, I can’t either.’ It was just that way.

Stand-bys have a closer proximity to young boys or men than role models

generally have in the dominant culture. Stand-bys also vary by their generational

position in relation to the boy or young man. An Elder, for example, is a man who

is at least one generation removed from the boy or young man and who continues to

expand the male definition beyond what the boy received from his father and family.

This expansion may be in skill transmission, spiritual direction, familial roles, or

some combination thereof. An Elder/Peer is also an older mentor, but he is not quite

a generation away from the boy. A Peer/Elder is only a few years older than the

youth, but because of his economic position or other advantaged circumstance, he can

function as the boy’s mentor. Finally, there is a Peer Standby, who is perceived

almost as an equal. The choice of a Peer for a mentor seems to be related to the

mutuality of shared struggles. Thus there are different mentoring relationships, and

they provide rich and nurturing opportunities.

Elder Mentor

Young Amish men may take on an Elder mentor to complete the insufficient or

inadequate fathering provided in their own family. The mentoring can be in the form

of skill transmission, apprenticeship, or cross-generational nurturance that

approximates what the father’s involvement should have been. But there is another

81 reason that Elder mentors are embraced by young men: the community mentoring

that occurs between a young man and an Elder mentor further integrates the young

man’s sense o f belonging and enhances his capacity to take on the attitude o f the

entire community. Mead (1934) states:

The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be called ‘the generalized other.’ The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community.

It is in the form of the generalized other that the social process influences the behavior of the individuals involved in it and carrying it on, i.e., that the community exercises control over the conduct of its individual members...And only through the taking by individuals of the attitude or attitudes of the generalized other toward themselves is the existence of a universe of discourse, as that system of common or social meanings which thinking presupposes at its context, rendered possible, (p. 154)

Older men who can serve as potential Elder mentors in the Amish community

include the Bishop, Deacons, ministers, or older Amish men in "good standing."

They represent the embodiment of Mead’s "generalized other."

The reader may recall David’s fond recollections of his relationship with the

Bishop. Concerns about "What would the Bishop say?" illustrate the Bishop’s

embodiment of the "generalized other." In this instance there is an external

representation of the community standards in the Bishop. Through the ongoing

mentoring by the Bishop, David was and is able to "govern his own conduct

accordingly" (Mead, 1934, p. 156).

82 Joseph, an Elder mentor, talked about the warmth and nurturance that he never

knew with his father. As an adolescent, he bonded with a neighbor whom he now

views as an important mentor.

JOSEPH: [My father] had a habit of sometimes... belittling people in a way that it makes you feel bad for whatever you did. And rather than complimenting, he would belittle...At the age of, I think I was almost fifteen...I went to this peach orchard in the fall and helped pick peaches...The man that owned the orchard was very good to me...[He] believed in me...He’s been more important to me than my dad...he’s probably left more of an influence on me than anybody else.

Because Amish schooling is limited to eight years and boys have the

opportunity to work with community mentors, they work and train in an atmosphere

o f intimacy. Therefore, role learnings are steeped in affective processes. Joseph

himself had such a happy experience. While he did not want to devalue the role or

place of his parents in his life, he was more than glad to acknowledge the positive

impact and role of an Elder Standby as his community mentor. He became deeply

embedded in the life of his employer’s family (this is laid out in greater detail in

chapter 6). In fact, as a show of respect he even named his own child after one of

the Elder mentor’s children. Overall, the neighbor provided him with a different

"generalized other": one who allowed him to see himself in a positive rather than a

negative light.

Elder/Peer Mentor

An Elder/Peer mentor helps bridge the generations by offering a perspective that,

due to the decreased power differential, makes it easier for the young man to hear

83 what is said. In many instances the mentor affirms the older generation’s position,

but does so with more warmth and less certitude.

Abraham spoke about mentoring his mentor’s sons:

ABRAHAM: There were many men that have played an important role in my life. The ministry in the church supported me in many ways...In a way I’m disappointed in myself because maybe I was too afraid to let anybody really fill that spot because I didn’t want to betray my daddy. So maybe I made it a lot harder for myself at times by not really letting anybody. But Aaron...was there for me at different times at the age of fifteen and sixteen, and some questions he was able to answer for me. He confided in me that he had more personal chance with me than he did with his own sons...I would like to see him have that openness with them that he did with me, because they need it. Because now his boys have come to me. His boys have come to me. And maybe that’s the way God meant it to be.

Peer/Elder Mentor

A Peer/Elder mentor is of a similar age or background as the youth, but

possesses some admirable quality or qualities that set him apart. Aaron identified

three mentors: his father, his uncle, and another man who was a "big strapping kind

of guy." Since Aaron’s own father was a dwarf, Aaron particularly admired this

man’s physical process, and looked to him as a Peer/Elder mentor:

AARON: He had arms the size of my legs...He come from a family where his grandfather was the big guy like that, too...Every one of them boys were big, husky, strapping kinda, type a guys...If we got to tussling with each other, when he grabbed me it was just like a dog or a cat grabbing a mouse...But he was a jolly type of guy. You know, you could have a lot of fun with him. You could joke with him...And I’m glad for the time that I spent working for [him]...See, the other guys that I worked for were older, quite a bit older than I was...He was only like three, four years, five years older

84 than I...We had a lot more things in common...Why we struck up a lot more friendship in that way because we were a lot closer on the same level.

Aaron’s mentor was "a big, strapping kind of guy," who "knew what work was."

Those descriptions fit many working-class notions of a good man, but extend beyond

size, strength, and hard work to include relational skills and minimize hierarchy as

well. It is evident that Aaron felt close to his Peer/Elder Stand-by, a man who had a

capacity to listen, an openness in expressing himself, and an ability to share. As the

story unfolded, it became clear that the minimized hierarchy blurred the lines

between "boss" and hired hand: the mentor was willing to do anything that the

younger man was assigned. They shared the "dirty work," and each learned farming

ideas from the other.

Peer Mentor

A Peer mentor or Standby is perceived as an equal. Peer mentoring is friendship

based on shared struggle. In certain situations, a mentor of this sort can change roles

and become the one being mentored. A recognition and deference to one another’s

strengths is expected. I thought I would hear references to friendships as learning

experiences, and was surprised at the number of Amish men who said they learned

little if anything in these relationships. Maybe they were unwilling to acknowledge or

frame them in this way.

Aaron talked about some of these important childhood friendships:

AARON: Now there were always different guys that always chummed together. There was three of us boys that where one was the other was...We were pret’ near always together.

85 Whatever the one did the other one did, so to speak...We were very close together. I never felt that one had more power, that always had to go the way one guy said, you know. We shared a lot...But each of us were just heppin’ the other guy up. Instead of trying to help us do better, we were trying to, to keep up with the other one.

Environmental Dimension

Skill Buildine and De-Skilling

Because of the severe persecution the Amish suffered in Europe in the early

seventeenth century, sufficiency through farming became imperative for both the

individual and the families. Thus good farming techniques and skills were a first and

foremost priority. Hostetler (1992) comments on the Amish "affinity" for agriculture

this way:

In the New World the Anabaptist-related groups maintained a strong affinity for agriculture and manual skills. Tilling the soil was not one of the founding principles that gave rise to the Anabaptist movement but was an emphasis acquired during periods o f persecution. It was in the hinterlands that the Amish developed unique skills of work incentives and crop production. The basic techniques devised in the Palatinate, Alsace, and elsewhere in Europe—such as rotation of crops, indoor feeding of cattle, meadow irrigation, the use of natural fertilizers, and the raising of clover and alfalfa as a means of restoring soil fertility—were applied in Pennsylvania. (P- 9)

It is not surprising then that in the Amish social construction of masculinity,

farming acumen and related skills are highly prized and incorporated into the Amish

concept of manhood. From early childhood, youth are taught various farming skills

that are important in the maintenance of the Amish lifestyle. Other skills—

harnessmaking, blacksmithing, and carpentry—are also taught to young boys. It is the

86 extended family’s and community’s responsibility to pass these skills on, particularly

if some situation arises that interferes with skill transmission. Status among Amish

men rests at least partially on the number of valued skills they possess.

Eli, a blacksmith and farmer, shared his account of his father’s work and

mentorship:

ELI: Dad worked as a butcher and at one time he made cider...And he shod horses and made things out of steel, a blacksmith. Bought horseshoes for ten cents apiece. Shod horses for 25 cents a foot...Really something. And he taught me how, of course, how to shoe horses. The first horse I ever shod threw me about ten foot...(Laugh) Yep, Dad taught each of us how to shoe horses, and he taught each of us how to milk cows.

Following are some excerpts from David, a harnessmaker. He learned domestic

skills from his mother, and farming skills and home remedies from his grandfather.

Note how he valued these domestic skills and did not disparage them in any way.

Skills were passed on to the boy in an informal but personal way.

DAVID: And I would help Mom a good bit. Come in handy for me, too. I would, well, I had baked bread when I was fourteen, fifteen years old. I would work the bread dough. I would do the cooking and so on. I done the sewing, making clothing and stuff like that. Now, since I’ve got the harness shop, look how handy it comes when people come in and want something done. It just comes in handy that I done this.

David had similar words of appreciation for his grandfather’s mentoring:

DAVID: Well, [my grandfather] would tell me stories of old times when he was a boy, and how he used to work. And I remember one thing he told me. He says, ‘A good farmer cuts his corn. He don’t husk it off the stalk. He cuts it.’ Because granddad was a farmer. He was born into being a farmer...It kind of stuck to me...I was a little fellow, and he

87 would tell me how to raise hogs and how to feed them and what to give them and all this and that. One thing about it, he told me a lot of these old remedies. Nowadays when your cattle, horses, and so on gets the worms, why the first thing you do is go buy this real worm medication to give it to them. Granddad told me the old remedies that they used to use. You know, they didn’t have money to go out and buy stuff like this demectin for horse wormer. They’d give them a certain amount of wood ashes.

Aaron reminisced about the mentorship he received from the men in his

family. He described his extended family and the circumstances that necessitated his

going to other family members to learn the skills he now possesses.

AARON: Well... my grandpa lived just down the road from us and he was a broom maker, and we liked to spend time down at his shop, you know, watching him make brooms. In fact, he would make brooms, then in the summertime he would load up...a one horse wagon...Well, he’d pile that thing just as full as he could to go peddle brooms. Then he’d take one of us boys along to watch his horse. And he’d go from house to house and he’d stop and then we’d stay with the horse while he went to the door and see if they would want any brooms...So we [also] worked for our uncle. We would mow the lawn or help anything that we could, sweeping and cleaning...Feeding chickens, and just whatever we could...There was six of us, and everyone of us, at one time or other, we worked for Uncle John...Then of course my brother started his own buggy business and Dad worked for him the last years, just part time...He did whatever he could. He wasn’t fast. That’s one thing about my dad. He was never a fast worker but what he did was right. I know that’s one thing my grandpa told me one time...My grandpa was a carpenter at one time and my dad used to work for him. Well, he did a lot of the finish work, because he was very good at that. So one day my dad wasn’t there, and one of the little boys...come up to Grandpa and he said, ‘Didn’t the good carpenter come along today?’ (Laughs) So he had already detected that what he did was done right.

88 There was a generational continuity between this man, his father and

grandfather in their varied career histories. Aaron’s father, a dwarf who had some

physical limitations, worked for the grandfather and eventually in his own son’s

buggy business. Though he had a physical handicap, his masculinity was protected.

He was a slow worker, but he "did it right." Persistent effort and quality of

workmanship were valued over size, strength, or speed. The Amish believe that all

people have a gift regardless of their circumstances, and that every person can make

a contribution to the family and community. This coincides with John Calvin’s

ideology that each person has a "calling," i.e., a task set by God (see Weber, 1958).

David, a harnessmaker, described this in his own way:

DAVID: I always thought when I was from sixteen to twenty years old, all the boys was alike. I didn’t realize that there is a difference between, in boys. Some boys are smarter than others. I didn’t realize that...It’s a gift that’s given to each person.

Earlier in this chapter I shared David’s conversation about the importance he

places on teaching his son to milk, to raise hogs, and to use a cultivator. As the

reader may recall, that passage demonstrated how fathers and older men in the

community ensure that they pass these skills on to the younger generation. The skills

have a viability all their own, regardless of whether a financial profit is made or not.

Nowhere is the importance of skills in an Amish man’s identity more apparent

than when those very skills are threatened by technological change, specialization, or

economic hardship. Their generational transmission is often greatly altered; this can

leave the younger generation devoid of the meaningful skills or limited to a single

89 skill. The de-skilling and devaluation of manual labor are major concerns for many

of the older men, for they foresee a real deterioration and eventual loss of the Amish

lifestyle. David called it "the ruination of our religion." He continued:

DAVID: Anymore the most important things of life that a man can do to make a man, they can’t do it anymore because everything else has changed...In the old days, there was railroad tracks for shipment and you didn’t depend so much on electricity and so on and so forth. We figured if there’s a job to be done, there’s manual labor. Anymore there isn’t too much manual labor. It’s mostly done in such a rat race and fast way of getting it done. Things have changed so fast...We don’t value [manual labor] because everything has got to be automation...If you got a job in the woods, you went in with a cross cut saw. And you figured if you put out two thousand feet a day you was alright. Today if [you] only put two thousand feet out a day, you might as well quit because you can’t make a living at it. Can’t do it. You’ve got to put more footage out. And to get more footage you need more equipment...So you almost have to keep up with the Joneses in order to hold this job.

The making of Amish men with limited skills at their command results in a lack

of self-sufficiency and increased powerlessness; that forces the community to rely

more and more on outsiders for their economic well-being:

DAVID: There’s a lot of things going on among our own people that you just wonder how in the world it’s going to turn out...One thing, our youngsters aren’t busy. They’re not busy. They got a lot of idle time. And idle time is deadly. A youngster is going to think about things and what he’s going to do this time and what he’s going to do next. His mind isn’t resting. He’s always thinking up something. And I’ve got grandchildren that’s growing up that haven’t got anything to do in particular, and so you just wonder ‘What’s going to become of them?’...‘How are they going to get a job?’ Suppose somebody would ask them to come in and milk cows. They never milked a cow in their life. What do they know about milking cows? Nothing. They’re no mechanics

90 because they never worked around anything that had any operation of any kind.

David also pointed out that, besides lacking the various farming skills, young

men starting out "can’t depend on themselves because they are held down with their

religion...They can’t have modern equipment to do anything with." Therefore these

young men must depend on outside, non-Amish help. David expressed great concern

over this, stating, "If that goes out, why then they’ll be licked because they don’t

know how to do it." The interviews indicated that de-skilling is wide-spread even

among girls and women. Eli queried, "How many girls now, even in our clan, can’t

cook water?" He, too, shared great concern about how the youth of today cannot

hook a team of horses or concentrate on a task for more than a few hours at a time.

Psychological Dimension

Ego Boundaries

In my interviews with Amish men, I noticed that the division o f labor between

men and women was clearly delineated. One area where men exclude themselves is

childcare. In the instances when a father actively participates, he is more likely to

care for young children rather than for infants or toddlers. Upon occasion he may

help with "spelling," i.e., taking care of middle-of-the-night feedings. With those

exceptions, men have little involvement with their young children; it is the woman’s

domain to serve as the primary nurturer and caregiver of infants.

In accordance with Chodorow’s theory, one would expect Amish men to have

rigid ego boundaries. Even though they are reared in an agrarian society in which

91 fathers are much more present than fathers are in the dominant industrial culture, the

asymmetrical social organization of parenting remains intact. With this arrangement

one could theorize that boys’ and men’s relational capacities would be stinted.

However, as the preceding analyses of the social/relational dimensions indicate, quite

the opposite is true. The interviews clearly revealed semi-permeable ego boundaries

and relational capacities. This raises some serious questions about the limitations of

Chodorow’s object-relations theory.

If one can reasonably assume that the Amish restrictions placed on technology

have preserved some of the familial arrangements over the last 300 years, one can

also reasonably assume that men were not any more involved in infant care prior to

the Industrial Revolution either. The argument that the Industrial Revolution limited

the father’s contact with the children refers to men’s contact with young children and

adolescents, not with infants. However, during childhood, adolescence, and even into

their adult life, Amish fathers do help their sons maintain semi-permeable ego

boundaries. My findings suggest that Chodorow has placed too much emphasis on

the early attachment phase of psychological development and not enough on the later

stages of development, ie., childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. In fact my

data indicate that gendering occurs all through the lifecourse.

Family Identification

From the interviews, it appears that the "family organization and ideology" that

Chodorow speaks of helps Amish men find their "primary identity" in their families.

When the family is not able to provide the environment for personal identification

92 processes so necessary for the creation o f relationally-skilled men, extra-familial

mentors are sought out in the Amish community to remedy the situation.

Some excerpts are in order to illustrate the continuous development of Amish

men’s primary identity in their families. In the first excerpt, Eli shared some

reflections about his wife:

ELI: I can add that I had a very beautiful, wonderful life here...and I’ve lived now, 60, almost 61 years by the end of the year. And without the help of my loving wife, I could have never made it. Not without her help. I couldn’t have made it...She’s a better person than I am... Lot of times she helped me when, well, when I lost my temper...And I always told her, right in her face, ‘I f it wouldn’t been for you, Mom, by golly, you know, I couldn’t have made it.’ She’s a very saving woman. A very loving woman to her children and to the grandchildren, and as we was married and grew up, made this life together, it was the best years o f my life. Till right now. And the longer I live with her, the harder it’s gonna be to part. I can say that...But we all hope to meet some day again.

In the next three excerpts, the men are aware that they must be careful to protect

their presence and involvement at home. Mose, for example, disclosed his conscious

choice to control the growth of his rope business; through his constant involvement

with his children, he hoped to ensure their proper socialization:

MOSE: I’m happy with the road I’ve taken. And I’m happy with our family and I wouldn’t trade our life out here in the country and the family for that. We quit advertising on the business so we can keep it in the family. ’Cause I don’t wanta supply America with rope. I couldn’t anyhow, you know, and it’s just a big rat race, and if I die a millionaire they’d put me six feet under anyhow...There’re other values in life that are more important than money. And I’m not saying I’ll never grow, if funds are there and there’s some brands there’d be a demand for, but I ’m not doing it now. Children are young.

93 In the next passage, Abraham described his balancing act between work and

family. He displayed a keen awareness of generational issues between fathers and

sons and shared an experience with his young son that revealed his deep feeling for

and commitment to his children.

ABRAHAM: I find myself in those shoes now, as small as my children are, it’s so easy to have a short fuse when I’m busy, and right now I’m not real sure what I’m gonna do yet. But I’ve been spending too much time at home and yet away from the family because of the schedule I’m on. One or two o’clock in the morning is not an unusual hour for me to be working out here, and six o’clock is when I start my other job...Sometime in there I have to take time for these children, and I do try. But customers aren’t always that understanding...So that’s where I’m seeing right now. I f I wanta stop this landslide of, over the years from father to son, son to their son, not really communicating with their children as they could, I better make sure that at a young age I get my things straight. One thing that stands out to me is my oldest boy. He’s got that same nature that I talked about, like does things on impulse and you see the regret in his eyes, and yet his heart is so soft. When he was real small one night I was sitting on the recliner and talking on the phone, and he went scrambling by, and I thought he knocked something down, and there in my irritation I reached out and gave him a smack on the hiney. And after he left and went on about his play in there he never really said much, he just took the punishment as if he’d done something wrong. I was done and I kinda got a hold of myself and I realized that he hadn’t done what I thought he had. He was just young. I mean, I don’t know if he was barely three at the time. And this hurt me and I knew that if I just left it slide and think he doesn’t know the difference, I’d have left more of an impression on him than what I think it did. So as a daddy it was my duty to call him back to me, pull him up on my knee, and tell him that I was sorry. You know he didn’t cry when I smacked him but he cried when I told him I was sorry. And maybe it’s because I had to cry, too. But those are the things I’ve gotta hang on to.

94 In the next excerpt, Joseph, a canvasmaker in his mid-forties, presented himself

as one of the unique men who took an active interest in infant care. He spoke about

caretaking as a shared task, and decided to quit teaching so that he could devote

more time to his family:

JOSEPH: I feel it’s my duty. Now like we have a baby right now, and when he is fussy at night, I don’t feel it’s fair that Mom has to lose all the sleep during the night. It’s just as much my baby as her baby, and I feel it’s my duty to help care for it at night, and that’s the way it probably was for my dad. (Laughs)...[I used to be] so much involved it took me away from my family too much. I could see the danger of it. It’s okay to help out in school situations, and I did it gladly, but at the same time it was hard on me to see the family suffer for it. When you have a family, you have those children only once. They grow up only once. And I have memories, and they’re going to have memories.

Joseph’s "primary identity" comes from his position in his family. Mose, too,

found much of his identity in his role as father:

MOSE: Respect for people is something good. And good things have to be taught and they’re also caught...You can teach your children what you want to teach. I guess they say ten percent is taught and ninety percent is caught...I can tell my children what I want to teach ’em, you know, tell ’em, tell ’em, tell ’em...But ninety percent is caught. When they see that I live to what I teach, they catch the ninety percent...And my parents were very respectful to other people, and among themselves and among the family, you know. And I’m very thankful for it.

In only one instance did an Amish man mention an idealized role model popular

also in the dominant culture. His idol was Johnny Cash, a man known for his

simplicity in dress, humble demeanor, physical strength, guitar skills, and a

reputation for alcohol:

95 ISAAC: We were Johnny Cash fans. And you know the image that Johnny Cash had. That’s what it took to be a man. That’s what we wanted to be. You speak in a deep voice and you sing in a deep voice and you talk in a deep voice. (Laugh) You know that was, that was manhood. And he had a tough image...And you don’t have to study music much to know that he didn’t, he didn’t hit every...note in his song. But then he was realistic...That’s the thing we liked about him. And so, I think that our thinking was formed and motivated in that direction...He was pretty famous at that time. One of these boys in our group was not an Amish boy. And we would go to his house and watch the Johnny Cash show on Saturday night.

PATRIARCHY AND THE AMISH

A fascinating aspect of the Amish subculture is the men’s capacity to hold fast to

their patriarchal position and, at the same time, provide a context for men to have

nurturant relationships. The men’s descriptions of their lives indicated a patriarchal

ideology but a day-to-day egalitarian lifestyle. The patriarchal ideology sounded

something like this:

MOSE: A woman was created in Genesis we read for a helpmate for the man. A man is supposed to be the head of the woman in the house, in the home and so on. Okay. Now we don’t want to misunderstand that. There’re no dictators...But you oughta love ’em, you oughta take care of ’em, provide for ’em...I do like to provide for the family. It’s a blessing for ’em. I like to. And I like to teach the children to work while you work, play while you play.

Joseph, as the reader may recall, espoused a more egalitarian viewpoint as he talked

about his conjugal routines. He got up with the baby at night, saying, "It’s just as

much my baby as her baby, and I feel it’s my duty to help care for it at night."

96 When I listened to the Amish men, I sometimes had trouble distinguishing what

they would expect differently from the boys and girls, men and women. Both women

and men are expected to carry out instrumental as well as expressive functions in the

community. The only clear-cut distinctions involved the division of family labor: the

house and home were the woman’s domain, and the barn, business or shop was the

man’s.

Even these aspects varied from home to home. The following two excerpts

either hint at or altogether deny any difference between the ways boys and girls were

treated. In the first instance, I asked Mose how his father had reared his sons and

daughters. To this Mose responded:

MOSE: In general, a boy can do this and his sister can’t...There are lines but not into fairness or anything like that. Oh, no. One of the children was one of the children and they’re all equal.

The notion of "lines" suggests different privileges, but not necessarily different

domains, for girls and boys. I asked Eli a similar question, this time about any

differences in his mother’s treatment of the children. He replied:

ELI: No. She taught us all the same. To respect people, to love people, the Golden Rule at home. Do unto others as you wish to be done by. That’s one thing Mother always tried to tell us...and Dad, of course, too, brought us up to that.

David, on the other hand, clearly grew up in a hierarchically structured

household:

DAVID: She would always refer to Dad. ‘Dad wants you this.’ ‘Dad wants you to be that.’ ‘Dad wants you this way and that way.’ ‘If you ever want anything, ask Dad.’ She

97 never says, ‘Come and ask me.’ I don’t know if my mother ever said that. She always referred to Dad. Dad was the boss...If we’d ask her for something, ‘Go ask Dad.’ If we told her that we’d rather not ask dad, ‘Okay, I’ll ask Dad, and then I’ll give you an answer.’ But, she would not answer unless [she had] Dad’s permission.

Unsure if I understood correctly the ideology of gender status, I sought

clarification. I asked Isaac about his expectations for his sons and daughters. He explained:

ISAAC: [For my boy] I guess strong spiritual leads, convictions against sin, immorality, and especially in the world we’re in today. I would really like to pass on the convictions against the morals, issues that are facing us today...I see a man as a role of leadership. Leading out and have a proper vision. I see a woman more as also having a relationship with Christ but being in submission and subjection, as the quiet, meek spirit. Not one who tends to be in leadership. The man is more out front and...setting the goals and leading the women.

At this point Isaac looked puzzled, I asked about this, and his response indicated

a concern that he might be misunderstood. He then referred to a Scripture (I Peter

3:7) that warns a father not to abuse his power or authority, or his prayers would go

unanswered.

Generally it appears that the Amish family arrangement is patriarchal, but the

relational capacities of the Amish men I interviewed lessened the power differential.

It would be interesting to interview some Amish women to see if they agree.

To present a balanced picture, I should present some exceptions as well. The

gender order is very clear: the husband has control over the wife. She is to submit to

his authority in all decisions. But patriarchy has taken its toll. In many Amish

98 communities, young men and women are leaving in high numbers. Homes for

battered women in rural areas see an occasional Amish woman. Battered Amish

women have only two choices: either they return to their home (which most of them

do) or they leave everything, including their children, with their husband (which, of

course, deprives them of their whole identity). In all likelihood, if the man has been

physically abusing his wife, he has probably abused the children as well. How serious

must the abuse be for a woman to seek shelter outside her world? My hunch is that

when women feel they must choose this course, they do so because the Amish

community has failed to protect them.

The restrictive life style does not suit everyone. Some women struggle with the

limits of the patriarchal structure all their lives. Abraham, the man who in earlier

excerpts so eloquently delineated nurturant and relational themes, also spoke about

his mother’s difficulty remaining Amish. She chose to leave the family when he was

eleven years old. From his standpoint, she was entirely in the wrong:

ABRAHAM: When my mom left, my dad’s world fell apart. She left him with seven children from ages of six to sixteen...He worked and cared for those children for as long as he could...It just seemed Daddy was there filling all the little holes and the cracks because if Mom wasn’t there to cook, Daddy cooked. If Mom wasn’t there to wash the clothes, Daddy did...a real mother is one that’s there for the children, that would give her life for them. And though my mom loved me, mom came first too many times...But soon after Mom left...Daddy was just letting go...He was so heartbroke.

Eventually, not only the mother but also the father and the children left the Amish

church. Abraham, however, eventually returned.

99 ABRAHAM: For about two years I was nondenominational, I mean was completely out in the world, lived as the world lives. And I think that was part of God’s plan for my life because it has helped me tremendously to understand different viewpoints, different things.

Even so, Abraham’s life was filled with inner turmoil. He struggled in his feelings

about his mother, saying:

ABRAHAM: One o f the hardest things was being on the bus and seeing the little children coming out in the morning and getting on the bus, and their moms stood up there in the door, hugged [them] good-bye, made sure they had their lunches. At home the house was empty...[Dad] did the best he could...And don’t ever think I would hate my mother, because I don’t. For years I had this battle with me. When I made the decision that I did, to stand for what was right, I defended my mom in many ways...[but] if a mother does not love and respect her husband as a father and the head of the household, then too many times...it repeats itself over and over...In the last years, I’ve really had to take the time to painfully go back over that childhood and face the truth, and face the fact that I did live in fear of my mother. Most of all I wanted to please her...to be complimented, to be praised.

Abraham’s story was full of painful, lonely memories. Of the thirty interviews I

conducted, his was the most moving and difficult to sit through. His pain was real,

yet I could not help but wonder what his mother would have said about those times.

The patriarchal stance was clear here: his father should have "put his foot down" and

his mom should have respected the authority of her husband as "head of the house."

Abraham was much more accepting of his father, for his father lived within the

Amish ideology and lifestyle. He felt abandoned by his mother. He now recognizes

his mother’s discontentment, but has written off her difficulties and decisions as

selfish.

100 What I think is important from Abraham’s disclosure is that relational and

nurturant philosophies and lifestyles can be embedded in a patriarchal philosophy and

society. Rubin (1983) might argue that the Amish men are nurturant but not intimate.

She defines intimacy as egalitarian in nature with much sharing of the inner self

between the two people. I was privy to some tender, almost sweet, interchanges

between husbands and wives. On a subjective level, it was refreshing to be with men

and not experience distancing and anxiety about our close proximity to each other. Is

that what you mean? The Amish men should be commended for their incredible

nurturant and relational capacities. It is possible, however, that the exodus from the

Amish lifestyle lies in the power inequities between men and women and between

men and children. An additional explanation may lie in the young people’s

fascination with technology or the outside world. One must ask the question, "If so

many are leaving, what are they running from?" Interviews with former Amish may

further clarify the disparities presented here.

SUMMARY

A number of consistent themes emerged from the data regarding Amish

masculine construction and definition. These included: a time orientation in the past

and re-created in the present, an Amish Christian faith ideology with patriarchal

arrangements, a masculine relational emphasis among members of the family and

members of the Amish community, the importance of community and

intergenerational mentoring, and the importance of transmission of multiple trade

skills to adequately preserve Amish lifestyle and pass it on to subsequent generations.

101 The Amish respondents strongly believe that, in the socialization process of boys,

active participation by adult males is important if they are to establish a secure

Amish masculine definition. "As far as making a man out of a guy, you don’t

become a man just through add two and two...There’s a lot more involved in that..."

Yes, there is. Teaching Amish values to Amish boys by Amish men is an integral

part of the learning process. It is done in close relationship to the boys, not from a

distant position. The Amish maxim "Ten percent is taught and ninety percent is

caught" reveals men’s awareness of the importance of their active involvement. This

involvement enhances the role learnings by embedding the boys in affective processes

of attachment. Steeping the role learnings in affective processes then generates

relational capacities.

Mentoring responsibilities are not limited to the boys’ immediate family, but

are extended to other males in the community. Since Amish youth finish their formal

schooling at the end of the eighth grade, there are many opportunities to be mentored

by men other than one’s own father. This results in a kind of cross-pollination of

alternative masculinities within the subculture that diffuse the potentially negative

effects or limitations of one’s own natural father in the gender construction process.

It is possible that a heartier Amish male armed with these alternative masculinities

may more closely approximate the Amish ideal of manhood than one’s father can.

As one of the respondents stated, "Anymore the most important things of life that

a man can do to make a man, they can’t do it." This reflects the older Amish men’s

real concern about today’s youth. The elder Amish are keenly aware of the

102 difficulties in maintaining the tradition of multiple skills and transmitting them to the

youth. Difficulties in securing land for farming has resulted in increased career

specialization, which, in turn, has resulted in either a loss of skills or an inability to

pass them on to future generations. This de-skilling makes an Amish man

"one-dimensional" as a breadwinner; he and his family become more vulnerable to

fluctuations in a single facet of the economy.

It has become apparent to me that there are limitations to Chodorow’s theory.

Her concepts do not fully relate to the Amish men interviewed in this study. I found

relational men with semi-permeable ego boundaries where I would have expected to

find rigid/closed boundaries. I surmise that the latency age and adolescent stages of

development in the lifecourse have much more to do with ego boundary-mapping and

-making than Chodorow has delineated. The Amish men said over and over that

adolescence was "a sensitive time," "a crucial time," "a time of decision," and cited

examples of adolescent rebellion in their stories. It is possible that the rule violations

common among Amish adolescent boys are a kind of transitional stage between their

mother’s and father’s tutelage. Although part of the reason for viewing adolescence

as "a sensitive time" undoubtedly lies in the adults’ waiting for the adolescents’

decision to fully accept the Amish lifestyle. Part of it, however, may reflect an

awareness of the importance of those years in the developing masculine identity.

Comparisons of similarities and differences with the other two groups will be made

in the final chapter.

103

CHAPTER 4

BLACK WORKING-CLASS SUBCULTURE

Nearly one hundred years ago, W.E.B. DuBois, a black Harvard-educated

scholar, articulated his concerns for the plight of the black male (see DuBois, 1994).

In The Souls o f Black Folk, he poignantly wrote about the importance of exploring

the black man’s experience and remembering his individual and collective

contributions. He states,

Herein the longing of black men must have respect: the rich and bitter depth of their experience, the unknown treasures of their inner life, the strange rendings of nature they have seen, may give the world new points of view and make their loving, living, and doing precious to all human hearts (p. 83).

And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor—all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked—who is good? not that men are ignorant—what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men (p. 174).

It is with this statement in my mind that I explored the lives of black

working-class men. From my subjective impressions, I found the men I interviewed

most forthright, appreciating the chance to tell their story and have it heard. These

men demonstrated an advanced integrative capacity for many of life’s more

perplexing problems. I concur with Duneier (1992), who stated, "White men can

learn much about the possibilities of the masculine role from black men who have

had to engage in adaptations unusual in white society" (p. 159).

To appropriately explore the shaping of masculinities of African-American

working-class men, some discussion of history and the broader context of the black

104 family is necessary. Included is an historical review, including a discussion of

landmark works that stimulated research about black families, some discussion

regarding the pathology/resiliency debate, and a summary of "contributing factors to

the deteriorating status of young Black males" (Gibbs, 1992, p. 60). Finally, a brief

section regarding the history of the black working-class in Pittsburgh will

contextualize the interviews that follow.

THE HISTORY OF BLACK FAMILIES AND THE PATHOLOGY/RESILIENCY DEBATE

One of the earliest works addressing the black family experience was that o f an

eminent black sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier (1939). It continues to have a

tremendous impact on sociologists and scholars writing about and researching the

black family. His work, entitled The Negro Family in the United States, was a classic

study of the black family experience from the time the slaves first set foot on the

American continent through the time of the book’s publication. About Frazier’s

methodology Allen (1978) writes, "He applied a ‘natural history’ approach in his

attempts to trace the evolution of black families from slavery, through emancipation

and Reconstruction, into the industrial centers of the North" (p. 119). Frazier

interpreted the black family experience as disorganized and dysfunctional due to the

disruptive impact of the slavery experience and eventual migration of black families

to the industrial cities of the North.

This family disorganization began with the actual way individuals were abducted

from their native land, many literally snatched from their families. Disorganization

105 continued in the period of enslavement because the slaves were property to be

bought, sold, or socially arranged however the master saw fit. Many slaves were

treated much the same way as livestock were. Breeding was very common.

With emancipation came mobility and a new period of disorganization. Frazier

(1939) states, "Emancipation was a crisis in the life o f the Negro that tended to

destroy all his traditional ways of thinking and acting" (p. 73). He argues that with

emancipation the freed slave was no longer under any form of social control

regarding his sexual impulses and that the family was truly demoralized. Shortly after

emancipation the Negro population began migrating to the industrial centers in the

cities. This migration was partially in response to many Negroes developing

"migratory habits" in the period of disorganization following emancipation. This was

also partially a result o f a modified plantation system that was developed as a way to

keep the vagrant, landless Negroes off Southern streets (Frazier, 1939).

According to Frazier, the persistent disruption in Negro family development led

to dysfunctional states that rendered the Negro family an unstable institution. They

included a matriarchal family structure, ineffective fathers who deserted their

families, out-of-wedlock births, female-headed households, delinquency in children,

difficulty adopting conventional norms with regard to sexual appetites, and the loss

of tradition due to the isolating, fragmentary experience of rapid urbanization. Frazier

believed that, in order to move ahead and assimilate, the lower-class Negro family

needed to learn to adopt the conventional mores of the dominant white society

(Martin & Martin, 1978).

106 Another important figure, who until fairly recently has been ignored, was

Melville Herskovits (1958). He believed he had found similarities between African

cultural patterns and Negroes who were the descendants of West African nations.

Herskovits thought that African cultural patterns were reflected in the Negroes’

"language, music, art, house structure, dance, traditional religion, and healing

practices...one of his major contributions was a truer conceptualization of family life

in traditional African societies, which are characterized by unity, stability, and

security" (Dodson, 1981, p. 82). Herskovits (1958) saw the patterns of the black

extended family and informal adoption in the kinship network as examples of African

culture continuing in the lives of American black families.

Frazier disagreed with Herskovits’ (1941) contention that African cultural forms

persisted in black family life. It was Frazier’s view that enslavement and existing

American culture were the main contributors to contemporary Negro American

family values, patterns, and structure as opposed to any African heritage. Frazier

states,

As regards the Negro family, there is no reliable evidence that African culture has had any influence on its development...Probably never before in history has a people been so nearly completely stripped of its social heritage as the Negroes who were brought to America...of the habits and customs as well as the hopes and fears that characterized the life of their forbearers in Africa, nothing remains. (Frazier, 1939, pp. 8, 15)

In 1965 a work that echoed Frazier’s concerns not only saw the black family

as pathological, but attempted to set the tone for social policy. This work was Daniel

107 Moynihan’s 78-page document The Negro Family-The Case fo r National Action. The

chapter on the Negro American Family began,

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family...It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time. (Moynihan, 1965, p. 1)

Moynihan cited virtually the same problems previously elaborated by Frazier.

His report stated that black families were unstable, matriarchal, and fraught with

children born out-of-wedlock, female-headed households, divorce, delinquency and

crime (Dodson, 1981). Many black scholars felt the report labeled blacks and the

black family experience as "inferior" and that the government held blacks responsible

for the pathology of their families. This report was viewed as racist in much the

same way that arguments about the deficits of intellect and genetic makeup had been

utilized in previous decades (Billingsley, 1992). Many black leaders argued that the

government failed to acknowledge the impact of poverty on black families—poverty

due to racial prejudice, oppression and discrimination. Although Moynihan generally

exonerated the white majority government from its role in the oppression of

African-Americans, he was, ironically, encouraging governmental intervention to

"take control over the lower-class Negro family (Martin & Martin, 1978, p. 108).

In reaction to the Moynihan report a call went forth for a different view that

would highlight the strength inherent in black families. As a result, an adaptive,

positive view of black family life emerged. The second sociologist to challenge the

108 pathological or deviant perspective was Andrew Billingsley (1968) in his book Black

Families in White America. He stated,

We do not view the Negro as a causal nexus in a ‘tangle of pathologies’, which feeds on itself. Rather, we view the Negro family in the theoretical perspective of a subsystem of the larger society. It is, in our view, an absorbing, adaptive, and amazingly resilient mechanism for the socialization of its children and the civilization of its society, (p. 33)

Billingsley made use of Parsons’ delineation of "instrumental’ and "expressive"

functions in families to elaborate on black family processes. Instrumental functions

are concerned with maintenance of the family, both physically and economically.

Expressive functions are concerned with family system maintenance in "the quality of

reciprocal relationships among individual members of the family" (Blackwell, 1985,

p. 100). Billingsley saw racial prejudice and discrimination as forces that made it

extremely difficult for black men to manage their instrumental functions, since they

were consistently denied access to employment and income opportunities. He also

noted the resiliency of men’s expressive functions as a carryover of African cultural

kinship ties of black families. The extended family or kinship network in black

communities and families is well suited to cushioning its members from the harsh

realities of minority status and blocked access to resources. It was Billingsley’s

contention that black families have done remarkably well adapting their families to

meet the challenges of an oppressive society.

