14 On Becoming Male: Reflections of a Sociologist on Childhood and Early Socialization JAMES M. HENSLIN If this sociological position is correct—that culture, not anatomy, is our destiny- how do we become the “way we are”?1 What factors shape or influence us into becoming masculine or feminine? If our behaviors do not come from our biology, how do we end up having behaviors that are typically associated with our sex? If they are learned, how do our behaviors, attitudes, and other basic orientations come to be felt by us as natural and essential to our identity? (And they are indeed essential to our identity.) In what ways is the process of “becoming” related to the social structure of society? Not only would it take volumes to answer these questions fully, but it would also be impossible, since the answers are only now slowly being unraveled by researchers. In this short and rather informal article, I will be able to indicate only some of the basics underlying this foundational learning. I will focus exclusively on being socialized into masculinity, and will do this by reflecting on (1) my own experience in “becoming”; (2) my observations as a sociologist of the experiences of others; and (3) what others have shared with me concerning their own experiences. The reader should keep in mind that this article meant to be neither definitive nor exhaustive, but is designed to depict general areas of male socialization and thereby to provide insight into the acquisition of masculinity in our culture. Although relations between men and women are enveloped in social change, men still dominate our social institutions: law, politics, business, religion, education, the military, medicine, science, sports, and in many ways, even marriage and family. Despite far-reaching social change, women often find themselves in the more backstage, nurturing, and supportive roles—and those roles generally are supportive of the more dominant roles men play. Why? Is this a consequence of genetic heritage—boys and girls being born with different predispositions? Or is it due to culture, because boys are socialized into dominance? While there is considerable debate among academics on this matter, sociologists side almost unanimously with the proponents of socialization. In this article, Henslin analyzes some of the socialization experiences that place boys in a distinctive social world and prepare them for dominance. This selection is an attempt to penetrate the taken-for-granted, behind-the- scenes aspects of socialization into masculine sexuality. Whether male or female, you might find it useful to contrast your experiences in growing up with those the author describes. In the Beginning .. ACCORDING TO THE PREVAILING sociological perspective, our masculinity or femininity is not biologically determined. Although our biological or genetic inheritance gives each of us the sex organs of a male or female, how our “maleness” or “femaleness” is expressed depends on what we learn. Our masculinity or femininity, that is, what we are like as sexual beings-our orientations and how we behave as a male or a female-does not depend on biology but on social learning. It can be said that while our sex is part of our biological inheritance, our sexuality (or masculinity or femininity) is part of our social inheritance. Except for a few rare instances,2 each of us arrives in this world with a clearly definable physical characteristic that sets us apart from about half the rest of the world. This characteristic makes a literal world of difference. Our parents become excited about whether we have been born with a penis or a vagina. They are usually either happy or disappointed about which organ we possess, seldom feeling neutral about the matter. They announce it to friends, relatives, and sometimes to complete strangers (“It's a boy!" "It's a girl!"). Regardless of how they feel about it, on the basis of our possessing a particular physical organ they purposely, but both consciously and subconsciously, separate us into two worlds. Wittingly and unwittingly, they thereby launch us onto a career that will encompass almost every aspect of our lives-one that will remain with us until death. Colors, Clothing, and Toys their significance appears irrelevant to us, our parents' concern is always present. If during a supermarket expedition even a stranger mistakes our sex, this agitates our parents, challenging their sacred responsibility to maintain the reality-ordering structure of the sex worlds. Such mistaken identification forces them to rethink their activities in proper sex typing, their deep obligation to make certain that their offspring is receiving the right start in life. They will either ascribe the mistake to the stupidity of the stranger or immediately forswear some particular piece of clothing. Our parents’“gentle nudging” into masculinity does not overlook our toys. These represent both current activities thought gender appropriate and those symbolic of our future masculinity of courage, competition, daring-and of violence. We are given trucks, tanks, and guns. Although our mother might caution us about breaking them, it is readily apparent by her tone and facial expressions that she does not mean what she says. We can continue to bang them together roughly, and she merely looks