magazine issue 10 2010 / Issue 11

Are You a “Real Man”? How Men Earn and Prove Manhood Status

• written by Jennifer Bosson
• edited by Hans IJzerman

Instead, the largest percentage of participants (28%) who read about Anne selected the image of the unattractive woman to represent her. Only 16% selected the image of the girl. Conversely, the largest percentage (40%) of those who read about John selected the image of the boy to represent him. This finding indicates that women who violate the motherhood mandate may be viewed as flawed – that is, physically unattractive – but they are nonetheless seen as real women. Note that people’s selection of an unattractive woman to represent an infertile woman is interesting in itself. This trend could reflect an implicit tendency to treat women’s physical beauty as a cue that signals fertility (Buss, 1989), or a broader tendency to equate women’s appearance with their overall value and worth (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). Regardless, our findings are consistent with the notion that womanhood status is not as tenuous as is manhood, even in a domain that is considered quite important for women.

Implications for Aggressive Actions

No matter how you look at it – homicides, violent crime rates, laboratory-induced aggression – men are more physically aggressive than women (Bettencourt & Miller, 1996; Eagly & Steffen, 1986). Although the reasons for this disparity are complex and multi-determined, we propose that men, at times, use physical aggression as a means of restoring their manhood.

To test this idea, my colleagues and I threatened some men’s manhood by videotaping them while they performed a feminine task that involved braiding a mannequin’s hair (Bosson, Vandello, Burnaford, Weaver, & Wasti, 2009). Other men were videotaped while performing a similar but non-threatening activity that involved braiding three strands of rope. Next, we offered men an opportunity to select which of two activities they would like to do – solving a “brainteaser” puzzle, or hitting a punching pad. If men use aggressive displays to restore threatened manhood, then men who braided hair should select the punching task more frequently than men who braided rope. This is precisely what happened. Whereas 50% of men who did the hairstyling task subsequently chose to punch, only 22% of those who did the rope braiding task selected the punching activity.

And a manhood threat did not only motivate men to choose a physically aggressive activity. In a follow-up experiment, men actually punched a punching pad harder following the manhood threat (hairstyling task) than they did following the non-threatening task. In yet another study, we had U.S. college men do the hairstyling task after which half of them punched a pad. The other half of men did the hairstyling task and then waited several minutes without doing another activity. Finally, all of the men completed a measure of anxiety. The findings showed that men who punched the pad after the manhood threat scored lower in anxiety than those who did not punch after the manhood threat. This suggests that a physically aggressive behavior can alleviate men’s anxiety concerning the loss of manhood that results from stereotypically feminine actions.

Taken together, these findings suggest that displays of physical aggression can be effective means of restoring threatened manhood. Of course, there are numerous other potential causes of men’s use of physical aggression, including biological factors, socialization tendencies, and other situational pressures. Nonetheless, reminders that their manhood is precarious may, at times, motivate men’s physical aggression even when other causes are not present.

Finally, it is important to note that our research participants in all of these studies have been a fairly homogenous group. They were generally between the ages of 18 and 30, and almost 90% of them identified as “exclusively heterosexual.” Moreover, approximately 60% of our participants have been White (with about 15% Black, 15% Latino, and 5% Asian American). When possible, we have compared the responses of men who differ in age, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity, and we have found little difference across groups. However, it is possible that our participants have simply been too homogenous to allow us to detect real differences. Therefore, we cannot state with confidence that beliefs in precarious manhood are universal, nor can we know how men of different ages, sexualities, and racial/ethnic groups might respond to manhood threats like the ones we used. These questions must await further research.

Some Explanations

Thus far, I have asserted that manhood is viewed as more precarious than womanhood, but I did not offer any explanations as to why this might be the case. Unfortunately, this is a difficult question to answer and my collaborators and I can only conjecture at this point.

One possibility is that beliefs about manhood reflect evolved adaptations to an early social environment in which men competed with one another for access to fertile female mates (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Trivers, 1972). Evolutionary theories posit that ancestral men’s reproductive success was closely linked to their position in status hierarchies, but status could easily be challenged by a stronger or more skilled competitor. Thus, men may have evolved a preoccupation with achieving and maintaining social status because ancestral men who were especially wary of status threats were also more successful at attracting mates.

Another possibility is that precarious manhood has its roots in long-established sexual divisions of labor (Eagly & Wood, 1999). Because men have historically occupied social roles that involve status-seeking and resource acquisition, people tend to associate manhood with qualities such as competitiveness, defensiveness, and efforts to “prove” status. That is, we imbue the status of manhood with the qualities that men have embodied in fulfilling socially assigned roles.