Robert Hill (1972) also wrote from the resiliency perspective in The Strengths o f

Black Families. He identified five major strengths: strong kinship bonds, strong work

109 orientation, adaptability of family roles, high achievement orientation, and high

religious orientation. He argued that strong kinship bonds were evident in the way

individuals, kin or not, could be assimilated into the family structure. These kinship

bonds were also visible in the informal adoption process that kept black children born

out-of-wedlock within their procreative families. According to Hill this informal

adoption process was attributed to decreased likelihood to view birth as a socially

stigmatizing event. Hill also recognized a higher degree of egalitarianism in the

relationships of black couples compared to whites with their more traditional sex

roles (Hill, 1972).

As the resiliency perspective developed, it moved beyond the political-economic

rationale for the functionality of the black family system. It also sought cultural

identity in the remnants of African cultural heritage, noting how important African

traditions were to many contemporary African-American families.

BLACK FAMILIES IN A BROADER CONTEXT

Between 1980 and 1991, the black population in the United States had a growth

rate almost twice that of whites. White growth rates revealed an increase of 8.7%,

from 195 million to 210 million. For the black population, growth rates increased

15%, from 27 million to 31 million. The median age of the African population is

28.2 years, which is substantially less than the 34.3 years for the white population in

the U.S. (Smith & Johns, 1995). The median age differences are due to the large

number of children under 18, who constitute approximately 33% of the black

population (Smith & Johns, 1995).

EDUCATION. EMPLOYMENT. AND INCOME

110

Educational attainment of black youth has revealed increased parity when

compared to white youth over the last 25 years (Gibbs, 1992). But Gibbs cautions

readers not to misinterpret the findings, as:

These figures do not reveal the number of black high school graduates who were functionally illiterate or barely able to fill out a job application...Thus, more than one out of five black youth in the 18-21 age group currently do not have either the basic certificate or basic skills which in our society are necessary for most entry-level jobs, apprenticeship programs, military service, or postsecondary education (p. 53).

The rate of unemployment for blacks has remained fairly constant over the past

forty years. Unemployment rates for blacks is more than twice that of whites, with

the statistics from 1990 confirming the trend (Smith & Johns, 1995). Unemployment

rates for blacks and whites as of 1993 were 12.9% and 6%, respectively. These rates

do not include those who have taken themselves off the unemployment roles due to

their continued frustration at lack of employment (Smith & Johns, 1995). Regarding

the tremendous increase in unemployment of black youth, Gibbs (1992) comments,

"This national rate is nearly three times higher than the 12.1 percent unemployment

rate among 16-19-year-old black youth in 1960, but lower than the local

unemployment rates in many large metropolitan areas of the country, which have

consistently ranged between 40 and 50 percent in the past decade" (p. 54).

A larger gap has developed between the median income of whites and blacks

over the past two decades (Garwood, 1991). Contrary to what one would expect,

higher education leads to a higher rather than lower income gap. Lifetime earnings

Ill for black college graduates are only 50% as high as those of white college graduates.

Due to persistent discrimination the gap actually increases when blacks are better

educated (Siegel, 1965).

FERTILITY AND OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS

Birth rate and out-of-wedlock birth differences between black and white women

continue to be prevalent, but both races have been converging over the past several

decades (Staples, 1981a). During the past decade there has been a steady decrease in

the fertility rate for married black women; conversely, out-of-wedlock births for

black women have increased dramatically from 17.9 live births per 1000 unmarried

women between 15-44 years o f age in 1950 to 48.6 live births in 1975. The

contrasting figures for out-of-wedlock births for white unmarried women were 1.7 in

1950 and 7.3 in 1975 (Staples, 1981a). In 1982, half of all births to black women in

the U.S. were to unwed mothers (Blackwell, 1985). As o f 1990, that figure grew to

66.7%, while the national statistic for all races was 27% (U.S. Bureau of Census,

1993a). Gibbs (1992) states, "In 1980, for example, nearly one out of ten black

teenage females gave birth (9.5 percent) compared to one out of 25 white females

(4.5 percent)" (p. 57).

The differences between these rates may be due to a number of factors: greater

knowledge of birth control and wider use of contraceptives for white than black

females, the greater likelihood of abortion among white females, and the lesser

likelihood of marriage to legitimize a pregnancy among black females (Blackwell,

1985; Teachman et al., 1987). Other rationales include the high prestige that the

112 kinship network accords to the parenting role and the continuity of the African

cultural heritage. This cultural carryover values consanguine relationships (blood ties)

over conjugal ties and the white middle-class value of legitimacy. Collins (1990)

argues that it is black community values that idealize "the stereotypical strong Black

mother" (p. 235) but at an enormous price to black women. She comments,

Many Black women have children they really do not want. When combined with Black community values claiming that good Black women always want their children, ignorance about reproductive issues leaves many Black women with unplanned pregnancies and the long-term responsibilities of parenting (p. 235).

Gibbs (1992) says that little is known about "the male partners who father these

out-of-wedlock children." She cites conflicting studies regarding the responsibility of

a black teenage father, and comments,

Ethnographic studies suggest that black males are very interested in having children to demonstrate their virility, yet many do not exhibit a similar level of commitment to supporting them after they arrive. More recently, however, there is some evidence that these young fathers often do have continuing involvement with their children, contribute to their support when their financial status permits and play a significant role in the lives over an extended period of time (p. 58).

MARRIAGE

Young adult blacks are more likely than whites to delay marriage (Teachman et

al., 1987). Substantial increases were apparent from 1970 to 1980 in the percentage

of 20-24 year olds who were still unmarried. 79% of black men in this age group

were never married, compared to 57% in 1970. 69% of black women were never

113 married in 1980, compared to 43% in 1970. Expanding the age range to 15-24 in

1992 shows 94% of black men and 89% of black women as never married (Bennett,

1992a). These noticeable differences in postponing first marriages have been

attributed to both unemployment and "the more rapidly increasing college enrollment

rates among blacks" (McAdoo, 1981, p. 115). The delay in marriage for young

blacks may also be a result of the "marriage squeeze" (McAdoo, 1981), which

showed that in 1970 the number o f 20-26 year old black men numbered only 82% of

the number of available black women in the 18-24 age group (McAdoo, 1981). The

squeeze may be more acute for black than white women as the numbers of eligible

black men dwindle due to their high mortality rate, incarceration, and intermarriage"

(Staples, 1981a).

Sex-role socialization may also play a part in the preponderance for black women

to delay or permanently avoid marriage. Ladner (1971) found that very young black

girls wanted to marry a man who could fulfill traditional roles of breadwinner,

protector, and companion. As these girls grew older, their mothers had socialized

them to be skeptical, since there were few men who could adequately fill these roles.

Employment has a great impact on a young black male’s likelihood o f marrying.

Black men who have incomes below the poverty level are the least likely to marry

and thus remain unmarried. According to Wilson (1987), "If...black male joblessness

is strongly related to changes in black family structure, it is also reasonable to

hypothesize that the rapid contraction of the black ‘male marriageable pool’ is related

114 to basic changes in economic organization that have occurred in recent decades" (p.

100). He argues that the decline in manufacturing as well as wholesale and retail

employment in the inner cities has further reduced this pool and in turn perpetuates

the familial structural difficulties described. As income and employment potential

increase, the likelihood of marriage for the young black male also increases.

The greatest chance for marriage among black males rests with the black college

educated (Staples, 1981a). As income increases, the stability in black marriage

converges with the stability of white marriages (Raschke, 1987).

Yet marital disruption for black couples continues to increase dramatically. In

1962 the divorce rate for blacks was 62 per 1000 married persons. In 1981 it

skyrocketed to 233 per 1000 married persons. The comparable figures for white

married persons were 33 per 1000 in 1962 and 100 per 1000 in 1981. Divorce rates

for blacks increased almost four times, while for whites they tripled (Blackwell,

1985). As of 1991, divorce rates for white married persons rose to 138 per 1000,

compared to 305 per 1000 for black married persons.

An earlier rationale for the black-white differential in divorce rates was the

matrifocal structure of the black family. Moynihan (1965) argued that the dominance

of the woman in black families was a result of her greater participation in the

workforce. He asserted that employment gave the black wife more decision making

power, emasculating the husband; this matrifocality, he claimed, increased marital

instability and the likelihood of divorce for black couples.

115 Moynihan’s view of black matriarchy has come under considerable scrutiny.

When empirically tested, not much support came for this stereotypic view of black

families (Wilson, 1987). Rather than the differences in power as described by

Moynihan, there were differences between black family experience and traditional

white patriarchal norms (Billingsley, 1992).

The marginal economic position of the black husband is one o f the possible

reasons patriarchy declined. This alteration in power in families may have begun

during enslavement, when black men had little say with regard to their families. With

continuing discrimination in a racist society, women shared some o f the instrumental

functions of the male out of necessity. As a result, black men are more flexible in

their role as husband and are willing to take on more of the expressive functioning

roles usually thought of as belonging to the wife. In comparison to their white

counterparts, black men do not seem to be as threatened by the prospect of a working

wife (Scanzoni, 1975). They are also willing to share the decision-making power

with their wives, resulting in more egalitarian relationships (Blackwell, 1985). Most

black family sociologists see matriarchy as a class phenomenon rather than a racial

issue and role flexibility as an adaptive mechanism rather than as pathology.

(Billingsley, 1968; Hill, 1972; Staples, 1981a).

According to Franklin (1992), the egalitarian sex-roles just described do not

reflect present black heterosexual relationships but an attempt to minimize the

polarization of sex roles. He argues that with the resiliency movement in the late

’60s, egalitarianism became the expected norm for black couples, but soon afterward

116 it disappeared. He speaks of black men wanting it "both ways": desiring black

women to be assertive and independent in the larger world but servile at home.

Blacks have a higher frequency of marital disruption in the form o f separation

than do whites (Raschke, 1987). It remains to be seen just why the black/white

differential exists, but there is the possibility that many never-married blacks reported

inaccurately that they were separated (Glick, 1981). Separation may also be an

example o f a lower-class divorce for those who cannot afford a legal dissolution of

the relationship. Lower-class blacks have a very difficult time with marital

disruption due to poverty and racism. Limited access to income and employment

potential as a result of discrimination affects the socioeconomic status. Regardless of

race, marital instability or disruption increases as one’s position on the socioeconomic

ladder lowers (Raschke, 1987).

Black women have a higher average education level than the black males

available for marriage. As a result many black women marry men with less education

than they have. These hypogamous marriages are also at greater risk for marital

disruption (Staples, 1981a). Overall, family stability is "correlated with maternal

employment, with dual-career patterns, with kinship associations and with the male as

head o f the household" (Wilkinson, 1987, p. 120).

Household patterns and organization is not a simple matter for blacks in our

society. Due to the diversity of household compositions, Billingsley (1968) identified

three primary family types: (1) basic, characterized by the presence of the husband

and wife only; (2) nuclear, consisting of husband, wife and children; and (3)

117 attenuated nuclear families, characterized by the absence of one of the marital

partners. Blackwell (1985) elaborates on this typology, explaining that Billingsley:

subdivides these primary types into extended families, subfamilies, and augmented families. Extended families are comprised of one or more relatives as members of the nuclear or basic families. Subfamilies consist of relatives who join another family as a basic family unit (for example, parents and children joining another nuclear family in the latter’s residence). Augmented families form when persons having no consanguineal ties to the family join the family unit. (p. 92)

The nuclear family as described by Billingsley makes up less than 50% of all

black families in the United States. From 1950 to 1971 the percentage of two-parent

black families dropped from 77.7% to 67.4%. In 1980, the number dropped further to

55.5%. As of 1992, the black family headed by a married couple was 47% (Bennett,

1992a). Contrast these with the figures for white households: From the same

corresponding years of 1950 to 1971 the percentage of two-parent white families

stayed around 88%. In 1980, two-parent white households dropped to 82.4%

(Blackwell, 1985), and that figure has remained constant till the present time

(Bennett, 1992a).

Attenuated nuclear families headed by females make up approximately 45% of

all black families (Bennett, 1002b; Blackwell, 1985; Staples, 1981a). 51% of these

families live in poverty. Of these households, 42% of the women are never-married,

42% are separated and divorced, and 16% are widowed (U. S. Bureau of Census,

1993b).

THE URBANIZATION OF BLACK FAMILIES

118

75% of all black Americans live in predominantly urban areas (Bennett, 1992b).

As blacks migrated to the industrial cities from the rural south they were, in some

ways, like many other American immigrants. The noticeable difference was the

denial of access to the opportunity structure o f employment and to income potential.

As they have been kept out of this opportunity structure, the labor force has

continued to become more complex, requiring specialized training. This limited their

occupational choice even further, and they usually ended up as laborers. It was this

lack of employment that led to poverty. Blackwell (1985) makes several

observations about the urbanization of black families. They include: (1) The

combination of the isolation upon migrating and the lack of "powerful social

controls" led to experimentation with various kinds of social arrangements and

relationships that would have been considered unacceptable in the rural setting they

came from; (2) Urbanization has resulted in institutional structures replacing many of

the functions of the family. The socialization of children moved to the schools,

churches, and law enforcement agencies; (3) The breakdown of the traditionally

patriarchal structure in the family led to a more egalitarian relationship between black

couples; and (4) "Ghettoization" had a great impact on black families. According to

Blackwell, this is where the disorganization or dysfunction exists that Frazier and

Moynihan referred to. This ghettoization particularly affects those at the bottom of

the socioeconomic ladder. Common issues among this population include insufficient

income to meet necessities; dilapidated and overcrowded apartments and homes;

119 teenagers with little or no supervision-leading them to delinquency and crime;

parents lacking adequate skills to serve as the executives in the family; and spousal

violence and child abuse. As Blackwell emphatically states, "The Black family

structure is, in fact, weakened" (p. 113).

THE STRENGTHS IN BLACK FAMILIES

The most often mentioned strength of black families is their extended kinship

network. Some disagreement exists about the source of these bonds. Some

researchers have hypothesized that these bonds have developed as an adaptive

mechanism for survival due to blacks’ minority status in a "hostile environment"

(Staples, 1981a). A number of sociologists have argued that the kinship network is a

variant of the consanguineal family system prevalent in West African societies

(Nobles, 1974; Sudarkasa, 1981). Both appear to be legitimate sources, but whichever

is most prevalent, the kinship network is vital to many black families. Members of

the kinship network perform many services including child care, financial aid, advice,

and more informal forms of reciprocal aid (Martin & Martin, 1978; Stack 1978).

Martin and Martin (1978) describe the kinship network of black families as

possessing an unwritten responsibility to all the consanguineal and conjugal relatives.

In their book The Black Extended Family, they discuss various properties o f black

extended families that solidify and strengthen affectional bonds connecting the

multi-generations present. These include: (1) the dominant family figure who

occupies a leadership position, establishes the behavioral norms for the network and

is instrumental in the socialization of the extended family’s children; (2) the

120 interdependent relationship between members of the network for social, emotional,

and material support; (3) an informal adoption process for keeping children born

within the kinship network; (4) an assimilation process for including persons unable

to adequately care for themselves; (5) a consanguineal or communal orientation

toward members of the kinship network; (6) a mutual aid system; and (7) an

expectation that fathers will show some responsibility for their children (Martin and

Martin, 1978).

These kinship networks do appear to be declining somewhat, but remain a viable

part of a system that maintains and strengthens the black family. Even for those

blacks who have moved into the middle-class, the contacts with parents, siblings and

other relatives in the network remain very frequent. These contacts also result in a

continuation of substantial exchange of services (McAdoo, 1978).

It comes as no surprise that black families rely more heavily on extended kin

than whites do; in fact, the frequency of interaction with members of the network is

greater for blacks than for whites in material, social, and emotional areas of support

(Hays and Mindel, 1973). Some argue that children socialized in a kinship network

(as opposed to those from the traditional nuclear family) are at an advantage since

they can emulate numerous role models rather than only their parents (Staples,

1981a).

The myth of black matriarchy put forth by Frazier (1939) and Moynihan (1965)

has given way to a better understanding of the conjugal relationships in intact black

families. As mentioned earlier in the text, the marginal economic position of the male

121 necessitated the wife working. In terms of instrumental and expressive functions to

maintain the family, much flexibility exists. This is important with regard to the

socialization of children: boys are taught to be nurturant, serving expressive as well

as instrumental functions, and girls are taught to be independent, assertive and

aggressive, serving instrumental as well as expressive functions. Egalitarian decision

making and power in relationships seem to be a natural outcome.

Countering Frazier’s hypothesis that little African cultural heritage could have

survived the slavery experience, many scholars have made an effort to study what

African cultural heritage remains. Boykin and Toms (1985) specifies nine dimensions

of black culture that have African connections:

1. Spirituality—conducting one’s life as though its essence were vitalistic rather than mechanistic and as though transcending forces significantly governed the lives of people

2. Harmony—placing a premium on versatility and placing an emphasis on wholeness rather than discreetness

3. Movement—approaching life rhythmically, particularly as expressed through the patterned interwoven mosaic of music, movement, and percussiveness

4. Verve—psychological affinity for variability and intensity of stimulation, particularly stimulation emanating from the movement mosaic complex

5. Affect—a premium placed on emotional sensibilities and expressiveness

6. Communalism—sensitivity to the interdependence of people and the notion that group concerns transcend individual strivings

7. Expressive individualism—a premium attached to the cultivation of distinctiveness, spontaneity, and uniqueness of self-expression

122 8. Orality—a special emphasis on aural modes o f communication, especially the

use of the spoken word to convey deep textural meanings not possible through the written word

9. Social time perspective-a commitment to time as a social phenomenon much more than a concoction objectively drawn through clocks, calendars, and other inanimate markers" (p. 41)

SUMMARY

Both Frazier (1939) and Moynihan (1965) present several consequences linked to

the disorganization of the black family. Some of these have empirical support, while

others are found lacking.

Black matriarchy is "neither a ‘reality’ nor a deviant form when it is simply a

matrifocal or matricentric arrangement" (Wilkinson, 1987, p. 120). Matriarchy is now

considered more of a class than an ethnic or racial issue (Wilkinson, 1987).

Female-headed families are a result of a number of factors. There is some

support in the literature for the issue of female-headed families as a class issue. The

relationship between structure and income are "clearly demonstrated" (Wilkinson,

1987, p. 197). As a family’s socioeconomic status goes down, it is less likely that the

children will be raised in a two-parent family (Wilkinson, 1987). Also, the shortage

of black males in the marriage pool for lower-class females and the difficulty that

middle-class black women have in finding men o f similar educational background

contribute to the preponderance for female-headed families (Staples, 1981a; Staples,

1981b). Even scholars from the resiliency perspective conclude that the structural

damage done during the period of slavery enhanced this household structural form.

123 They point to the lack of evidence in the West African culture for the female-headed

family living outside the consanguineal core group (Sudarkasa, 1981).

Out-of-wedlock births are class-related and inversely related to education. African

cultural heritage that values kinship ties over the conjugal relationship is given as a

rationale as well (Staples, 1981a). "Man sharing" or "extramarital polygamy" may

enhance the out-of-wedlock birth rate, but may also be a functional adaptation. It

may be a way for the black male to maximize his impact on families (Francoeur,

1987). This is in contrast to Frazier’s (1939) view of out-of-wedlock births as a

result of unchecked sexual impulses.

The high divorce rates for black couples (Frazier’s conception of family desertion

by fathers can be included here) are thought to be a result of the tremendous strain of

racism, particularly on the relationship of black couples in lower-class marriages.

This racism takes the form of discrimination affecting income and employment. In

middle-class marriages the education differential between the spouses is thought to be

an added stress on the marriage relationship. This difference contributes to the higher

divorce rate in black middle-class marriages. Much of the research concurs with

Frazier’s premise of the disorganizing impact of slavery on marital stability (Staples,

1981a; Wilkinson, 1987).

BLACK WORKING-CLASS MEN AND FAMILIES OF THE GREATER PITTSBURGH AREA

The industrial black working-class began after limitations were placed on

European immigration just following the First World War. Prior to that point,

124 preference was given to European immigrants for jobs by industry leaders of the day.

With the new, more restrictive immigration policy, a need for skilled and unskilled

labor developed, resulting in southern blacks’ migrating in great numbers to cities in

the North (Billingsley, 1992). Glasco (1989) refers to the First World War as a

"watershed in black history" (p. 75). The black population in Pittsburgh doubled

between 1910 and 1930, "from twenty-five to fifty-five thousand, while hiring by

Carnegie Steel plants in Aliquippa, Homestead, Rankin, Braddock, Duquesne,

McKeesport, and Clairton raised the black population in those neighboring towns

from five to twenty-three thousand" (Glasco, 1989, p. 75). Unfortunately, just as the

black working-class was developing in Pittsburgh, an economic downturn in the

mid-1920s complicated the efforts of black men to vie for skilled positions. Trade

unions barred blacks from their membership; if black men found work in a skilled

position, they were paid much less than the union standard. Wages for skilled black

tradesmen were 75% of union scale at this time (Reid, 1925, as cited by Glasco,

1989, and Weber, 1989). When these downward fluctuations occurred in the

economy, black workers were the first to go. In 1923, "twenty-seven major industries

in Western Pennsylvania were employing 17,224 black workers. Less than a year and

a half later, in the midst of a serious economic downturn in Pittsburgh, the number

had dropped to 7,636" (Harris, as cited in Weber, 1989).

Black workers were frequently harassed by their white co-workers; the result of

this action was alienation. Mill owners and coal companies noted the frustration and

demoralization that black workers felt due to their mistreatment, and used these

125 workers in concerted efforts to bust the various unions. According to Glasco (1989),

"The benefits were elusive, however, and blacks were quickly disillusioned. With the

union broken, pay was cut drastically, the number of hours increased, mine safety

deteriorated, and the mine police became more vicious than ever" (p. 78).

Other factors played a role in the migrants’ adjustment to the industrial north,

particularly in Pittsburgh. Black workers who migrated had been primarily migrant

farmers in the South, and brought their farming habits and patterns to their work in

the North. Work was viewed as temporary; when the black workers earned sufficient

money, they returned home. (These patterns of migration concur with those cited by

a number of my interview respondents; several of the older retired steelworkers

recounted how their families had originally come to Pittsburgh.) The migrant farmer

work habits brought north by black workers created much turnover in the mills and

could possibly have led to the perpetuation of some of the discriminatory myths

regarding hiring black workers (Gottlieb, 1987). My fieldnotes reflected this

prejudice in some comments made by Joe, a retired white steelworker in his eighties.

JOE: In those early years, you can’t count on [the black workers]. They would no sooner know what they were doing, have some money and not show up again. I hear it’s different now. But back then, couldn’t do it.

Jesse, an 87-year-old retired black steelworker, told me about his migration

history from South Carolina to Pittsburgh:

JESSE: Well, in 1918 [my mother’s] second husband came here because there was...a lot of work here. They were what they call coming down and getting men and bring ’em here to work in the mill. And so she came, but I was left with other

126 relatives...And then after they were here a year or something like that, they sent for me. And so he made money, because he worked...My stepdaddy...he made some money because he was working night and days, night and day. Then they decided to go back south and buy a farm. We worked that farm real hard, real hard...Sunday was the only day that we didn’t work in the field, but I had to take care of the livestock and he was never satisfied with me. He just said he didn’t like me...When I was about fourteen years old, we had a problem- -really had a fight. And I hit him upside his head. Of course, he beat me up. I shouldn’t a let him...But I had a...hoe, [and] I hit him with the hoe handle. And he beat the devil out of me. But anyhow, I had to leave home...And that’s how I came to Pittsburgh.

The view of work as rhythmic and seasonal contributed to the transiency of

black workers as they moved back and forth between their homes in the South and

urban centers in the North. Glasco (1989) thought that this back-and-forth movement

diffused the possibility of coalescence among blacks, making it more difficult for

them than for other immigrant populations to establish a sense of community in

Pittsburgh. Weber’s (1989) study of 1920s master’s theses supports the notion that

the "journey-to-work" resulted in a scattered and socially disorganized black

population throughout the Pittsburgh area. He comments, "Population turnover,

occupational patterns which kept blacks moving throughout the city, inability to

purchase housing, and the impotence of religious and social welfare institutions

prevented the development of community networks in Pittsburgh’s black

neighborhoods before World War II" (p. 371).

The deindustrialization of the heavy manufacturing industries in Pittsburgh

between the Second World War and the 1980s devastated black working-class

127 families. The corresponding development of lower paying jobs for a service-oriented

economy found the black working-class without many options for occupational

mobility. Billingsley (1992) argues that it is this change since 1960 that "has been the

single most important force responsible for the decline in the nuclear-family structure

over this period" (p. 138). The persistent instability in a black worker’s occupational

career/s creates a precarious work identity. As a result, he becomes demoralized, and

the "work ethic" means something different to him than it does to a member of the

white middle-class and white working-class. The black man’s struggle for

self-sufficiency is related to survival, whereas the white working-class man values

work as an end in itself as a part of a high ideological ideal.

Billingsley’s conclusions concur with those of Wilson (1987) in his landmark

work The Truly Disadvantaged. Here Wilson challenges the prevalent conservative

notions that the liberal welfare policies from Johnson’s Great Society destroyed intact

black families by offering disincentives to work, creating a culture o f poverty. In

turn, he cites much research support that "the evidence for the influence of male

joblessness is much more persuasive" (p. 91) in the structural damage done to black

families. He argues that deindustrialization has decimated the "economic status of

black men" (p. 104), and that changes in the nation’s economy since World War II

have limited the employment and income potential of black men. The results include

increases in marital instability among blacks, the proliferation of female-headed

households, and "social dislocations" that end in urban poverty (p, 3).

128 Wilson’s premise is particularly true as it relates to black working-class men in

Pittsburgh. As this study unfolds, special emphasis will be placed on the impact of

deindustrialization on intergenerational mentorship. The decimation of the heavy

industrial sector in Pittsburgh has left younger blacks with low prestige. Several men

in the interviews noted that over time they have experienced a loss of identity and a

lessened sense of respect and influence. George, a 72-year-old retired steelworker,

commented:

GEORGE: We’s gone the way of the milkman. There was a time when milk was put right here on this doorstep (pointing to front door) everyday. Josey’s his name. I can still see him coming up in his truck. Nice fella. Then those couple a mom and pop shops gave way to the grocery store and we all got cars. And slam, bam (claps and wipes hands), no more milk man.

Given the difficulties placed on the black working-class, one can see the

importance of exploring the subjective experiences and the realities of these men,

since their masculinities were shaped in the context of institutional racism. These

subjective realities represent a rich legacy in which most of the present black

middle-class men find their genesis. Billingsley (1992) describes black working-class

families as "the largest single stratum, and it is the economic, social and political

backbone of the black community" (p. 50). It is with this notion of strength that my

exploration begins.

BLACK WORKING-CLASS MEN: "MEN OF HONOR"

Although initially somewhat suspicious of my intent, my interview subjects

engaged me in a very moving and powerful way. Imagine men who define

129 themselves by their capacity to endure "the worst society can throw at them." One

retired steelworker said, "Being a man is a burden, but you accept that burden, ’cause

so much is riding on you." The strengths, qualities or traits that are prized as the

black working-class ideal included, but were not limited to, endurance, sacrifice,

honesty, adaptability, responsibility and hope. The men also revealed themselves as

insightful purveyors of philosophy. Each referenced the black Christian churches and

their spirituality as something that sustains them and provides meaning for the

suffering experienced because of racism. Religion provides them with an advanced

integrative capacity for many of life’s more perplexing issues.

Interviewing men forty-five years and older resulted in the emergence of two

groups. Not surprisingly, the differences were based on cohort. The first group

included the original migrators from the South. These men, who ranged in age from

their sixties through their eighties, migrated to Pittsburgh between 1917 and 1939.

Their blend of rural and working-class lifestyles and their way of expressing hardship

were all evident. Racism was never mentioned directly by these elders, but it could

be sensed in cliches such as "Life is a dreary thing. Sometimes you gotta scuffle with

life." Their hardship, pain, and demoralization could clearly be seen in their faces.

Jesse was tearful throughout the interview, and I was quite concerned about him.

Toward the end of our time together, I attempted to soften the effects of revealing so

many painful memories by asking him about the sweet things in his life. His sad

response was:

130 JESSE: (leans across table toward me) I never had any sweet things...And I never, never had good times in life.

I was left speechless and continued to be concerned about what I was doing to

this man. I asked him what the experience of being interviewed was like.

Interestingly enough, he began by expressing his appreciation for the opportunity to

tell his story:

JESSE: I never had a chance for this kind of discussion before. First time...And it is not uncomfortable at all. I’m comfortable...Boy, oh, boy. It’s an honor. It’s an honor [to be interviewed], I appreciate it. I really appreciate talking to you. Boy, oh, boy.

I was so concerned about this man, yet he contained the pain of these memories

and recollections. Rather than being depressed by such revelations, he seemed to

experience a catharsis with me. In speaking about his various experiences, he never

referred to his race as an issue in any of the hardships. As I walked out his door, he

shook my hand and commented again, "I say, what a honor it is for ah-(pause),

educated, white man to grace my shack and ask me what I think" (shaking his head

back and forth in disbelief).

Joe, another retired steelworker, referred positively to a boss regarding his

unbiased treatment o f blacks; but this was his only reference to race, and an indirect

one at that.

JOE: Mr. Johnson, Bob Johnson. He was the man showed me how to work in the mill...Everybody liked him ’cause he was a big man, and he took his time, and he would tell you, ‘Don’t ever run that this way because when you clean it up, when the furnace get to there, it’s gonna be the same way it was before. So do enough to get by, because if you don’t do

131 it, somebody else will. When you go home there’s gonna be continuation.’ I learnt by listening and watching him. And he was a big inspiration in my life in the mill there. Everybody liked...to call him Gentle Ben...We cared for him. And if he could do something for you, he’d be glad to do it for you...He treated everybody the same. He didn’t give a damn what color you were. You just couldn’t beat him...He was just a quiet man. I’ve never seen him angry...He was just his plain self. He didn’t draw no punches. He was just a nice guy.

What was unspoken here spoke as well as what was said. Joe’s comments that

the white boss who "didn’t give a damn what color you were" and "drawed no

punches" speak much about race in co-worker interactions and policies of the mill at

large. This was typical in the interviews of the older black working-class men. It is

possible that in this generation, racism wasn’t to be spoken of directly, as doing so

might risk or jeopardize one’s current position by speaking out about the obvious. A

comment from a younger man provides a plausible explanation: he told me that

when he was a young boy, his father admonished him by saying, "Just remember.

You didn’t see what you thought you saw. Keep your head low and mind your own

business." This comment was made in reference to what would now be characterized

as hate crimes, but then was just a normal part of black life.

The second group included men in their mid-forties and fifties who had been

raised in Pittsburgh. Their fathers, uncles, brothers, and cousins were part of the

working-class there. Institutional racism, as well as racism in general, was spoken of

more directly, as the hardship and pain endured was identified. These men wanted to

132 share their experiences and their questions as well. Bill, a forty-five-year-old

steelworker, stated:

BILL: You ever been out of work? What’s that feel like? Pretty depressing, huh? Want to provide for your family, damn, for yourself, too. Now try to think of that feeling but in a deeper way. More...intense. Now imagine that same feeling every day in your life. You wake up with it. You go to bed with it. Shit, you guys go through it once in a great while in your lives and you think you know what it’s about. But that’s what being black is like. Everybody hides from you when you’re black. Some days you just want to give up. Something’s always in the way. And, heh, we work hard. But we are more than work horses. We want to advance, too. Just like you.

These two groups of men are referred to as "old heads" by Duneier (1992), who

cites Elijah Anderson’s Streetwise ethnography. He describes them as:

working class people who embody traditional values in the black community...Traditionally, the ‘old head’ was a man of stable means who believed in hard work, family life, and the church. He was an aggressive agent of the wider society whose acknowledged role was to teach, support, encourage, and in effect socialize young men to meet their responsibilities regarding work, family, the law, and common decency. (Duneier, 1992, p. 128)

But there is variation in these values when compared to the predominant culture.

The black working-class work ethic is about "doing something vital" and survival. It

doesn’t seem to be an end in and of itself. As it relates to family values, the role of

the male as protector includes protection from the society at large, including the

predominant culture, the police, and agencies of the law. Black churches have a

tremendous impact on the lives of the men interviewed and provide much of the

133 ideology that they need in order to live and find meaning in their lives and their

sufferings.

The same steelworker who wanted me to know on an experiential level what

being black was like also articulated many of the dimensions and themes that others

talked about as well. At the same time, he provided me with his ideal of the black

working-class man.

BILL: It’s hard being black. [Whites] bought and controlled us over in this country, they know our history...I always believed that there’s some fear or reason why we’re being treated as second-class citizens. There’s some fear that we’re somebody, and they don’t want us to know who we are...I’m looking at it from a rational point...not...as a violent point. I ’m not smart. I don’t have money. You control the money that I have. I don’t own property. You own and you sell the property that I have...All the guns and stuff I have, you sell. You have the jobs. You have the education...Why treat me like this? What are you keeping from me which you don’t want me to know? That was the answer that Martin Luther King tried putting in this part. ‘You’re somebody.’ I’m not violent, I work, I’m a role model black. I have to present myself as a highest black, and I hope I don’t fail. Because if I fail, with those who criticize me for what I’m doing, gives them no inspiration to want to continue to do as I’m doing. I fought and fall and stumble and make mistakes, but I’m always critical of points that will actually, somebody bump me back on. And that’s where I’m at.

At this point I asked him what it means to him to be a man. My simple question

was answered by a very long speech in which he poured out his heart and shared

with me his life philosophy. He started like this:

BILL: [To be a man means to be the] provider and protector of your family. That’s what’s big to me. And being ever and able to provide those things without being a thief or a crook as considered in society. But there’s got to be opportunities.

134 Being a man is really...being able to live up to what you do, right or wrong; provide for your family. And, let’s face it...if you’re single or whatever, and you get that girl pregnant, then it’s your responsibility to provide and take time and sacrifice and decide what you have to insure or secure that child grows up to where it can conduct and go on and do what it has to.

I sensed immediately that Bill bases his concept of manhood on some solid ethical

foundation, and was not at all surprised that his foundation was the Bible. He

continued:

And, it’s in the Bible, from the original intention of what God had in mind for us to the garden o f Eden. And every time that we were disobedient, he put another burden on us...But through the Bible...each thing that you do wrong—and being a man is a burden. Okay, you add a burden onto your life about being a man, that you make the rest of the decisions to compromise or to sacrifice or to be willing to consider it. To deal with that problem now that you were a part of or committed. Being a man is dealing with that, versus saying that I don’t want to be bothered with that.

In Bill’s view, being a man—a provider and protector of a family—is a burden

ordained by God upon man at the beginning o f time. Part of the burden, he feels, is

the need to make decisions, compromises, even sacrifices when life’s situations

demand it. A real man faces the difficult times; a weakling says, "I don’t want to be

bothered with that."

Bill realized that one can—and sometimes does—make wrong decision. Being a

man meant to him:

BILL: Being able to be able to look up to your shortcomings. First of all you have to set the fact that you did something wrong in the course of life. A mistake that I’ve made that I shouldn’t a did...But even that is not good enough in the highest sights of God. You make mistakes. But not losing the

135 will to try to deal with that and ask God to forgive you and deal with it like you should be as a man. You accept the fact there’s crime. You have to accept the fact what you did. And through soul searching, which you’re not taught...that’s the voice inside your head, the inspiration, the pain, the suffering that your parents taught you...I made a mistake, I have to live with this pain. I can run away from it, I can eliminate it in a totally irrational way. Being a man you try to make the best of your mistakes. You try to correct what you’re doing.

He returned to the theme of shortcomings one more time toward the end o f his long

speech:

BILL: Whatever decision you make in life, you have to be able to deal with the shortcomings or accept the fact that those things you cannot change, that you can live with. And that’s what’s about being a man. We can’t change things. There’s certain things in life you just can’t change. And being a man is understanding those things you can’t change and accept those things that you can. And accept your responsibility.

Bill argued that some ‘shortcomings’ are results of ignorance, and that people should

not be punished for those. It is important, however, that people deal with them and

learn from them. Even after a fall:

BILL: There’s two roads up here. I hope this road’s putting me back to where I want it to. And I’m trusting in you, Lord, that this is the right road.

Herein lie many of the themes to be elaborated in this chapter. Bill speaks of

a social structural dimension of racism on one hand and of holding to ideals on the

other. The ideals reflect the ideology of the black church, and he encourages blacks

to hold onto their faith for direction. A psychological dimension is apparent as racism

demoralizes the black male. Combating that discouragement, he encourages holding

136 on to the ideals of work, honesty, endurance. He also promotes masculine roles that

include being an example, supporting one’s family, recognizing one’s responsibilities,

dealing with and correcting mistakes, and differentiating what one can and cannot

change. In the end, he expresses hope for a better future. These themes reflect black

working-class values that seek to preserve the dignity and honor of the man in an

otherwise difficult existence. Relational themes include care for children and

relationships with women. Additional themes not mentioned here touch upon

masculinity as a process, a time orientation toward the present, and changes in the

intergenerational mentoring of young black males. Bill’s comments both begin and

end with racism. These portions o f the interview symbolize the black male experience

as he is embedded in a racist society. Everything happens within this context.

Masculinity or manhood is generated, maintained and filtered through that reality.

These are the themes to be delineated. For continuity between each of the three

subcultural contexts a similar framework will be used with all o f them beginning

with (1) masculinity as a developmental process, (2) time orientation, (3) ideology,

and concluding with themes unique to each particular subculture. In this instance,

with the black working-class, the themes include: (4) racism and demoralization of

the black male, (5) the black working-class ethic of doing something vital, (6)

masculine roles, (7) a social/relational dimension and (8) milestones.

Masculinity as a Developmental Process

As with the Amish, the first awareness of masculine definition and distinction

seems to be related to physiology. Size, strength, and other physical attributes are

137 among the first recollections these black men had with regard to men and maleness. I

asked a Jim, a forty-five year-old machinist, to tell me some of his early childhood

recollections. He responded:

JIM: Grandfather. Education-wise, seventh grade education. Which didn’t mean it was either bad or good, but at the time work ethics prevailed and out of necessity, it was necessary for him because he had a farm, to do certain things. In terms of stature, he had his first son in 1933, which was my father. He’s been around for a period of time, and at the time my grandfather stood 6’6". And from a adolescent standpoint, he was large from the standpoint of stature. He was strong from the standpoint he had a religious commitment also. There were some things that occurred with my grandfather out of fear more than anything else...He corrected one of our cousins and the method he chose to do, not understanding anything about psychology, he used a little physical violence and threw one of my cousins across the room with a backhand. Now, as a result of that, that image remained very real in our minds, and from that point on, there was no question about who was in charge. And so, as he spoke, the only response we had is if he told you to jump, ‘How high?’ That’s all. Not, well, ‘I have my own rights to do this.’ It was never like that. He spoke, we listened. And we did. That was the rule. There, there was no sidebar, or at all. That’s the way things were. Being the man in the household...being the tallest person in the household number one, being the head of the household, number two. Which we understood his role there. So once there were corrective measures, he spoke, we listened. Those were the rules right there. And there was no other avenues for you. No other avenues for adjustment. He spoke, we listened.

The grandfather’s size, strength, and speed figured into Jim’s perceptions of

masculinity early on; they also affected his relationships. Jim commented later in the

interview on male pecking orders based on the physical attributes of boys.

JIM: No matter where you go, the rules are kind of spelled out early, where the only thing that comes to mind was the

138 pecking order...Because of someone’s stature, because of someone’s strength, any given situation you run into, we know what the rules are as we’re there. If you have a young man that happens to be very virile, very massive, we know right away he gets number one. There’s no question because o f his size. The only situation in jockeying is where it comes where you have two individuals the same size, the same weight, and the next question is, where does he fit? Is he number two or is he number three? Now, obviously there’s no sense in fighting number one because we know who number one is. Now there may be a problem that exists between number two and number three, and then that soon will be ironed out.