at us-sometimes quite uncomprehendingly, and occasionally muttering something to the effect that boys will be boys. We somehow perceive her sense of confirmation and we bang them all the more, laughing gleefully, knowing that beneath our mom's grimaces and head-shaking lies approval. While it is not inherently more masculine or feminine than red, yellow, purple, orange, white, or black, the color blue is associated arbitrarily with infantile masculinity. After what is usually a proud realization that the neonate possesses a penis (which marks him as a member of the overlords of the universe), the inheritor of dominance is wrapped in blue. This color is merely an arbitrary choice, as originally any other would have done as well. But now that the association is made, no other will do. The announcing colors maintain their meaning for only a fairly short period, gradually becoming sexually neutralized.3 Our parents gently and sometimes not so gently push us onto a predetermined course. First they provide clothing designated appropriate to our masculine status. Even as infants our clothing displays sexual significance, and our parents are extremely careful that we never are clothed in either dresses or ruffles. For example, while our plastic panties are designed to keep mothers, fathers, and their furniture and friends dry, our parents make absolutely certain that ours are never pink with white ruffles. Even if our Mom had run out of all other plastic panties, she would rather stay home than take us out in public wearing ruffled pinkies. Mom would probably feel a twinge of guilt over such cross-dressing even in private.4 So both Mom and Dad are extremely cautious about our clothing. Generally plain, often simple, and usually sturdy, our clothing is designed to take the greater “rough and tumble” that they expect boys to give it. They also choose clothing that will help groom us into future adult roles; depending on the style of the period, they dress us in little sailor suits, miniature jogging togs, or two-piece suits with matching ties. Although at this early age we could care less about such things, and Play and the Sexual Boundaries of Tolerance We can make all sorts of expressive sounds as we play. We can shout, grunt, and groan on the kitchen floor or roll around in the sandbox. As she shoves us out the door, Mom always cautions us not to get dirty, but when we come in filthy her verbal and gestural disapproval is only mild. From holistic perception, of which by now we have become young masters, we have learned that no matter what Mom's words say, they do not represent the entirety of her feelings. When we are "all dressed up” before going somewhere, or before company comes, Mom acts differently. We learn that at those times she means what she says As we calculate those boundaries of tolerance (or in the vernacular used by our parents and well understood by us, find out how much they can “stand”), we also learn something about our world vis-à-vis that of those strange female creatures who coinhabit our space. We learn that we can get dirtier, play rougher, speak louder, act more crudely, wander farther from home, stay away longer, and talk back more. about not getting dirty. If we do not want “fire in our pants,” we'd better remain clean-at least for a while, for we also learn that after company has come and has had a glimpse of the neat and clean little boy (or, as they say, “the nice little gentleman” or the “fine young man”), we can go about our rough and tumble ways. Pushing, shouting, running, climbing, and other expressions of competition, glee, and freedom again become permissible. We learn that the appearance required at the beginning of a visit is quite unlike that which is passable at the end of the visit. Our more boisterous and rougher play continues to help us learn the limits of our parents' tolerance. As we test those limits, somewhat to our dismay we occasionally find that we unwittingly have crossed beyond them. Through what is at times painful trial and error, we learn both the limits and how they vary with changed circumstance. We eventually learn those edges extremely well and know, for example, precisely how much more we can “get away with” when company comes than when only the immediate family is present, when Mom and Dad are tired or when they are arguing. As highly rational beings, who are seldom adequately credited by adults for our keen cunning, we learn to calculate those boundaries exceedingly carefully. We eventually come to the point where we know precisely where the brink is—that one more word of back talk, one more quarrel with our brother, sister, or friend, even a small one, or even one more whine will move our parents from words to deeds, and their wrath will fall abruptly upon us. Depending on our parents' orientation to childrearing (or often simply upon their predilection of the moment, for at these times theory tends to fly out the window), this will result in either excruciating humiliation in front of our friends accompanied by horrible (though momentary) physical pain, or excruciating humiliation in front of our friends accompanied by the horrifying (and longer) deprivation of a privilege (which of course we know is really a “right” that is being withheld from us unjustifiably). We see that girls live