Men

Men in Social Sciences

In anthropology, social ceremonies connected to manhood (i.e., circumcision rituals) reserved to men (e.g., some male secret societies or social bonds) have traditionally been analyzed as some of the most evident cultural traits in a society, but little attention was given to masculinity as a specific topic. Moreover, a central institution as marriage has for long been analyzed as a phenomenon involving groups of people, disregarding its crucial role for the definition of individual (male and female) identity.

In Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (1990), anthropologist David D. Gilmore presents several case studies concerning the notions of manhood in different societies, with a special attention to recurrent patterns of virility. The central element emerging from this cross-cultural comparison is the general necessity of proving and showing masculinity in order to be a man: the individual needs to fit culturally determined categories and display virility to assert masculine gender. In non-Western communities, this is usually marked by body practices and rituals (e.g., Van Gennep's rites of passage), which establish a status of manhood and a particular male identity.

In anthropological studies, light was shed on the construction of self-identity through the interest for the processes of construction of the social human being, who needs cultural operations to integrate his or her biological nature and become fully human: this issue is conceptualized in the notion of anthropopoiesis, investigated by Francesco Remotti in Forme di Umanità (2002). Its specification as andropoiesis (the construction of man) introduced a renovated attention to the nonbiological, socially created elements of manhood. Works analyzing male rituals (e.g., Nande tribe's circumcision ceremonies) as well as their social implications (creating a neat division between recognized men and both women and boys) have deepened understanding of the cultural and social dimensions of masculinity.

Anthropology of youth, however, has shown how rites of passage have lost meaning, or have been radically modified, in the postcolonial age, where urbanization, neoliberalism, and new intergenerational relationships have opened innovative avenues to assert masculinity. “Navigation” as the capability to find one's place in the adult world by means of agency and choice has become an important concept in studies of youth, especially males. Social sciences have acknowledged how the process of becoming a man in other societies often implies forms of affirmation common to their Western counterpart, especially based on obtaining financial incomes, the possibility of creating and supporting one's family, and gaining social status and acceptance in the adults' world.

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