Jim elaborated on this theme:

JIM: It happens all the time. Even when you go into gym class. We know after about a day or so, exactly who’s the strongest. Sometimes you have to get banged up against the wall, but sooner or later we find out he’s number one. And as a result o f it, once we find ourselves within the pecking order, ‘Where am I at in this scheme o f things?’ You’re maybe number three. And these skirmishes occur where we feel that maybe I’ve elevated to the point where I’m gonna challenge this guy right here. Which you’re free to do. And as you make that encounter, you’re either successful or you’re defeated. Once you’re defeated, you go back to where you were before.

Jim’s analysis indicates that, as a boy matures, his "self-analysis" changes. With

the increased cognitive capacities and the ability to abstract, boys becoming

adolescents and then adults think and rethink their position. A time comes when the

adolescent boy or young adult male must reassess his masculine definition. Jim

wondered, as many boys and men do, if athletic or physical prowess is as important

as it seemed to be when he was younger.

JIM: All through your life you do a self- analysis...And as you get older, your self analysis becomes more refined...I’m

139 referring to even in junior high school. I compared myself to other individuals and I used as a guideline for success, athletic ability. Some people use academics. But at the time, because of where I was in my life, I thought at one time the most important thing...were the [athletic] role models that meant so much to me. And I gauged my success or failure on the sports that I played...So now we stress academics more than anything else. So, those same individuals that were the captain of football team, not too many of them happen to be CEO’s. They’ve been prima donnas all along...Now, what happens is, as you’re playing sports you become number one by how you step on your opponent. As long as I can step on you, whether you have respect for me or not, it’s demanding, because of who I am and how strong I am. But those things are soon passed away and we get involved with a humanitarian type of approach in job situation. But the criteria that we use to gauge success as adolescents is based on brute strength. Who’s the strongest? ‘Oh, he’s the captain of the football team. Gotta let him do whatever he wants.’ But those individuals, if anyone were to do any type of comparison, regardless of California, Pennsylvania, Idaho, all of the captains of the football teams, how many of those are CEO’s, do you think? Not many.

Time Orientation—"Here Today, Gone Today"

The black working-class time orientation is rooted in the present, but is based on

a frustration with the past and a feeling of hopelessness about the future. Frustration

with the past refers to recollections of repeated obstacles or blocked access to

resources. In the interviews, familiar questions and comments surfaced time and

again. Bill referred to his past by asking and answering his own question. "My daddy

said to me, ‘Anybody ever give you anything? No! And no one’s ever gonna give

you anything. You’re black. Don’t expect nothing! You gonna have to bust your ass

for anything you want in life.’" Note how the past and future are intertwined. If one

is fortunate enough to find suitable work, one may hold no great expectations for the

140 future due to the reality of past experiences. Whatever position one has now, that is

where one will remain. Advancement and upward mobility are limited and rare, and,

as mentioned earlier, jobs may disappear altogether. It is even difficult to sustain

hope that one’s children may do at least as well as the parents; industries die, leaving

less than subsistence jobs in their wake.

This orientation toward the present concurs with earlier work by Liebow (1967)

in his ethnography of streetcomer Negro men, although the men in his study had a

less stable work history than the black working-class men in the present study. Life is

about survival, "making it day to day." A great deal of uncertainty seemed to

permeate the economic existence of many of these men and their families. The men I

interviewed were employed in the more stable jobs in the industrial sector at that

time. John, a construction worker, spoke of his situation,

JOHN: When the work is good, it’s good. That’s the time to enjoy it. ’Cause you can’t trust it’s gonna be there. Don’t trust it. The minute you trust it, it’s gone.

This present-time orientation is also part of these men’s perceptions o f the

prospects of the younger generation. Bill commented on the youth in his community:

BILL: The teenager today is a byproduct o f that which happened. And they don’t have any direction. And the parents can never teach them directions because now the parents mortally attack...And you wind up the parents having disagreements with the children, arguments. Fights with the parents, kill the parents. For that particular reason. So there’s actually no will to make any contribution to society. And ‘My life is just fun, my teenage years are just fun years. Have fun, go to parties. Wait until you die. Whatever it takes for me to have, for me to go on.’ And that’s the way society is right now. There’s nothing to look up, nothing.

141 Murder-they don’t even worry about murder. Lot of blacks are killing blacks. That pains me terribly. They look at our family background like mine and see that our fathers were sincere about what they were doing, and they said we got no respect for all those things, why should I even put an effort forth that, or try to be like my parents who also suffered for the same things to try to provide a roof over our house, a home, or someplace to eat or sleep? And there’s just no reward for me to do that. I’ll just do what I have to do and out there in society what, it’s a fact, whatever it takes for you to survive.

Joe, another retired steelworker, also insisted that the rationale for a present

time orientation is rooted in the difficulties and the harsh reality of violence in his

community.

JOE: But as I said, [violence] was just one of those things. One o f those things, I ’ll tell you. I guess that’s life. That’s some parts of life you have to scuffle with. Life is a dreary thing at times. So...you take one day at a time. ’Cause you don’t know what tomorrow brings. Might be here today and gone today. Used to be like here today and gone tomorrow. Not anymore. Here today and gone today.

Ideology—"Endure Things A Little Farther"

Ideology was a little more difficult to ascertain from the black working-class men

than it was from the Amish. The ideology prevalent in the black working-class seems

to be conveyed orally and informally, primarily through the church and family. In

both instances, storytelling is used to make the lessons "come alive."

The Black Church

Of the black working-class men, all but one claimed that their family’s or

extended kinship network’s religious heritage was influential to their epistemology.

Their personal Christian faith experience and church involvement also provided them

142 with direction and meaning for their lives. Typically, it was a grandparent, a great-

aunt, or an uncle who served as the keeper and perpetuator of the religious heritage.

In the following excerpt, Jim talks about how his great-grandmother provided him

with religious training and how important it is for him to pass that heritage on to his

own children:

JIM: Fortunately, I had an opportunity to...be around with my great-grandmother who lived to be about ninety-six years old. [She had a] strong theological or Christian-type background and a lot o f input in terms of rearing me...They’ve used as a rule of guide, a directional tool, the Bible...Because of their strong commitment with the Bible, we were raised that way. Certain things you just didn’t do. And Sunday was one o f the cardinal things, where no one worked on Sunday. Sunday was devoted primarily to church, and it’s been like that from our earliest existence. It’s just Sunday, you go there. Even being young, we went there. Even when we didn’t understand, that’s where you go...And that’s one of the things we passed on to James and Jeremiah (two of his five sons) as they come along. Why do you do this? Not because I told you so, but that’s what I went through, and it seemed to do okay for me and even with their insight then. Some of the things that they had taught even when they were growing up is just as valid today.

Some of the men identified with the Jews in the Old Testament, particularly with

their story of the Exodus from Egypt. Others identified with the New Testament and

the story o f Jesus—the betrayal, the ridicule, the humiliation, the pain and suffering,

and the resurrection. One man noted that "the Scriptures may have told a story about

the Jews, but when I reads it, it’s about us. The Jews were hated. Everybody hated

’em. Despised ’em. It could easily be about black people. I don’t know what I’d do

without that book." For these men, both the experience of racism as well as an

143 encouragement to endure suffering for the sake of redemption can be found in

Biblical stories.

Listen to John’s reference to the story of the Israelites’ journey from Egypt into

the wilderness. John found a found a present-day metaphor in the story, and has used

it to extend meaning into his own life.

JOHN: Yeah, we’re just like sheep. I like the book of Exodus. I call that book, ‘Take Another Lap!’ (laughs). When I was younger, we played football, and if you messed up, the coach would signal you to take a lap around the field. He’d be punishing you for not paying attention to something...And where we played, they were big fields, not the track around the football field like today. He’d say, ‘Take a lap.’ And if you screwed up again, he’d say, ‘Take another lap.’ Oh, man. On hot August days, those laps at the end of practices were the worst. But the forty years those Israelites spent in the desert were ’cause they kept screwing up. And God said, ‘Take another lap.’

For these men, the faith experience in church is an experience of community and

commonality. The ideals of endurance, integrity, and honesty are taught from the

pulpit, in the Sunday school classes and in the care and concern shown for

neighborhood families, the sick, and shut-ins.

The minister in the black church continues to have much impact on the lives of

attendees. Jim, a forty-five-year-old college-educated machinist mentioned a minister

when he spoke of the most influential men in his life:

JIM: We had a minister that had a great deal of impact...He handled us with a very philosophical approach where he kinda brought out the best in us. There was no right or wrong. What do you think? And gave us an opportunity to reflect a lot, and as a result of reflecting, everything that we said had significance, which made us feel that we were

144 important...Regardless of how ridiculous the statement, he says there’s never no stupid question. And whatever we asked, he attempted to explain it to the fullest of his ability, and there were never no wrong questions. There were no, never, no wrong answers. They were always modified, and he just made us feel more complete. Made us feel more like a person. And that in itself, when you’re young, means a lot. Someone has time out to listen to my idle babble. And quite naturally he was quite well-liked in the neighborhood because he took time out for us. There was never no time he was too busy to sit down and just discuss whatever we want to discuss. Regardless how ludicrous it was, he took time out to listen to it. And that, that in itself meant a lot.

Storytelling

A number of men spoke about storytelling as important part of their childhood. It

was the way of passing oral history and lessons from one generation to another in a

meaningful way, and served as an informal way of creating and recreating ideology

and transmitting it to the young. Many of the men smiled as they recollected both

the stories and the storytellers. Here Bill commented on his mother’s storytelling

talent and her ability to teach lessons about daily living through them.

BILL: My mother...was a great storyteller and she always had stories to tell us. Sometime when you’d sit home and listen to her, she’d tell stories...Nobody ever explained anything to you except your mother. And she used stories to teach us.

In this way families joined with the church to pass on an oral ideology, so to

speak. Storytelling, whether it be life experiences of family members or Bible stories,

greatly enriched these men’s lives. Some of them continue to see the value in

communicating to the young this way. John, a steelworker who is also a deacon in

145 his church, spoke about the relationship between storytelling and the training of

children in the Biblical word.

JOHN: In here we take the boys through the Bible, and one of the first questions [is] ‘What’s the first book?’ Usually the response should be Genesis. ‘Wliat’s the last book?’ ‘Hmm, never thought about that.’ Last book happens to be Revelations. These are some of the basic concepts that you get started. You don’t overwhelm ’em, you give ’em some basic things.

In a marvelous way, John explained how an old and relatively unimportant Biblical

tale can be made relevant to today’s youth. He chose as an example Methuselah, an

Old Testament character who is mentioned as the oldest character in the Bible:

They don’t have to page through the Bible and find out. Questions like, ‘Who’s the oldest man in the Bible?’ ‘How old was he?’ The man happened to be 969 years old. But unless you get involved in some of the trivia here, when you make it fun, these children can accept this. Methuselah happened to be 969 years old. Never did anything, he just lived. He lived to be 969 years old, but never did anything. He just, he was just there. And there’s no credit to longevity. It’s not so much how long you live, but what have you done since you’ve been here? What’s your quality of life? Have you done anything since you’ve been here? And if Methuselah had to give any type of report...‘Hey, you been around for 969, what did you do?’ ‘Hey! I was just here’. ‘Oh, okay, you didn’t do anything.’ ‘No, I was just here. Lived 969 years.’ ‘Did you do anything?’ ‘No, I didn’t do anything great, I was just here.’ And when you bring those facts out in the Bible and you give them some type of life and so, the children enjoy it.

At this point, John rose and pointed to the eighteen Bibles on his bookshelf. He

confessed that his wife gets upset about the fact that he had so many—"all different,"

146 he said—but he obviously cherished his possessions. Then he returned to the

importance of Bible stories:

Children are no different than anyone else. Some of the stories in the Old Testament, New Testament, they become meaningful to the children because you give those characters’ life. And it can be very dry, or you can give it a little bit of substance, a little bit of life, and they enjoy it.. Jonah and the whale. Three boys that were in the fiery furnace: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Once you give those characters life, it means a lot. Children remember right away...they enjoy [the stories] because you can sit, and they’re very attentive once you tell ’em something. And you have to approach em from their standpoint...It’s just a matter of substituting different terms that are more meaningful to ’em. And once it comes to life...You give those characters life and they come to surface, they actually mean something, and the children enjoy it...That’s all that’s required. Once [the characters] have a little life, the children enjoy it more and more, and they learn something they can keep or take with them, stays with them for life.

Racism and Demoralization of the Black Working-Class Male

Mention has already been made about how the black male is embedded in a

racist society. This reality affects everything about the black working-class male and

the corresponding shaping of his masculinity—from his view of himself, his family,

his work, his community, and the society at large. It is a life of hardship without

much acknowledgment for the contributions he has made to his family, his

community, or the predominant culture.

These men’s memories and recollections reveal much of that "bitter" experience.

In some instances a workable outcome resolved the difference; in others the men

were left with doubts, confusion, and hurt. Here are three stories that illustrate this

147 point. The first deals with fights in the neighborhood; the second portrays memories

of a cross-burning; and the third provides a fairly long story o f a black father’s

confrontation with a white neighbor.

In the first excerpt, Bill recalled what it was like growing up in a predominantly

white neighborhood:

BILL: [The white kids] always ridiculed me... especially about being black. Well, we used to fight all the time...There was always...three or four boys at one time. And we would fight. I mean there was certain ones, we’d just fight and fight. Sometimes we fought every day, you know. They called ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger.’ And you would fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. No matter where you was, you’d just start fighting. You’d fight and you’d get tired, get your ass beat today, come back the next day and then eventually, after you fought so many times, say.‘Hey, look here, we’re not getting anywhere. You beat me up yesterday, I beat you up today,’ I says. ‘I do this today, you do that tomorrow. We’re, we might as well just forget about it and be friends.’

From this recollection, one gets the message that the fighting was constant. It was

something a black boy had to be on guard for. The fortunate part of this experience

is that Bill was able to put an end to it and eventually accept and be accepted by the

white boys. In the recollections o f childhood and adolescence, the observable signs of

racism lessened, but subtle signs continued.

Bill also recalled the hill across from where he lived:

BILL: My dad was always protective, always. There was a hill across the way and it had a large bare place. They used to burn crosses across the hill from where we stayed at our time. They’d write ‘Niggers’ all over the house and areas where we stayed. For me personally, with the KKK, we always learned, to the Mafia and people have associated, that if you kept your

148 mouth shut and if you didn’t see what you thought you saw, even though you seen it, that you could get by. And that’s how we survived. ..In other words you mind your own business and ‘You don’t have a problem with me.’

Jim recalled a confrontation between his father and a white neighbor over a fight

between their daughters:

JIM: My sister used to fight [a white girl], and [her father] come up and start calling us ‘Nigger’...And the guy come in the door when I think I was about ten. [He whispered], ‘I wanta talk to your daughter.’ I said, ‘Who are you?...What do you want?’ ‘I want to see your daughter.’ I looked behind [and] spotted [a] machete behind him...My dad came and cracked the door open. He had one hand on [a] shotgun like this here...‘Yeah, what could I do for you?’ He said, ‘You have a daughter named Katey?...She beat my daughter up’...And when he says that, he brought the machete in front of him. He says, ‘I’m gonna kill her.’ And by that time my dad, he says, ‘Let me tell you what. If they got into a fight, that’s them and their business. You come down on my property, threatening what you’re gonna do to one of my kids.’ [My dad] says, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ And he reached back and he stuck that double barreled shotgun in his face. Says, ‘If you don’t get off my property...I’ll kill you.’ And the guy left. And he got up on his property, [and started yelling] ‘Nigger, nigger’...My dad threw half a street brick, BAM! Hit this guy on the head... Must have been two hundred feet he threw that brick...Called the cops...They made my dad pay...some money and the other guy had to pay for trespassing. But those were the only type of incidents that...we always had people that was behind us.

These kinds of experiences alternately strengthened and hampered a positive

identification with one’s ethnic or racial heritage. For the black man, such

experiences often had a demoralizing effect. This man was obviously proud of his

father’s resistance and protection. And at the same time, the devaluation and

scapegoating of an entire race of people, evident in this man’s experience, hampers

149 identification with the society at large. A society that will not accept or protect

certain individuals cannot expect them to believe, adopt, and internalize it ideals

without modifications.

Poverty

In many cases racism accompanies poverty. A number of the men had vivid

recollections of hunger, of "doing without," or of family sacrifices that had to be

made to provide for the children. Listen to a Bill’s declaration of admiration for his

mother’s sacrifice to the family:

BILL: I wanted to show [my mother] how much we appreciated what she did and helped in us becoming and she always was there for us. She kind of felt your pains, she felt your hunger. Sometimes we’d go hungry and she’d be hungry (Cough-emotional moment). And she wouldn’t eat. She would give us the food. And lot of times she would do without things, we would do without things, and...and when you go so long without doing with things you kind of get used to not having those things...She loved us. And that’s what I got from my mother was being inspired. She loved us. For what she could not give us, only what she could, she sacrificed in raising us. Being black, we seen her a lot of times doing without to give to us. And things that hurt her a lot, and then to keep on going. We were real religious. Very religious people. We went to church every Sunday. And then that was the endurance of pain, to God. My mother used to say, ‘Your father works hard and it really hurts him that you’re not satisfied. This is the best we could do. I’m sacrificing my life.’ And we learned a lot of pain. But she brought us up with a little faith and a little determination that ‘you can endure.’

I must note that this man’s father worked two full-time jobs: one as a

steelworker, the other as a truck driver. His mother worked as a full-time domestic.

Yet they lived in poverty. This illustrates very clearly that black workers’ low wages

150 required enormous personal and familial sacrifices just to make ends meet. The ideal

of the "family wage" spoken so often in labor arguments was curiously absent from

Bill’s discussion.

Doing Something Vital—The Black Working-Class W ork Ethic

Embedded in the black working-class men’s experience of racism are their

definitions of masculinity. Hard work is internalized in a different way than it is for

white working-class and middle-class men: it is a provision for survival. A

construction worker commented, "We work to live and not the other way around."

This concurs with the observations of Melvin Williams (1981), who wrote an

anthropological study of a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh,

The ‘genuine’ Black does not believe that if he works hard, saves, and gets an education he will be successful in American society. On the contrary, he believes that ‘a workin’ man never gets ahead.’ Or ‘hard work is a lifetime job’ (p. 137).

Jim, a college-educated machinist, recalled the responsibilities he had at home

during his adolescence:

JIM: During that four to five years [living on the farm], I guess those were the most impressive, formative years that we had. Because even when my father wasn’t around, he’d be at odds and ends in terms of work. We were subjected to the influence of our grandfather daily. Which meant our day started early in the morning with the chores that occurred around the farm...putting salt out for the cows, the horses, feeding the chickens, and...slopping the pigs...We had a spring that was approximately a mile-and-a-half from the house. Now, whatever needs you had regarding water, were brought about because you brought the water back home with the buckets and not that the times were so archaic that it didn’t exist, problem was the pump in the yard just broke and the

151 mechanism to repair that, didn’t have the money to do it...so as you were at a certain age, that became your responsibility. You go get the water and bring it home. It was very important. And even then it was a sense of belonging and the fact that someone needed me to do that, so you fit into the scheme of things. There was a thing that I did. I mean everyone, anyone coulda went and did it, but I was at a position in the hierarchy of the family...to carry out this responsibility...First of all you did it grudgingly, and then you understood that you don’t have a choice. So the best thing to do is to enjoy what you’re doing and take pride in what you’re doing, because everyone needed you for that...And this occurred whether it was snowing, whether it was raining, whatever it was, you still needed water; cooking, bathing, whatever, and that was your job.

As an adolescent, Jim understood that he was needed and that his family relied

on him for his contribution. He could see that clearly. The very hardship of the work

gave it special meaning. As Jim stated, "The best thing to do is enjoy what you’re

doing and take pride in what you’re doing, because everyone needed you for that."

This echoes much of the black working-class male work experience described in

these interviews. Since additional hardships are to be expected and "nothing comes

easy," one might as well make the best of the situation. In so doing, one’s dignity is

protected. In this particular instance, if young Jim had dwelt on the fact that it was

poverty due to racism that made the family unable to repair the pump, rage,

depression, and ensuing demoralization might have overtaken him. Instead, he

endured the burden. The fact that his work was vital for the welfare of the family

gave it a proper meaning. He was doing something essential; the family could not

have functioned without water.

152 This idea concurs with those expressed by other respondents. Another man said,

"Work ethics prevailed out of necessity." Descriptions of male mentors—whether

fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, or Active kin—were repeatedly referenced as

"jacks of all trades." Theirs was a self- sufficiency born in survival. The stories also

reflected the difficulty in finding a trade that offered a chance for a consistent living

and support of one’s family.

However, these respondents also voiced cautions regarding work. Although they

agreed that it was important to work hard and embrace a certain part of the work

ethic for one’s survival, they thought that one should "not buy into it all the way"; to

do so would mean one had "become too much a part of society." Thus it was

necessary to develop a sort of passive resistance which, if enacted, would preserve

their black cultural identity while also fostering an awareness of the reality of

exploitation of black labor capital. As one man said, "Be careful not to be too eager

[for work] or too hungry. They might use that against you. Don’t work too hard, take

care of yourself, ’cause they could care less. They’ll work you ’til you drop and then

just get some new meat, flesh in there."

Joe, a retired steelworker, reflected on his awareness of the need to take care

of himself and his body in the coal mines and steel mill:

JOE: And the only time I stayed in Richmond, Virginia, I stayed there about six, about six weeks. Six or seven weeks. I had two uncles, they worked, they tried to put me in the coal fields. But I saw the condition they were in...I didn’t want that. Every one of ’em was slumped over...They were bent over like this. They were using those short-handled shovels. In the mill...we used long-handled shovels. And

153 that’s what saved your back. Man, they don’t give nobody no short-handled shovel. What the hell, you take it and shove it up your rump or whatever. I don’t want that. It’s long- handled shovel, you know, then I got a chance of keeping my back straight.

Panzer on the Job

Many of the respondents had jobs that required a kind of ongoing courage and

bravery, as their work settings were often dangerous and fraught with hazards. Coal

miners, blast furnace operators in the steel mill, and construction workers all had

stories o f close calls. For some, the calls seemed too innumerable to remember.

In the following excerpt, a blast furnace operator recalled the death o f his boss

and two co-workers during an explosion in a converting mill.

JOE: The mill is a scary place. [It] scared [the blacks]. Scared ’em to death...There’s some departments that’s just pure dangerous. Like the converting mill. I seen my boss get killed down there. Oh yeah. First up I had and second up were both of ’em got killed. All three of ’em. The first up and second up died instantly. And [the] boss died [in] three days.

Joe described the horrible accident in great detail and concluded his narrative by

saying,

JOE: I couldn’t eat no supper when I went home. I didn’t come to work the next time or report at all. And that still remains with me like today, I think about it. These other two, the first up and second up, they had a bench up there on the platform where they set there when they get their breaks. The explosion was so strong they’d nail ’em up against the sheet tin. Sheet tin was up high as that ceiling there. The shock killed ’em...just killed ’em right there on that platform.

154 The pause seemed to be partly an expression of the pain of the recollection

and partly an expression of reverence for their deaths. Joe apparently had high regard

for his boss, and talked about him further:

JOE: You know that boss that got killed. He never was like nobody else. No fault or you know, making mistakes and what. He wouldn’t do that. He’d come to you and talk to you nice, you know. ‘Don’t let me see you do that no more.’ He was a nice dude, sure enough.

Masculine Roles

From the recollections and stories, it becomes clear that the men these

respondents held dear to their hearts served in many roles and capacities. The roles

varied from provider to protector to punisher/corrector. Provision includes not only

the instrumental functions of income for food and shelter, but also the expressive

functions of nurturance and male presence. Nurturance may include wisdom,

guidance and direction.

It is important to point out, however, that these men held little gender

distinction regarding roles. Men and women, mothers and fathers, grandparents,

extended family members, and fictive kin shared many of the duties and

responsibilities for the family’s survival with little regard for role ascription based on

gender. In the case of black families, survival necessitated a diffusion of role

identities. As these men described the significant men in their lives and the roles they

played, one must remember that women also served in any and all of these

capacities. Here, Jim made the diffusion of these roles explicit:

155 JIM: Grandma and Grandpop was around, and basically the men were gone. And in terms of being reared, it was basically from a matriarchal standpoint, where a lot of the values and the mores or sanctions were instilled by basically the women. And there’s nothing wrong. It has nothing to do with lack of masculinity in terms of identifying, it’s basically the same moral principles applied whether it’s taught by male or female. The expectations were basically some of the things that were given, they were not so much from a masculinity standpoint but from a survival standpoint. Which there is a difference between the survival aspect and the masculinity aspect. Now in terms of survival and just basic rights and wrongs that were instilled in us by the women because, not so much they were in a authoritative role, but because o f job situations they were in a role where they were able to form our expectations of what we ultimately would deem necessary for life situations.

Jim’s explanation makes it clear that men were a part of a larger collaborative

effort. They were co-providers and co-protectors, sharing the responsibilities with

women.

Men as Co-Providers

In the black working-class, the "man as provider/ breadwinner" theme emerged as

the predominant component of male definition. When these men spoke of their

fathers, grandfathers, or the men of the extended family, they always made reference

to their capacity to provide.

JOE: My dad was a landscaper...He worked for some rich people. We called ourself ‘living pretty high on the hog’ after he got that job. We lived pretty decent. He worked for a guy named Farley Lorenzo. And I know they all dead by now practically. But my dad, he could do most anything. He was jack of all trades and master of none, I’d say. (Laugh) Work was...if you had a job...see a lot of people weren’t working. And if you had a job you tried to hold onto it. Because, it was the bread for the table, you know. And like we raised

156 tomatoes and beans, green beans and stuff like that. And we always had a smoke shed in the back. So we had hams and shoats and stuff like that out there, whatever. They used to give away chitlins...But we always had a plenty food. My dad looked out and made good provisions for us. That’s why I tried to raise my kids the same way. I tried to give ’em the best.

The role of the black working-class male as breadwinner is precarious.

Therefore men are very much aware of the contribution women make to their

families. As a result, there is little emphasis on a man’s role as breadwinner; this is

not a distinctive gender difference. I noted some attempts to devalue black women’s

contribution to the family, but these were the exception rather than the rule.

The role of provider extends from instrumental functions to expressive functions.

The respondents spoke of the importance of male involvement and presence in their

own lives as well as in the lives of their children and grandchildren. Community

involvement was viewed as a nurturant act. One man reportedly said to his son, "Dad

is involved, because I care a great deal for you." He went on to explain why it is

important for a man to "be there" for his sons. He also spoke about how he "takes"

rather than "sends" his sons to church or other civic activities. This reminded me of

the Amish man who spoke about how "it’s not what is taught, but caught."

Chodorow (1978) spoke of the importance of male presence to create a

connection between affective processes and role learning. Men benefit from personal

identifications enhancing the potential for relational capacities. For example, Jim

spoke of his relationship with his sons and voiced his belief that his presence is

crucial.

157 JIM: I get involved because I want to see that the boys have a strong spiritual background. Now, once you get older and you reach the age of accountability, you feel that, ‘Well, this is something that I don’t want to do.’ Well, I can sit back and say, ‘Well, I’ve done the best I could for you guys. Now, not that I haven’t tried to show you the way or to take you out of spiritual darkness into...some form of spiritual light. Now, I’ve done all that I could for you during your formative years. Now the choice is yours where you spend eternity. Now your soul is something that you have to contend with.

Jim continued by talking about the importance of sharing activities and creating

memories with the next generation:

JIM: You told me, ‘Dad, I wanta play softball.’ Hey, I get involved in some form. If no one wants to be coach, Dad’ll be coach. ‘Whatever you want to do, I want to be some, I want to be part of your experiences right there if you’ll allow me. If you don’t want me to get involved, there’s no problem’...See, there’s a difference between sending someone and then taking them. And I take the position that I’m not gonna send you guys, because later on you’re gonna say,‘Dad used to send us all the time.’ Well, Dad didn’t send you, Dad took you along with him. There’s a big difference there. Now, as a result of it, everything that you’re experiencing, I ’m experiencing too. I ’m not sending you to experience something all by yourself, I’m with you during that experience.

Men as Co-Protectors

The respondents spoke of men who functioned as protectors in their lives.

Providing protection was mentioned frequently, but with a twist. Often the stories

spoke of protection from the racist society at large. They interpreted the stern "He

only had to tell us once" demeanor of some of their male authority figures as an

158 expression of concern about what the police, law, and predominant white society

would do to them if they "got into trouble."

A number of the men spoke of curfew corresponding to the time street lights

came on at dusk or shortly thereafter. Their parents’ watchful behavior seemed not to

be focused on the possibility that a child would be abducted, assaulted, or into some

unlawful mischief, but more on the children’s safety in general. The main focus of

concern seemed to be keeping the children where family members could "vouch for

their whereabouts" with the authorities. Two men spoke about curfews, while a third

gave a rationale for their existence.

JIM: And they were good. Because there were certain things we could do and certain things we couldn’t do, and it was spelled out graphically. I mean there wasn’t any lack of communication... When do you come in? You come in when the street lights come on. Not nine o’clock, not eight o’clock, but when the street lights came on, that was a rule that you had to be in. It was something that everyone experienced. Not just me, everyone across—male, female, the ones that were of school age, high school and younger. We had to be in at that time, right now.

JOE: [Parents] would tell you what they wanted done, and you went along with that program. It wasn’t like the kids today. You were allowed, when you went somewhere you told your parents where you went, and you make sure you go there. And you come back at a certain time. And when the lights come on, on the streets, they want you on the porch so they could see you or hear your voice. You wouldn’t be about two miles away from home...my dad always...said, ‘If you here on the porch and something happen, I can verify for you. Where when you two, three blocks away, I can’t see that far.’ And you’d get into it; you were on your own.

159 There was a keen awareness o f the double standard of the authorities’ different

treatment of blacks and whites. An adult male’s responsibility within the family

included also efforts to keep children away from public institutions that would further

harm them.

BILL: We was good then. We didn’t have any other choice because most of the time you’d get throwed in jail because they’d lock you up and then come and tell your parents. They wouldn’t bring you to your house like they did with the whites. They just locked you up. Maybe two or three days later they’d say, ‘Well, Mister, your son’s in jail for so and so,’ whatever. But...we only had to be taught once, that was enough. My father used to tell us, ‘You get in jail, don’t call me.’ And the fear was in every, because he meant that. He was, ‘Don’t call home. I’m not coming to get you. I give you a place to stay, a roof over your head, and there’s no reason why you should get in trouble.’ That’s the approach he gave.

Men as Stern. Nurturant Authorities

Most of the men reported the male authorities in their lives as stern figures. The

rationale for the sternness was rooted in the necessity to protect children from a racist

society. This concurs with Kirby Alvy’s (1989) work with families in Los Angeles.

He operates a parenting training center servicing primarily black families. In the

parent training program, he teaches families to develop an appreciation for the

sternness as rooted in the slavery experience: a slave’s very survival and well-being

often depended on immediate and unquestioning obedience. As one respondent

stated, "There was no sidebar."

Bill spoke about his father’s stern discipline and his rationale for it. His

comments imply that he (Bill) spent a short time in prison.

160 BILL: And for my father [what I learned] would be, the most thing is to have a sense of responsibility and stay out of trouble and to work. You’re black, nobody’s gonna give you any damn thing. Anything that you get in life you’re gonna have to bust your ass to get it. And that’s what the blacks did at that time. And the ones now are failing. They’re saying, ‘I’m not gonna settle for that.’ And my dad also give me respect for the law, that ‘If you get in trouble I’m gonna treat you just like the law is gonna treat you. I’m gonna treat you the worst. You ain’t got no reason to get down there, I ’m not coming to get you. When you get out, back into society, come back into my house. I want you to tell me what you learned. If you haven’t learned nothing, you’re gonna be right back in there’...So my dad was so direct...but he’s telling you right—this is the way society’s gonna do you. So it’d be the same if you get locked up in prison. ‘I’m gonna lock you up in prison until you reform,’ and then you tell me, ‘This is parole board now, how you’ve changed for your, what you did.’ Judge and jury. Father. Just parole board, taking the place o f being the judge and jury. My dad is putting it as basic as you can...You can’t get no more direct than that, and that’s what I learned [from him] growing up.

But as stern as these male mentors were reported to be, they also could be warm,

nurturant, and vulnerable. The men spoke of their mentors’ warmth as well as their

limit-setting abilities. Jim gave a beautiful, moving testimony of his great- uncle’s

warm patience when the elder man taught him to drive a truck with a standard

transmission:

JIM: When I think of gentleness, [my great-uncle] had all of the attributes in terms of love, kindness, long-suffering, the whole nine yards...He sat and taught me how to drive a standard shift. I mean I was grinding gears, but he sat there just as patient. And we went through this for probably about five solid days. We went through the drudgery of his truck, and when I look back on it, I would have to say, ‘Yes, [he was] most influential.’ Because the truck that he loved dearly, that was his truck for transporting salvage, the whole nine yards. He took time out for me. No one helped. Took

161 time out for me to put me in the truck... shifting, driving in the city, showing me, telling me different things. There was no question that I felt uncomfortable asking him things, but he demonstrated a genuine kindness and concern for me. He took time out and, if you’ve ever taught someone to drive, it takes someone with patience. Me, never drove a stick before in my life and he sat there, never a loud voice, never screamed. He just sat there and we learned to drive together. And I guess that’s the reason why I learned as fast as I did, because he took time out...Never yelled at me once. And every question I had for him, he came on with an answer. He taught me how to shoot a gun, taught me to drive. These things meant a lot. In terms of being most influential, wasn’t so much money I got from him, but the fact that he took time out for me, which meant more than anything else...I mean without him, it would have been difficult. He did more for me than, I guess, anyone else.

Later in this same interview, Jim spoke about his relationships with his five sons.

I got a sense of the warmth, mutuality, and active minimizing of power differentials

between Jim and his boys. I also sensed, however, that he emphasized to his sons

that in certain situations he, as their father, must set and enforce certain standards:

JIM: I have a responsibility to my son as a friend...as a father-son relationship. And there is times where I have to take the role as a father which he wouldn’t understand as a young man. ‘Oh, you’re being mean.’ Not that, but ’There’s certain things that I have to do and I have to tell you to do as a child, to have you progress.’ And sometimes when we allow those clear distinctions to deteriorate, you run into problems. ‘I can’t be your father and your buddy, too. Either I’m your father or I’m your buddy. Now, your buddy will let you do anything you want to do. Your father will tell you what’s right and what’s wrong...I’m not your buddy, I ’m your father.’ And as a result of that, sometimes they perceive, ‘Well, you’re not my friend.’ ‘Well, someone has to tell you these things. You’re not gonna learn it out there. Someone here who loves you and cares for you have to tell you that.’ And sometimes that involves correctional measures. Violence? No, that’s not violent. Abuse? No, that’s not

162 abuse. Some things have to be corrected, and once they’re corrected, and they understand, how far can I go?...Well, you go as far as you can without infringing on the rights of others... Now, once you feel that you’ve reached a certain age where ‘Dad’s house isn’t big enough.’ Well, I said, ‘I understand that. Maybe you’re a man now. Maybe you need to go out there and understand what the drudgeries and the pains, the sorrow, the frustrations that are out there.’ Once you’re out there, sometimes you say, ‘Well, Dad, I understand what you were talking about.’ And then at that point you’ll realize exactly what we’re talking about. Sometimes you have to experience the pains, the sufferings in order to understand exactly what Dad was talking about. ‘Not your buddy. I can be your buddy, but I want you to understand I’m your father first, and then, we can progress from there. Now if that upsets you, well, so be it. But understand that there is a relationship, father and son, not buddy. Father and son.’

Power Differentials

Listening to Jim speak about his relationships with his sons, one can see his

recognition that power differentials do exist. The power differential must be

managed. The person in power must exercise good judgment so as not to tyrannize

the person of lesser power. Regarding his role as a parent, one man commented that

"warmth without power cannot be respected and power without warmth is resented

and in the end defeated."

This keen awareness of power differentials (e.g., parent/child, husband/wife,

boss/worker) was present in most of the interviews of the black working-class men.

An eighty-seven-year-old retired steelworker recognized it even between patients and

a hospital nurse:

JESSE: See there are patients that feel like because their insurance is paying and they’re there, the nurses are slaves.

163 They’re not slaves. They’re working for a living. And some of them are, most of ’em...are kind. Real kind.

Relational Issues

Affective Processes

The ideology of these black working-class men, taught informally through

churches and families, is one of survival and endurance. It was developed in response

to ongoing racism. As a result, the personal epistemologies of the respondents include

an awareness of interdependence, quite opposite to the hyperindividualism and

self-sufficiency prominent in the ideals of the white culture. Relationships are a

priority, since self-reliance is mitigated by racism. The language is a language of

respect, which includes honesty, hospitality, and honor.

A Language o f Respect—"It’s Just Not Recognized"

Time and again, the respondents commented on how important respect was in

their families and communities. Respect was part of the Golden Rule. Some of the

men thought that respectful conduct or treatment of others would eventually bring

acknowledgment and appreciation from the dominant white society. Several men

presented their views on both self-respect and the respect of others:

JOE: [My father] taught me also how to treat your fellow man like you would want to be treated. And he also told me that it doesn’t cost you nothing to be nice...If a person don’t speak [back], it’s not gonna kill you. It’s just you. Go your merry way. Maybe the next time he might feel better, maybe he might speak. But he said, ‘Don’t let it worry you. You have to take one day at a time because you can’t take all of ’em in one shot. Can’t do it.’ I always remember that.

164 HARRY: But this is our big thing. Respect was a beautiful part in our life coming up. Open the door, same thing with cars. Same thing with seats, you go and grab that seat and hold it for Uncle George and Aunt so they can sit down. And it was a big thing in our life. And then you go and sit down. And all the kids would eat together and all the grown people would eat together. If we had an extra place up there or don’t, all the kids would sit over here to eat...Everything was on the order of respect and this is the way we lived.

JESSE: I think about the difference between when I came up as a kid then now. This is, with respect. I would try to respect myself, I’d try to respect you. Everybody. And I like everybody. If I can’t get along with ya, I stay away from ya.

Messner (1992) comments on "respect" as a theme that surfaced over and over

again with "men from lower-class backgrounds, especially black men" (p. 56). My

interviews with black working-class men supported his findings. Respect is the ideal,

but the reality of their lives is just the opposite. Obstacles to opportunities and

limited access to resources, whether because of race or class, makes it difficult to

achieve any public recognition from either the community or from one’s peers. The

end result is often a lowered self-esteem and sense of worth. By discounting the

worth of a person or a population, prejudicial biases are sustained, recreated, and

maintained. Rarely are they questioned or challenged. Thus it is extremely difficult

for the person not to internalize the rejection.

For some of the younger respondents, I represented the "generalized Other"

(Mead, 1934), a culmination of dominant white attitudes. The men could not resist

asking me a question that they have thought about their entire life: "Why are you

doing this to me/us?" What the question meant, though, was "Why is the white

165 predominant society continuing to devalue and disrespect us?" It was asked

rhetorically. And as if not really wanting a response, the men tended to offer their

own explanations followed by another question, creating a point/counter-point

analysis:

BILL: Answer me this. How come we can’t get no breaks? I been working thirty years, I don’t spend a lot of money. And I’ve worked all my life...If I wasn’t married I always took care of somebody somewhere or another...Here I am, I’m a disabled veteran and I looked at it and I says, ‘How can they do that?’ We still are considered as the lowest class people, and if you used that approach for your thinking, I want to say it’s a big psychological setback because you get into a state of depression. And I think that’s what it does because to survey, a lot of blacks have high blood sugar or violent; it’s because they are in a state of regression and suppression about a lot of things that happen. Even if you’re a working individual, that puts you in that mind that you try not to let yourself stay in that frame of mind, because it’s gonna eventually destroy you with some type of a illness or worse.

Bill, a forty-five-year-old steelworker, was painfully aware o f the effects of

inequality. He realized that discrimination had hurt him considerably in mental,

emotional, and physical domains. Since he knew he had my ear, he continued by

venting his frustration with the current societal and structural arrangements that

persecute blacks.