in a world foreign to ours. Theirs is quieter, neater, daintier, and in general more subdued. Sometimes our worlds touch, but then only momentarily. We learn, for example, that while little sisters might be all right to spend an occasional hour with on a rainy afternoon, they are, after all, “only girls.” They cannot really enter our world, and we certainly do not want to become part of theirs, with its greater restrictions and fewer challenges. Occasionally, we even find ourselves delighting in this distinction as we taunt them about not being able to do something because it is “not for girls.” If we sometimes wonder about the reasons for the differences between our worlds, our curiosity quickly runs its course, for we know deep down that these distinctions are proper. They are girls, and, as our parents have told us repeatedly, we are NOT girls. We have internalized the appropriateness of our worlds; some things are right for us, others for them. Seldom are we sorry for the tighter reins placed on girls. We are just glad that we are not one of them.” We stick with “our own kind” and immensely enjoy our greater freedom. Rather than lose ourselves in philosophical reflections about the inequalities of this world (greatly beyond our mental capacities at this point anyway), we lose ourselves in exultation over our greater freedom and the good fortune that made us boys instead of girls. That greater freedom becomes the most prized aspect of our existence. Before we are old enough to go to school (and later, during summer or weekends and any other nonschool days), when we awaken in the morning we can hardly wait to get our clothes on. Awaiting us is a world of adventure. If we are up before Mom, we can go outside and play in the yard. Before venturing beyond voice distance, however, we have to eat our “wholesome” breakfast, one that somehow (in mom's words) is helping to make a man” out of us. After this man-producing breakfast, which might On Freedom and Being ... And the Twain Shall Never Meet Seldom do we think about being masculine. Usually we are just being. The radical social differences that separate us from girls have not gone unnoticed, of course. Rather, these essential differences in life orientations not only have penetrated our consciousness but also have saturated our very beings. Our initial indifference to things male and female has turned to violent taste and distaste. We have learned our lessons so well that we sometimes end up teaching our own mothers lessons in gender. For example, we would rather be caught dead than to wear sissy clothing, and our tantrums will not cease until our mothers come to their senses and relent concerning putting something on us that we consider sissified. well consist of little more than cereal and juice, we are free to roam, to discover, to experience. Certainly we have spatial and associational restrictions placed on us, but they are much more generous than those imposed on girls of our age. We know how many houses or blocks we can wander and whom we are allowed to see. But just as significant, we know how to go beyond that distance without getting caught and how to play with the “bad boys” and the “too big boys” without Mom ever being the wiser. So long as we are home within a certain time limit, despite verbal restrictions we really are free to come and go. We do learn to accept limited responsibility in order to guard our freedom. We pester other mothers for the time or, learn that when both the big and little hands are at the top that it is noon, so we can make our brief appearance for lunch—and then quickly move back into the exciting world of boy activities. But we also learn to lie a lot, finding out that it is better to say anything plausible rather than to admit that we violated the boundaries and be “grounded,” practically the worst form of punishment we can receive. Consequently, we learn to deny, to avoid, to deceive, to tell half-truths, and to involve ourselves in other sorts of subterfuge rather than to admit violations that might restrict our freedom of movement. Our freedom is infinitely precious to us, for whether it is cops and robbers or space bandits, Spider Man or Darth Vader, ours is an imaginary world filled with daring and danger. Whether it is six-shooters with bullets or space missiles with laser disintegrators, we are always shooting or getting shot. There are always the good guys and the bad guys. Always there is a moral victory to be won. We are continuously running, shouting, hiding, and discovering. The world is filled with danger, with the inopportune and unexpected lurking just around the corner. As the enemy stalks us, the potential of sudden discovery and the sweet joys of being undetected or being the one who surprises the other are unsurpassable. Nothing in adulthood, despite its great allure, its challenges and victories yet to be experienced, will ever be greater than this intense bliss of innocence—and part of the joy of this period lies in our being entirely unaware of this savage fact of life. We know there are two worlds, and we are grateful for the one we are in. Ours is superior. The evidence continually bombards us, and we exult in masculine privilege. We also protect our sexual boundaries from encroachment and erosion. The encroachment comes from