ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a new measure of manhood that seeks to capture how middle-aged and older African American men define manhood and what it means to be a man. It focuses on qualitative work that describes how African American men have defined ideals for themselves that represented their aspirations, goals, and ideals. Specifically, Derek M. Griffith and E. K. Cornish found that a sample of middle-aged and older African American men said that manhood reflected three key factors: key characteristics and traits; characteristics that they have innate qualities or attributes; and characteristics that showed others their inherent nature or character. The chapter discusses the exploratory factor analysis to examine the factor structure of the dimensions of manhood identified by Griffith and Cornish. Manhood includes men’s perceived ability to fulfill heteronormative social and cultural ideals and expectations beyond the achievement of age-related milestones or the presence of secondary sex characteristics.