BILL: When it comes to blacks, that’s what we’re associated with—violent and lazy, and that’s not true. We’ve worked hard all our life, it’s just not recognized. Us in society, we are black individuals and we had the same problems that others [ethnic groups had], but even though this is United States o f America, we just are not the same. And they refuse to treat us as such. They just treat us as we’re being ignorant, stupid, or dumb or laziness. That’s not it. We are cultured people.

166 I could hear this man pleading with me to recognize and respect the contribution

blacks have made in work and culture. But the lack of respect does not only come

from outside sources. Bill claimed that he also receives much less respect from

younger black males in his community these days. He is told by the youths that he

has "sold out" and has "become just one more "Uncle Tom."

Since the economic bust in the manufacturing sector from the early 1980s, many

young black males show an increasing distrust of the American economic system and

anyone affiliated with its propagation. With deindustrialization, employment

opportunities and liveable-wage incomes have virtually disappeared for young black

males in Pittsburgh. A comment made by an elderly black steelworker is as

appropriate in the 1990s as it was in the 1920s. He said, "Far as good jobs, we’s the

last to come and the first to leave."

The Impact o f Deindustrialization on Intersenerational Mentorins

In my opinion, two recent studies by Bang and Hong (1994, 1995) give

substantial credibility to Wilson’s (1987) argument that the nation’s economy is

responsible for a host of problems in black communities. When compared with fifty

other metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh ranked extremely high on a number of relevant

dimensions reflective of the terrible economic situation of its black population. It had

the distinction of having the highest percentage (31%) of black male adults between

25 and 54 who were not in the labor force. Black youth (ages 16-19) unemployment

rates ranked third at 49%. Pittsburgh was also first among fifty cities in the

percentage of black female-headed households with children (70%); second in the

167 percentage of black children living in poverty (57%); and first in adult poverty rates

(35%).

According to Bang and Hong (1994), manufacturing jobs, which used to

represent a full 25% of non-farm jobs, have continued to decline to the present 9%

level. In contrast, the number of non-farm and service sector jobs actually rose

between the period o f 1987-1992. One can surmise that this loss o f manufacturing

jobs, coupled with increases in jobs available in below average wage industries such

as the service sector, has had a significant negative effect on black men’s income and

employment in Pittsburgh.

Manufacturing losses altered the material reality and corresponding "respect"

older black males are accorded by the young black males they had once mentored.

"Old heads" (Anderson, 1989) who retired spoke of loss: loss of stature, loss of

respect, and a difficult time getting the youth to hear them. The younger black

working-class men, those in their forties and fifties, face ridicule for continuing to

work for the same white-run and -owned companies that left many other blacks in

the community unemployed. In some instances the older men question themselves

about whether they really did sell out.

BILL: We lack respect for individuals right now. Black people lack respect. There’s no respect for anything,...and no real desire to want to do anything coming out o f school, even with a twelve year education...[Young blacks] don’t worry about whether they affect us, offend us or not, and the people see that. A lot of them are sincere. They look at our family background like mine and see that our fathers were sincere about what they were doing, and they said, ‘We got no respect for all those things. Why should I even...try to be like

168 my parents who also suffered for the same things to try to provide a roof over our house, a home, or someplace to eat or sleep...there’s just no reward for me to do that’...It pains me to see all those things. And I can’t blame them for seeing it that way. I wonder myself.

There are three groups of men who represent very different historical contexts for

the masculine status of black youth and men in Pittsburgh. These include: the

original migrators; their sons, who were reared embedded in the black working-class;

and the younger black men from their teens through their thirties who must carve out

a very different niche for themselves without the opportunities their fathers or

grandfathers had had. These disparities make ongoing intergenerational mentorship

extremely difficult. The eldest perceive that things are much worse than they used to

be; the young men do not see their elders as a legitimate, credible authority in their

lives. As one elder statesmen commented, "But kids nowadays they don’t listen to

ya. They on they own. They think they know everything. They don’t know

nothing!"

As mentioned earlier, the older men in the study never spoke directly of racism,

but they thought that eventually, through their hard work and effort, they would earn

respect, especially from the youth in the black community. The interviews do not

indicate that their hopes were realized. On the contrary, many of the older men live

in fear, terrified of the youngest black males in their own communities.

JOE: Now if they did [make use of CC camps like those common during Roosevelt’s tenure] with the younger generation, there wouldn’t be so much of this shit on the streets now. Let ’em cut roads and cut wood and stuff...Give ’em a low, minimum salary. Now they sit home [and] wait on

169 this welfare like they work for it...It’s just terrible...Look like it gets worse instead of better. Got people scared, old people scared to go to the banks and cash their checks... The policemen arrest [young people] just like flies...They’s strangers to me. I don’t know ’em. Don’t want to know ’em...Because a lot of them was escaped convicts and whatever...See where that young boy killed his grandfather yesterday...They thought he had money. And this girl last week, she killed her granddad. Her and two soul brothers. [Her granddad] was giving the girl all she wanted. She was a crackhead. The boy was fifteen that killed him. Just up and fucking killed him...I don’t know what’s got into the kids. And they was never, people weren’t as dangerous as they are. When I was a kid coming up you didn’t hear all this. Hell, you’d sleep with your doors open.

The younger men (45-55 year range) are aware of civil rights gains, but they

question what these gains have meant in material reality. Their questions are not so

much for themselves as for the youth. Walter, one of the younger men interviewed,

spoke to this point. He mentioned his empathy for the younger generation and the

difficulties in mentoring boys under present-day circumstances:

WALTER: And [the young black males] don’t have any direction. And the parents can never take them, and teach them directions because now they say, ‘Wait a minute, you [worked], and it didn’t do any better for you—why should I have to do that?’ And you wind up the parents having disagreements with the children, arguments. Children don’t respect the parents. Why should they? The teenager today is a byproduct of that which happened. Before the fear that, okay if you kill somebody we’re gonna...give you the gas chamber. Or we’re gonna hang you, or whatever. Such things still hang, but there’s no fear of committing crime. And when you get involved in doing a crime that’s black on white, you pay heavily...[Now] they don’t want to...do what you’re supposed to...And they really never examine, ‘Hey, maybe these people have feelings like everybody else. They’re human beings.’

170 Following Connell (1987), Messner (1991) states that there are "competing

masculinities" (p. 72) all along the historical continuum. The masculinities include

hegemonic as well as and marginalized and stigmatized forms. What is taking place

in the black working-class in Pittsburgh is a "changing of the guard," an alteration in

the gender order in this historical setting. Masculine forms that had previously been

in a marginalized or stigmatized position may be coming into prominence with

deindustrialization, and "old heads" are being destroyed. The young black men refuse

to emulate the "old heads’" values as a kind o f protest masculinity; as a result they

make masculinities of their own.

Sustaining Relationships

Some discussion of friendships and of women revealed the depth of these men’s

connections to those who played an important role in their life and communities.

Some made career choices and decided to stay where they felt most comfortable-

embedded within the black working-class. There were also instances where the men

spoke o f loyalty and betrayal as it relates to "hustling." Interestingly enough, they did

not resent the people who tried to take advantage of them, since they were aware of

the difficulties blacks have in "making it."

Women

Relationships with women were mentioned frequently; women obviously play a

very important role in their lives. An experience of comfort and belonging is not

easy to attain in a racist society, but the men’s feelings for their wives or girlfriends

were deep and genuine.

171 Three excerpts demonstrate the importance accorded women by these men. In the

first, a man speaks about his interest in women when he was an adolescent, admitting

to his vulnerability and his fear of engulfment by them. The second excerpt testifies

to the importance black men give to their heterosexual relationships. In the third, a

man in his seventies speaks of his wife’s illness and death.

JIM: I was nervous around the girls. I mean I wanted to be with ’em but...you’re at an awkward age, you don’t know what to say to the girls, and as a result of that someone says, ‘Well, if you’re not dating, what’re you doing?’ ‘I’m involved in sports.’ Which is...a legitimate way o f putting that off. [Being around girls] created a lot of anxiety. Wanted to be with ’em, but it was difficult to communicate with ’em. Because you’re nervous, you don’t have that type of experience with ’em...I viewed them as someone different...All of a sudden you’re thrown into a situation where you have these girls. They want you to hold ’em, they want you to kiss ’em and it’s...overwhelming.

Later in the interview Jim mentioned that he was reared by "strong Christian women"

who made him "tow the line." He also spoke of his role in his relationship with his

wife as "friend and companion."

Bill, a steelworker, spoke about the place he gave women in his life:

BILL: We...shouldn’t put them in the highest part of our life. But our woman is the keeper of our soul. And we count on a woman. A woman is the man’s life.

Bill articulated the place he gives women in his life. He says, "A woman is the

man’s life," or "our woman is the keeper of our soul." He presented his feelings

eloquently and poetically, and implied that his wife’s presence and involvement

172 sustained him, giving his life value and meaning. This seemed to be a consistent

view, although not always presented in such a poetic way.

Joe, a retired steelworker in his seventies, reflected on his wife’s illness and

death. They had been married fifty-two years.

JOE: I’d be tired from school...I’d come home and try to do things around the house and all the other. And my wife...she was nursing, so she ain’t got the time. So a lot of time I ’d be coming in, she’d be going out. That’s just the way it was. But that’s the law here, things turned out like I wanted it. All but losing her. She was...thirteen years without a kidney. And they were talking about giving her a kidney and she said they wasn’t gonna cut on her no more. So she refused to take the operation. So I found her asleep right in there (pointing to hospital bed in living room)...I came down that morning...She used to go to the hospital three times a week..They got a dialysis place over there. And she would sit by me and she’d go lay down. She kept oxygen all the time. Had a big machine, big as this table down here...Well, when you got diabetes, you got something. Damn! I miss that woman.

Joe obviously cared deeply for his wife and was active in household responsibilities

as well as her treatment and care. She had died several years ago, and the hospital

bed remained in the living room as an ever-present reminder of the woman he loved

and cared for all those years.

Isolation and Alienation

Some of the men spoke about the difficulty they have had "fitting in" with

people through the years. Although their stories varied from instance to instance,

there was a sense of isolation or alienation for those who ventured too far from their

black culture. Here two men tell of their difficulties and of the ways they dealt with

alienation.

173 BILL: Growing up in a white neighborhood, I talk different from most of my black counterparts my same age. And I found me having to learn my own language. You understand? That’s bad. So a lot of times I don’t go; my wife, she wonders why I don’t go a lot of times to different affairs with blacks. But the problem is I have to learn my own people...So now I associate with more blacks or live with more blacks. And, you know, let’s face it, I’m black. (Laugh) This stuff won’t go away!...But I find myself more selective. Say my wife says, ‘Let’s go to this or that.’ ‘Well, I really don’t want to go, but if you want to go, go ahead. I’ll stay here. Do whatever you want.’ Sometimes I might be tired from work and sometimes I just don’t like that type of environment, because I didn’t do it when I was coming up. And I’m getting older now. I find less amusement in it now than I did when I was seventeen.

Later Bill commented on his concern that he will offend someone by saying

something that might, unintentionally, insult someone, black or white. Thus he lives

between the two groups or cultures and has "no place of my own."

This following fascinating excerpt indicates an "atypical success." As an

adolescent Jim was a star swimmer. Swimming, however, was not valued by his

peers as a "real" sport, so he never received the status and prestige common to an

athlete of his caliber. He therefore moved to the traditional sports o f football and

basketball. As an adult, having completed college, he went into the insurance

business. After a number of years in the insurance industry, he left it to become a

machinist.

JIM: Couldn’t make the basketball team. Couldn’t make the soccer team...There’s two things that happen[ed] which is kind of strange. I became involved in a sport that, at the time, in 1967, ’68, and ’69, blacks were not involved in, in aquatic sports, at all. Swimming...I was the best that our school had, and I had an opportunity to set some records but that wasn’t accepted totally by

174 my peers. I mean, I excelled in it and I took a great deal of pride in it, but ‘that’s not what we do’...So my success couldn’t be compared to no one else...I said,‘Hey, I just won the fifty yard freestyle.’ ‘So what?’ There’s an accomplishment for me but no one understands what I’ve accomplished... No one to share it with...There’s no measure of success when there’s no one that you can tell, ‘This is what I accomplished’...Children have a sense of pride, and the term that they use is ‘peer pressure.’ Now if you’re accepted among your peers and what you’ve accomplished among your peers is great, then that places you high on that pecking order or priority of individuals. Who’s who? Everyone, every nationality has a ‘Who’s who.’ Children has a ‘who’s who’ about who’s first and who’s second.

This sports experience may be a metaphor as to why he quit a white-collar job

and went to doing something that would bring him more acknowledgement among

his peers. As we were finishing the interview, he told me that the management at his

shop had just discovered he had a college education and were in awe. He smiled as

he acknowledged that his black and white co-workers treated him a little differently.

He was one of their own, and he had an education.

Although Jim made little mention of his white-collar job experience, I speculated

that he had felt like he did not fit in there. He was a black, blue-collar guy in a

white-collar job among many white executives. To combat the isolating effects of the

loss of a meaningful connection to black culture through work, he took a position

that by middle-class standards was a step down. In his mind and experience,

however, it was actually a step up. Just as he had adopted basketball and football as

his main sports, so he returned to a blue-collar occupation.

175 Friendships

Friendships with other men begin early and provide support, a sense of

belonging, and relief from a racist culture. One man commented, "We all want

friendship. We all want to be accepted by someone." "Hanging with the fellas"

registers high on most of the men’s priority lists.

Two men spoke of friendship. One emphasized the importance of belonging to a

group during adolescence. The other described the pain caused by the loss of a

friend.

JIM: And at the time, it just seemed you had to belong. That meant more than anything else. Belonging...to this group of guys...These are the guys you walk to school with. These are the guys that you walk home with. These are the guys you play basketball with. These are some of the guys that are on the teams...I go with ’em to school and I come home with ’em...But the most important thing is belonging to this group of individuals...It got to the point where we all went out and bought the same baseball hat. Same shirt. To belong. No formal group, it’s just that ‘You get a baseball cap with an A on it, I’ll get one with an A on it.’ And then when we go to school everyone will say,‘What’s the A for?’ I don’t know. We all look alike. That’s part of it. To belong together, that’s the most important thing.

In the second instance, friendships embedded in a group provide an affirmation

of commonality and identity, which is essential to minimize the isolating and

alienating effects of racism. Bill spoke about the pain and loss of a personal

friendship.

BILL: I trusted him, I gave him money, clothes, anything he want. But he broke my trust, he lied to me. And friends don’t lie to each other. And he’s no longer my friend. That is the most sacred thing...I found out from him that he was

176 trying to use me, and only for money aspect...And I heard him tell his sister something that really hurt me, and it was a slap...[and] it just hurt me so bad. It just hurt. And it’s hurt and hurt and hurt...It broke my trust there...He could have told me and we could have talked...He didn’t deal with me directly, nor approach me directly and the last straw being he started using drugs, and I never used drugs. And he didn’t care who he used when he’d get to taking drugs. I don’t care if it’s mother, brother, father, sister, whatever I need, who I need to abuse. And he started abusing me for drugs...And I just had to let him go.

Note Bill’s use of the word "sacred" to describe the honesty and respect friends

owe each other. He was able to speak of the loss and the pain associated with it; in

so doing, he revealed his own relational strengths. The friendship deteriorated

because of the friend’s dishonesty in matters regarding money and drugs. From his

perspective, Bill’s only choice was to end the relationship, and this brought him

much pain.

Hustline

The respondents referred to hustling time and again. It appeared that, when

drugs or alcohol become a major part of a life, a person’s relational morals or ethics

give way to "drive without humanity," as a black female friend of mine commented.

"Hustling" can be a creative survival mechanism, but it becomes a destructive

alternative when drugs and alcohol enter the picture. Once a person discovers that he

is a hustling victim, he must make a decision whether to permit the behaviors to go

on or to sever the relationship. Jesse, an eighty-seven-year-old retired steelworker,

reflected on his history as a victim of hustling:

Ill

JESSE: There’s a lot of people like that, lot of people take advantage of you. I know. I had it done to me so many times. Try to do good for them, lend ’em money and things like that, think they would appreciate it. But they don’t care a thing about it until they need some more money.

Jesse remembered a co-worker who kept borrowing money from him without

repaying it. He knew the man had a wife and children, but he caught him one day

with a young woman who was obviously his girlfriend. At that point:

JESSE: I told him, ‘No more. Won’t put more money in your pocket. My money’s gonna be in my pocket or be some place that I can get my hands on it when I need it.’

Then he told a story about another co-worker who charged his purchases from an

automobile supply store on Jesse’s account:

JESSE: I stopped that right away. ‘You just using me.’ I don’t like to be, I hate to be used! I really do. I hate to be used...You use me one time... and I find out about it, you won’t have that chance again. But I like to help. I do like to help. If I can help and you’re not using me, that’s good. But I do get mad when I find out somebody, and that has happened to me over the years...and you know I’ve been here a long time so that’s a lot of years. (Laugh)

Milestones

Military experience was regarded by many of the respondents as a kind of

milestone. It offered them an opportunity to see the world from a different

perspective. Two men, one who served in World War II and the other who served in

Vietnam, spoke to me about their experiences. The World War II truck driver saw

poverty and hunger on a scale that was foreign to him. The Vietnam infantryman

spoke o f the war as a conundrum, a philosophical puzzle that was difficult to solve:

178 JESSE: I hope we never have a war here. People was hungry, eating out of...your garbage can. Wherever we would, they would let ’em get on our post where the...KP put the stuff out there, empty the pot was left, they’d come and take it out and eat it. And you was on a convoy, you was garrisoned K ration or C ration; that’s an emergency ration. Hardtacks and a little can of beans, pork and beans, things like that. And you stopped to eat, you throw what’s left out there...You throw that stuff out and they’d come pick that up and eat it. I sure hope we don’t have to go get to that.

In the next excerpt, Bill spoke about what it had been like to hold life and

death together at the same time in Vietnam:

BILL: What Vietnam taught me was about living and dying. That’s the actual. That’s the begin...Vietnam was the beginning of the end. In other words, there was no in- between. And people who did not go to Vietnam did not see that. We are living in the beginning, and when we die that will be the end. And Vietnam was the beginning of the end. That’s what life is... Your heart paces with a triple beat per minute. That’s what Vietnam was. It’s always scared you’re gonna...tomorrow might be the end. The next minute might be the end. This is living and dying...There was such a total difference in your head, in living and dying. And that’s what I learned from Vietnam. There is a total difference. I got wounded and I was in the hospital for a year.

Bill then recalled his friendship with a white Southern soldier who had been

quite prejudiced in the platoon, but who finally realized that all men were the same.

The white man lost his life defending many of the men he was raised to hate. Bill

commented, "You just shouldn’t have to learn these things through so much pain."

SUMMARY

The black working-class men from Pittsburgh most frequently mentioned the

following points as important components in the shaping of masculinities: an

179 awareness of the relationship between physical stature, hierarchy, and dominance

among peers; a time orientation in the present; an ideology that establishes and

supports the black working-class ideals of hard work, respect for others,

responsibility, endurance of hardship, and the importance of one’s faith; the reality of

racism; the corresponding demoralization or ‘heaviness" in their lives; and the

recognition that whatever contribution one makes is vital to the family’s survival.

They repeatedly mentioned the importance of intergenerational and community

mentoring, and referred to grandfathers, bosses, uncles, great-uncles, brothers, and

neighbors as profound influences in their lives.

Racism had much to do with many facets of these men’s approach to life. The

present-time orientation may be a part of the "feast or famine" mentality that urges

one to enjoy the present benefits of one’s labor. As they said, "you don’t control the

feast"; "someone might just come along and roll up the banquet table." This fatalism

is a part of the harsh reality of these men’s experience. Another part of this present

time orientation is rooted in the fear of violence: "you could be here today and gone

today."

The ideals of the "old heads" (Anderson, 1989) fostered a hope for the future and

a reason for enduring the present. In spite of their discouragement about the younger

generation, the old men hoped that "with consistent pursuit, maybe I’ll catch a

break." One retired steelworker, a deacon in his church, quoted a scripture to me

that happens to be my favorite: "Be not weary in well doing, for in due season, ye

shall reap, if ye faint not." (Galatians 6:9, King James Version) Others said, "Hang

180 on, endure, it can only get better. Do your part. Work hard. Take care of your own.

Take care of your neighbor. Take care of your community. Be honest. Treat others

the way you want to be treated. Respect all people. Don’t forget those that have

sacrificed their lives for you to get where you are. Give something back, whether you

make it or not. People are counting on you."

The men in the interviews spoke very highly of the "old heads" (Anderson, 1989)

and emulated these honorable black working-class ideals. But de-industrialization has

taken a very hard toll on the intergenerational and community mentoring that

characterized the earlier generations of black working-class men. Present-day youth

no longer look to them as sources of inspiration for what they might model

themselves to be. On the contrary, the elders are scorned by the young black males;

thus they worry about the future. One could argue that with the disappearance of the

substantial industrial base into which these men crafted their lives and identities, their

values may not work for young black men today. Without jobs that pay a reasonable

family wage, today’s young men’s masculinity-making process differs significantly

from that of their predecessors.

Through my interviews with these black working-class men, I discovered more

limitations in Chodorow’s (1978) object relations theory. According to Chodorow,

the Industrial Revolution altered the social organization of parenting, but neglects to

identify other competing sociohistorical factors in that process. Her theory does not

shed much insight as to how the experiences of slavery and ongoing racism have

altered parenting arrangements.

181 In the earliest years of these men’s lives, women-whether they be mothers,

grandmothers, aunts and/or Active kin—were the primary caretakers. From

Chodorow’s discussion of boy’s ego boundaries, one would expect these men’s

boundaries to be rigidly closed. I do not find much support for this expectation. In

fact, this was far from what I experienced while I listened to the respondents’ life

stories. They shared their memories with a warm and nurturant expressiveness. This

was particularly true when they tried to gently teach me what it was like to be black.

There seemed to be more of a willingness to disclose tragic circumstances and

personal pain and hurt than I found with either the Amish or the white working-class.

It seems fairly clear that Chodorow’s theory fails to explore any intersection of

gender, class and ethnicity in a particular sociohistorical context. It is this intersection

that becomes an important factor in these men’s gendering identities. I will delineate

additional cross-group comparisons more fully in the final chapter.

These black working-class men and the stories of their lives moved me, and I am

different. To touch the resilience that only they could share has made me better. I

only hope I can recall their endurance when my trials and tribulations come, as they

surely will.

In conclusion, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s response to the Moynihan report (1965)

eloquently and accurately expresses the sociopolitical terrain that African-American

culture and black working-class men continue to face in carving out lives of dignity

and meaning. He says:

The Negro family lived in Africa in nature’s jungle and subdued the hostile environment. In the United States, it has lived in a man-made social and psychological jungle which it could not subdue. Many have been destroyed by it. Yet, others have survived and developed an appalling capacity for hardships. It is on this strength that society can build. What is required is a recognition by society that it has been guilty of the crimes and that it is prepared to atone. With that beginning there need be no doubt about the end.

Many of the ugly experiences in Negro history have been obscured and forgotten. Society is always eager to cover great misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt to justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will or slackens in its determination, its past crimes will dim its future, and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--j ustice.

I do not think that the tiny nation that stood in majesty at Concord and Lexington and that electrified the world with the words of the Declaration of Independence will defame its heritage to avoid a responsibility. That is why I believe not only in the future of the Negro family but in the future of the family of man (Rainwater, 1967, p. 409).

183

CHAPTER 5

WHITE WORKING-CLASS SUBCULTURE

Through the generations many white working-class men have lived their lives in

obscurity without acknowledgment of or appreciation for their substantial

contributions and/or sacrifices for their work and for their families. In the Preface I

spoke of the public acknowledgment my grandfather received at his retirement

dinner. He was being honored for the thirty-eight years he had worked as a janitor

in my high school. His experience, however, is very much the exception. It is with

this awareness that I explore masculinity-making in the lives of white working-class

men in Erie County, Pennsylvania.

Within Erie County is the city of Erie, the third largest city in Pennsylvania, with

a population just over 100,000. The economy, corresponding jobs and work that men

do in this part of the county is a blend of agricultural roots and industrial jobs. This

rather unique blend of agriculture and industry can be seen in the masculinities of the

men interviewed.

Eight of the ten men reflected this blend; they either grew up on farms or

had farming as a part of their boyhood or adolescent experience. Only two men came

from families where the father was embedded solely in the industrial working-class.

As a result, the labor perspective they offered was a combination of agrarian and

industrial epistemologies. Most have a kind of petty bourgeois epistemology

somewhere in between the more typical adversarial relationship of factory owners

and unions found in larger metropolitan areas. Having grown up on a farm, these

184 men are aware of the relationship between ownership and the means of production in

a way that rank and file proletariat would not. At the same time, they are aware of

the tendency for management to exploit their labor, and they try to guard against it.

Fred, a 62-year-old retired foundry worker and active farmer comments:

FRED: [Both workers and owners] make no sense to me. Either you gotta deal with workers stealing from the shop, stealing the shop blind, or the company trying to work you to death. There’s times I gone into union meetings and said some things that just ain’t popular. You know what I tell ’em, sheep flock together, but a lion stands alone. Then there are other times I tell the foreman where he can stick it.

Note that this man’s position vacillates depending on the issue. He is able to

straddle between the two groups, identifying with the owners in some instances and

his fellow workers in others. At least for the men interviewed, this was not unusual.

These men also represent the predominant ethnic groups that migrated to the

northwestern corner of Pennsylvania. To look at census figures from 1990, the

predominant ancestries include: German, Polish, Italian, Irish and Scotch-Irish (Erie

County Department of Planning, 1995). Erie County’s principal ancestry in the

census data, whether reported as single or multiple ancestry, is German, reflecting the

resident’s earlier history of emigration to the New World and migration to Erie

County. Persons emigrating from the aforementioned major European countries have

their own stories, some of them similar and then again different from each other.

These stories contribute to the prevailing conservative ethos of the area.

Some discussion of the history of Erie County is warranted to adequately

contextualize my interviews with these white working-class men. This review is

185 indicated as it relates to the predominant ethnic groups that emigrated due to

European colonialism and expansion. The discussion will begin with some brief

mention of the French and English, as they set the stage for eventual settlement of

the region. The histories of European emigrants are embedded in their particular

sociohistorical situation. I will present the immigration history of the predominant

ethnic groups, and then discuss the development of the working-class in

Pennsylvania, including white servitude and some Erie County labor history.

EUROPEAN MIGRATION TO PENNSYLVANIA

The early settlers of Erie County followed the migration pattern of the various

European emigrants who laid claim to land in America. When this particular area

became part of the U.S., the way was open for many emigrants looking for freedoms:

freedom from persecution (whether religious or political) and freedom from poverty.

They also sought opportunities for employment and land ownership. In many

instances the latter was not an option in their homelands.

European emigration to Erie County actually began with the French in the 1750s,

almost seventy years after settlements in the eastern part of the state had been

established. Competing claims to this area existed between the French and English.

The French cited LaSalle’s voyage in 1682 to claim the territory, while the English

used earlier expeditions by Cabot for their claim. French settlements had been

established as far north as Canada and as far south as Louisiana. With regard to the

French, Chapman (1887) states, "Apart from other considerations, it was highly

desirable to possess the Ohio as a convenient line o f communication between these

186 widely separated settlements" (pp. 10-11). Also, the tributaries and rivers could be

followed from as far north as River aux Boeufs, or Le Boeuf, now known as French

Creek, southward to the Ohio river, to the Mississippi, and into the Gulf o f Mexico.

The French took steps to befriend the native American tribes in the area and set them

against the English. At the same time, approximately 200 French soldiers were

dispatched from Montreal to establish forts along the waterways to claim ownership.

In Erie County this included Fort Presque Isle on Lake Erie and Fort LeBoeuf,

fifteen miles to the south, in what is now Waterford, Pennsylvania.

In the late fall of 1753, George Washington, in his first official assignment for

the British government, came to Waterford (what is now Erie County) on behalf of

Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia. His mission was to present papers laying British

claim to the region and to demand that the French vacate the fortifications. The

French refused British claims and demands, which eventually ushered in the French

and Indian War. With their 1763 victory in this war, British influence reigned in

Pennsylvania with an influx of Scotch-Irish immigrants to the area. This pattern

lasted until the revolution.

Scotch-Irish Emigration

It appears from a review of the various histories of Erie County that the first

settlers were actually Scotch-Irish. However, those who helped settle Erie County

were neither Scotch nor Irish nor of mixed race. Smylie (1990) comments that they

were Presbyterians, enlightened Calvinists, from the Scottish lowlands, "who settled

in the northern province of Ireland, Ulster, during the seventeenth century" (p.l).

187 England at that time was attempting to consolidate and strengthen itself as a "viable

nation state" (p.l). As a way of handling "rebellious Irish Catholic landholders" (p.l)

and Scotch Presbyterians, the English monarch, James VI, drove the Irish earls out of

Ulster and offered land leases to the Scotch as a form of appeasement. Many Scotch

took his offer and leased the land, but difficulties followed. A number of political

and economic enactments made remaining in Ulster quite difficult. They included

new lease arrangements on the land that exacted higher and higher costs to the

farming tenants; new tariffs on wool and linen industries that made exporting

unprofitable; and finally, a higher tithing requirement for support of the Anglican

church, which was the state-sanctioned church o f England.

Post-Reformation Protestant movements set the stage for another group to

migrate to the New World. When they emigrated, the Scotch-Irish found little

available land in eastern Pennsylvania, as it had already been settled by the English

and Germans. As a result they migrated farther west, settling as small farmers in

much of what is now western Pennsylvania.

Smylie (1990) describes the Scotch-Irish national character as portrayed in the

fictional works of author Agnes Sligh Turnbull. She states that of the Scotch-Irish

who emigrated to western Pennsylvania:

The Scotch-Irish are presented as very religious, Calvinist and Presbyterian, with a strong sense of being called of and responsible to God. They appear independent and self-reliant, hard-working, thrifty and willing to take risks in life for that which they believe or think they need. (Smylie, 1990, p. 34)

188 Smylie (1990) also notes what he considers the negative attributes of the Scotch-

Irish; these include the proclivity for divisiveness, anti-Catholic sentiment, and

stubbornness. This can be seen in a prayer of an Irish Presbyterian elder, "Grant that

I may be always right, for Thou knowest I am hard to turn" (p. 30).

German Emigration

As mentioned in the sociohistorical context of the Amish, German emigration is

rooted in the Reformation and the ensuing persecution by the Catholic church and

Catholic nation states. Tensions increased as ideas spawned during the Reformation

spread throughout different parts of Europe, particularly through Germany. War

became inevitable, culminating in the Thirty Years War. The war ended with the

treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Calvinists gained legitimacy with Roman Catholics and

Lutherans. But the war’s end did not necessarily stop their persecution.

The war had been hard on Germany, particularly in the Palatinate and

Rhineland regions with their rich farmlands known as "the garden of Germany." The

area had been devastated, whole villages had been burned and destroyed, and a great

number of inhabitants had been killed. These circumstances made the time ripe for an

exodus of German Protestants.

The land that is now Pennsylvania was part of a land grant issued to William

Penn in 1681 by King Charles II of England to pay off the government’s debt to

Penn’s father. Penn, a Quaker who was familiar with religious persecution in

England, personally visited and invited Germans of various religious and political

sects from the Palatinate province to emigrate and settle this land. He offered

189 religious and civil liberty to these "suffering Palatines" and, as a result, Germantown

was born in 1683 (Strassburger, 1934).

Those who emigrated were not only from the Palatinate on the western German

border; Dutch and Swiss reformers came as well. These three groups of immigrants

became the "Pennsylvania Dutch." Pfund (1944) elaborates, "These settlers were

followed by others from South Germany and Switzerland, who left their homes to

escape religious persecution: Mennonites, German Quakers, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders

and Moravians" (p. 7).

The Germans who emigrated were not limited to adherents of Protestantism.

Although colonial Germans were Protestants, "In the 19th century, Roman Catholics

increased to one-third of the German-American population" (Winawer-Steiner &

Wetzel, 1982, p. 251).

These German settlers were consummate farmers noted for their advanced

ecological and agricultural techniques. Kollmorgen (1942) notes that the rich

Palatinate and Rhineland regions in Germany made the German emigrants

particularly well suited to the area since they came with "constructive farming"

practices. These advanced practices included rotating crops, planting orchards,

maintaining a family vegetable garden, building large barns, and providing

particularly good care to livestock. The German peasant who settled in Pennsylvania

"preferred his agricultural way of life because he felt that it had divine approval"

(Kollmorgen, 1942, p. 44). Kollmorgen quotes the 1789 writing of Benjamin Rush:

190 "The Germans take great pains to produce in their children, not only habits of labor,

but a love of it" (Kollmorgen, 1942, p. 51).

German emigration took place after the Scotch-Irish had settled in Erie

County. Although many Germans came well before the Scotch-Irish to Pennsylvania,

their settlement in Erie County was slower than the Scotch-Irish, as the primary

German settlements were in the eastern part of the state. Emigration west by the

Germans did not take place in great numbers until after national independence. Once

the Revolutionary War was over, German emigration from the Philadelphia and

Lancaster regions to Erie County flourished. Nelson (1896) states, "As long as the

crown of England held control the English and Scotch-Irish element dominated, but

some years after Independence the Germans rose into political power, and, for a long

period, elected most of the public officers, and gave tone to State legislation"

(Nelson, 1896, p. 22).

Winawer-Steiner and Wetzel (1982) describe the German national heritage as

boundary oriented. Boundaries were well-defined and structured, and people made

clear distinctions between their public and private selves. They maintained

boundaries with acquaintances and friends, tending not "to encourage open expression

of affection or anger, joy or disappointment" (Winawer-Steiner & Wetzel, 1982, p.

261). This orientation encouraged productivity (i.e., through completing tasks and

responsibilities) as opposed to nurturance and emotions.

191 Irish Emigration

It was not until after the Great Famine in Ireland during the 1840s that many

Irish Catholic emigrants came to Pennsylvania. From 1850-1900 almost four million

Irish came to the United States; the great majority were Catholics. Smylie (1990)

comments that their "lives had been completely impoverished and disrupted by the

virus which destroyed the potato crop several years in succession and caused

devastating famine throughout the land" (p. 28). Their plight was similar to the

Scotch-Irish, but in many ways worse. Horgan (1988) notes that England kept Ireland

in subjugation by keeping it as a rural colony, limiting any economic growth that

might make Ireland a threat to the crown. England was careful to take "steps to

destroy the beginnings of industrialization" (Horgan, 1988, p. 47) in Ireland.

Concurrently, the population was growing rapidly. This resulted in the land being

repeatedly subdivided, making it next to impossible to support a farmer and his

family on such meager holdings. The combination of Anglican hostility towards the

Irish Catholics, smaller plots of land on which to support a family, and repeated

potato blights between 1800 and 1848 made it untenable for many single and recently

married Irish to remain in Ireland.

Horgan (1988) cites the Irish-Catholic emphasis on familism as a major strength

brought to the United States. This familism was expressed not only in family

involvement, but in the community as well. The result was the establishment of

various institutions, whether churches, hospitals, or schools, all accompanied by a

concern for orphans and the elderly (Miller, 1909).

192 McGoldrick (1982) and Spiegel (1982) refer to the influence of the Irish

Roman Catholic church in the Irish value orientation. McGoldrick (1982) traces Irish

asceticism to Jansenism. "The Jansenists emphasized personal holiness and

condemned the evil nature and untrustworthy instincts of human beings" (p. 313).

Spiegel (1982) comments on the difficulty this sociocultural influence has had on the

Irish concept of human nature which results in preoccupation with sin and guilt.

Along with the Jansenistic influence, he also addresses the Irish expectation of

suffering "as a part of our fate in this world" resulting in a "stoical and

tough-minded" approach (p. 44).

Polish Emigration

The history of Polish emigration to the United States, Pennsylvania and Erie

County is, in some ways, similar to that of the Irish. At the same time the American

colonies were trying to establish nationhood, Poland was being divided between

Germany, Russia and Austria. After three of these divisions or partitions, the last of

which was in 1795, Poland was no longer an independent, separate country. Repeated

efforts were made to re-establish the state, but with little success.

A combination of economic, political, and cultural issues resulted in the mass

migration of Poles to the United States from 1890 to 1914. The lack of jobs and

land, accompanied by a surging population, made for less than adequate survival.

Magda (1992) states, "Aggravating the land shortage were large estate owners who

seized more land, forcing small or medium-sized farmers out of work. Competition

from mechanized and more productive farms in Western Europe and the United

193 States made it ever more difficult for less efficient Polish farmers to maintain their

livelihoods" (p. 20).

With the ever shrinking availability of land and jobs in Europe and the great

need for unskilled labor in the industrializing United States, Poles emigrated to the

cities, since these held the greatest job promise. In Pennsylvania, these included the

coal mining and steel centers located in the eastern and southwestern part o f the state.

In many of these cities, Polish communities developed to such an extent that, if a

Polish immigrant chose, he or she could live entirely within those bounds, rarely

venturing forth into any other part of the city. Greeley (1971) comments, "One can

work with, play with, marry, attend church with, vote with, and join fraternal

organizations...one can choose fellow ethnics to perform all the professional functions

one requires...one can read ethnic newspapers, seek counsel from ethnic clergymen,

play on ethnic baseball teams and vote for ethnic candidates in elections" (p. 47).

Erie’s Polish community began with an influx of intellectuals who left Poland for

political reasons. These Polish emigrants came from "the German partition of Poland"

(Skarupski, 1982, p. 12) and, given the predominantly German emigration contingent,

assimilated more easily than did the peasants who came later. When the peasants

migrated, a more concentrated effort to preserve Polish heritage surfaced through the

development of community organizations that served this end. Residents of

"Polonia," the Polish community on the East Side, built a church and established a

"Benevolent Society."

194 Skarupski (1982) continues, "After planting its roots in the early 1900’s, the first

organization in Erie’s Polonia was the Roman Catholic Church—specifically St.

Stanislaus. The congregation of St. Stanislaus was formed in 1883 and was composed

almost entirely of Polish immigrants" (p. 13). This society, like the German Society

of Pennsylvania, looked for ways in which the Polish community could work

together to bring family members to Erie County and preserve their ethnic heritage.

With the support of the Roman Catholic Church and church-sponsored societies, the

Polish community grew from 80 to 300 families between 1886-1901. Polish parochial

schools were built in an effort to preserve the Polish language; Polish was taught in

these schools until 1940 (Skarupski, 1982).

These immigrants’ value orientation included an emphasis on individualism and

self-sufficiency. Their competitive spirit amongst themselves was thought to

characterize village and urban life in their native Poland (Lopata, 1988). Stoicism

was also highly valued as a coping mechanism, with emotional expressions of fear

and/or anxiety not permitted or well-tolerated. This stoicism is attributed to the harsh

peasant existence and threat o f invasion and war that characterized the homeland

(Mondykowski, 1982).

Italian Emigration

Mass migration by Italians to the United States occurred relatively late, in

comparison to migration from other European countries. According to Grifo and

Noto (1990), Italian emigration began in 1834, but in small numbers until 1880. The

majority of the Italians that left Italy for the United States did so between 1880 and

195 the late 1920s. The rationale for their mass exodus is rooted more in economic than

in religious terms. Southern Italy was an "ecological disaster" (Grifo & Noto, 1990,

p.2) due to deforestation that began with Hannibal almost two thousand years earlier.

In the early 1900s, an insect blight on the three-quarters of a million acres of

vineyards and a taxing system that favored the wealthy landowners set the stage for

Italians to emigrate almost solely for economic reasons. In the early 1800s,

emigration took place to other destinations including northern Italy, South America,

and Africa.

