ABSTRACT

Men live their lives, learn their social roles, and, inspired perhaps by feminist analysis, sometimes come to struggle with the idea of the kind of men they want to be. It is during this reflective process that they develop a perspective on masculinity, a theory about the forces that are acting on them and about the changes they would like to make. Man! magazine, a publication that ranged over mythopoetic, men's rights, and profeminist perspectives, after a promising beginning in 1990 ceased publication in 1993. At the same time, men seem to be embracing conservative perspectives; in the 1994 general election men voted Republican in far greater numbers than did women, and Promise Keepers seems to be the only men's movement in the 1990s with vitality and potential for growth. This chapter explores some of the reasons for these tendencies, and discusses the long-term success or failure of the different sociopolitical perspectives.