ABSTRACT
To the extent that it is thought of simply as the expression of biological maleness, masculinity is not an attribute that has a distinctively rural variation, or even a distinctively American one. It is, rather, the sum total of habits and behaviors that male-bodied people everywhere engage in as a phenotypically defined group, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are other ways of thinking about masculinity that are less biologically deterministic, however, including conceiving of masculinity as a set of normative ideals regarding how male-bodied people are supposed to act at any given moment in a particular culture or society. From this perspective, it is not only possible to discuss rural masculinity in the United States; it is possible to describe its history, a history that surely dates back to the founding of the Republic, and arguably much further if one considers the decidedly non-metropolitan conditions under which Native Americans and European settlers lived during the colonial era.