Grifo and Noto continue, "Between 1880 and the late 1920s, the United States

had a shortage of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, railroad workers and public works

laborers; many Italians had skills which enabled them to meet America’s shortage"

(p.3). In all probability, it was the United States’ need for skilled labor that made it

the preferred emigration point for Italians who sought secure employment so they

could support their families.

Their intention was not to emigrate and stay in the United States, but to establish

a source of work and income that could support families in Italy. Many "came to the

United States with the idea of going back to Italy as soon as possible" (Squier &

Quadagno, 1981, p.l 13). Return migration was as much the norm as remaining in the

States, "as more than half of all Italian emigrants returned to their native villages at

least once" (Grifo & Noto, 1990, p. 2).

Similar to the Irish, the Italians value familism quite highly. In contrast to the

English, German, or Scotch-Irish emigrants’ emphasis on individualism, autonomy,

196 and personal achievement, the Italians’ identities were rooted in their families and

communities. This familistic orientation, coupled with the end of the homestead laws,

resulted in the Italians’ preference to settle in urban centers and create "little Italies."

Italian values clashed with the prevalent European individual ethos. To make

matters worse, Italians experienced more than a little hostility from Irish Catholics,

who ran the Catholic churches and parochial schools at that time

(Grifo & Noto, 1990; Rotunno & McGoldrick, 1982). In many instances, Italian

families sent their children to public schools to avoid the additional expense of a

child’s education and to avoid subjecting their children to potential mistreatment by

the Irish Catholics.

Although Italian migration to the United States predates Polish migration, the

Italians did not emigrate to Erie en masse until after the turn of the century. In 1900,

there were 350 Italians in the city of Erie, and by 1920 that figure grew to 11,000

(Hood, 1983). Hood makes an interesting point regarding the tendency of emigrant

groups, in this case Italians, to secure housing as close to their employment as

possible. He states,

It was not uncommon for the early immigrants to seek locations near their source of employment, where they could find cheap housing. The early Irish and Russians chose to settle along the Bayfront where they found work on the docks. The Poles formed their community near the foundries. Many o f the early Italians worked for the railroads and area factories" (p. 35).

As it had with the Poles, the Roman Catholic church and various church-

affiliated mutual-aid societies provided the Italians with cultural continuity, aid, and

197 recreational fellowship. Prior to 1890, the Erie Italians attended mass at St.

Michael’s, a German Catholic Church; as a result of the tensions between the two

groups, St. Paul’s, an Italian church, was established in 1891.

An Italian Lutheran contingent developed in Erie in the 1920s. To some extent,

this evolved from a young people’s social hall, which had been the brainchild of an

Italian Lutheran pastor. This social hall was frequented by the children of the Italian

emigrants. Hood cites an article in the local newspaper, stating, "the youth

center...was the only place in town that served pizza on Saturday nights" (Hood,

1983, p. 49).

Italian social organizations developed for similar reasons as they did for the

German, Irish, and Polish contingents. They also provided an ethnic cohesiveness,

helping the immigrant become adjusted to the new community. The Italian social

groups also provided aid in the form of "sickness and death benefits to their

members" (Hood, 1983, p. 52). Along with these important acculturation functions,

the organizations also offered a cultural cushion against the discrimination and

prejudice Italians faced in securing employment, housing, and membership in

"non-Italian social clubs" by their fellow County residents.

Rotunno and McGoldrick (1982) cite the economic situation of southern Italians

as a key element in the development o f familism and fatalism in Italian families.

They comment, "Italians, who were exploited by the ruling classes, learned to define

themselves by their associations with their families and their immediate

neighbors...allegiance to the family surpassed all other loyalties...Value was placed on

198 the personality traits that would provide a cushion against external stability" (p. 341).

The difficulties in providing for self and family led to a fatalism common among

peasant peoples. But Italians took great pride in coping with life’s hardships.

"Resilience became more than an attitude; it became a way of life" (Rotunno &

McGoldrick, 1982, p. 342).

THE CONSERVATIVE ETHOS OF ERIE COUNTY

The combination of these various ethnic subcultures resulted in a particularly

conservative ethos in Erie County. It is possible that a blend of these cultural belief

systems, distinct and overlapping, has resulted in the spirit or character of this region.

Without resorting to stereotyping, some of the stocks of knowledge or meaning

systems that contribute to that conservatism include: German pietism (Pennypacker,

1899) Scotch-Irish Calvinism (Smylie, 1990), Irish Catholic asceticism from the

Jansenistic movement (McGoldrick, 1982), Polish peasant individualism and

self-sufficiency (Mondykowski, 1982), and Italian fatalism and corresponding

resilience (Rotunno & McGoldrick, 1982). Also, the influence o f the Catholic church

and familism cannot be ignored in the lives of those Irish, Polish and Italian peasants

who emigrated to Erie County.

These frameworks for organizing one’s life and experiences may be particularly

important as they relate to masculinity formation. As Weber (1958) noted, the work

ethic became independent of its religious origins. However, the values inherent in the

ethnic epistemologies became ethnically independent as well. Most of the men

199 interviewed were unconscious of their cultural epistemology’s ethnic and religious

origins.

LABOR HISTORY

The people who emigrated and settled Erie County began as farmers, but soon

found other work in various developing industries to supplement their agricultural

livelihoods. Some history regarding labor, including the role of indentured servants

and redemptioners, is appropriate to contextualize the development of the white

working-class. It is also important to examine the development of Erie County’s

labor force.

A shortage of labor in the colonies resulted in the development of three classes

of labor. The first class included freemen. According to Herrick (1926), "Free

laborers bargained for wages in the open market, and were hired for a definite time,

generally of considerable extent; they were privileged to withdraw from their service

if they so wished, though this might mean the forfeiture, wholly or in part, of the

wages earned" (p. 2). Apparently, these men were rare. Given the availability of land

and the desire to be landowners in the colonies, men who could be hired laborers

worked their own parcels. Indentured servants and slaves made up the second and

third groups.

INDENTURED SERVANTS AND REDEMPTIONERS

Many of the early Pennsylvania immigrants were peasants without enough money

to pay for their passage to the developing colonies. As a result, they were offered the

option of passage in exchange for payment on arrival. But the payment was made to

the captain and the ship by a person who purchased the labor of the emigrant for a

particular period of time, supposedly equal to the costs of the voyage. Herrick (1926)

explains:

if they have not the means to do this and no friends advanced the money, they were required to sell themselves to become free from the captain. If such emigrants did not pay within the customary time, usually thirty days, or the time agreed upon, they were subject to legal procedure under the laws of debt" (p. 4).

Early indentured servants came from Great Britain. The labor shortage in the

colonies continued, and German emigrants known as "redemptioners" migrated, but

with much different arrangements. Indentured servants had their obligations cancelled

through service, whereas redemptioners were "those whose price of passage was paid

on arrival, sometimes by friends, but more often by sale" (Herrick, 1926, p. 4). Some

differences were noted regarding the legal agreements made for those who came from

Great Britain and those who migrated from Germany. Agreements made for German

passengers were much more "vague," with terms subject to interpretation. Abuse of

German emigrants before, during, and following arrival, led to the formation of the

German Society of Pennsylvania. In a book chronicling the society’s formation, an

advertisement from a paper just two weeks prior to its founding states,

SALE OF INDENTURE

The period of service of an indented maid is for sale. She has only just arrived in this country this fall, is about 22 years old, a strong, hale and hearty wench, suitable for the city or the country, and seems accustomed to doing heavy work. (Pfund, 1944, p. 7)

201 Herrick (1926) comments that white servitude included first the Germans, then

the Irish, and was common until the 1830s. Pennsylvania was notable in its early

opposition to slavery, but, according to Herrick, its opposition was more a matter of

protecting Pennsylvania’s indentured and redemptioner labor arrangements than

opposing "this other form of labor" (Herrick, 1926, p. 285). The German Society of

Pennsylvania refers to the redemptioner arrangements and the subsequent selling of

these emigrant laborers as the German "slave market." Like slaves, redemptioners

were subjected to abuse such as family dissolution, mistreatment by the master, or

extended terms due to another family member’s death or illness.

FURTHER EXPLOITATION OF EMIGRANT LABOR

With the dissolution of the redemptioner system of labor around 1830, new labor

pools from other ethnic groups became available for developing industries. The

Polish and Italians who emigrated in the mid to late 1800s "were too willing to

accept low wages and poorer working conditions" (Magda, 1992, p. 46). Their

respective peasant experiences in their homelands made them unfamiliar with

"industrialism and unionism" (Grifo & Noto, 1990, p. 8).

Just as blacks were used as strikebreakers in the steel industry in Pittsburgh,

Italians and Poles (along with other Slavs and Hungarians) found a similar fate. Grifo

and Noto (1990) identify a number of incidents that characterized the experiences of

many Italian men who tried to secure employment in Pennsylvania. It was not

unusual for these men to be stoned or driven into the woods by "locals" who were

furious with the mining and railroad industries for bringing cheap labor to their cities

202 and towns. Many times threats would culminate in violent responses by local miners

or railroad construction crews, leaving a number of the Italian laborers injured or

dead.

Gutman (1976) states that the various industries developing in the late nineteenth

century exploited "ethnic differences in order to weaken potential trade-union

solidarity" (Gutman, 1976, p. 173). Thus it seems that the most recently arrived

group generally became the ethnic group pitted against union labor.

Gradually, as these various ethnic groups settled into the industrial communities,

and as the legislation limits on immigration brought in fewer and fewer numbers of

new emigrants to the labor force, the ethnic groups began embracing the organizing

efforts of unions (Gutman, 1976; Montgomery, 1979). Poles and Italians became

quite active in unionizing mines and mills (Gutman, 1976; Magda, 1992). The

positive effects of these efforts resulted in a six- rather than a seven-day work week

and eventually a ten- rather than the standard twelve-hour workday.

Regarding the cultural differences in meanings and frameworks as they relate to

work, Gutman (1976) and Montgomery (1979) chronicle the changes these

immigrants faced when they tried to adapt to American industrial standards and work

habits. Most o f them were peasants and had village work habits that included furious

labor for short periods of time, interspersed with breaks. These breaks could be quite

lengthy, particularly if weddings (in some ethnic groups three to five days was not an

uncommon celebration period) and holy days interfered.

203 This seems particularly important as it relates to a subtle shift from the ethnic

enclave’s meaning-giving system to work as the primary source of identity. This

would not have occurred very quickly, but through time and the disappearance of the

ethnic communities, identity through one’s work affiliations would compete with, if

not dominate over, one’s ethnic and religious heritage.

EXPLOITATION OF A WORKER’S WAGES

SIXTEEN TONS Sixteen tons, What do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt, St. Peter don't ya call me, Cause I can 7 go,

I owe my soul to the company store. (Merle Travis, Songwriter, 1947)

This song, made popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955, spoke of the

prevalence of industry-run stores in the Kentucky coal mines. But in the

mid-nineteenth century, it was not unusual for an Erie County company to pay the

majority of a worker’s wages in company-printed due-bills to be used exclusively at

the "company store." An interesting anecdote is printed in the 1896 version of an

historical account for Erie County. It reads,

The following incident illustrates the mode of paying wages forty years ago: The bookkeeper, Mr. M., said to the member of the Furnace Company firm who acted as cashier: ‘Mr. C., one of the men, Mr. H., wants six dollars in cash this evening to pay the taxes on his farm.’ ‘Well,’ replied Mr. C., ‘he cannot have so much money as that at once.’ Mr. M. argued that H. had had no money since he (M.) had been bookkeeper for the firm, and, by M.’s persuasion, C. consented to give H. the money. H. was called into the office and the money handed to him; and Mr. C. asked, ‘Mr. H., how long have you worked in this establishment?’ H. replied, ‘Over ten

204 years.’ ‘How much of your wages have you had in cash during that time?’ inquired Mr. C. ‘Just what I now have in my hand. This is the first money I have ever received for my work,’ was the reply of H. (Nelson, 1896, pp. 119-120)

Rarely would companies exchange "scrip," as the printed due-bills were

called, for cash. Independent merchants or speculators would offer cash at a fraction

of the scrips’ worth. It took legislation by the state of Pennsylvania to outlaw such

practices; in 1862, manufacturing firms in Erie County began paying their hires in

cash. In other parts of Pennsylvania it was well after 1900 before the practice was

discontinued (Athey, 1990).

PROTEST MASCULINITY

Ben, a retired coal miner whose father had been active in the union-organizing

effort in the 20s, reflected on the strikes he experienced with his father at the time.

BEN: Oh, [the strike] was for working conditions and wages...if you went to town and you bought something in there, they’d lay you off for a couple weeks...anything to make it miserable for you. You had to buy everything in a [company] store. They’d charge you everything so high in the store that you didn’t have enough money to move out of there once they got ahold of you.

Ben vividly remembered the tactics of the industrialists at the time. Threats to

union organizers were followed by either firings, layoffs or wholesale importation of

another labor force. He recalled a time when men were deputized to throw his father

and family out of their home.

BEN: Well, see, my dad was getting organized and we lived at Smith’s Landing. This [coal] company had homes on both sides, houses, you know, company houses. The public road went right through the center. They went and deputized

205 deputies, and threw our furniture right out on the middle of the road. They had the coal and iron police, and any place there was five or six men they’d come over with them trained horses to trample you. You should have seen how them poor guys would run and try to hide under the porch, anyplace, to try to get away from them there horses...They had them iron helmets, like the Bobbies in England. My God, they had no use for strikers.

Ben recalled the issues that led to unionizing on a wide scale. He also shed some

interesting light on the responsibility some of the industrialists had for the continued

racism and prejudice as blacks from the south and recent immigrants were brought in

to break the strikes.

BEN: [The coal mine owners] got so doggone mean, and they went and got a bunch of these blackies...to break strikes. Bring ’em right in watermelon cars-cattle cars. Right from down South. And then them there guys was good workers. And the mines went to hell because they didn’t take any better care of them than they did us. So they stopped working hard. Some would start rolling dice—who’s going to go ahead and get paid for that car that good worker did, see? They’d gamble, wouldn’t put the posts, you know...fall in. Once they fell in you’d have to work three or four days for nothing, you know, just to go ahead and clean the slate and try to get that back up where it belonged. So they didn’t win anything with...you know, by treating the strikers the way they did.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY AND A WORKING-CLASS IN ERIE COUNTY

The early settlers in Erie County were primarily farmers, but as history has

shown, the life was anything but idyllic. Hardship was common as can be seen by

descriptions of "the conditions of the people." An early history of the county states: Most of the people were in moderate circumstances, and were content to live in a very cheap way. A majority had to depend mainly on the produce of their little clearings, which consisted, to a large extent, of potatoes and corn. Mush, corn

206 bread, and potatoes were the principal food. There was no meat except game" (History of Erie County. Pennsylvania. 1884, p. 231).

In the early 1800s, a salt mine was discovered near Salinas, New York, just over

the Pennsylvania border. It provided salt for Pittsburgh and other populated areas in

the South. The salt was mined in Salinas, shipped to Buffalo, and put on boats to

Erie. With the use of oxen teams, it was shipped from Erie to Waterford, where flat

boats could take it south on French Creek to the Allegheny River and to Pittsburgh.

It took the salt from two to three months to travel from Salinas to Pittsburgh.

Farmers in the area spent a good part of their time transporting salt back and

forth from Waterford to Erie. The earliest history of Erie County reports:

The hauling of the salt over the portage between Erie and Waterford...gave employment to many citizens of the county. To some farmers the trade was really a Godsend, as their land barely furnished food for their families, and, no markets being near for the little they had to sell, they were obliged by necessity to spend a part of their time at some other employment to raise money for taxes, groceries and clothing...There was a period when salt was almost the only circulating medium in the county. Oxen, horses, negro slaves and land were sold to be paid for in so much salt. (Warner, Beers, & Co., 1884, p. 243)

This earliest account of supplemental employment by farmers in Erie County

provides an excellent prelude to the interviews. Immigrants who came later

oftentimes resorted to farming as a way to ensure basic necessities, especially if they

thought they were too embedded in the industrial sector, which made them vulnerable

to work shortages and layoffs.

207 As the county developed in the early years, grist mills, saw mills, tanneries, and

breweries were soon followed by woolen mills, brick and tile works, paper mills,

cheese factories, and iron foundries. The port provided additional jobs as shipbuilders

and fishermen were required in the lake trade. Technological advancements in

transportation (Federal Writers’ Project, 1938) also provided more jobs and new

occupations, going from a carriage and wagon works to the canals and railroads.

PRESENT-DAY WHITE IDENTITY AS A FUNCTION OF CLASS

Even though I am white, I know very little about my ethnic and cultural roots.

There are few if any traditions, rituals or ceremonies that approximate my father’s

Slovak and Russian heritage or my mother’s German, English, French and Irish

backgrounds. In fact, it seems that my lower working-class family background has

more to do with the notion of my own identity than any of the half-a-dozen or so

ethnic combinations of which I am a product.

But is there really a common cultural history in white families today? Almost

fifty years ago, Margaret Mead (1949) wrote that this was not the case. She states,

for instance, that even though almost all homes approximate each other in regard to

the eating utensils they use, how they use them and what meanings they give to such

use varies from home to home. She states,

In America the language of each home is different, there is a code in each family that no one else knows...finally beaten into a language that each understands imperfectly...But in a culture like modem America, the child does not see any such harmonious, repetitive behaviour, (pp. 248-251)

208 This quote from Mead sounds very much like the postmodern and

deconstructionist critique going on in family theory and therapy today (Doherty,

1991). Gergen (1991) states, "We ingest myriad bits of others’ being—values,

attitudes, opinions, life styles, personalities—synthesizing and incorporating them into

our own definition of self' (p. 28). The notion of a culture that broadly represents the

white majority is relevant in some o f the core values that represent the ethos of

postmodern American society. Values such as hyper-individualism, the success ethic,

and a future orientation (McGill & Pearce, 1982; Mead, 1949), in my estimation,

have been separated from the ethnicity and religion in which they had been originally

rooted. For the purposes of this study, working-class whites are viewed as distant

and unaware of their ethnic roots, and they display great variation in the degree of

"shared culture and lifestyle."

From postmodern theory, one could assume that, to the extent that culture and

lifestyle are shared in an ethnic sense, the sharing is minimal for whites. When it is

shared, many times it is in a fragmented and unintegrated fashion and, in all

likelihood, it is based more on class than ethnicity.

EMBEDDING FAMILY LIFE IN THE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM. CLASS. AND STATUS

In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode o f life, their interests, and their culture from those of other classes, and put them in hostile contrast to the latter, they form a class. (Marx, 1978, p. 608)

209 For Marx, class began very early in human history. The division of labor, which

Marx argues is at the root of class difference, appears to have its genesis sometime

between the tribal stage (known for its elementary, natural form of division of labor)

and the ancient communal stage (where the antagonism between town and country

developed).

Marx argues that, in any society, class is defined by people’s relationship to

the means of production. Under capitalism there are two basic relationships to the

forces of production: ownership of the means or forces of production (bourgeoisie)

or non-ownership (proletariat). Means or forces of production refer to the factories,

land, tools or any kind of productive property. Individuals who do not own the

means of production sell their labor for wages as a means to subsist and meet the

most basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing.

Marx makes some distinctions between the earlier stages of the division of labor

and the division of labor under capitalism. In the ancient and/or feudal stages, social

bonds played a crucial role in the exchange of goods or service; in capitalist society,

however, these social bonds have been altered. They are no longer social relations

between persons, but "material relations between persons and social relations between

things" (Marx, 1978, p. 321).

Langman (1987) comments that alteration of social bonds by capitalism created a

further division of public and private realms in the lives of the bourgeoisie, one that

was very different from the "households of the aristocracy or the peasantry" (p.218)

She argues that, as a result, an emotional revolution took place with the bourgeoisie

210 withdrawing "from wider social networks to the private realm of the family, with

new attitudes and forms of intimacy" (p. 1). As a result the emotional climate and

internal dynamics made for different family arrangements going from "a loosely

defined structure to a cohesive unit" (p. 218).

CLASSES AS STATUS GROUPS

Langman (1987) also argues that classes must be seen as status groups with

ongoing social-psychological processes that help in their continued perpetuation. She

writes, "For Weber, a status group was bound by personal ties, a common sense of

social honor, and shared values. These, in turn, generated a ‘status culture’ of shared

lifestyles and cultural tastes" (p. 245). This status culture includes people’s work

realities and creates a particular class-based epistemology or frame for their view of

the world, which also influences their "sense of competence, marital relations, and

parental roles" (p. 245).

The differences between status groups can be delineated in any of a number of

dimensions from philosophy, values, authority, sex-role differentiation, socialization,

to the very recreational interests used to represent a lifestyle. Philosophically, the

higher status groups believe in self-mastery and self-control throughout the lifecourse,

whereas the lower classes express a higher degree of fatalism. Accompanying

mastery in the higher status groups is the value placed on "cognitive and rational

aspects of a person and a family" (Boss, 1987, p. 715). Fatalism, on the other hand,

"involves the intuitive, the unconscious, and the mystical" (Boss, 1987, p. 715). The

term fatalism may better be expressed as acceptance of one’s less powerful position

211 in the world. This may also translate into a personality with an external locus of

control with the internal loci reserved for persons in higher status groups. Regarding

values, authority, and socialization, Langman (1987, p. 238) notes that relationships

in the middle to upper classes, whether spousal or parent-child, have more o f an

egalitarian power differential than do working- and lower-class families. Parent-child

relationships in higher status groups emphasize inner-control or impulse-control with

a focus on the child’s psychological well-being, while working- and lower-class

families emphasize obedience and tend toward authoritarianism.

From this relatively brief discussion, one can see the relevance o f status groups

in the shaping of masculinities for white men. This discussion is not limited to

whites, but one could argue that it plays a crucial role in their developing gendered

self. In his exploration of the connection between sports and the construction of

gender, Messner (1992) agrees, stating, "Because males have substantially different

interactions with the world, based on class, race and other differences and

inequalities, we might expect the construction of masculinity to take on different

meanings for boys and men from different backgrounds" (p. 174).

Exploring the subjective realities of white working-class men, in the context

outlined, expands our understanding beyond the rather narrow, white middle-class

hegemonic forms. Clatterbaugh (1990) comments,

Most of the literature on masculinity focuses on men who are owners, managers, and professionals. As the lives of these men are taken as representative, masculinity becomes identified with competitiveness, not solidarity; making ever more money, not getting-by; promotion, not fear of being laid

212 off; learning to live in healthy ways, not being maimed at work; how to spend leisure time, not the exhaustion of compulsory overtime, (p. 113)

WHITE WORKING-CLASS MEN: "MEN AT WORK"

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past. (Marx, 1978, p. 595)

This quote from Karl Marx is a fitting introduction for this part of the chapter. I

found myself resonating with the respondents’ recollections, enjoying the deep, rich

texture. My experiences with them were both similar and different to my experiences

with the Amish and black working-class. Over half of these men wept at some point

during or after the interview. Some of the deep feeling was related to loss, and some

was brought on by the recollections of painful memories and experiences. A few

men were caught off guard by their own feelings as they spoke about what has been

regarded as unspeakable.

For the older men, these interviews provided an opportunity to do a life review.

For the younger men, our conversations provided a chance to reassess their position

on issues and any changes in their lifeview. The white working-class men engaged

with me easily in the beginning, but some became defensive and more reluctant

participants during the course of the interview. In my fieldnotes, I noted pauses when

the men seemed to be really thinking whether they wanted to reveal or share an

experience, thought or feeling. They seemed to be communicating non-verbally, "I’m

213 intensely private and unsure of you." I also thought that they were getting in a little

deeper than they wanted to and could not stop.

A stoicism prevailed much of the time. Emotional or demonstrative

expressiveness seemed to be viewed in a derogatory way. Some said in one way or

another, "I’m not given to gushing with people." It was as if expressing or

experiencing feeling was a waste of energy, better conserved for the purposes of

production. They were concerned about being expressive and attempted to restrain

themselves, as opening up might be interpreted as complaining. Silence was idealized

as strength. One man commented, "Don’t complain. If you’ve got problems, don’t

talk about them, take care of them." As the stories of their lives were unfurled, it was

apparent that they felt much but complained little.

Sometimes the men responded to my questions with puzzled looks. One

retired construction worker commented, "I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anybody

about it in this depth. I never thought it was necessary." The idea that talking about

feelings is "not necessary" is a hallmark of male socialization; thinking about feelings

may hinder one’s ability to concentrate on the tasks at hand:

BOB: You focused your mind in just one set pattern. And when I come out of the Marine Corps, I was just like a set of blinders. If I had a job to do, the days weren’t long enough, I just done it and that’s it. And I didn’t think about any of the other stuff... And as far as teaching a person to really, really focus, they [the Marines] could do it.

I envisioned a metaphorical draft horse with blinders focused on the task before

him. But the blinders imposed were passed on from previous generations. These men

214 put them on willingly; they wanted to meet the expectation. In the same interview,

Bob praised the farm as the source of his work ethic:

BOB: I found out in the service the best people to be with in battle was the farm kids. Because war is nothing but drudgery, day after day. And the farm kids are used to drudgery. They’ve had to clean barns, they’ve had to haul manure, they’ve had to do this, pick up rocks, you know...And you get the habit because you’re raised that way of doing your share wherever you are. You won’t look like an ass and say, ‘I can’t do mine. If Joe can do it, I can do it.’ And that’s an attitude.

The men embrace work or "drudgery" as a primary part of their identity.

Family is important, but adequate provision requires constant sacrifices to meet the

family’s physical needs. The capacity to adapt to frequent job changes due to rapid

fluctuations in the rural economic climate becomes an important strength and asset.

These men are multi-talented and multi-skilled. Being so is essential. Yet, as Len

admitted, they realize that there are either limitations from within or forces from

outside that impede their "can do" spirit.

LEN: I’ve pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I’ve always said, you try hard enough you can do anything...(pause) But, I think that’s a little fallacy. You can’t do everything. Nobody can do everything they want to do, no matter how hard they try.

The ideals are the hopes and dreams, something to strive for, they "keep the nose

to the grind stone." The reality may be something quite different. Work hard.

Hopefully, you’ll be rewarded. Be anything you want, and with a little luck, it may

happen. These men are left to make choices between work and family. Some are

215 pleased with the outcome, others have regrets. They seem to be aware that no matter

what priority they chose, something else had to be sacrificed.

Kenny, a laborer in his forties, said,

KENNY: Building a life is just like building a house. When we build we tell people you got two choices to make out of three things. You can only have two. You can’t have all three, just two. You can have quality, speed or cost. Choose two. If you want quality and low cost, it’ll take forever. If you want quality and speed, it’ll cost you. If you want to keep costs down and want it done right away, quality is sacrificed. Something’s gotta give. You want a family, you gotta support ’em. Then supporting ’em takes you away from your family. You can’t win either way.

Although there is no third factor presented, his picture is quite clear. With the

present structural arrangement that takes men away from their families to provide for

them, the relational connection is sacrificed. This tension was a running theme

throughout the interviews.

In all but two instances, these men were reared on farms, and to my surprise,

with much poverty. Some of them found the poverty they experienced as children to

be a particularly important motivator. They did not want to repeat that experience in

their adult lives or in their children’s lives. So the work ethic that had some of them

working two or three jobs at a time was rooted in their fear of repeating the history

of their parents rather than just working hard for its own merit.

In the Amish and black working-class chapters, I used portions of the interview

transcript to delineate the themes that emerged from the data. There were no such

summarizing quotes from the white working-class men. Therefore, I use an outline,

216 similar to the one I used in the Amish and black working-class chapters, to explore

the shaping and maintenance of masculinities among the white working-class men.

This outline has some minor variations, including: (1) the process o f masculinity

making, (2) time orientation, (3) ideology, and (4) social/relational processes. Special

emphasis will be placed on the role o f (5) mentors from the extended family and

community in providing models o f alternative masculinities. (6) Work and de-skilling

processes will be discussed, followed by a brief example of (7) a creative response to

the white working-class dilemma. Finally, a summary of the major themes is

presented.

Masculinity as a Developmental Process and Gender Schema

The process of becoming a man is thought to be something "you just grow into."

Taking on responsibilities from the earliest ages sets the stage for other, more serious

responsibilities. Once one has reached maturity, one is to put away the childish ways

and take on the world of work and responsibility. It is a serious approach to life.

Here is a sample o f the expressions used to convey the work ethic: "I was

always geared to work," "We didn’t have no time, ’cept to work," "I never shied

away from doing stuff," "I had two jobs all the time growing up," "Never had time,

never had time, I was always busy working someplace," and finally "I grew up

working, I’m a worker."

It was interesting for me to pay attention to my own subjective reaction to these

men. They were to be commended for their successes, as their current life

circumstances did not seem to reflect the poverty they knew in their childhood. Even

217 so, they seemed to have a heaviness and a loneliness. It reminded me o f religious

ideologies that call the person to "die to self' to be spiritual. But in this instance, as

Len explains, the self-sacrifice was tied into their masculinity.

LEN: When you become a man, you should behave like a man, get rid of all the silliness and stupidity and stuff you did when you were a teenager. I think when you grow mature, you reach that phase where you take responsibility reasonably and intelligently.

Many of these men did not recall spending much time with peers as they were

too busy working. Comparisons were made with their fathers, brothers, uncles, and

cousins, but from the interviews little of the developmental process was apparent.

An exception was Paul, a forty-five-year-old foundry worker, who talked about

his own developmental process, continuing even to adulthood. In this excerpt, he

expanded his gender schema to include an alternative masculinity he was able to

draw on from a rather recent faith transformation.

PAUL: I always played the tough guy and even in all the years I played the tough guy, I had very few fights. I didn’t have to. I was intimidating to people because I was loud, obnoxious, big. It would intimidate people. Well, now I don’t want to intimidate anybody. I really don’t. It’s a battle for me because sometimes when you get into situations where you’re not really set mentally or prepared for them and you want to rush in. And the old me wants to come out and say, ‘Hey, I’ll take care of this situation.’ But I try not to do that. I slip up now and then but, who doesn’t?...Well, now with the Lord, I ’m a real man. I was a tough guy. I’m working as a tough guy. I’m a laborer, doing tough work, getting bigger and stronger. Now I look at all that and that’s not the kind of gains that I want. I think that’s all kind of like fruitless. It doesn’t really mean anything. And I didn’t realize that until the growth I’ve seen in myself over the last four years.

218 As Paul aged, he seemed to mellow as his concern about his own "toughness"

waned. This could be attributed to his changing body and the reality of its physical

deterioration. It is also possible that male power displays became less of a priority to

him after he became aware of the effect those actions and reactions could have on his

personal relationships as well as himself.

Time Orientation

From the earlier discussion, it is clear the Amish have a time orientation located

in the past as they actively preserve the faith traditions of their ancestors. Due to

their personal histories of racism and deprivation, the black working-class live in and

for the present; they do not know if the employment and income will be there "from

one day to the next," so they enjoy the good times while they last.

For the white working-class men I interviewed, the time orientation is the future.

This may be due to a number of factors. First is their vivid recollection o f poverty in

their own lives as children, teenagers, and young adults. A number of the men were

children and teenagers during the Depression. Although they commented that they

had it better than most, because they were reared on a farm, the memories of those

times left an indelible imprint on them. Two men in particular took me to their fruit

cellars, where they had stored a year’s supply of canned goods for themselves. In

addition, out of concern for their grown children’s families, they had what they

estimated to be enough to feed four or five people for a couple of years. They were

convinced another Depression was an eventuality. As Bob told it, they wanted to be

ready this time.

219 BOB: And people here, right up the road, they went to the market once a week. They went to market one week and sold everything and the next week they sold nothing. [The Depression] was that quick. Milk went from a dollar a hundred down to seventy cents a hundred. One shot. Contracts didn’t mean anything. Dad had a contract with Bridgers Dairy for Guernsey milk and they figured he was doing great. He had a good bunch of cows and so on. The contract didn’t mean anything when the bottom fell out. A lot of them went broke. It could happen again. It’s going to happen again.

A second factor, especially for the men born after the Depression, could be that

their employment careers varied greatly. It was not unusual for the men to change

jobs many, many times throughout the course of their work lives. As a result, when

they were working, they actively restrained their buying impulses as they felt it

necessary to be adequately prepared for the next change that may come. It is also

interesting to note that their future orientation was not a hopeful one. It seemed tinted

with a sense of resignation. They were aware that they receive little

acknowledgment from their families and communities for their contribution. Ralph’s

words portrayed his pessimism and unhappiness:

RALPH: I don’t know why I work so hard, save so hard. Ain’t nobody gonna remember it anyway. But I gotta do it...If I don’t look ahead, I couldn’t live with myself...[My children] all got married. Hell, I don’t see them much at all. Don’t think they care to come around.

Ideology--"Work is the Greatest Thing Man Has!"

Work was regarded highly in the masculine definition of these men. Unlike the

Amish and black working-class, they recalled little emphasis on physical size. The

capacity to work and work early was stressed. The earliest recollections of their

220 fathers usually involved some sort of work on the farm. A retired plastics worker

said, "I was always with my dad with the horses. Whenever he went anywhere to the

woods or anything, I always rode with him and drove horses every chance I got." A

construction worker commented, "I started plowing with him when I was twelve

years old." Their identification with their fathers encouraged this work ethic.

In the two instances where the fathers were more embedded in the industrial

sector, the distaniTdJationship with the sons did not hamper the boys from getting the

idea that work and masculinity were closely related. One man, a utility pole

repairman in his fifties, reflected on his dad. "Work. That’s the only thing we ever

had in common." Another spoke of the difficulty he had convincing his mom he

could be responsible for delivering a newspaper. "I got the paper route...my dad

backed me up on that. He would help me on Sunday mornings."

Bob cited a story by Voltaire and a scripture commenting that "work is the

greatest thing a man has."

BOB: Did you ever read Candide by Voltaire?... Quite a book. I read that years ago. Very, very well put, very good point was made there. These travelers roamed around together and they was always bitching about how hard life was on them. The one woman had been raped by soldiers. So they would try different ventures and this was going to make them happy. And every time they’d get back to bitching and griping. Finally, they went to this fellow’s place, the last place they stopped, and he had a vineyard. And they sat down and drank wine with him. And they said, ‘What a wonderful thing it is that this man can relax and drink wine out of his own vineyards, so they got a vineyard.’ And then every time they get ready to sit down and gripe, they’d say, ‘We ain’t got time. We’ve got some work to do, the vineyard needed tended.’ See? See?...In the Bible it says,

221 work is the greatest thing man has. And I have seen so many people unhappy when they no longer can work.

Bob’s comments fit well with those cited earlier by Kollmorgen (1942) regarding

Benjamin Rush: "The Germans take great pains to produce in their children not only

habits o f labor, but love of it" (p. 51). In the interview Bob never included any

mention of his ethnic heritage. From his last name he appears German, but the

informal ideology of work remains well-entrenched over two hundred years later.

Work as the prevalent ideology and value could be seen in the various

expressions used to describe friends, family and co-workers. One father boasted about

his daughter’s work ethic and how he managed to instill that in her. He said, "I got

her before excuses came along...She’s one that doesn’t let the grass grow underneath

her feet." Another man commented on a co-worker for whom he had great respect.

"The only rest that man ever got was when he had a heart attack." At first my

reaction was to feel bad for this overworked person, but I changed my mind when I

realized that he was proud of this man’s capacity to drive himself to a near-death

experience.

The respondents’ formal ideologies were not evident from the interviews. For the

most part the ideologies were only partially apparent, embedded and related to other

dimensions, e.g., social roles. Occasionally the men referred to church or the

Scriptures, but did not incorporate religion as an identifiable part of themselves in the

way that the Amish or black working-class men had. Teachers were important as

mentors, but many of the men had limited education.

222 Asceticism

Ideologies taught informally through the families included the importance of

asceticism. This ideology did not present itself as the religious asceticism usually

associated with the Protestant work ethic (Weber, 1958) or the Jansenism of Irish

Catholicism. Rather it was asceticism rooted in the material reality of the families in

which these men were raised. As one of them stated, "Life is honest, life is realistic."

Difficulties are to be expected. The men had many stories of hardship that reinforced

their parents’ lessons. In the following excerpt, Fred recalled an internalized value

lesson regarding asceticism:

FRED: We were poor, I mean poor, poor. Whenever wanted something real bad, my mother or father used to pull me aside and ask me these three questions, ‘Do you want it?’ ‘Do you need it?’ ‘Can you live without it?’ Got to the point I could ask myself those questions without ever going to ’em.

The look on Fred’s face was so clear. Non-verbally he seemed to be saying,

"How do you argue with that?" Asceticism was thought to be the best way to instill

the value of work. Bob provided an example of how he teaches this to his children.

BOB: Well, for this reason, I lived real tight. And they said then [that the Depression] couldn’t happen. And I see the same thing coming again. That’s why I taught my kids to work. You see, my kids had to help me and they’ve done well. But even my kids I don’t think manage money well, because they have never seen a downturn. It’s always been up. And there’s an old saying that everybody has to walk up fool’s hill.

Bob’s thought is that if a person is frugal now, he or she will be in a better

position if something goes wrong later. The rural working-class careers of the men

223 here revealed a pattern of instability. It was a truly fortunate man who was with one

employer throughout his employment career. Rather, these men saw a "hodgepodge"

of positions. Sometimes this discontinuity was based on the (unavailability of work;

other times, it was because the men left their jobs, taking a risk to better their

position. Asceticism played an important function, helping to smooth out the more

difficult times when one was between jobs. Being thrifty is a way to save for the

coming "downturn." Also, as Bill demonstrates, asceticism lessons were based on the

notion that "hardship builds character":

BILL: I joke with my kids that I lived in the horse and buggy days. We were so poor, we couldn’t afford a car, so we had a horse and buggy...I remember three homes that I lived in that didn’t have running water. So we were very, very poor. And I remember mom taking crackers that were stale and putting them in an old wood stove oven, drying them out so we could have crisp crackers, tasted good...I expected things from my kids, like my family [of origin], as we were expected to do. And we were [expected] not so much as putting bread on the table but we were expected to at least buy your own clothes. And I was taught that right from a very young age, as my brothers were...We did expect [our children] to pay for their own education. I guess that might be a rub-off from what my parents thought I should do. So [my children] paid for their college education.

Bill, a plumber, spoke of the lives o f his three children in comparison to his

own. The hardships he knew in his own life did not reappear at all in the life he

provided for his family. From a white middle-class perspective, this may be thought

to present undue hardship on his children, minimizing their chances for success.

From his perspective, and that of others, "If I give them everything, what’s to work

for?"

224 Independence

Being independent in thought and actions is a prevailing ideology that seems a

part of the ethos of these men. A number of men decried the tendency of people

these days to compromise themselves on their opinions to keep relationships "easy."

If one stays independent, then when the time comes, he can "say the hard things and

make the hard choices."

BOB: Things have changed. Not like they used to be. I grew up in hard times. Even in the hard times when people was poor they said what they thought...You could take this damn farm away from me if I had some damn thing that I was standing on and I’d say, ‘The hell with you,’ as long as you don’t bother my kids...Why would you give up your independence to kiss somebody’s ass to have a lot? I guess I’m odd.

But Bob was not odd, at least not when I compared him to the other white

working-class men I interviewed. They all seemed to have some mistrust o f the "nice

guy" demeanor, thought to be characteristic of the college-educated professional and

of the middle class. John’s attitude is also reflective o f the tendency for

working-class men to give stereotypical feminine meanings (e.g., "weak," "soft," and

"submissive") to men of professional and managerial classes (Collinson, 1995;

Sennett & Cobb, 1972).

JOHN: Well, I want to respect people and get along with people. That’s the main thing in life! If you can do that and not be ascared to get up there and say your piece, I said, ‘I can go over there in a whole bunch of people and I’m not ascared to open my mouth and talk...Long as it’s the truth.’ I wouldn’t go ahead and come out there with some daggone lie and talk to people. No, sir. When I speak the truth, I’m not ashamed of it...Even though it hurts. Long as I know it’s the

225 truth and it’s going to be a benefit to them, and they come to their senses...That’s what I mean, you know, that I didn’t go to college, but I can snow these here college guys under so fast, you know.

