Thomas Frank, Class, and Masculinity

Interesting discussion going on at Daily Kos in response to Thomas Frank's article that appeared in the NYT Book Review last week


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but I would like to offer some additional historical and other perspective. It goes without saying that I think he missed something: the crisis of masculinity that I think permeates American politics.

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I don't disagree with Frank. I think he's right. But where he sees "class," in his analysis, I see "gender." ... Part of the chaos that is being reacted to is the shifting world of gender politics.

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Frank: "he reason conservatives are always thought to be tough and liberals to be effete milquetoasts (two favorite epithets from the early days of the backlash) even when they aren't is the same reason Americans believe the French to be a nation of sissies and the same reason the Dead End Kids found it both easy and satisfying to beat up the posh boy from the luxury apartment building: the cultural symbolism of class. If you relish chardonnay/lattes/ snowboarding, you will not fight. If you talk like a Texan, you are a two-fisted he-man who knows life's hardships and are ready to scrap at a moment's notice."

Before 2006, before 2008, progressives have got to figure out how to appeal to the wounded masculine in this country. It is not to be accomplished by destroying Roe v. Wade, denigrating women, repealing the small steps that gays have made toward full citizenship. We cannot go backwards on that. But we can realize that there are a lot of alienated males in our culture right now. Without their jobs, their traditional jobs that gave them identity, they need a new way of understanding their manhood.

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The culture war we are engaged in is one of class, yes. But it is framed in notions of wounded masculinity that seeks to destroy the feminine in oh so many ways.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/23/11181/4068

Eugene V. Debs. Both guys were tough as nails but the pacifist Debs' ideas, despite never being the 'winner' in elections, always won out and were copied by the Democrats and Republicans of the early 20th Century.

Butler literally saved the US from a facist coup d'etat of FDR. See "The Plot to Overthrow FDR" www.ihffilm.com/r547.html

Ask yourself why this bit of history, and the Bonus March of 1932 which ended up creating the GI Bill after WWII, never get M$M's airtime !

this is very good. this is why i embrace the name arnold has given democratic men, girlie man. though he has said it to humiliate, we honor that name in our house. my husband. my boys. it is the male that respects adn love female, not intimidated or afraid of them. it is the male that is progressive and brave in his masculinity. that has the courage to stand to girlie man, and what a man this man is. i tell my girlie man, just how sexy that girlie man is to me. totally turns me on. his raybans, tool belt and worker boots, putting up christmas lites. i mean. nothing hotter

these girlie men are here to help the other men along. let them see it doesnt hurt. one of the reasons i am so bothered with this gay issue. oh what we aredoing to our boys. my son is called gay continuously, we so teach them to be proving how not gay they are from 7, 8 on up. no wonder by the time they are twenty they are so afraid of gays.

a mess. our males are just a mess

reading a dobson book, page three was sure to say clearly what a mans man he was. this is needed to be said. do these men have to really going around saying all the time, i am a man, really i am

I love how you are using it. It is in homes like yours where the people will come from who can move our society foreward past this horribly regressive period we are in. Your husband and children are lucky to have such a wise woman in their lives.

I'm curious - how do you go about treaching your sons to handle the "being called gay" issue and proving that they are not?

Can you say a little more what the Dobson book that you are reading says?

in expectations so many different ways, since they were the youngest. cartoons i said no to that are all about anger and stupid, honoring stupid in this society, feeding the anger in who we are. the commercials for product to manipulate to take the money of little ones, and then product be crap. all the disillusions at the youngest of age. so has always been easy for them to see. should be easy for all kids, because they start pure and are over the years conditioned in all these thoughts. they recognize

they went to a christian school, a wonderful lesson seeing religion manipulate a person to act hateful in the name of lord. very profound for them

my oldest is a reader, always has been. would rather learn thru book than be told. glasses, small frame. he doesnt fit that male image already, and is already having to come to peace with it in himself. and how it simply isnt productive or worth buying into what is todays man. not if he wants to be hapopy later in life

the bully, he has always stood up to. even if another is being bullied he stands up to. regardless of fear. integrity. we define words. he would be pushed on the ground and think the bully won. i told him, no no, the courage you had. you stood up to bully, when others in class wanted to, just couldnt. you did. on the ground or not, you are the winner

it is the redefining of so many things. that is a very good way of putting it.

my kids will be able to do it, because we live it.

husband and i like each other. we never put each other down, we are never mean to each other, we never make the other less. i am loud, outspoken, and female. lol lol. and they love me. my husband takes pride in my mouth, lol honors it. they are not afraid of women. and it is never never about making male less either. they never hear me make male less. they know how much i love male

dobson, i put it down on page three mans man. i have to pick it up again and start reading. i forgot about it. got it in an odd way.