Crises in Masculinity

As a historian, or an aspiring one, I see time and time again men experiencing crises in their masculinity throughout American history.

In the Puritan era, men’s concerns with masculinity and their relationship with Christ led them to believe in a dual gender in each person (the soul as feminine and the body as masculine). The Salem Witch Trials played out these concepts through members of the community.

In the late 18th century, early Republican men again grew concerned about their masculinity. This played a role in the creation of the Republican Mother and eventually the cult of domesticity. Their fears of what it meant to be a man led to a simple definition: a man is not a woman. A woman stays at home, therefore a man does not. A woman cares for the children, a man does not. You get the idea. This continued throughout the century, playing into American imperialism and ending the century with the Spanish-American War… the ultimate manly war.

In the early 20th century this trend continued. Propaganda efforts for both wars explained in not-so-subtle terms that real men fought the enemy and saved the eternal damsel in distress. Often this also included the enemy feminized. This of course also helped to define gender roles in the 1950s and women responded to this in the 1960s.

Until tonight, I naively believed that contemporary men had finally overcome this fear for their own masculinity. Wrong. Super bowl commercials demonstrate that men still need to define and demonstrate what it means to be a man… a manly man. A man who wears pants and drives a Dodge.

Propaganda Meet the Cold War

Tonight in my History 102 class we discussed the propaganda used during the early years of the Cold War, specifically looking the first five or so years following World War II. In these years, the U.S. found itself as a major world power. It also found itself pitted against its former ally, the U.S.S.R. Hence, propaganda was used in at least two main ways.
First, this early Cold War propaganda worked to position U.S. citizens against a very recent ally, one that made victory more possible in Europe. The U.S. perception of the U.S.S.R. was already an interesting one. In the 1920s, the U.S. experienced its first Red Scare, reacting to Lenin’s overthrow of the Russian government. While initially many Americans supported this revolt, immediately the reality of Lenin’s communist state took hold. Quickly, socialist and communist groups nationwide felt the pain of discrimination.
However, with the Great Depression, both groups found some regained popularity (although it should be clearly noted that neither had any type of majority). When World War II broke out, Germany and the U.S.S.R. had brokered a tentative agreement that served their immediate interests. When Germany violated this agreement, the U.S.S.R. joined the allies. Americans had to move toward a more tolerant position of the nation. Fast forward to 1945, and the ideological and economic differences between the two nations quick became apparent. So, the U.S. used propaganda to help re-position Americans tolerance of the Soviet Union.
This quickly moved to a new problem: dealing with American fear. As soon as it was understood that the Soviet Union presented a real threat (particularly when they had the atomic bomb), Americans were fearful of nuclear attack. This is very understandable, recall the devastating impact of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
This leads to the second main use of propaganda. It tackled such fear with re-painting atomic bombs as dangerous but not too dangerous! While scientists of the day proclaimed fallout shelters as potential to promote atomic war and actually would be unable to protect its inhabits from such powerful bombs; cleaver media tactics made it the immediate solution to atomic fear. This along with the that ducking and covering prompted Americans to be comfortable with a build of atomic weapons.
Hence a publicly supported cold war that continued to several decades.Oh propaganda, how the 50s loved thee!