Remaining independent in thought and work is somewhat tenuous. With more

and more advances in technology, a self-reliant, self-sufficient man must rely on a

specialist for help. Since the ideal of self-reliant autonomy is a hallmark of the white

working-class man, having to depend on someone else de-skills the man and puts his

masculinity at risk.

BOB: No, I don’t think technology is the answer. Technology goes through phases. But it will only be one phase, and then there will be another phase and what’s going to trap us if we have a downturn is the technology. Nobody can afford the stuff, nobody. My son is an excellent mechanic, the older one, for Chrysler. And he flew choppers in Vietnam. He was excellent. He’s head of the maintenance for the chopper. But by the same token, when I see the prices of everything, and there is nothing that is simple anymore, that you can buy that you could fix yourself that it would get you to the store and back. You are trapped...Well, they have taken your ability away from you...So, you see, what I’m saying is, if people get cut back, they’re trapped, because they can’t adjust on the other end of their expenses.

"They have taken your ability away from you," is Bob’s refrain. He found the

de-skilling to be reprehensible.

Relational Issues

Affective Processes

The ideology of work, asceticism, and independence makes for discontinuous and

limited contact between these men and their wives and children. What is more

difficult is that the ideologies that are such a part of the masculine definition keep

226 men away. If the men recognize that they missed something, they do not do so until

much later in their lives, when they develop an increasing awareness of the

importance of their family relations. Some of the men have regrets about how little

time they spent with their families. Listen to Bill, a 55-year-old plumber.

BILL: I have some regrets. Even though I thought it was very, very important at the time to make money and not necessarily have my wife working out at the time. That bothers me to no end today, because I neglected my children as a father. When they would want to play, I would be too tired, lots of times...But I regret very much the hours that I did not spend with my children as they were little toddlers growing up...You know, when a child needs his dad and mom, when they’re really small toddlers, that’s when I was not here. Mother took care o f the kids a hundred percent. I’d be home, they’d be in bed. I’d get up and go to work, they’d still be in bed. I never saw my kids when they was little. That’s what I regret the most. And I’m sure they’d tell you the same story, that they missed me as a father during them ages. Although, as they got older, I spent a lot of time with them, more time than I did when they were toddlers. Because we were very strapped the whole time, building that house, building this house, we were strapped, right to the hilt, so I had to work to keep it going. So, but then I look back, was it all necessary? I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t know what would have happened if I wouldn’t have worked all them nights. We probably wouldn’t have the physical things we have, the material things that we have today, if I wouldn’t have worked. So what? And I think every father thinks this. And I’m sure you’ve thought it. But you wonder how it would have been if you wouldn’t have done all this. Would I have had my heart attack? Maybe no. I think I would have had a heart attack either way. Because I would have been worrying about other things...So it’s a horse apiece. I think I would do it over again. I don’t know.

It is interesting that, after describing in detail his regret for missing out on his

children’s years, Bill concluded that he would make the same decisions again, even

227 though he was aware of the losses that resulted from his choice. He came to this

conclusion because working long and hard is the hegemonic masculine form that

defines his manhood and that of his peers. Relational concerns are relegated to his

wife’s domain. Physical provision in the way of income is his primary concern.

Some asceticism is apparent in his disregard for his own dependency needs.

A couple of men had regrets about the distance they put between themselves and

their fathers. The emphasis on male autonomy in adolescence that is so prevalent in

this subculture encourages sons to segregate themselves from their fathers, albeit, in

some instances, somewhat prematurely.

Neil, a retired custodian in his 60s, reflected on his relationship with his father

with some regret:

NEIL: There have been occasions that I wished I had been more friendly to [my father] and got with him more. But, of course, that’s all in the past now. It’s too late. He wanted me to go fishing with him on a couple of occasions. Well, it seems as though I had something else I’d rather do, so I’d refuse. Now I wished I hadn’t. As I say, he was a good man. There was nothing wrong with him at all.

According to their ideology, a man should disavow all dependency needs, as

they are non-masculine. Yet a point comes when they must confront the reality of the

choices they made. The choice Neil made was based on his expectations of himself.

Harry Chapin’s (1974) Cats In the Cradle, a song popular in the mid-70s, says it best

as the lyrical narrative starts with the boy asking his father when he’s coming home

and ends, this time with the father asking his son the same question. "When you

228 coming home, son? I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, Dad. You know

we’ll have a good time then."

A Language o f Distance

The fathers of these men worked on their farms and also had full or part-time

jobs elsewhere. Given the ideology and the limitations of affective exchanges or

interaction between these men and their fathers, their language is one of distance.

Brief comments testifying to that distance include: "I had a father, but he was always

busy" and "I was always a little distant from him." When these men became fathers,

the distance was then recreated in their relationship with their own children: "I really

didn’t know how to be a father to my own kids. But I got to say that I did more with

my children than my father [did with] me." This last example describes some of the

difficulty these men had in knowing what to do in their relationships with their

children. Some seemed to want to be there, but, as Carl mentioned, genuinely did not

know how.

CARL: I mean, it [my relationship with my father] wasn’t anything special. I mean, I just didn’t have that relationship. And for that matter, that hurt me, as you know, I didn’t have a role father.

Distance characterized Carl’s relationship with his father, and made it difficult

for him to learn the role of father himself. It did not seem as if he intended to say

"role father," but role model. In any event, role father seemed much more descriptive

and appropriate, and Carl was very cognizant of his sense of inadequacy in that

regard.

229 Isolation and Loneliness

Living a life of work, sacrifice, and disavowal of any dependency needs, while

remaining as independent as possible, creates a kind of self-imposed isolation.

Unfortunately, as some of the men age, an awareness or appreciation for connections

develop. Similar to the Chapin song cited earlier, some of these men, like Ralph,

longed for meaningful connections with their children and wives:

RALPH: I don’t understand it. When my kids call, they don’t seem like they want to talk to me. They ask for my wife. I mean, I know she is their mother and all, and they are closer to her, but come on.

The language of distance that was so prevalent in the earlier discourse loses its

salience. I have seen many of the sons and daughters of similar men in therapy.

Although most did not come to therapy to work on their relationships with their

fathers, the fatherhood issue surfaced nevertheless. When I do a routine history to

contextualize the presenting problem, I explore the relationship between the client

and his/her father. Many of my clients grieve for a relationship with their father, but

they argue it is next to impossible to recreate something that has never been.

Distance and isolation define the relationship. It is part of the tradeoff for making

work the primary part of a man’s identity. To move closer would violate an

unspoken norm that is part of the hegemonic masculinity of these men. Therefore,

the children remain distant and alone, much like their fathers had been. In so doing

the children disavow their own need for their fathers and, I would guess, other male

contact. One client commented to my probing about his relationship with his father

230 (or lack of it) this way: "How do you miss what you never had?" As Connell (1995)

outlined, it is important to look for the "patriarchal dividends" inherent in the gender

arrangements. From my perspective, this isolation is one of the many costs o f such a

system, a kind of patriarchal liability.

Patriarchy and Power

The men are aware of the changes in families resulting from the entrance of

many women into the workplace. There is some concern about what effect this is

having. A reluctant gender consciousness seems to be developing in some of the men

as well. Bob stated:

BOB: Oh, I see it’s a big problem. And a lot of us older people figure this is one of the big problems they’ve got with crime and stuff. Now, it’s all right if a woman wants to work, but if she’s got children, her children should come first.

There is no mention of men, husbands, or fathers in assigning responsibility for

child-care, because the model is built on the assumption that the father is working

away from the home. Some of the respondents’ daughters and sons have introduced

them to concepts and ideas that challenge their patriarchal epistemologies:

NEIL: I know I never really heard the word [power] until [my daughter-in-law] used it here a year or two ago up here. Its the word, power. Power to me is your automobile engine or locomotives or electric plant. Power to an individual to me is a new word. That is a modern word. I still don’t really understand the word power to a person. Maybe the President is powerful. I don’t know. But that’s not my version of power.

When asked what his version of power is, Neil replied:

231 NEIL: In an automobile, as I say. Something like that. That’s power. But this modern day power is anybody that can finagle somebody, I guess.

Neil then agreed that he would associate power with oppression or coercion or

exploitation.

NEIL: That could be. I don’t remember the incident that Jenny used that power in, unless somebody that got raped right at that time or something. And she referred to that, that the man needed power. And that’s when I said, ‘Huh? What do you mean power?’ And that’s apparently what she tried to explain to me, that man had power over this woman or he needed the power, so that’s what he done to get the power. Now, I’m sure confused on this power business.

I then offered him the analogy of the Army, where the sergeant has power. I

then suggested that some people could have the same arrangement in their marriages,

where the husband has power over his wife. When I told him that until the turn of

the century women and children were the property of their husbands and fathers, Neil

seemed to understand the concept and stated, "That’s power? I see." However, he

still found the concept problematic:

NEIL: (shaking his head as if to disagree) I don’t know. I don’t know. As I say, I wasn’t brought up that way...I was to be nice to everybody. My dad didn’t tell my mother, ‘You do this, you do that.’ That was not in our family. I might have been told to go out and mow the lawn or something like that, weed the garden, but I wouldn’t call that power. Would you? [I would call it] being part of the family. I don’t like that word ‘power.’ As I say, refer it to an automobile, not a person.

O f all the men I interviewed in this group, Neil was probably the gentlest. He

shared various stories, particularly in the military, of people who abused their

positions of rank with him. He was well aware of how belittling tirades and

232 humiliation tactics strip a sense of well-being from a man. Yet his position with me,

in this interchange, was a kind of masculine complicity. I believe that Neil conducts

himself in his family without an obvious power agenda, but he must be aware that in

many other families, the women and children are not so fortunate.

Mentors

These white working-class men made it a point to acknowledge the men in their

lives who had made an important impact on them. Interestingly enough, they spoke

more of uncles and cousins or men in the community than they did of their fathers.

In fact, fathers were rarely mentioned. The respondents were careful to acknowledge

their fathers, making sure that I understood they meant no disrespect, but their role

models and mentors came from outside of their immediate family.

Extended Family Mentors

During adolescence, exposure to a man other than one’s father can provide an

alternative model of masculinity, one possibly quite different from the one

symbolized by the father. It may even be better yet if the boy has the opportunity to

live with this alternative mentor. Bill valued the time he spent living with his Uncle

John:

BILL: And so we came [to Erie County] to visit my uncle with my mom and dad. And we stayed there about a week and a half. And during that week and a half, I learned to drive a tractor and do some work on the farm up here with my uncle. And so I talked my mom and dad into leaving me stay there the rest of the summer. So I stayed the rest of the summer with my uncle and lived with him. Then it came time to go back to Homestead for school. I was fourteen years old, freshman in high school and I didn’t want to go home. So I

233 begged and pleaded with my folks. And my dad said, ‘No, absolutely not, you’ve got to come home.’ My mom says, ‘Well, maybe. ’ And so finally, after a lot o f coaxing and crying on the phone and everything, my dad finally said, ‘Okay, you can stay with Uncle John’...My Uncle John, he really took me under his wing and really, he was better than my father to me, to be honest with you. He was more o f a father to me than my real dad was. Even though I love my dad dearly, I wish he were here today, but I would probably have to go back to Uncle John...I think that he’s the person that I would say that made such an impact on my life because he was willing to take me in.

Bill recognized that his uncle had been more of a father to him than his own

father had. Bill lived at his uncle’s home for four or five years; during this time his

conception of manhood and masculinity was extended beyond that which his father

had modeled for him. He described his father as sickly and "very cross with the

children." Uncle John was a warmer and more accepting model, patient enough to

teach this inquisitive youngster about farming and machinery. Bill continued:

BILL: But [my Uncle John] did expect a lot from me as a boy, but he treated me wonderfully. He treated me with a lot of love. And he taught me a lot of things. The respect of machinery, how to respect machinery, the power take-offs and everything that you get trouble with. He taught me a lot of religion. The home was always surrounded with religious people and never no cursing, swearing, nothing. He was always right on top of it, read the Bible every day, had family worship every day. I respected that, even though sometimes I thought, ‘Well, he’s going a little overboard.’ But now I look back and say, he taught me a lot of things.

What impressed me was the parents’ wisdom and insight to let Bill stay with

Uncle John rather than press him to return home. On some level the father may have

realized his son would be better off with his brother-in-law’s family.

234 Community Mentors

The respondents also offered examples of mentors in the community who

provided alternative masculinities that expanded and broadened their view of

themselves. They expressed much gratitude toward these mentors, since the older

men had no obligation to take on this responsibility. Somehow, being chosen by a

community mentor made the connection particularly meaningful. Most of these

mentorships occurred during the boys’ latency and middle-teenage years:

LEN: There was another guy that had a lot of effect on me. I got acquainted with him maybe when I was a freshmen or a sophomore in high school. He came from the elite section of the town, but he was a bachelor...And he was always doing things for people. I know he sent a couple kids to college and paid for their education and stuff like that. But I used to go up and get into long conversations with him...But he was a wild west bronco buster with the one-on-one Wild, Wild West show back in 1920, ’21, ’22. He had a beautiful saddle. He used to take me out to the stables and give me riding lessons. And the old English architecture, he was a nut on that. And he’d let me take his books. And another thing, he had an organ in his home. It was half reed and half pipe, made by the Hammond-Skinner, a beautiful thing. And I used to be amazed by that..[We would talk] about stuff in school, about my grades. We talked about all sorts of things; philosophy of living and doing things...He had a Packard. It was an older car but, geez, he used to let me drive that thing. He came to my wedding when we got married. He was just a nice guy. I learned a lot from him...Oh, yes, yes, no question about it [he showed some interest in me] I had almost forgotten about him, but I shouldn’t though.

This kind of association was not as uncommon as it might initially appear.

The men in the community without families or children also wanted to pass on

something of themselves, and served as progenitors of sorts in the lives of these

235 young men. As Bill explained, the lessons usually revolved around work and giving

one’s best effort.

BILL: I guess I was always willing to learn anything that anybody showed me and always willing to apply myself to physical work. And I guess all these men in my life have really taught me the value of work and to get ahead by working hard and that type of thing.

Community mentoring is particularly important, for a family’s emphasis on a

conservative agenda usually tends to come from fathers. The African-American

adage, "It takes a whole village to raise a child," has meaning in the lives o f these

working-class men, for they had the benefit of intimate exposure to masculine role

models beyond that of their fathers. Just as identification is an important process

between a father and son, boys also disidentify with some aspects of their fathers and

look for another model who will validate a different part of themselves.

Len’s example on the previous page provides an atypical example of

community mentoring; it is atypical because the mentoring focused on education and

philosophy rather than work. Len’s father had been a very conservative, bigoted,

tough, opinionated, and rather brutish man. Len himself had developed into a gentler

man, a man who walked away from fights and disliked unpleasantness. He attributed

much of his gentle nature to the role model provided by his mentor. This mentor,

known as Doc Johnson, provided a more tender alternative of masculinity, one that

was adventuresome, but reflective and introspective as well.

Community mentors are particularly important in the diverse and specialized

culture found in the U.S. If a man is limited to his father’s model of masculinity

236 only, he may encounter greater dissonance and personal dissatisfaction when he

cannot live up to his father’s standard. Doc Johnson’s influence in Len’s life carried

over into the lives of Len’s children as well:

LEN: That’s what I told my kids, ‘Learn from what you see.’ You get all the knowledge you can about anything because I think a real varied life and interest in things broadens your soul and gives you a lot better understanding.

Disidentification has become as important as identification in understanding the

shaping of masculinity. When these men speak about their negative memories o f their

fathers, they center on the uncaring attitudes toward their boys and toward their

families in general. The ability to communicate acceptance through warmth and

nurturance, usually identified as feminine qualities, are what these men referenced

repeatedly as the reason their mentor was important, emulated or internalized.

Comments like, "he accepted me," "showed an interest," "he was a loving man,"

convey universal human qualities of empathy. It is unfortunate that these qualities

have become associated with the definition of one gender and excluded from the

definition of the other. It is terrible that, for a man to experience tenderness and

gentleness, he must look only to women. Men need the tenderness and gentleness that

can be provided by other men. Unfortunately, if a man possesses the capacity for

warmth and tenderness, a homophobic response ensues as he is defined as "gay." Len

wondered if Doc Johnson had been gay, but did not make it an issue. He then

proceeded to acknowledge his own male heterosexual gentleness.

237 Work-Related Issues

White Working-Class Careers in a Rural Setting

The emphasis on work as ideology, ideal and ethic is admirable, but what

happens when there are layoffs, work disruptions, or frequent changes? As one man

commented, "Those were the toughest times. When I’m not working, I don’t even

feel like a man." The best way to explain these changes in self-perception is to

follow someone’s recollections of his various places of employment and his

respective job responsibilities. Len, a man in his late fifties, had quite a varied work

history. In the thirty-plus years he had been employed, he worked as a bench

mechanic, a draftsman, a carpenter building tresses and wall panels, an assembler

manufacturing disposal systems, a "big paper press" operator, and a carpenter

building countertops. He also had four separate arrangements with various

contractors and construction companies in "every phase of the operation." The

lengthier jobs lasted several years with no less than four reported work disruptions

that lasted nine months or longer. In some instances he was laid off to find other

work almost immediately. Most of the positions he left "ran out of work" or "things

slowed down and they had to let me go." He was proud of the fact that he always

landed on his feet and could not be held down for very long.

Although Len represents the extreme in comparison to other men’s histories,

frequent job changes were not uncommon. When some of these men were asked to

identify themselves by their trade, some would comment, "I do anything and

everything. Depends on who it is and what they want done." Others commented on

238 the importance of being multi-skilled and adaptable. "Things are always changing and

unless you have the ability to move around and face changes because you’ve got

some head here, then you’re not going to be fitted for the changes that come about."

The self-reliance that characterizes many of these men seems to enhance their

self-esteem on one hand, and the discontinuity in their careers generates anxiety that

works against them on the other. But they are vulnerable in defining their masculinity

so heavily on work. If being a man means work, what happens when there is no

work or when there are repeated disruptions? The masculine identity suffers.

De-Skillins o f Youth and Devaluation o f Manual Labor

Other work-related concerns included the impact of technology and

modernization on downsizing. Just like the Amish and black working-class, the men

were concerned about the de-skilling of adolescents. Ben, a retired coal miner, spoke

about his first job:

BEN: And then, when I was here on the farm, when we first come out here, I’d go in the school and build the fires, get my kindling wood cut, you know, and I got 25 cents a week for building the fires and there was an outside pump and I filled the water cooler in the school...When the rest of the kids came, why they already had it nice and warm, you know. So, that was life. And I enjoyed every, every bit of it.

Similar to the man in the black working-class group who had the

responsibility for getting his family water from a well some distance away, Ben also

valued that he had "something vital to do." He was concerned about adolescents

because, in his opinion, they only want to play. "Everybody wants to be a basketball,

football, baseball...nobody wants to do a darned thing, to go ahead and do manual

239 labor. Nobody, It’s pitiful." Another man commented, "How come they don’t know

how to work? Where did they ever work with anybody?"

The dominant culture’s emphasis on "book learning" and credentials over manual

labor results in a different work ethic than learned by these men during their youth.

Bob expressed it this way:

BOB: And that’s what’s the matter with this country today. [Teenagers have] it too easy. And we’ve got into this con game in the last few years that everybody is looking for some easy way to con something. And they’re all going to grow up and live off o f being smart rather than working.

A Creative Response to the White Working-Class Dilemma

Neil, the man who quibbled with me over the definition of power and the

relationship between power and gender, was quite creative in his handling of the

tensions between the dominant, hegemonic, masculine forms and his gentler reality.

As I mentioned earlier, he was a "gentleman" in every sense of the word. Stearns

(1979) asks an important question regarding these kinds of men. "What would

happen to a timid but thoroughly heterosexual soul?" (p.21).

My guess is that once the man sorts out his options he looks for a place where he

can integrate the two and reduce the dissonance between the dominant hegemonic

forms and his own masculine identity. In Neil’s case, the experience with the military

made him very aware of power and the abuse possible.

NEIL: Not that I got into any fighting, I didn’t. I couldn’t see as I was doing anything to help anything. And it just seems as though you couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless they told you to go. You had no free time. You were right there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and when

240 somebody hollered, you jumped. And everything had to be done by the numbers...To me it was a bunch of bullshit...It was just that push, push, push all the time, ‘hurry up and wait,’ ‘don’t do anything unless I tell you’ or stuff like that. It just got to me, I guess... And I think that’s why it took me so long to get over being scared of supervisors, bosses, people over me. I told you the other night, I think it was twenty years before I got over that.

Neil seemed very aware of how power differentials limited his freedom; when

he left the service he was wary o f all male authority for twenty years! He became a

custodian at a nursing home run by nuns. Now retired, he is wonderfully creative in

his efforts to locate himself in a gentle environment where he can still use his skills

and intellect. His relational needs are given a priority as well.

NEIL: If you don’t like your work, it gets it on you after a while. Now, this job that I’m talking about was working at the GAR. It didn’t pay much. There wasn’t any benefits. But working with the nuns, I enjoyed that. They were nice to me. And some of us became quite good friends. I still go and see this one nun on occasion. And I learned a few things from them about religion...This one nun in particular sticks with me and I copy that a lot...The nuns used to say, ‘Oh, thank you, Lord’ for something, no matter how simple it was. And I ’ve got so I do that. I drop something that I’m working on and I have to hunt around in the dirt and grease for it. And finally, I find it, I find myself saying, ‘Oh, thank you, Lord’ because I found that piece that I dropped. And I’ve caught myself doing that a lot, which I got from this nun.

I reflected that Neil seemed to have received a lot there in ways other than

financial:

NEIL: Yes, yes, yeah. Because they invited me down to the mother house. This nun, I would go to her parents’ house...I invited the nuns up to our place on a couple of occasions on New Year’s Eve. We had a ball. And, of course, they reciprocated. They invited me down there New Years. And

241 we had a good time. The priest was there. We polkaed. We had a great time...Of course, whenever one o f the nuns had a birthday, they had a chance to invite anybody to a meal that they wanted and whatever they wanted to eat. Well, we got invited down for lobster tails once. That’s the first time I ever had lobster. So, little things like that. They add up...People are wanting too much in material things and they’re missing out on the right things...That’s the way I look at.

Neil sacrificed his earning potential to give himself a high quality work

environment. It sounds as if the nursing home was a work atmosphere where his

tenderness and thoughtfulness were valued. Some might argue that he sold out his

family for his own security. I would argue that the legacy and inheritance would

extend from his work into his home. He chose riches that money cannot buy. What a

fortunate man!

I am sure there are many others like Neil who are not so fortunate. Not

everyone, through choice or luck, can locate a work setting that approximates the

epistemology to which one would like to aspire. The fact that this man accomplished

it is encouraging nonetheless.

SUMMARY

The dominant themes regarding the shaping of masculinities in this subculture

include an awareness that the men’s developing masculinities meant embracing work

seriously at an early age, a future time orientation, an ideology that made work "the

greatest thing man has," a notion that masculine strength is built through asceticism

and self-sufficiency or autonomy, a concern about the de-skilling of working-class

242 men and boys, a relational style that utilizes a language of distance which breeds

isolation and loneliness, and an emphasis on the importance of community mentors.

The future orientation of these white working-class men is quite a contrast to the

present-time orientation found in the work of Sennett and Cobb (1972). Sennett and

Cobb acknowledge, however, that "sacrifice...makes men future oriented" (p. 201). It

is possible that a combination of poverty, asceticism, the agrarian influences under

which these men were reared, and the disruptions in their work careers interacted to

foster the future orientation noted in these interviews. These respondents were still

aware of the "experience of rhythms of labor tied to the change of seasons" (Sennett

& Cobb, 1972, p. 10).

"Farming is drudgery" may help to explain some of the resignation that

characterizes these men, even while they maintain a future orientation. This is done

while looking ahead to the harvest of their sacrifices or ascetic living. They are

aware that harvesting the sacrifices they have made may not come in their own

lifetimes, but in those of their children. This is somewhat different from the

pessimistic orientation of the demoralized black working-class men, whose future

expectations seem tempered by the reality of low-paying jobs, underemployment and

racism. The white working-class men could envision a different future for their

children if they themselves made the necessary sacrifices. This could be possible

because the obstacles they encountered would not be as severely restricting as those

experienced by the black working-class.

243 These respondents placed a great value on work. This is similar to the

transcendent value given respect in the lives of the Amish and black working-class.

Work for the white working-class men was internalized as a value in its own right.

There were no guarantees that one’s hard work would translate into material gain or

assets. However, by giving the work ethic such a high value, they ensured a sense of

personal gratification and dignity, regardless of the material outcome.

As these interviews with white working-class men relate to Chodorow’s theory,

one would expect that these men would most closely approximate the men in her

discussion. Interestingly enough, my respondents revealed a predilection for

developing relational capacities much later in life. As they aged, they developed a

different trajectory from the one proposed by Chodorow. It was a trajectory that

included the development and acknowledgment of dependency needs through the

aging process. Whether this was due to a religious transformation or the lessening

need to display male behaviors, the men reported a kind of mellowing process that

permitted the possibility of more meaningful connections between friends and family

members. Improved relational capacities did not easily translate into better

relationships, but the respondents noted a difference nonetheless. This mellowing

provides another challenge to Chodorow’s theory, as the closed tendency of their ego

boundaries seemed to soften through time.

The white working-class men I interviewed were very different from my relatives

and friends in the Pittsburgh area. Actually, I was somewhat surprised at the small

number of men who referenced toughness as part of their masculine definition. My

244 subjective opinion is that the stoicism and asceticism so prevalent in Erie County is

absent in my familial experiences with white working-class men from the urban

center of Pittsburgh.

What impressed me most about these men was their commitment to their

families. They presented a fierce loyalty to them. They claimed that they would be

there for one of their children "in a heartbeat," and stated that it was OK for their

children to need them. At the same time, what saddened me most was the

tremendous isolation and loneliness with which they struggled. If "work is the

greatest thing man has" and it is the main ingredient in one’s male definition,

masculine identity is threatened when one retires or becomes disabled. Lastly,

prizing autonomy while disavowing dependency does not permit a person to accept

much comfort from another person.

245

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

This final chapter is divided into three parts. What follows are some cross-group

comparisons along the various consistent themes that emerged from the data. These

comparisons will be followed by some discussion of Chodorow’s (1978) theory as it

relates to the three subcultures interviewed. Finally, going beyond Chodorow’s

object-relations theory, a more fluid and dynamic conceptualization o f the gender

identity process is presented.

MAJOR THEMES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MASCULINITIES IN THE THREE SUBCULTURES

In the three previous chapters I explored the following themes: developmental

processes, time orientations, ideologies, sociohistorical contexts, and mentoring. I

will explore these themes further, making comparisons across the three cultures.

Regarding developmental processes, the Amish and black working-class men

view masculinity as something shaped and formed throughout the life course,

whereas the white working-class men held to the more essentialist notions of

masculinity. Several men comment on their views of becoming men.

ABRAHAM (Amish):I realize that being a man is not something that becomes formed and stays as such, perfect in its form; it is something that has to be nurtured and nursed each day.

JIM (black working-class): Now, I’ve done all that I could for you (speaking about his sons) during your formative years...I’ve gotten involved, been there...By doing it, I ’m helping to shape you, give you the important things...As far as

246 I go, I ’m still changing. Don’t see things the same as I did when I was your age. Don’t smoke no more, don’t drink like I used to, don’t want to.

BOB (white working-class): No, I don’t think you change much at all after five or six [years old]. ...Work. That’s the main thing. And that don’t change. That’s what a man’s made for and you learn that early.

In the first two instances, development is thought of as maturation. For the white

working-class man change reflects weakness. In this instance, to admit that a person

changes through time is not thought of as maturation, but as a lack of certainty

regarding identity. Essentialist notions regarding gender identity keep basic

assumptions about gender roles and division of labor intact preserving the patriarchal

dividend.

Time orientations across the three subcultures varied. The Amish actively

preserved and recreated the past in the present and future. While the black

working-class lived in the present, the white working-class had a future orientation.

In the first instance an Amish harnessmaker wants to be certain that his son has

all the necessary farming skills for an Amish masculine definition, even though he

does not live on a farm. The lifestyle and masculine definitions are actively generated

and regenerated in this way.

DAVID: How will he ever learn to...raise hogs and be around them, if I don’t have a few hogs for him to take care of.

With the reality of poverty, racism and violence, the black working-class in this

study have a time orientation rooted in the present. Earlier we heard the words of

247 Joe, who said, "You don’t know what tomorrow brings. Might be here today and

gone today."

In the previous chapter, I discussed the future-time orientation of the white

working-class men. This way o f viewing the world can be attributed to their farming

heritage, poverty, and frequent job changes in a rural economy. Their personal

asceticism seems to be rooted in an ideology that one must sacrifice today so that the

children can benefit tomorrow. These men spoke of their hardships in relation to their

children. Sentences like "I don’t want my kids to live like I did. We had nothing!"

consistently were voiced during in the interviews. This future orientation contrasts to

the views of the black working-class, for the subsistence level of black working-class

men and their families was "day to day," precluding much emphasis on aspirations

for their children’s future.

The ideologies o f the three groups are both similar and different. There seems to

be some consensus about the ideals for masculine definition which includes hard

work, the capacity to endure hardship, self-sufficiency, and respect for others. But

even though the ideologies appear similar, they are rooted in different sociohistorical

contexts. It is in these contexts that the variations in the meaning of "hard work"

evidences itself. Placing three excerpts side by side reveals how the work ethic varies

for each of the subcultures:

ISAAC (an Amish farmer): And I still remember that after we got in from milking the cows we usually didn’t sit around and read a book very long back then. We were tired, we were ready to go to bed so...and the next morning we had to get up early and do the chores again. There was a lot of work and it

248 was hard work but...it’s not something I regret...I think it was good experience. A simple life of farming is what our faith is about.

BILL (a black steelworker): We accepted the fact that life is not gonna change for us. Nobody is gonna give us anything...you have to work hard all your life just to get by...Just look at my dad. My dad used to always tell us kids, ‘There is no special holiday, there is no Saturday or Sunday. I don’t have a day off other than my regular off days’...He couldn’t be [at home] because he worked at a mill and had to provide a place for us to live. He couldn’t take no time off. That kind-a hurt.

BOB: (a white foundry worker) He says, ‘If you don’t like the job you’ve got, we’ll give you another one.’ And I went in and got my last check and the guys...said, ‘We want you back in here.’ I said, ‘I don’t read blueprints that well...I’m hauling lumber right along now.’ And they say, ‘Yeah, but that’s hard work.’ I say, ‘Yeah, but I didn’t come in here to lay on my ass...So I don’t worry about the work.’ But they said the guys they got after I was there wouldn’t work enough to keep up their end, and that pulled the group down, and then I showed them how to make two torches work at the same time on a job and save them half the time on it. So that kind of shit lay good for me.

For the Amish men, being a hard worker ties in with the tenets of their faith,

whereas the working ideals of black working-class men seem more related to

survival: "doing something vital." The white working-class men embrace work as

their primary masculine definition.

Enduring hardships means something different in each context. Again, three

excerpts provide some insight to the different meanings given to this theme.

ELI (Amish blacksmith): People made fun of me...One man just cussed me up and down ’cause I’m a draft dodger and I wanted to stay out of the war...so I went up to him and I says, ‘Hey, fella, look. I don’t want to kill nobody...It’s my

249 religion’...I felt good because they made fun of me. Dad always said, ‘Be sure and not make fun of anybody, but if they want to make fun of ya, take it. Carry it.’

BILL (black steelworker): What I learned from my mother the most was how to endure pain, the things that hurt you, and try not to let them get you down...and I mean we did without a lot of things...being black. Oh, I can remember going hungry.

BOB (white foundry worker): Hardship is what makes closeness...It builds character...You see, everything is relative. If you got everything, you don’t need these, but, boy, any step up when you’re in pain builds you up...And every civilization will go forward as long as they can see a little gain. I don’t care if they start down at the bottom. If they can see a little gain, they’re going to be happy.

The Amish men are very much aware of their ancestors’ suffering due to

religious persecution, so they view hardship as an experience that clarifies the Amish

distinction and identity. Their references to hardships seem to focus on relationships:

When people did not get along, that was hardship. The black working-class men

speak of hardship as it relates to overall deprivation and racism. Interestingly enough,

white working-class men romanticize hardships as character-building experiences.

The black working-class men seldom refer to hardship as character- building; on the

contrary, they readily identify hardship as rooted in the oppression of racism. Thus,

even though enduring hardships is a frequent theme for all three subcultures, the

meaning of hardship varies across the categories.

One similarity that was very consistent among the three groups was the

importance of mentors beyond one’s own father or immediate family. Depending on

how the subculture was structured, some men viewed mentoring relationships as their

250 single most influential experience. I was somewhat surprised by this finding. What I

found most surprising was the vivid description of the relational model the mentors

provided. Frequent reference was made to the mentors’ acceptance and warmth.

Regardless of the subculture, the men described the mentors with phrases like: "He

had a caring attitude," "He treated me with a lot of love, and he taught me a lot of

things," "Everything he said had significance," "We’d share," "He had time to

listen," "He took out time for me," and "He demonstrated a genuine kindness and

concern for me." These men were speaking of the most influential men in their lives,

yet they used nurturant terms (terms which are usually devalued as non-masculine) in

their descriptions. There seems to be a relationship between the recollections o f male

nurturing and the influence of the mentor. The more nurturant and caring the mentor,

the greater the influence he had on the young man.

O f the three groups, the Amish subculture seems most active in providing

alternative mentors beyond a boy’s own natural father. This is partially due to the

way their society is structured. Amish adolescent boys finish their formal schooling

after the eighth grade, when they are thirteen or fourteen years old. At that time they

seek a work situation that permits them to contribute to the family income and to

develop additional farming and trade skills to ensure their long-term breadwinning

capabilities. Thus, mentoring is seen as a community responsibility. In the interviews

it was not unusual for an Amish man to speak of several influential men; some

would be from the immediate family, others from the extended family and the

community:

251 ISAAC: Well, I guess the closest brother to me would be my brother Jake...I think one of the reasons we were close [was] we always slept in the same bed...so we would talk more and we would share things that grew us closer...There were always certain people in the church also that were the type o f person that I always looked at. Those were the type of people I want to be when I get older. Well, there was an old man, he was spiritual minded. So friendly and so pleasant. I always thought when I get old, that’s just the way I wanta be. I wanta be so that everybody likes me, and friendly and the little children gather around for their Sunday afternoon candy and just stuff like that...Earlier I told you about my uncles. I admired them but I really never did wanta be like them...There is someone else. I did wanta be like my father-in-law and still do. Well, I’ve taken his advice. I’ve asked him a lot of advice and I kinda treasure his advice.

Isaac described several other men who were influential in his life as well; he

clearly had no trouble identifying a host of mentors. Some of these men were more

involved in his life than others. Depending on where he was in his life course, there

may have been times he needed more mentoring than others. In order for such

mentoring to take place, there needed to be much continuity between the various

responsibilities of work, family and community.

For the black and white working-class men, mentoring was a different experience

than it was for the Amish men. Influential men in the lives of the black working-

class men came most readily from extended family. White working-class men

referred more frequently to community mentors than the other two subcultures did.

The location of black working-class mentors within the kinship network comes as no

surprise, but the white working-class tendency to mention community mentors seems

particularly interesting. It may be due to the ideal of independence mentioned earlier.

252 White working-class men may be reluctant to look for mentoring in their immediate

or extended family; doing so might be seen as an admission of dependency, which is

defined as non-masculine. Of the three groups, the white working-class men, more

than the other two, wanted me to think they had essentially figured out how to be

men with little help from other men in their lives. For example, when I asked Jim

who the most important man in his life was, he said it was Jesus Christ. When I

pressed for him to name an "actual" man, he said:

JIM: Actual men. I played a loner for quite a few years. I didn’t want relationships with the guys. I had a couple guy friends where you could say, ‘Well, he was my friend,’ and we would go and have a few drinks together or something like that. But to have a role model that I would look up to, no, I didn’t really have any. My brother and I, we get together occasionally. He lives thirty-five, forty miles away. I think a lot of him. I respect him, but to say that he had a lot of influence on me...Once I turned into the foundry, gosh, there was no guys that I really, really looked up to...I mean, it was more, ‘What can I do for me to help myself out.’ And to say any of them influenced me, no, I don’t think so.

The numerous references to mentors other than fathers speak to the gendering

identity as a much more varied and lengthy process than Chodorow (1978) has

postulated. Early adolescence seems to be a "sensitive time," as the Amish and black

working-class stated. Connecting adolescent males with alternative mentors (i.e.,

mentors other than their fathers) provides increased opportunities to learn affective

processes. Chodorow is correct on this count, but the association between affective

processes and role learnings goes on well into early adulthood.

The importance of mentors beyond the immediate family suggests that the

predominant culture may place too much emphasis on fathers alone as the teachers

253 and mentors of boys. The mythopoetic movement of Robert Bly (1990) speaks to this

issue: Bly urges older men, not only fathers, to take on the obligation of mentoring

young men. An Amish man commented on this when he spoke about his mentoring

of another man’s boys. "I can say things, ’cause I don’t live close like that day to

day. They can hear it different from me."

Also, the way the predominant culture is presently structured, it encourages

young boys and adolescents to segregate themselves from such potential mentors as

well as from other boys of varied ages. Apart from an occasional male teacher or

coach, few mentoring relationships are encouraged. To provide more connections

between the nurturant affective processes and role learnings that Chodorow speaks

about would require substantial structural changes in the education system as it

presently stands. Other possibilities could be expanded, whether they be

apprenticeships, community service experiences, or community enhancement projects

that reconnect boys and young men to adult mentors.

Another similarity between the three groups was the concern about the de-skilling

of adolescents. This de-skilling is a result of the deindustrialization o f black and

white working-class men and the industrialization of Amish men. In all three

instances, however, the men were concerned about the young generation’s lack of

skills, and were worried that the youth would not be self-sufficient or have proper

breadwinning capabilities. They were also aware of the connection between affective

processes and role learnings. Two different Amish men commented on how

becoming a man is a process and how the attainment of skills is important: "As far as

254 making a man out of a guy, you don’t become a man just through add two and

two...There’s a lot more involved in that"; "Anymore the most important things of

life that a man can do to make a man, they can’t do it anymore because everything

else has changed." With de-industrialization and technological advances the

de-skilling process strips away capacities that were thought to be important to one’s

masculine identity. A white working-class plastics worker commented earlier that

"they have taken your ability away from you" in reference to technological

advancements that increase one’s reliance on specialists. Another white working-class

foundry worker commented, "There was a rapport there with the guys. We

modernized and we’ve lost a lot of people that were there." The implication is that

the work site did not feel like the same place. The black working-class men speak of

de-skilling as it relates to de-industrialization. The disappearance of jobs has

demoralized the elders’ hopes for their sons and grandsons. Their discouragement

has turned into fear of the community’s young black males; the Old Heads

(Anderson, 1989) have lost their place as viable mentors to these boys. Joe, a retired

steelworker, reflected much of the discouragement in his comments:

JOE: I’ve been out of the mill now almost twelve years. And I never thought they would turn to this...Looks like it gets worse instead of better.

The cross-group comparison of themes in the three groups reveals much variation

within and among the masculinities of the three subcultural contexts. Therefore, the

data from the interviews require a re-evaluation of Chodorow’s object-relations

theory.

255 CHODOROW REVISITED

I mentioned previously that the major criticism of Chodorow’s theory is the false

universalization of families, women, and men. In Black Feminist Thought, Collins

(1990) critiques Chodorow further: "Theories advanced as being universally

applicable...on closer examination appear greatly limited by the white, middle-class

origins of their proponents" (p. 7). Carrigan et al. (1987) also fault Chodorow’s

theory for the absence of historicity in the masculinity-making processes. My original

intent was to explore varied cultural, class, and racial settings, and thereby

re-examine Chodorow’s theory.