tomboys who strive to become part of our world. We tolerate them-up to a point. But by excluding them from some activities, we let them know that there are irrevocable differences that forever separate us. The erosion comes from sissies. Although we are not yet aware that we are reacting to a threat to our developing masculine identity, we do know that sissies make us uncomfortable. We come to dislike them intensely. To be a sissy is to be a traitor to one's very being. It is to be “like a girl,” that which we are not—and that which we definitely never will be. Sissies are to be either pitied or hated. While they are not girls, neither are they real boys. They look like us, but they bring shame on us because they do not represent anything we are. We are everything they are not. Consequently, we separate ourselves from them in the most direct manner possible. While we may be brutal, this breach is necessary, for we must define clearly the boundaries of our own existence—and one way that we know who we are is by knowing what we are not. So we shame sissies. We make fun of anyone who is not the way he “ought” to be. If he hangs around the teacher or girls during recess instead of playing our rough and tumble games, if he will not play sports because he is afraid of getting dirty or being hurt, if he backs off from a fight, if he cries or whines, or even if he gets too many A's, we humiliate and ridicule him. We gather around him in a circle. We call him a sissy. We say, “Shame! Shame!” We call him gay, fag, and queer. We tell him he is a girl and not fit for us. And as far as we are concerned, he never will be fit for us. He belongs to some strange status, not quite a girl and not quite a boy. Whatever he is, he certainly is not one of us. WE don't cry when we are punished or hurt. WE don't hang around girls. WE are proud of our average grades. WE play rough games. WE are not afraid of getting hurt. (Or if we are, we would never let it show.) WE are not afraid of sassing the teacher-or at least of calling the teacher names when his or her back is turned. We know who we are. We are boys. while we are off playing our games, once in a while we cast quizzical glances in the direction of the girls. Witnessing a confusing, haunting change, we shrug off the dilemma and go back to our games. Then the change hits us. We feel something happening within our own bodies. At first the feeling is vague, undefined. There is no form to it. We just know that something is different. Then we begin to feel strange stirrings within us. These stirrings come on abruptly, and that abruptness begins to shake everything loose in our secure world. Until this time our penis has never given us any particular trouble. It has just “been there," appended like a finger or toenail. It has been a fact of life, something that “we” had and “they” didn't. But now it literally springs to life, taking on an existence of its own and doing things that we once could not even imagine would ever take place. This sometimes creates embarrassment, and there are even times when, called to the blackboard to work out some problem, we must play dumb because of the bulge that we never willed. It is a new game. The girls in our class are different. We are different. And never will we be the same. The Puberty Shock We never know, of course, how precarious our gender identity is. From birth we have been set apart from females, and during childhood we have severely separated ourselves both from females and from those who do not match our standards of masculinity. Our existence is well defined, our world solid. By the end of grade school, the pecking order is clear. For good or ill, each of us has been locked into a system of well-honed, peer-determined distinctions, our destiny determined by a heavily defended social order. Our masculine world seems secure, with distinct boundaries that clearly define “us” from “them.” We know who we are, and we are cocky about it. We are forced into new concepts of masculinity. We find this upsetting, but fortunately we do not have to begin from scratch. We can build on our experiences, for mostly the change involves just one area of our lives, girls, and we are able to keep the rest intact. We can still swagger, curse, sweat, get dirty, and bloody ourselves in our games. While the girls still watch us admiringly from the sidelines as we “do our manly thing," we also now watch them more closely as they “do their womanly thing” and strut before us in tight sweaters and blouses. While the girls still admire our toughness, a change is now demanded. At times we must show gentleness. We must be cleaner and watch our language more than before. We must even show consideration. These shifting boundaries are not easy to master, but we have the older, more experienced boys to count on-and they are more than willing to initiate us into this new world and, while doing so, to demonstrate their (always) greater knowledge and skills in traversing the social world, and in exhibiting their masculinity. But then comes puberty, and overnight the world undergoes radical metamorphosis. Girls suddenly change. Right before our eyes the flat chests we have always taken for granted begin to protrude. Two little bumps magically appear, and
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