From the data in these three subcultures, there appear to be serious limitations

with Chodorow’s theory. She identified the asymmetrical social organization of

parenting as responsible for the rigidly closed ego boundaries in men. Men’s rigidly

closed boundaries should translate into an absence of male relational capacities. But

that was not the case for the men whom I interviewed.

In all three subcultures, infant care was the primary responsibility of women.

From Chodorow’s theory, this asymmetrical parenting arrangement should translate

into the very closed ego boundaries mentioned above. If relational men develop in

spite of the asymmetrical parenting arrangement, one could expect that either

different or additional processes are at work to generate the semi-permeable ego

boundaries necessary for relational capacities. There were men in each subculture

who displayed relational capacities in their stories and recollections. It is important to

note, however, that my interviews only reveal the extent to which men were willing

256 and able to talk about their relationships retrospectively. I did not do any direct

observation of these men in actual relationships.

Chodorow focuses too heavily on the early psychological development o f infants

and toddlers to the exclusion of other important phases of the life course that also are

important in the formation of semi-permeable ego boundaries. In this study, the

affective processes and role learnings spoken of in her theory go well beyond the

various oedipal stages she delineates to include all of adolescence and a good portion

of young and middle adulthood.

The empathy and compassion exemplifying semi-permeable ego boundaries were

most apparent in the Amish men interviewed. There appeared to be opportunities to

develop relational skills in many phases of their life course. These semi-permeable

ego boundaries for the Amish men could be seen in their language; they referred to

their relationships with terms like "he showed me some kindness," "his feelings got

hurt," "we shared," and "we was real close."

The black working-class men apparently developed those semi-permeable ego

boundaries early on and returned to them as needed. There appeared to be some

boundary vacillations depending on what a particular situation called for. Their

stories indicate that the boundaries could close for their own protection during

threatening situations. The reader may recall Bill’s account (see chapter 4) of his

experiences with crossburnings and the KKK. As he stated there, "We always

learned...that if you kept your mouth shut and if you didn’t see what you thought you

saw, even though you seen it, that you could get by."

257 For the white working-class men, the ego boundaries appeared to follow a closed

trajectory until well into adulthood. As the white working-class men mellowed and

no longer saw the need for closed boundaries, some of them became much more

open. The religious transformation of one white working-class foundry worker is

quite telling in this regard. The only way to open himself to a softer and more

nurturant masculine definition was by abandoning his ideals, including that of a

rigidly closed ego boundary:

PAUL: I always played the tough guy. I was intimidating to people because I was loud, obnoxious, big...Well, now I don’t want to intimidate anybody. I really don’t...I mean, it’s tough. I think it had a lot to do with the idea of not getting too close to other men, and when I started getting older...that changed. Well, now with the Lord, I ’m a real man...It had to have a lot to do with it because like I say, I was more withdrawn from men [in younger years]...It’s only through the healing that I’ve met these men.

The criticisms of Chodorow’s theory—i.e., false universalization and lack of

historicity—seem well founded when examining the data from this study. What is

intriguing and compelling about her writings, however, is the connection between the

social and the internal. She was able to stimulate discussion about how social

structures such as the social organization of parenting "induced psychological

processes" (Chodorow, 1978, p. 7). What emerged from my research is a new way to

conceptualize the gendering identity process that extends object-relations theory and

includes the context (Collins, 1990) and "historical dynamic" (Carrigan et al., 1990,

p. 98) lacking in Chodorow’s object-relations theory.

258 THE MYSTERY OF MASCULINITY

Masculine identity...comes to be in the interaction between the internal and the social. (Messner, 1992, p. 22)

Whatever is significant in issues about masculinity involves both personality and social relations; centrally, it involves the interplay between the two. (Connell, 1995, p. 43)

JOHN: Oh! My dad had a temper! And when he went off on you, we kids skee-daddled every which way, to avoid gettin’ hit. And just when you knew there was no place to run, you would drop to the floor and curl up in the smallest ball you could. That way when he hit you with the strap or cord, or whatever he was hittin’ you with, you could take the blows.

In her thought-provoking book Slow Motion (1990), Lynn Segal comments on

the difficulties that feminist object-relations theory has in explaining the "cultural

reality" of patriarchy. She states that object-relations theory suffers from the fatal

flaw o f circularity, which seriously limits its explanatory power. This is a common

criticism leveled at psychodynamic theorizing in many research and discipline circles,

whether psychological or sociological (Empey, 1982). As a result, Segal (1990)

comments, feminist object-relations theory "leaves much of the mystery of

masculinity concealed" (p. 82). For any theory of masculinity to be credible, some

explanation of patriarchy, which includes power, dominance, subordination of women

and violence, must be presented.

The previous excerpt from John, although painful to read, is not unique. Violence

or physical abuse is a common experience shared by many of the men in the

interviews and by both male or female clients in my marriage and family therapy

practice. John’s recollection of household violence and his corresponding coping

259 strategies set the stage for an exploration into a theory about the links between

masculinity and violence.

From the interview stories, one can find new ways of conceptualizing gender

through the lens of object-relations and psychoanalytic theories. John’s story offers a

physical metaphor for protection: he curled himself into a little ball, limiting the

blows to his back and legs. I imagine it was it first instinctual, covering the head,

tucking the neck into his chest, and bending his knees up. By so doing, the damage

from the domestic violence was limited to non-vital areas of the body.

John’s contraction of his physical body provides a metaphorical insight that

can be used to re-conceptualize dominance and power in object-relations theory. With

that in mind, I will begin a discussion on the internal psychodynamic aspects of

boundary development. Afterward I will discuss social construction processes such

as identification, disidentification and rites of passage—all key components of gender

definition.

INTERNAL DIMENSIONS

Reconceptualizing Ego Boundaries as an Expansion/Contraction Phenomenon

Just as the physical body has biological boundaries that define it, psychoanalytic

and object-relations theories articulate a psychological boundary to demarcate what is

within from what is without. Within this psychological boundary is a developing

consciousness separate from but connected to the rest of the outside world.

Chodorow and other feminist object-relations theorists postulate the importance

of ego boundaries in the development of a gendered self. The present notion of ego

260 boundaries includes two dimensions: open/closed and rigid/flexible. Chodorow asserts

that women have flexible, semi-permeable boundaries that enhance their capacity for

relationships and empathy for others; they also develop a self that is defined through

their relationships with others. She also argues that, due to asymmetrical parenting in

Western industrialized cultures, men have rigid and closed boundaries, rendering

them relationally deficient. As a result, men develop a self created in distinction from

their mothers and other women.

By using systems theory, I will delineate a reformulation of an individual’s ego

boundary structure as an expanding and contracting phenomenon. The open/closed

and flexible/rigid dimensions are part of the overall expansion/contraction concept.

Many theorists have conceptualized ego boundaries as static, others as more dynamic.

Those o f a dynamic orientation use terms like melting (Freud, 1961), blurring

(Kernberg, 1975), collapsing (Peck, 1978), always changing (Federn, 1952), and fluid

(Rubenstein, 1987). However, the dynamic processes they allude to are not rooted in

a systems perspective.

By conceptualizing ego boundaries as an expansion/contraction phenomenon, we

can create a dynamic and fluid explanatory model with more potential for variation

between and within each gender. Its dynamism and fluidity rest also on other cultural

factors such as class and ethnicity. In addition, the implementation o f a systemic

theoretical model of ego boundaries may provide insight into the sociopsychological

etiology of patriarchy.

261 To appropriately explore this dimension, some discussion about ego boundary

formation, development, and function is warranted. Examples from the interviews

will lay the groundwork for this discussion.

Ego Boundary Formation and Development

Building on the existing psychoanalytic theory of development, ego boundaries

have their genesis in the early months of life. Mahler (1968) speaks of the newborn

as incapable o f differentiating between itself and the mother in the first three months

of life. She states:

In the weeks preceding the evolution to symbiosis, the newborn and very young infant’s sleeplike states far outweigh in proportion the states of arousal. They are reminiscent of that primal state of libido distribution that prevailed in intrauterine life, which resembles the model of a closed monadic system, self-sufficient in its hallucinatory fulfillment. (P- 7)

This early stage of development is referred to by Mahler as "normal autism; for

in it, the infant seems to be in a state of primitive hallucinatory disorientation, in

which need satisfaction belongs to his own omnipotent, autistic orbit" (p. 8). As a

result of physiological maturation, which leads to increasing periods of awake time,

the infant in the second month becomes vaguely aware of this "dual unity" between

itself and its mother. Mahler’s concept of symbiosis is a metaphor for the child’s

"delusional, somatopsychic omnipotent fusion" (p. 9). which combines the mother

and child in a shared "common boundary" (p. 8). She cautions that the term

"symbiosis" in this context is a metaphor:

262 It does not describe, as the biological concept of symbiosis does, what actually happens between two separate individuals...It was chosen to describe that state of undifferentiation, of fusion with mother, in which the ‘I’ is not yet differentiated from the ‘not-I,’ and in which inside and outside are only gradually coming to be sensed as different, (p. 9)

Chodorow adds that, during this time, the infant vacillates "between perceptions of its

mother as separate and as not separate" (Chodorow, 1978, p. 68).

Chodorow argues that differentiation of a self can only occur if the primary

attachment is frustrated:

If the infant were not frustrated, it would not begin to perceive the other as separate. Frustration and ambivalence generate anxiety. Freud argued that anxiety triggers the development of ego capacities which can deal with and help to ward off anxiety, (p. 70).

As the child matures physiologically and experiences the frustration of repeated

maternal departures, he or she successfully develops a notion of "mother as separate

and ‘not-me’" (Chodorow, 1978, p. 67). Through internalizing the "not-I" into a

psychic representation or "gestalt perception" (Parens, 1971, p. 103), the infant can

finally resolve the issue of symbiosis with the mother. With an internal psychic

representation of the primary caretaker, the infant gradually lets go of the caretaker

as a "component of the actual self' (p. 103). He/she becomes content to use the

identification processes of that internal representation as a part of his/her own psychic

organization.

By the age of eight or nine months, the child shows evidence of being able to

differentiate the "I" from the "not-I." Such differentiation comes from the frustrations

263 and anxieties the child experiences when the mother continues to enter and leave the

child’s world. With increasing awareness of body-integrity and increasing mobility,

the new toddler exaggerates the boundary of separateness with increasing signs of

negativism, otherwise known as the "terrible-twos." (I might add that in our

household, this negativism seemed to last to age four or four-and-a-half, rather than

just the one year implied.)

Ego boundaries have their genesis in these psychic processes. Once

generated, boundaries must be maintained to provide differentiation between what is

internal and that which is external. At the same time they must protect that which is

within from that which is without. Symbiotic unity may be re-experienced through

the expansion and contraction of ego boundaries; relational intimacy is possible

when the boundaries expand, and the preservation and protection of self and identity

from the outside world are recreated when the same boundaries contract.

Expansion and Contraction

Expansion can be thought of as a process of attachment with relational

nourishment as its goal. Concurrently, contraction ensures security. An ego capacity

develops out of the anxiety of separation from the primary love object, which in most

instances is the mother. The purpose and function of contraction is to defend the

psychic structure from suffering and "ward off anxiety."

According to Freud (1961):

We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning

264 signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps the more painful to us than any other, (p. 25)

Ego Boundary Functions

It is probable that the expansion and contraction of ego boundaries develops out

of the normal need people have for attachment, safety, closeness, and corresponding

security. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud (1961) argues that humans choose

to withdraw from others; this kind o f "voluntary isolation" (p. 25) serves as the

"readiest safeguard" to suffering in interpersonal relationships. Caution, protection

and self-preservation are functions of ego boundary contractions. These functions

arise as the ego’s reality principle being is developed.

To be attached, people must expand their boundaries to include others; in other

situations boundaries must be contracted to assert or reassert isolation. Boundary

contractions occur not only for protection, but also for differentiation or

individuation. As Freud (1961) stated, it is this isolation or ego boundary contraction

that provides protection to one’s ego identity and integrity.

Chodorow (1980) states:

The more secure the central self, or ego core, the less one has to define one’s self through separateness from others. Separateness becomes, then a more rigid, defensive, rather fragile, secondary criterion o f the strength o f the self and of the "success" of individuation... Differentiation is not distinctness and separateness, but a particular way o f being connected to others. This connection to others, based on early incorporation, in turn enables us to feel that empathy and

265 confidence that are basic to the recognition of the other as a self. (pp. 10-11)

One implication from systems theory is that, for most people, ego boundaries

are in a constant state of flux, and most individuals are unaware of their movement

along the expansion/contraction continuum. Depending on the biological disposition

or temperament of the individual and the cultural norms regulating boundaries, the

person tries to maintain some kind of homeostasis or balance between expanding and

contracting ego boundaries.

The development of ego boundaries appears to be a universal phenomenon in the

genesis of personality and identity, yet it is socially constructed. Just as self can only

develop in relation to others, the culture—through the socializing agent of the family

and community—determines where the ego boundaries will lie between self and

others and also what the rhythm of their fluctuations will be.

SOCIAL DIMENSIONS

Identification Processes

In psychoanalytic accounts, the term "identification" refers to the way a child

internalizes aspects of his/her parents in an effort to resolve the Oedipal conflict. The

child arrives at a dilemma during the Oedipal phase of development, when he/she

realizes that an exclusive right to the opposite-sex parent is not possible (Breger,

1974).

Breger (1974) further states:

When the little boy renounces his desire for mother and faces up to his inadequacy in comparison to father, things must

266 seem bad indeed. But when he is able to identify himself with this same father, when he can take him as a model and fantasy himself capable of the same accomplishment, there is hope. (p. 159)

Identification has remained as an important contributor to the gender defining

process: Freud (1925), for example, believes it is the answer to the Oedipal

complex, and Mead (1934) argues that it results in the development of the "me."

However defined, scholars agree that it is a gradual process that continues from the

early months of life and extends through much, if not all, o f adulthood.

From my perspective and experience, the Oedipal issue is relatively nonexistent

when fathers are involved in childcare, providing warmth and nurturance to an infant

and child. Since Oedipal issues and castration anxiety are both resolved through

identification, they can be reformulated as Boundary Complexes and Obliteration

Anxiety. The dilemma for young boys is how to contract ego boundaries and risk

becoming as uncaring as their fathers seem to be. One could argue that they would

rather stay connected to their mothers. The young boy’s anxiety about contact and

interaction with his father is seen in his ambivalence about approaching such a

powerful individual, who could, from a child’s perspective, obliterate him physically

or emotionally in a mere moment. Boys’ and girls’ childhood nightmares of the

"bogeymen" and other ominous male figures are rooted in this fear of destruction at

the hands of a male adult figure.

Ego boundary norming is an identification process that begins in the family with

the earliest relationship between a young child and his/her caretaker. As the young

267 child imitates facial gestures and sounds and is aware of the primary caretaker’s

affective state, he/she tends to approximate the caretaker’s ego boundary position and

fluctuations. This is not a particularly conscious process at this level, but it becomes

increasingly so as the fluctuations become more and more the culture’s responsibility,

embedding them in a meaning or meaning-making system.

The earliest ego boundary contractions begin in response to disruptions in care

and a developing awareness of a separate self. This is apparent in the separation

protest response of infants to their mother’s absence (Waters, 1994).

Early in the toddler’s experience, representations of the primary caretaker/s and

significant others are internalized and introjected. These representations can be whole

or fragmentary, but usually include parts that the child finds comforting or

threatening. In the identification process, the person identified by the child can be

directly present or absent. If the father, brother, grandfather, uncle, or Active kin

male is present, an affective component accompanies the role learnings (Chodorow,

1978, p. 176). Chodorow refers to this as "personal identification." If an appropriate

male mentor cannot be secured in one’s social network, the hegemonic masculine

forms offered by the boy’s culture and class are more likely to be the ideals

internalized without much of a reality base to integrate the ideal with the real

(Connell, 1987). Chodorow refers to this as "positional identification." As part of the

positional identification process, affective attributes such as male warmth and

nurturance are often sacrificed. The advantage of personal identification, on the other

268 hand, comes on three counts: attachment, continuity, and the potential lessening of

dissonance between idealized hegemonic masculinity and the reality.

In the following excerpts, Joe, a black working-class man, discusses the

importance that Jackie Robinson, one of the few visible black athletes o f his day, as

a role model; Paul, a white working-class man who lacked a significant male in his

life, comments on the hegemonic values embraced in his work setting:

JOE: Jackie Robinson, he was my hero. Not many men around when I was coming up. Oh, I wanted to be Jackie Robinson. It’s funny, though. As I got older, I realized he didn’t have no easy time of it. When I was young I figured he was on easy street. He worked real hard, and now I find out he had about as rough a time as anybody else being black and all. Didn’t know that at the time. Didn’t think about it.

PAUL: No, my dad wasn’t around much. Working all the time. But when I started working I thought ‘I’ll show ’em.’ I could work as hard as the rest of ’em. Could fight, could drink, could cuss. Hey, I didn’t think there was any other way. Now I don’t think the same. Wish I’d a had somebody to point me in the right direction. What a waste!

Although their circumstances were quite different, the absence o f much male

contact put both of these men out of touch with the richer role learnings that

accompany the affective processes of a relationship with an older male. Joe had

envisioned a Jackie Robinson ideal "on easy street." Implied is the dream of

acceptance by the predominant white culture—a dream quite opposed to the reality of

nonacceptance. Paul had embraced the hegemonic norms he encountered. Now he

realizes that, had he had someone with whom to sort this out, he might not have

269 wasted so much time trying to prove himself to his peers by adopting the hegemonic

male norms.

Joseph, an Amish canvas maker, commented on the difficulties his father had

being there for him:

JOSEPH: Well, [my father] was a farmer...but then he worked away part time. The farm wasn’t quite big enough to really support his family. He had the same habit of belittling people...And, my mom used to tell us ‘You just have to forgive Dad because he never had a dad. And he does not know what it’s like to have a dad’...His dad died when he was barely five years old...Then his mom pretty much was by herself from there on with her four children. And that’s what my mom always told us, ‘Forgive Dad for acting the way he does because he never had a dad to guide him.’ I don’t remember him helping too much in the house after. He just pretty much stayed outside and let Mom do the work...He had the same habit of belittling people...I didn’t want to be that way. But sometimes a boy doesn’t know where to look. And I made that my goal. I’m not saying I haven’t failed in it. Again, I’m sure I have. I guess goals are like stars: they may not be reached but they can be a guide.

This excerpt presents Joseph’s integration dilemma of ideal and real quite clearly.

His own father had trouble being nurturant and accepting, and seemed to avoid

contact with family members, particularly the children. Joseph did not specify whom

he looked to for advice on how to treat his own children, but the "star" metaphor

reveals the earnestness of his search for Amish masculine ideals and an awareness of

the reality of his life’s experience. This reality included much distance from his

father. He wondered if he would ever attain the ideal. Later he spoke of an Amish

mentor, one from a more liberal Amish group, who served as the most influential

man in his life.

270 By sharing a story about my nine-year-old son, I would like to present an

example of the potential outcome that can arise when a boy has an active, present

adult male in his life. My son is playing organized football for the first time and is

trying to figure out how to give meaning to this experience, especially since there are

no girls on his team or on the teams he plays. He is encouraged in practice and

games to be extremely aggressive, of course within the bounds of the rules provided.

But in few settings (other than when he tried his hand at wrestling) is this

encouraged and approved of. I noticed that upon arriving home after one game he

stopped and carefully picked a flower, called and held our cat very tenderly, and was

more relationally focused than usual. The following morning he crawled up in my lap

and asked if it was O.K. for football players to snuggle. When I told him he would

never get to a place in his life when he wouldn’t need someone who would be gentle

with him, touch him or hold him, he smiled and held me close. It appeared to me

that he was attempting to integrate the socially sanctioned and approved aggressive

displays in football with the more relational and caring side of himself. In agreement

with Piaget’s (1962, 1969) notions of assimilation and accommodation, my son could

not easily assimilate and integrate the aggressive football experience into the existing

gender definitions. He thought about creating a new cognitive structure that would

create a male definition distinct from softness and nurturance, an absolute "all" or

"nothing" definition. Aggression is equated with what is masculine, and all softness

and tenderness is relegated to the non-masculine world of women. My son would

naturally try to embrace that expectation and meaning because he wants to be a man.

271 His question was an effort for clarification since he did not want to lose that

relationally nurturant and caring part of himself unnecessarily.

Personal identification provides opportunities for such clarification, whereas

positional identification does not. I did not want him to devalue his dependency

needs and define them as non-masculine. This experience was a "boundary norming"

lesson ("boundary norming" will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter) that

may differ from one provided by his peers, who are taught by male adults and peers

that any expression of softness labels the boy or man a "sissy."

Disidentification Processes

As important as identification is the dialectic of difference from one’s significant

male models. "Disidentification" refers to the boy’s concern and recognition that he

does not approximate some hegemonic forms of masculinity presented to him by the

family, extended family, and community. In some instances alternative hegemonic

forms will suffice, but in others an abandonment or rejection of a particular

masculine form occurs. I have encountered men in my therapy practice who have

been physically or emotionally abused by their fathers, and have stated on some

level: "If that is what it means to be a man, I want no part of it." Many men search

their life long for male adults and peers who can offer alternative masculinities.

Usually the alternatives chosen include warmth and compassionate acceptance.

The following rather lengthy recollection of an Amish canvasmaker provides a

fine example of the disidentification process:

272 JOSEPH: [My parents] were caring...but Dad, he didn’t show it as much. I know he was caring, but now in later years I see it, but he just didn’t show it, and then we sometimes got a little resentful because of that...He had a habit of belittling people. In a way that it makes you feel bad for whatever you did...I remember one time I came home from the store...I had the best intentions for having bought exactly what he wanted, and I laid it on the table there. He looked at it and he said, ‘I told you three times what I wanted and you brought the wrong thing. When are you ever gonna grow up?’ And I couldn’t take it. I mean, I turned around and I went down to the barn and I cried. And he never offered me any sympathy for it, and that really left an impression on me. But I forgave him...Things like that are hard on the growing-up boy at that age. You lose your self-confidence if your father doesn’t have any trust in you...I remember one time now...my dad asked me to do some painting and I wasn’t very fond of painting. I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know how to paint, Dad’...He says, ‘Well, what do you expect to make out of yourself in your future? What are you going to do? You’re not very big, and you’ll have to do something. You can’t farm. You know you’re not going to amount to much, are you?’ And I really didn’t like that, I mean, it didn’t...make me feel like going painting. There again, that was just his way of trying to motivate me into doing something...The best thing I can say that happened out of that is a lesson that I learned. I don’t want to use my boys like that, and I’m not saying that I haven’t failed, but it did not make me feel very self- confident after hearing things like that.

Joseph clearly recalled the belittling encounters with his father. He disidentified

with that part of his father and realized that engaging his own sons would be

different. In his early teens he was sent to work at a peach orchard nearby, and a

mentor with a more nurturant relating style provided an alternative.

JOSEPH: There was a peach orchard about a mile from us, and I was willing to go try something else...And the man that owned the orchard was very good to me. I guess he liked my work or whatever. After the peach season was over he said, ‘Why, are you gonna help pick apples or help with the fall harvest season?’...And I started working for this man at the orchard...and I worked for him for ten years...That man at the

273 orchard left an influence on me...it left more of an impact on me than any other man that I knew of in my life...He had a caring attitude, and I feel he was a very...fine Christian man...He let me make my decisions...and he gave me the confidence I needed to go through life. And I’d say from growing up years there was no man that left more of an influence on me than him...[His family] went to Florida...when I was about seventeen or eighteen...and he asked me to be in charge at their house and making fire with the wood burner and everything, water the house plants and every thing... And that really gave me confidence in myself...Somebody believed in me...That’s all it took.

Joseph also learned a powerful lesson in forgiveness and acceptance from his

mentor:

JOSEPH: I was out there working, and...I had an accident with his pruner. I don’t think I locked the brakes right on the tractor and the tractor rolled forward and ran over the hose and tore the hose off. And I was just, I just didn’t know what’s gonna happen now. I spoilt this man’s equipment. What was I going to do? And I just didn’t know how to go back and tell him about this. But I knew I had to, and I went back and I told him the facts...And I told him I would gladly pay for the damages of it...He just shook his head and said, ‘No, accidents can happen to anyone. We’ll take care of that.’ And, I mean it just, he just made me feel good.

Joseph internalized not only the warmth and acceptance of this employer,

neighbor, and friend but also his mentor’s love of orchards as well. The orchards

remain a symbol of the connection to the man who offered him a masculine

alternative.

Paul, a white, forty-five-year-old foundry worker, offers a second example of

disidentification:

PAUL: I remember the bad things. My father was an alcoholic and he was mean when he drank. I can remember

274 when he wouldn’t come home at night, we knew that we’d be in trouble when he did come home...Everybody suffered, my mother, myself, and my older brother and two sisters...I can remember being woke at night, my mother hollering, my father yelling and going downstairs, and I can remember the four of us kids trying to pull my father off my mother when he would have her pinned on the floor and be smacking her or whatever. And most all the memories, when I think back to the time when I was young, are the rougher ones. I don’t recall the good things...We took beatings with a hose. And it was about probably six foot long and they doubled it over and it would be whippings. Today, you think about it and you go, ‘Oh, that was abuse’...At that time, I thought we were a normal family...To this day I don’t forget those things. Those are the things that I recall more vividly than anything, the tough times. The times when my father was drunk, because those were the times when things were intense. But, boy, he liked whiskey...It’s just that stuff that runs through your mind. It’s tough.

Paul did not choose to identify with his father. His first step on a new path was

the rejection of his father’s concept of masculinity (marked by terror, violence, and

destruction). Instead, as the following excerpt illustrates, he accepted his cousin, an

ex-Navy man and a weightlifter, as a better role model:

PAUL: I had a cousin that lived out behind me and he was older. He was probably about thirty-five and they had one daughter, Diane. She’s a year older. And I spent a lot of time with them. He wanted a son in the worst way, and he didn’t have one. So, I really admired him a lot. I respected him a lot. He was middle-weight, golden gloves in the...Navy. And he had a set of old train wheels. They were off of a real old box car. They were the hollowed-out style with the rib on them. And he lifted those for weights. And he was just a massive man. And he got me this old, cheap set of some sort of wheels that come off o f something and I would lift them with him. And he always wanted a son. I think he wanted him to be a boxer because he would put the gloves on and we would fool around a bit and then the neighbor boys would come over and we’d have little boxing matches when we were

275 quite young. Those were a lot of the good memories, though. My father and Richard, my cousin, they didn’t get along at all. My father would say, ‘Well, you belong to them,’ or ‘You’re not my son’ and things like that. So a lot of the memories from the childhood are really rough.

As Paul grew older, he began to re-evaluate the hegemonic forms of blue-collar

masculinity modeled by his father and cousin, and he distanced himself from

aggressive displays of behavior. His journey toward manhood did not end with the

acceptance of his cousin’s brand of masculinity. Asked whom he now considered to

be his most important model, he gave lengthy but eloquent confession of the change

that "accepting the Lord" brought to his quest for his true identity.

PAUL: The most important man in my life would have to be Jesus Christ...As far as men go, I loved my father. I loved him dearly and I know he loved me, but he couldn’t show it the way he probably would have liked to. And I probably couldn’t show it to him until it was too late... I gave my life to the Lord here four years ago. And if not for that, I don’t even know if I’d even be here today...There’s nobody in this world that I can look up to, not in this world.

I asked Paul about how his cousin fit into that picture. To that, Paul responded:

PAUL: My cousin Richard, yeah. But, you know, he wasn’t spiritual. I think that is so, so, so important, because if you don’t have the spiritual hand, I think you lack something as far as the whole hand. You can be the brawn man, the tough man, the big man, and the respected man...but without the spiritual man, without the Godly man, I think that man lacks of being the full man. I want to offer some of that to my nephews. I really do.

Paul continued on this track:

PAUL: I think I’m more of a man now than I ever have been, and I don’t think it will ever change. I think now that I have no place to go but forward and upward. And I think God has great things in

276 store for me. I could have been living in very detained thoughts as far as what being a man is. I think my father was a bit broadened by release of at least some of the pain and some of the guilt...Some of the heavy baggage that I carried for all them years...Just how was I going to get rid of these things without somebody’s help? And it’s the Lord’s help that’s really helped me to loosen some of these burdens. And it has broadened my vision as far as what a man is, what a man is expected to be, and what he can be. I think that I still have growth to do as far as being a man. When I look back at when I went to work in the foundry and I say, ‘Well, now I’m a real man. I’m a tough guy. I’m working as a tough guy. I’m a laborer, doing tough work, getting bigger and stronger.’ Now I look at all that and that’s not the kind of gains that I want. I think that’s all kind o f like fruitless...And I didn’t realize that until the growth I’ve seen in myself over the last four years. And when I started to tell you about the idea of being a man...I say, ‘Well, there’s a couple areas.’ One, when I came to what I considered manhood, being the tough guy in the foundry, on my own and living alone, and that continued right into the marriage and everything else. When I reflect back, I don’t think I really became a man until I got rid of some of that luggage that I carried for all of them years. And I think it excelled my way of thinking as far as what a man is expected to be, what he can be to his children, to his wife, to his community, give it to his workmates. And there’s been a great change. I mean, it’s been for the total good. There has been a recognition from workmates and others in that area. Very little, very little ridicule about it at all because of the integrity factor and that they see that this is not just a passing thing where you step into it and you step out...They see that there’s a growth there that you just don’t do by yourselves. You just don’t do it. I ’m looking forward to the rest of our lives...I’ve lived a lot. I’ve had a lot of hard miles behind me and I think I’ve got a lot of good miles ahead of me. And I’m thankful for that. I really am.

Paul used religious ideology to represent his thoughts on masculinity. His views

represent an expansive rather than contracted ego boundary ideology. Through the

course of his life, he disidentified with the hegemonic forms offered to him. As a

boy becoming an adolescent, he accepted his father’s violence as something

masculine. Then his cousin provided him an alternative, yet still violent, masculinity.

277 This type of masculinity was more limited in scope and was embedded in rules.

Finally, he abandoned both of these masculine forms and accepted one that was

relationally oriented. The relational focus was not limited to his family, but also

included his nephews, his "workmates" and the community at large.

Ego Boundary Norming

In these three populations, some culture-specific norming seemed to emerge.

Among the Amish, practical jokes with peers are a way of managing masculine

personas. In the black working-class, "Playing the Dozens" offers peer-taught,

boundary-contraction instruction on how to handle ridicule by the dominant white

culture. Many of the white working-class men reported tirades, both in the family

during their growing years and in their work settings as adults. These boundary

norming instances define masculinity in the respective subcultures. Such definitions

provide instruction regarding to what degree and at what level the boundaries are to

be contracted.

Amish Eso Boundary Normine by Peers

Peers are an important part of the boundary norming process. Males who display

behaviors that connote strength are accepted, but the Amish do not permit such

behavior to extend to pride in one’s strength or accomplishments. Prideful displays

are addressed through the use of practical jokes; in that way, insensitivity to others in

specific settings is minimized. David, a harnessmaker, stated:

DAVID: I remember goin’ to a hymn sing when I was a young fella. And there was this guy there. We all thought he was gettin’ a little big for his britches. Someone, and I still

278 don’t know who, decided that he was goin’ to bring him down a notch. It was a rainy evening, and while everyone was inside singin’, someone put fresh cow manure in this fella’s umbrella. Well, this young man came outside, turned away from the girl he was escorting and opened it. Whoa! (Laughs and claps hands onto knees) You should have seen the look on that guy’s face. He turned beet red, angry. He started runnin’ around tryin’ to figure who done it, and I walked up to him and said, "Menno, That’s enough. Leave it be." I didn’t have no part in it, but, boy, he wasn’t so proud after that.

Black Working-Class Eso Boundary Normine by Peers

From the interviews with black working-class men, "Playing the Dozens"

emerged as a way to prepare black youth for insults and ridicule in our racist society.

Jim, a machinist, explained this process:

JIM: Now when you play the dozens, you make comments that are derogatory regarding preferably your mother...‘Your mother’s so fat that we think she’s here right now.’ ‘Your mother’s so fat,’ or ‘Your mother’s so ugly,’ and it just goes on and on. And the heat surmounts when I have no comeback for you. They get to the point where I’m frustrated because you had the edge over me, and as a result of it there might be a fight...And this thing has occurred for years and years and years. And it still occurs even in 1994. Everyone still plays dozens when they have an opportunity. You sit around during the summer, you have nothing to do, and the origin of it I have no idea. I just know that it’s always been around. And nothing is more dear to the average individual than his mother...They go on and on and on and on. And that was the source of a lot of the turmoil or a lot of the fights or skirmishes that we did have.

Bruhn and Murray (1985) comment that the "Dozens" is a verbal game developed

as a survival technique by minority groups for the purpose of venting frustration and

diffusing anger among youth. It appears the "Dozens" also serves another purpose.

279 "Playing the Dozens" provides an opportunity for young black males to contract their

ego boundaries from insults and ridicule that will be a part of their lifelong

experience in a society dominated by racism and oppression. Focusing the game on

one’s mother supports the notion that the "Dozens" is an ego boundary norming

experience, as one’s mother is usually associated with warmth, empathy, and

femininity. So the "Dozens" devalues those qualities defined as feminine. As the

players becomes proficient at the "Dozens," they learn to contract their boundaries

ever further through time until someone starts fighting or crying. At that point a

lapse is created in the boundary contraction, and fighting becomes the only congruent

response and defense.

White Workins-Class Eso Boundary Normim by Adults

A number of the white working-class men vividly recalled tirades. These

tirades appear to provide an ego boundary norming experience. A father’s tirades

taught them proper deference to male authority; they also encouraged the youths to

contract their boundaries and prepare for their own patriarchal dominance. In the

following excerpts, Ralph, Dick, and Don talk about the tirades of fathers, coaches,

and employers:

RALPH: My dad used to go off on me. Shit! Used to scare me to death. I couldn’t do anything right. As far as he was concerned, I was a worthless sack of shit. He’d chase me, stand over me, threaten to hit me. And I never knew if he would or he wouldn’t. And when he did, he’d tell me to take it like a man. I tried to stay the hell away from him. I ’m surprised I didn’t have a fucking nervous breakdown. I kicked the shit out of him when I was 17, and you know what that bastard did? He smiled at me. I couldn’t believe it.

280 Tirades are a way to control and toughen. This man’s father was probably not

consciously aware o f the ego boundary contractions he was demonstrating for his

son, but his smile might connote success at having taught his son well.

Football provided many lessons in ego boundary contractions for white

working-class youth. Here Dick recalls a half-time event during a high school

football game.

DICK: I was a decent football player. Played both ways. I was struggling against this one team. We got in at half-time and the coach lit into me. I can still remember him saying (leans toward me with hands on both knees demonstrating), ‘You cock sucker, you fucking pussy, what the hell you doing out there, playing footsies with the girls?’ He was screaming at me at the top of his lungs, and everybody’s watching, team, everyone. I could have crawled under the bench in there, but I had to stand there and take it. I stuck out the year, but I hated him after that.

The tirade was supposed to humiliate the football player into playing tougher: the

coach intended to get Dick so frustrated and angry that he would take his frustrations

out on the other team. In the short term, his action may have served the team’s

purpose; in the long term, however, Dick hated the coach, became alienated from

him, and contracted his boundaries.

As a final example, Don recalls his first few weeks at a new job. His experience

there paralleled his family experience:

DON: First job I took out of high school, went to work for a builder. And I thought, this’ll be great being out on my own. No more hollering or screaming. I was glad to be on my own. First time I did something wrong, my boss, starts screaming and hollering. ‘What the fuck you doing?’ I tried to say something like ‘I thought ,’ and he interrupts me saying

281 ‘I don’t pay you to think. I pay you to do just what I tell you. If you can’t do that, get out of here!’ I walked off that job.

Don had hoped that his experience in the work world would be something quite

different from his home experience. Tirades of humiliation and violence are much

more common in the lives of white working-class men than most people realize, and

support the patriarchal arrangements.

From these ego boundary norming experiences, a different conceptualization for

ego boundaries emerges. In addition, a stage model for understanding ego boundary

contraction processes also emerges. These provide some additional explanations of

power, dominance, violence, and patriarchy in the shaping of masculinities.

A Stage Model of Contracting Ego Boundaries

Delineated below are the stages of ego boundary contraction. They combine

stress theory (Hill, 1949, 1958), systems theory (Bateson, 1972, 1979), feminist

object-relations theory (Chodorow, 1978), and communications theory (Satir, 1972,

1988). The stages in the model include:

A. Ego boundaries at a homeostatic level, somewhere between expansion and contraction as normed by the culture (i.e., status quo.)

B. Perceived threat to oneself. Threat may be person or event. C. Assessment of the threat’s magnitude and of personal resources to counter

the threat. D. Contraction process if the threat is perceived to be of sufficient

magnitude E. Eased ego boundary contraction once the threat is reduced or minimized.

Ego boundaries may be modified to a more contracted position to provide additional protection. This alteration may be limited to a specific situation or may be generalized as the person’s predominant ego boundary position.

F. Disassociation from feeling states if, with persistent threat, the person’s awareness of self becomes limited.

282 G. Depersonalization of the person who is perceived as a threat. H. Demonization of the other. Giving malicious intent to justify potential

brutal force in the defense of self. I. Eased ego boundary contraction once threat is reduced or minimized.

The model begins (A) with the person in a non-threatened position. Ego

boundaries may be in the middle of the spectrum or lean in either direction based on

the norms offered by the culture. The Amish men I interviewed leaned more toward

the expanded position, since their ideology and faith support that position. The white

working-class men seemed to have norms more in the contracted end o f the

continuum, while the black working-class men seemed—at least from my perspective-

-to be more in the middle.

A perceived threat (B) to oneself disturbs individual’s status quo or homeostasis.

The threat may or may not be real; it may be physical; and it may be related to

status, position, or self-esteem. Some assessment of the magnitude of the threat (C)

determines to what extent the ego boundaries contract. If the threat appears mild, the

boundaries may contract less than they would in situations perceived as very

threatening (D). At this stage, various senses thought to be non-essential in the

self-preservation reaction are limited; for all intents and purposes, the person’s

awareness becomes "cut off," and he makes a determination as to whether the threat

will dissolve or continue. In situations where the threat dissolves (E), a sense of

security is re-established and the boundaries either return to their expanded

pre-threatened, relaxed state or are modified in some way. Usually the modification

includes more contraction of ego boundaries as a precaution for similar future threats.

283 In circumstances where the threat is prolonged or severe (F), ego boundary

contractions continue indefinitely to counter the threat and provide additional

protection. It is "armor," "padding," or "a cushion" against pain or threat o f pain,

physical or emotional. For some, a kind of disassociation from the body may occur,

which is a variation on contracting the boundaries; it also provides protection in the

form of an anesthetic function, numbing the pain from the threat. (Adolescents

sometimes reach a point where they become aware of their own success in defending

their ego boundaries against a threat, and experience a corresponding sense of

invulnerability or invincibility.) They become aware of power when they realize that

others in a less contracted state are vulnerable. In situations where the threat is

relational, a depersonalization of the other occurs. Feelings of empathy and

compassion dissolve as the boundaries contract further. In certain situations a

demonization of the other may occur (G). This is the point at which the victims

withdraw all empathy, compassion or awareness of the shared existence of humanity.

They make counterattacks or threats with little feeling for the other, who is not seen

as human; in fact, the other may be seen as the embodiment of an evil entity (H).

Usually, the contracted boundary eases as the threat dissipates (I). However, the

awareness of the power of ego boundary contraction provides the person with a

decision: Is he/she to remain in the contracted state, which extends the protection but

leaves him/her without the benefit of other senses or feeling states? If the person

chooses to ease the contraction and expand the boundaries, feelings of empathy and

284 compassion gradually return, and a context of trust and safety is recreated. These, of

course, are the necessary ingredients for relational intimacy.

Demeaning and belittling remarks, humiliation, tirades, abuse, torture, violence,

and murder are possible and understandable in this model. The patriarchal

devaluation of everything defined as feminine may be rooted in the devaluation of

expanded ego boundaries. Expansion makes one vulnerable to attack, scrutiny, or

belittlement—all of which negatively affect self-esteem. If one contracts the ego

boundaries and limits expansion to a very limited number of people or time frames,

the likelihood of assaults on the ego and self are reduced. If one keeps the boundaries

contracted, the likelihood of future successful threats are minimized as well.

The respondents’ recollections provide additional insight. David, a black

working-class man, recalled his younger days when the norm of an expanded ego

boundary became problematic.

DAVID: I remember my first fight. Wasn’t much of a fight (laughs). Must have been 7 or 8 years old. Until then, I never even thought about boys being different. I was taught to be nice to everybody. A new kid moved onto our street and he came up to me and pushed me. I couldn’t believe it. I never did anything to this kid. I kinda froze. I didn’t know what to do. Other kids there said to fight him back. He hit me this time, and I still didn’t know what to do. I started to cry and this kid laughed. All of a sudden, I thought, ‘I’m not prepared for this.’ My way of being nice wasn’t working. Nobody told me there would come a time when that wouldn’t work. Mom never told me that. I knew then I was gonna have to be different from now on or it’d just happen again...I started watching other kids and copied some of their ways. I tried to look cool or tough. Anything so the bullies would leave me alone. It took me a while, not to show the fear.

285 Prior to this experience, David’s expanded ego boundary position, normed by his

relationship with his mother, worked without incident. He was shocked when he was

confronted with a physical threat by another youngster. He was paralyzed and did not

know how to contract his boundaries from the threat. He began looking for models

that he could emulate; in so doing, he communicated a less vulnerable stance to his

peers.

In this instance, the homeostatic level normed by David’s relationship with his

mother was an expanded ego boundary position. With the provocative and

threatening actions of the "new kid," he assessed the threat’s magnitude and the

personal resources he had available to counter the threat. What he realized was his

lack of preparedness for this threat; he did not know how to protect himself. He

began modifying his present expanded ego boundary stance by searching for ways to

contract the boundaries and be better prepared for future threats.

The reader may recall Jesse’s account (see chapter 4) of the time he hit his

stepfather over the head with a hoe handle as a way of dealing with his step-father’s

constant rejection of him. To deal with this rejection, Jesse contracted his ego

boundaries to not care about his "stepdaddy." As the years passed, Jesse’s boundaries

become more and more contracted, and he saw his step-father as an ongoing threat,

an enemy. Jesse later explained that, as the violence in the relationship increased, his

mother became concerned and intervened by fleeing with Jesse to Pittsburgh.

Larry, a white construction worker, remembered little of his actions on the

night when he, a young teenager, murdered a store clerk:

286 LARRY: Well, I was charged with going into a store and allegedly taking thirty-two dollars out of the cash register, and the woman caught me and she was stuck in the neck with an ice pick and then a butcher knife and she was beheaded. That’s what I was convicted of. To my knowledge to this day, I can’t actually say what happened...I don’t [remember]. I was there that night. I do remember that for sure. I was definitely there, but as far as anything else, I ’m a blank.

I postulate that much of "man’s inhumanity" to men, women and children can be

found in this ego boundary contraction process. It takes place in structures of power

and inequality, in a social context. Whether it is the postal worker who kills his

supervisor, the former military serviceman/men who bombed the federal building in

Oklahoma City, or a husband who repeatedly beats his wife and children, such

actions are manifestations of ego boundary contractions. These persons return to a

primitive, isolated state in which connections are viewed as threats and people,

friends and families as the enemy.

Ego boundary contraction can reach a point where the person whom one is

thinking about or relating to no longer seems human. The causes of the contractions

include but are not limited to: discrimination, exclusion, intolerance, hate, violence

and cruelty.

Current times continue to be marked by intolerant and demonizing political

rhetoric from the left and right as well as prejudice and discrimination against

minorities, the poor, homosexuals, and people of faith. Ethnic cleansing, genocide,

and callousness to human suffering make sense in the ego boundary contraction

conceptualization.

287 In the following excerpt, Lou, a white working-class man, recollects his

violent father:

LOU: My ol’ man could be nasty. I used to watch from behind the couch with my little sister as he went crazy in our house. He would put his fist through solid oak doors. He would throw furniture, bust all the dishes. It didn’t seem like he was the same person. You ever seen those nature specials? His eyes looked just like those of a crocodile or some other mean bastard. I used to think, ‘Light’s out, nobody’s home.’ We used to be so afraid he’d kill us.

A metaphor that may provide a visual image of how ego boundary contraction

works comes from the field of astronomy. Black holes are collapsing stars that, due

to their own mass and increasing density, contract to a point that even light is not

able to escape. In literature and poetry, light is often associated with empathy and

compassion. In relational terms, as the boundaries contract, connections are

temporarily (and in some instances permanently) severed. The person’s boundaries

can actually contract beyond the physical limits of the body. When this happens,

pain, feeling, and thought disappear, and the person loses much self-awareness.

Common expressions and cliches support this framework. "There is a thin line

between love and hate." "He’s a Jekyll and Hyde." Comic books and television

present the Hulk, who, through an angry reaction to an injustice or threat, is

transformed into an enormously powerful beast. Masculine personas throughout the

media display a hegemonic masculine form that reveals an extremely contracted ego

boundary with little compassion and empathy. Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone,

and Arnold Schwartzenegger all have the capacity to inflict harm and death suddenly,

288 and do so frequently. Before the movie proceeds very far, the demonization process

of the victims is already completed. This process is "necessary" to justify murder

and brutality. Rhetorically speaking, how else can the violence be kept out of human

awareness?

The Socialization of Ego Boundary Contractions Into Masculine Definition

Segal’s (1990) mystery of masculinity lies in the differential contraction of ego

boundaries within a particular social context. Yet this contraction is not limited to

males; men and women alike expand and contract their ego boundaries. But in many

cultures, men are socialized for ego boundary contraction more readily than women

are. The real danger comes in associating the extreme states of contraction with

masculine gender definition. This has occurred in many cultures. In its extremes,

contraction perpetuates issues of power, conflict, and violence between individual

men and all the humans with whom they have contact.

In many pre-industrial cultures, initiation rites for boys provide lessons in

boundary contractions. This concept contrasts with previous psychoanalytic notions of

traditional initiation as either "dramatizations of the Oedipal rivalry between fathers

and sons" (Raphael, 1988, p. 9) or "male envy of female sexual organs and female

functions" (Chesler, 1978, p. 217). These traditional rites, which may include

beatings and mutilation, teach boys how to contract their ego boundaries to defend

themselves against pain or attack.

Raphael (1988) cites British structural-functionalists’ "sociogenic interpretation"

of the traditional initiation rites:

289 Young men are taught their social obligation and then required to assume them. The genital operations, hazing and other forms of abuse to which the youths are commonly subjected create a sense of personal vulnerability and a consequent dependence upon the larger group. The initiation rite is thus seen as a crucial stage in the process of socialization, (p. 10)

Raphael argues that the focus of these rites is not so much on the personal

vulnerability and dependence fostered during and after the ritual as it is on the sense

of personal invulnerability and invincibility when one survives the pain.

I argue that the training of ego boundary contractions is essential to

adequately protect the individual self during threatening situations that require

something other than warmth, nurturance and compassion. These experiences teach a

kind o f dissociative process from pain. They also help to develop ego boundary

armor that renders the men less vulnerable. The increased capacity to endure

hardship and pain greatly enhances security and protection in the service of the self,

family, community and society.

To adequately train warriors in a primitive culture or military personnel in

modern societies to kill, some kind of indoctrination in contracting these ego

boundaries is necessary to adequately depersonalize the intended human victim. Joe, a

black retired steelworker, explained how this process works:

JOE: They try to drill in your head, ‘Forget your family!’ How can you forget your mother and your father? You can’t do that! But they want to nail that in your head, that you are not supposed to think about them. I told the company commander one day, we had words. I just told him straight out, ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’ll be frank with you. You can penalize me if you want to.’ He said, ‘Speak your piece.’ ‘You’re not

290 going to drive that stuff into me.’ And I still kept my wife and my kids within my mind...But I said, ‘You can’t forget your family.’ And they show you all them bad pictures and all that shit. Enough to make you mean enough to kill anything! You know what I mean.

The encouragement to sever relational ties mentally is an attempt to contract

boundaries away from loved ones. Without this severing of relational connections in

one’s mind, it is more difficult to teach the extreme contracted ego boundary stances

necessary for modem warfare. With the boundaries further contracted, the military

succeeds in teaching the young man to be "mean enough to kill anything."

Bob, another white working-class man, revealed what he considered to be

benefits from his military training:

BOB: Well, the Marine Corps was a big step...because we went in there scared to death...and under those conditions, you focused your mind in just one set pattern. And when I come out of the Marine Corps, I was just like a set of binders. If I had a job to do, the days weren’t long enough, I just done it and that’s it. And I didn’t think about any of the other stuff. It’s a pattern you get into...You’re just worked. If this is the job, you lay out your job in the morning and bang, you do it and the heck with anything else. See, you focus your full attention. Because the first thing you do in the Marine Corps is drive everything out of you and then start over so that they have control of it. And as far as teaching a person to really, really focus, they could do it. That was one turning point.

Bob sheds some additional light on just what all is driven out of a person during

military training. He implies that everything can be ignored and cut off for a solitary

purpose. One is left to speculate what people may ignore during this process. I

would venture to guess that Bob certainly learned to ignore fatigue or exhaustion,

291 and also learned to block out any possible competing interests to the task at hand.

Bob adapted his contracted ego boundary capacity to fit into his work ethic.

Sport as Boundary Contraction Simulations

For many people, the training ground for ego boundary contractions begins much

earlier than in the induction into the military. In American culture, boys learn ego

boundary contractions through sports. To be successful, athletes must depersonalize

their competitors. If they are concerned about the other players during the game, their

performance is affected. Most boys who participate in sports can recall the various

lessons in contraction that their coaches and well-intentioned fathers offered them.

Boys who were hurt were encouraged to "shake it off," or "tough it out." As they

grew older, they were told, "Don’t give in to the pain" and "Get back in there."

Many men recall the coaches’ belittling tirades. These were humiliation tactics

designed to encourage the boys or young men to further contract their boundaries. By

getting the youngsters to contract those boundaries to the emotional onslaught of

demeaning comments, the coaches expected a more enthusiastic and focused

performance.

Pity the boy who could not contract those boundaries, felt hurt by the comments,

and displayed his pain. The movie Patton exemplifies this, with George C. Scott (as

Patton) assaulting the soldier by accusing him of cowardice rather than

acknowledging the young man’s battle fatigue. In the same way, coaches tell boys to

leave and not come back until they are ready to play, i.e., be men.

292 Patton is an excellent example of a lesson in ego boundary contractions. In

the opening monologue, George C. Scott teaches the troops how to close themselves

off from fear, how to become inebriated with a sense of invincibility, and how to

demonize and destroy the German enemy. I saw this movie during my senior year in

high school, shortly after having been assaulted by five boys on a bridge near my

house. After that incident, I did not leave my house for several weeks. Interestingly

enough, the opening monologue inspired me to resume living my life and not be

afraid.

Healthy Ego Boundary Contractions

Not all ego boundary contractions are destructive. Ego boundary contractions are

a normal part of the self s protective response to threatening situations. Healthy

contractions are possible in many situations, crises, or roles. On a basic level, they

are employed to protect and preserve the self and family. The protection provided

begins at the physical body of the individual, but can be extended to include most of

the senses as well as emotions and ideologies.

Some professions require the ability to contract ego boundaries in order to

adequately perform an important service. Health care provided by doctors, nurses,

fire department personnel,and EMTs require the medical provider to contract

boundaries so that they can remain focused on the task. In certain instances, such as

an EMT called out on a vehicular accident, the caregiver cannot permit him/herself

the "luxury" of empathizing with the trauma of the victim, as doing so might

compromise his/her role ability to administer aid.

293 It is interesting to see the development of crisis management teams in

catastrophic disasters and to witness the care that is now offered to these caregivers.

It seems that excessive boundary contractions for dealing with severe situations,

especially those that move through time, may negatively impact the health and

emotional well-being o f caregivers. Critical Incident Stress Debriefing is now a

standard part of caring for these workers, whether they be Red Cross volunteers,

police and rescue teams, EMTs, or medical personnel. I would submit that the

opportunity to talk about an incident, especially one that is usually out of the realm

of normal human experience, enables the person to expand his/her ego boundaries.

By doing so, the worker can connect him/herself to the experience and integrate it

into his or her self. Without the opportunity to re-expand the ego boundaries, the

person risks damaging his or her self by remaining rigid or by cutting off from

his/her own self.

DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF EXPANSION/CONTRACTION PROCESSES IN THE THREE CONTEXTS

Some similarities and differences emerged regarding the ego boundary

expansion/contraction processes within and among the three contexts. The primary

function of contracting one’s ego boundaries is protection. Therefore, it develops as a

coping response to hardships of any kind. The early threats of loss of the primary

caretaker are replaced by other concerns in the family, the community and culture.

Hardships can range from tragic circumstances of loss and abandonment to

institutional social problems of poverty, racism and religious persecution.

294 The Amish Context and Ego Boundaries

My interviews with the Amish indicate that this subculture propagates expanded

ego boundaries in its definition and shaping of masculinity. Amish men engender

boys to contract their boundaries in certain contexts, but also provide an ideological

rationale that prevents the contraction process from becoming too entrenched as

something masculine.

The more expanded ego boundary process begins with a religious ideology that

permeates every facet of the Amish man’s life. Many of the Amish men’s earliest

memories had to do with hearing about the story of Jesus and his suffering during the

crucifixion. Jesus was presented as caring, sensitive, and loving. Abraham’s

presentation of Jesus as man illustrates this viewpoint:

ABRAHAM: There’s four boys and we all slept in the same bedroom. And we got a double bunk bed...But I can remember hearing about Jesus (smiles warmly) and the cross first on that bunk bed. They were climbing up and for some reason I remember them climbing up and me standing on the bed [and them] talking about Jesus being nailed on the cross.

Many of the men had recollections similar to Abraham’s. The importance of

Jesus in their lives led them to adopt a definition of masculinity that involved

patience and kindness:

ISAAC: I guess the thoughts that I would have as far as manhood is be patient, be kind, be gentle, and possessing Christian virtues...I think a man would always have full control of what he says, what he does.

Religious persecution was mentioned time and again, but with a twist. Ego

boundary contractions are necessary to adequately defend against religious

295 persecution, but these men made use of the example of Christ so as not to harden the

contracted stance in an uncaring way. One man commented, "You know, when Christ

said ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,’ he was talking to us,

too. We’re supposed to see that most people don’t know what they’re doing. They’re

giving us a rough time ’cause they don’t understand. We’ll stand strong, but not hold

it against them." Others cautioned against "hardening one’s heart" as a means of

preserving a more expanded boundary position and definition.

Contracted ego boundaries were more noticeable when the respondents spoke of

outsiders. I myself was a "Yankee," an outsider. For all the warmth and compassion

that I experienced from the respondents, I also experienced much rejection from

those who did not wish to participate. Some would talk to my contact and pretend I

was not there. Others would turn their back to me, while still talking to me. Still

others would look at the ground and shake their head "No." Some gave me angry,

terse facial expressions, trying to scare me away. These were all ways of preserving

non-engagement, for I was perceived as some kind of threat. The Amish feel they

need to have contracted ego boundaries with outsiders; having them helps to protect

their lifestyle from perceived negative influences.

The Black Working-Class Context and Ego Boundaries

Poverty and racism appear to be the predominant hardships for black

working-class men. As a result, they need to contract their ego boundaries as means

of self-protection. Similar to the Amish, the black working-class men in this study

made use of the religious ideology ensure that the contracted stances did not become

296 too much a part of the masculine definition. Respect and the Golden Rule have

provided a way for the "old heads" (Anderson, 1989) to create a life of honor and

dignity, even though the men’s lives are embedded in racism. Some contracting of

ego boundaries is important to defend the self from the destructiveness o f racism.

Bill, who had had several run-ins with the KKK, provided an example o f this

concept:

BILL: For me personally...we always learned...if you kept your mouth shut and if you didn’t see what you thought you saw, even though you seen it, that you could get by. And that’s how we survived.

Note how this man prized his ability to protect himself from racism. Contracting

the boundaries in a way that closes off his senses supports his personal philosophy of

"minding your own business." In this way he is able to limit his exposure to the

damaging effects of racism. Caring less desensitizes him to his own suffering or

injustice and protects him from additional hurt and pain. His comments indicate the

importance of contracting ego boundaries to also protect oneself from other people’s

pain and suffering as well.

Expanded ego boundaries are not seen as primarily feminine; the men recognize

how necessary a caring and nurturant philosophy is for humans to flourish, and do

not necessarily equate nurturance with gender. The reader may recall Jim’s

comments (chapter 4) that "a lot of the values and the mores or sanctions were

instilled by basically the women...it’s basically the same moral principles applied

whether it’s taught by male or female...to care about people, that’s what it’s about."

297 I felt warmth from these men, a warmth that indicates an expressive, nurturant

masculine definition. The Amish had a much more rigid and closed boundary to the

outside world than the black working-class men did. This may be due in part to the

groups’ different positions in society. The black working-class men encounter

evidences of racism in the flow of their everyday lives. The Amish men’s

experiences of religious persecutions seem much more limited by comparison. Thus

the black working-class men’s more frequent boundary vacillations may reflect a

guardedness, one that is necessary to cope with a dominant society that devalues their

presence.

In another vein, understanding the ego boundary contraction process may

contribute to a greater understanding of the tensions in black men’s and women’s

heterosexual relationships. In her review of the literature on black masculinity, Segal

(1990) cites black feminist authors who see much tension between black men and

women. Paule Marshall (as cited in Segal, 1990) comments on Black women’s

"resentment that their men reject them as threatening, castrating, independent and

ambitious, when, for the sake of their families, they have had to be become ‘almost

frighteningly strong’" (p. 196). If ego boundary contractions are a survival

mechanism, then men are not alone in developing these capacities. Remember from

the earlier discussion that contracted boundaries may appear uncaring or threatening.

Black men’s perceptions of black women as "threatening" may indicate an

expectation that black women conform to the more expanded ego boundary stances

298 associated with femininity, stances that occur more commonly in the dominant white

culture.

The White Working-Class Context and Ego Boundaries

Of the three groups, the white working-class men seemed the most inclined to

include the contraction of ego boundaries as part of their masculine definition.

Hardships were defined more in personal terms than in structural or institutional

terms. They described the death of a parent and the corresponding feelings of

abandonment as key influences on their ego boundary processes. Men with more

contracted ego boundaries had ongoing difficulty both in getting close to people and

in developing trust.

These contracting ego boundaries may have developed from the hardships of

poverty embedded in their parents’ homelands and their migratory experiences to the

United States. Having an orientation to work so closely tied to masculine identity

requires the men to contract their boundaries and move away from family contact to

remain properly focused. Also, since they place priority on providing for their

families, they must contract their ego boundaries so as not to experience their own

needs. In short, they contract their boundaries to a greater extent than the Amish and

black working-class men do. Yet there seems to be a point at which the contracted

positioning wanes. When this occurs, the men value the importance of dependency

needs and relationships. For a number of the men a transformation experience

occurred; this provided them with a different way to conceptualize themselves as men

and to include an expanded ego boundary in their masculine definition. These

299 changes seemed more dramatic in the lives of the white working-class men than they

were for the other two populations. In fact, in reviewing the lives of the Amish and

black working-class men, I found that transformation experiences were conspicuously

absent for these two groups. This difference may be attributable to the inclusion of

expansion processes in the Amish and black working-class masculine definition as

well as to the boundary expansion experiences during their life courses.

PATRIARCHAL LIABILITIES

Connell (1995) comments on the general benefits of men’s subordination of

women as "the patriarchal dividend." However, with patriarchal dividends come

patriarchal liabilities. The cost to men for defining their masculinity by their capacity

to contract ego boundaries is enormous. I see repeatedly in my office that male

clients experience symptoms with little recognition about how these symptoms relate

to their personal lives. They sacrifice various feeling states, thinking and reflection

abilities, and dependency needs as part of their male experience. What is left is a

diminished existence, fragmentary and reductionistic in focus.

This process is not limited to the ongoing life experience of the man, but occurs

in his meaning world as well. Their fragmented or limited views make it difficult, if

not impossible, to integrate experience into identity. Charlene Spretnak (1991)

argues that positivism, reductionism and deconstructive postmodernism are patriarchal

philosophies that have stripped meaning and wholeness from many lives and

substituted in their stead "a nihilistic disintegration of all values" (p. 19).

300 Reductionism, beginning with Cartesian mind/body dualism, reflects and supports the

notion of contracting ego boundaries on both an ideological and philosophical level.

ALTERNATIVE MASCULINITIES OFFERED BY THE GREAT WISDOM TRADITION OF CHRISTIANITY

A particularly fascinating similarity that emerged from the data was the

importance of religious faith and ideology. The men’s church backgrounds offered

models of masculinities that fostered the growth and development of expanded ego

boundaries. Amish faith provides expanded boundaries as the norm; indeed, they

seem to be the standard on which everything rests. For example, Amish peers provide

a recalibrating function to ensure that a person doesn’t become too uncaring. In the

black working-class, faith includes the expanded ego boundary ideologies of respect

and the Golden Rule. Relying on their tradition of faith, the black working-class men

fostered and preserved their honor and dignity. "I have rewards no man can take

away," was the refrain of one man. His statement seems to emphasize that the values

within him and the meanings they provide are so deeply internalized that even racism

will not strip all the richness from him. He also seems to be saying, "You can take or

keep all the world’s riches, but my treasure is assured." The values o f these men and

their expression seemed to play a significant role in sustaining them. For the white

working-class men, faith seemed to offer alternative masculinities very different from

their prescribed norm. These faith and ideological alternatives provided a way of

transformation from "hard to soft."

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

301

The interviews from the three subcultural contexts suggest that gender-making

and definition are very fluid and dynamic processes. Depending on the population,

many variations along the expansion/contraction continuum are possible, as are

variations in the ego boundary’s rhythm and fluctuation. Future research should focus

on elaborating the expansion/contraction processes with women as well as men, and

from varied contexts. Interviews with the former Amish may offer some insights into

how masculinities are formed when one leaves the socioreligious minority. Since

many of the Amish men focused on the various strengths of life in Amish society,

talking with men who left the Amish lifestyle may help to present a more balanced

picture. With the decimation of the black mentors in the working-class, contrasting

interviews with young black males may enlighten the new values and masculinities

emerging in cities decimated by de-industrialization. Also, it would be particularly

intriguing to do interviews with white working-class women in Erie County to see

how the county’s conservative ethos impacts their definitions of femininity.

Future research should also explore the relative usefulness of the stage model in

any number of disciplines or issues. There are many potential uses of the model,

ranging from a developmental model that includes patriarchal power and dominance

as an issue, to a psychotherapeutic treatment model for teen therapy, marital therapy,

domestic violence, and racism.

302 IN CONCLUSION

As can be seen, the internal and social definitions o f gender are inextricably

woven together, socially constructed in a given sociohistorical context with much rich

variation. Patriarchy seems to be the universal thread waiting to be carefully

dismantled as it has outlived its usefulness.

I am indebted to the Amish, for they presented a nurturant and relational model

o f masculinity. As they struggle to preserve their way of life and heritage, I hope

additional revelations from within their culture will transform the patriarchal structure

upon which their society is based.

The black working-class men in Pittsburgh displayed great warmth and

insight. Although one could argue that the negative experiences of these men are a

result of capitalistic patriarchy, the lives of their grandchildren appear bleaker by

comparison. De-industrialization has destroyed the legitimacy of their authority with

young black males.

The white working-class men from Erie County provided insights into the

costs their stoic and ascetic work ethic have on their family relationships and their

lives. Their struggle extends my hope for dismantling the present notion of male role

as breadwinner only, for much wisdom could be gained by children whose fathers are

active in childcare. The culture must sanction and support active fatherhood as

opposed to nodding affirmatively while doing nothing. Finally, the impact of

community mentors in the lives of these men could not be overstated. The search for

303 mentorship, whether as a result of disidentification, inaccessibility, or unavailability,

was an active process in the respondents’ lives

The mythopoetic movement associated with Robert Bly (1990) has many flaws,

but the encouragement to men to bless and praise young boys is prophetic.

Community mentorship as a responsibility that extends beyond family and career

would go far in offering legitimate and credible alternative masculinities to boys and

men who need the deep, rich affective relationship of an adult male. This would go

far in affording opportunities for fuller meanings to the roles they assume or are to

assume.

The men I interviewed changed me considerably. I am not the same man as

before this project began. Having been reared in a white working-class family and

town, the hegemonic white working-class forms that predominated in Pittsburgh

during my youth have pulled on me for so many years. From my encounters with

these men, I have been able to embrace other alternative masculinities. As a result, I

shout out Martin Luther King, Jr.’s exclamation from a Negro spiritual: "Free at last,

free at last, thank God Almighty, I ’m free at last."

304

APPENDIX A

University of Southern California University Park Campus

HUMAN SUBJECTS FORM FOR INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD

Title of Project: In the Voices of Men: The Social Construction of Masculinity in Three Subcultural Contexts: Amish. Working-Class Blacks, and Working-Class Whites.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Michael Messner (Please attach a recent curriculum vita)

Department: Sociology Telephone: (2131 740-8848

Others who will have contact with human subjects:

Name: Thomas F. Matta Position: Student Investigator

1. Briefly summarize the major objective(s) of your research, your project plan, and/or procedures, particularly those involving the use of human subjects, so that the IRB can understand what you plan to do. Use an additional sheet if more space is necessary.

The major objective of my research is to explore the social construction of masculinity within three subcultural contexts; Amish, working-class Blacks, and working-class Whites. A qualitative design utilizing snowball sampling will be employed for this dissertation. 30-36 in-depth interviews with men 45 years of age and older will be conducted with 10-12 interviews with each of the three groups mentioned. The interviews will be retrospective, focusing on salient recollections each man has to a series of similar open-ended questions. Field notes are to be taken and some content analysis of public documents that apply may be included in the analysis as well.

In listening to men’s subjective experiences from varied life circumstances and subcultures, embedded in a particular sociohistorical context, it is the intent of this dissertation to expand the plurality of masculinities and inform the shaping thereof.

Volunteers for interviews will be sought through contacts in the community. Such contacts will include but not be limited to community leaders, pastors,

305 contractors, unions, and the like. In the case of the Amish, contacts are to be made through a Yankee (person from the predominant culture) with whom the Amish man has a relationship with and trusts.

With those men willing to be interviewed and depending on their preference, I will either come to their home or property (For privacy, the Amish men may prefer to conduct the interview in their bam, workhouse or shed) or meet them in a public setting to conduct the interview (such as a library).

Interviews will be audiotaped in most instances for transcription purposes. In those instances where an Amish man may agree to be interviewed, but not wish to be taped, his wishes will be respected and notes taken and the interview reconstructed from the interviewer’s notes.

Interviews are to be conducted with the man, individually, and privacy will be guaranteed.

2. Describe the type, source, and number of subjects in your study. Please circle any of the following special groups which are to be involved.

Children Prisoners Mentally Pregnant (Under 18) Disabled Women

As mentioned the interviewees will include men, 45 years and older from three subcultural contexts. The source of these men will vary utilizing a snowball sampling procedure. And the number of subjects will range from 30 to 36. None o f the special groups mentioned are to be included.

3. What are the risks and/or discomforts to human subjects? Are there any negative effects with regard to the subjects’ physical, psychological, social, or legal well-being as a result of the research activity to which they will be exposed?

There will be little to minimal risk to participants in this study. At no point will interviewees be at physical risk. There are no legal risks. Risks of a psychological or social nature from participating in the interview does not appear to be more than what would be expected in the daily life course. However, the possibility exists that, in conducting these interviews, occasionally some men will reveal personal experiences and information of a particularly sensitive nature that is unsettling and results in some emotional discomfort. Please note that in the event of such an occurrence, I am a licensed marriage and family therapist in California and have fifteen years of experience as a psychologist in Pennsylvania. As a result I believe I would deal appropriately and effectively with just such a response. Some may actually gain some therapeutic benefit; a kind of cathartic release due to

306 acknowledging difficult recollections stirred during the interview. In situations where the emotional pain seems excessive, the action taken might include a brief recess from the interview, remind the interviewee that he has the right to discontinue the interview at any time, or in the most unlikely of circumstances, refer the person to a clinic or therapist if the perceived decompensation is clearly apparent. The men I am interviewing are not inclined to seek mental health services, so I might encourage an Amish fellow to talk with a close friend or the Bishop. With the Black and White working-class men, I would encourage contacting a social service agency for a more informal intervention rather than formal mental health treatment.

4. Investigators are expected to minimize risks to subjects by using procedures which are consistent with sound research design and which do not unnecessarily expose subjects to risk. How will the rights and welfare of subjects be protected?

Some of the risk to subjects is to be minimized by protecting their identities. This will be done by changing names and/or circumstances if cited in published materials. Also, files will be coded randomly and not linked to the subjects’ identity. A list of names, addresses, and phone numbers (where applicable) of interviewees will be kept on file in case the researcher has additional questions, but this is to be done only till the project is completed. Following completion of the project, most tapes will be destroyed. There is, however, a richness in the spoken word that the written text can fail to capture. In a few instances I would like to keep excerpts from a tape or tapes for teaching purposes only. This will be inquired about in the informed consent process as to the right of the interviewee to agree to or decline. It is their right to decline this request and would be complied with. (I have had just such an instance with my Amish pilot interview. He chose to have the tape returned to him so he could destroy it. I complied.)

5. Are the risks to subjects reasonable in relation to anticipated benefits, if any, or to the importance of the knowledge to be gained?

I believe that the steps taken to protect the rights and welfare of participants with informed consent and confidentiality that the risks are within reasonable limits when compared with the insights I hope to gain by this endeavor in the area of the social construction o f masculinity.

6. The University Park IRB requires written evidence of informed consent when the research involves risk to human subjects. The Consent Form should be written as it will be presented to prospective subjects. It should be written in nontechnical language which can be understood by the layperson, and contain a brief description of the objectives of the research and methods of the project. It should identify any procedures which are experimental. It should include:

307 a. a brief description of attendant discomforts and risks;

b. a description of the benefits to the individual; if there are none, say none;

c. an offer to answer any questions about the procedures;

d. a clear statement of the subject’s right to withdraw from the research project without effect on future services or treatment;

e. a disclosure of any appropriate alternative procedures in situations such as treatment or therapy that might be advantageous for the subject;

f. no exculpatory language by which individuals would waive, or appear to waive, their legal rights, or the institution be relieved of liability for negligence.

7. Both the investigator and the subject should keep a copy of the signed form. If questionnaires or interviews are to be used, a sample introductory letter, or draft verbal explanation, should be submitted in lieu of the consent form; it should incorporate essentially the same elements of information. The IRB will decide whether or not a signed consent form should be required, or waived, based on the total information.

8. When deception is involved, there should be a prompt and complete debriefing, containing all the same information and providing the opportunity for withdrawal of personal responses. A verbatim debriefing statement for IRB review should be submitted along with the consent form.

9. If there exceptions or variations from these standard consent procedures, there should be an explanation in writing to the IRB.

Signature of P.I. or Faculty Supervisor

Signature of Student Investigator

Date

308

APPENDIX B

CONSENT FORM

First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for volunteering to participate in this study. Your involvement is greatly appreciated. Second, I would like to inform you about how the information gathered from the interview is to be used. After reading this form, feel free to ask any questions you have about this interview or the research. If you would like to continue with the interview, please sign your name and today’s date in the space provided at the end of the form.

I am doing research in the area of masculinity as part of my studies at the University of Southern California. This interview is part of a research study I am conducting to better understand which people and what experiences men think shaped their manhood. I will ask a number of questions to get memories and stories you may have about those people and experiences. The interviews are to include men 45 years of age and older. There are about 30-36 interviews to be completed for this project. The interview will last about ninety minutes. The interviews are to be taped so that they can be transcribed word for word. It is important in the research to get the stories exactly as they are spoken.

There are some small risks to you for participating. Many people enjoy telling the stories of their lives. But as we explore memories and stories that you have, there is the possibility you may remember things that are unpleasant or painful. If this were to happen, there are a number of things you can do. You can take a break from the interview and then continue. You could also not answer a particular question. And, finally, you could quit the interview at any time.

Your stories are only to be used in this research. Most people that agree to be interviewed for research of this type do not want others to be able to figure out who they are from a story or experience shared in the interview. Making a guarantee to people that no one will know who they are helps people to talk more openly and share stories. So, names and information that could possibly identify you as a specific person in the interview will be changed if a part of the interview is published. However, a few people prefer to use their real name. If you would prefer for people to know that the stories are yours, and don’t want any of the information changed, let me know after the interview.

There is a small possibility that I might request a second interview with you. As I go over the various stories, new questions may arise and a way to explore the new questions is to go back to a few people and explore a story or stories further. If that were to happen I would contact you and ask if you would be willing to do a

309 follow-up interview. This would probably not take as long as the first interview and would be limited to a couple of questions. It could possibly be done over the phone.

Your real name, address, and phone number is to be kept only as long as it takes for the project to be completed. These records are to be kept in a locked file cabinet at my office. I will be the only person to have access to this information. I will have the only key.

When the research is complete and I have my results, there may be stories from certain interviews that would be good to use in teaching. Sometimes one can understand more by listening to how the story is told than just reading the words. In such instances I might like to keep a part of the tape or story on tape. This would be for teaching only as I hope to teach at a college level. I will ask following the interview if you would be agreeable to the tape being used for teaching purposes as you cannot make an informed decision until you know what you shared.

Please be advised that I have a duty to report suspected child abuse or criminal activity.

If you have any questions about this research, you can write to:

The University Park Institutional Review Board University of Southern California University Park Los Angeles, Ca 90089-4019 (213)740-6709 or 6711

Dr. Michael Messner___________________________________________ Advisor

PARTICIPANT:__________________ DATE:

WITNESS: DATE:

310

APPENDIX C October 8, 1993

PRESENTATION TO IRONWORKERS LOCAL XYZ

1. INTRODUCTION-My name is Thomas Matta. I have been an Erie County resident 18 of the past 22 years. I am originally from North Braddock, just east of Pittsburgh. I attended Edinboro out of high school and was employed by Saint Vincent Health Center for 11 years. I am currently a student from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles completing my doctoral studies.

2. FOCUS OF RESEARCH-I am working on my dissertation in the area of the shaping of masculinity. And I am looking for volunteers to permit me to interview for the study. I am interested in stories you have from your youth, teenage and adult years about various men and experiences that have influenced your life. These may include fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, friends, neighbors, coaches, teachers, etc.

3. LABOR PERSPECTIVE-Much of the research done thus far has been from a professional work experience perspective. Thus, this is an attempt to fill that gap. My father was a steelworker at the Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock and in later years worked as a contractor in his brother’s fence company. (Matta Fence Company)

4. WHAT I NEED- a) Interview will take 1 1/2 hours. b) Men 45 years of age and older. c) Interview must be audiotaped for transcription purposes. d) The interview can be conducted at your convenience either

at your home, my home or some quiet place (library). e) You have the right to stop the interview at any time or not answer

questions thought to be too personal.

5. ANONYMITY-If any of the interview is used in the write-up, names and identifying pieces of information would be altered to protect the identity of the person.

6. RISKS-The risks are minimal. Most men have responded quite favorably to the opportunity to speak about their lives in this way. Some men have thanked me for wanting to hear their stories, positive and painful, others for the opportunity to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise discuss with anyone. On rare occasions, however, remembering can bring a flood of strong negative emotions and recollections. For those instances, the person being interviewed would be given the option of taking a break, discontinuing the interview or in extreme circumstances a referral to a counselor.

7. IF YOU’D LIKE TO VOLUNTEER-Sign up on this tablet with your name, address and phone number. You will be contacted as soon as possible.

311

APPENDIX D

INTERVIEW GUIDE

Here are the agenda and the sample questions I explored with the men:

A. Informed: Oral or Written Consent-signed by all participants. Explanation to the respondent, he may stop the interview at any time and the risks involved.

B. Pilot interviews were conducted and informed interview process and interview precision.

C. Interview included:

ESTABLISHING INTERVIEW RAPPORT-Interviewer: I am interested in your ideas about manhood and the people in your life most responsible for that view. I’m also interested in whether and how that view has changed through time.

We are going to take a walk down memory lane. I’m interested in hearing stories that you think were important in the shaping of your manhood. Sometimes people need a little help. So, to put you in a story telling mood, let’s start with earliest memories you have. (Prompt: Some people can go all the way back to 18 months, standing in their crib. Others cannot go back any further than second or third grade. Some early memories are very clear, others are fuzzy like a dream. How about for you? How far back can you go? Is it vague or clear? What do you remember?)

Can you tell me about the first recollection of a man you would have had? How old were you? Who was the person? Is there a story that goes with the memory?

Tell me about your mother, when you were young? What was she like? She ever give you a sense about how you should be as a boy? Brothers and Sisters? Did they teach you anything about what it means to be a boy or a man, when you were growing up? Were they treated any differently by your mother (or father)? How about other people? Any stories about aunts, uncles or friends of the family and how they treated you as a boy?

Was teasing or fighting much of your boyhood experience? Any stories? How about as a teenager? Any stories? Any of this shape what it means to be a man? (If respondent focuses on family, ask about neighborhood and school.)

Did you compare yourself to other children? Girls or boys? Did you compare yourself to other boys? How did you compare? Favorably or Unfavorably? Why? Any stories? (Possible area to explore would be sports.)

As a teenager did you spend time with a group of guys? Can you describe what brought the guys together? (Prompt: Could be you all lived in the same neighborhood, were in the same classes in school, enjoyed sports, liked the same

312 music, fun, mischief, etc.) Any stories? Learn anything about what it means to be a man from these guys?

Were you aware that some guys in the group had more power than the other guys in the same group? (Some were the leaders of the group because they were toughest fighter, most daring and reckless, smartest, biggest, best-looking, etc.) Any stories?

When did you first become aware of girls? Any stories? (Prompt: First love? First sexual experience? First bad experience with a woman?)

Can you tell me about any experiences that were important as a milestone that changed you from a boy to a man? Any stories? More than one?

Who has been the most important man in your life? Tell me about him, your father/step-father/brother/uncle/ mom’s friend/friend

o f family. What was he like? What makes him so important? Any stories? Do you have any memories of a man in your life being gentle and tender?

Who was he? Any stories? Sometimes voices in our head tell us what it means to be a man? What do

those voices say to you. (Prompt: The voices when you were young were your parents, other family members, teachers, coaches, churches, etc.. As we grow those voices become our own.)

As a person gets older their views sometimes change. Has your view about what it means to be man changed as you have gotten older? Any stories? (Prompt: Another way to ask question is what did it mean to you to be a man then? Now?

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Williams, M. D. (1981). On the Street Where I Lived. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Winawer-Steiner, H. and Wetzel, N. (1982). German Families. In McGoldrick, M. (Ed.), Ethnicity and Family Therapy (pp. 247-268). New York: Guilford Press.

CINEMA

McCarthy, F. and Caffey, F. (Producers) and Schaffner, F. (Director). (1970). Patton.

MUSIC

Chapin, H. and Chapin, C. (1974). Cats in the Cradle. Elektra. Redding, O. (1963). Respect. [Recorded by Aretha Franklin]. Atlantic Records. Travis, M. (1947). Sixteen Tons. [Recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford]. Capital

Records.