Manly Mansfield
What is it with Harvard, anyway?
First we saw Larry Summers, president of the university, explain the overrepresentation of men in the sciences by declaring that women might just be dumb at math.
Now here comes government professor Harvey Mansfield who, in his book Manliness, declares that "masculinity"--which he defines as a combination of rationalism and stubbornness, qualities he believes to be intrinsic to men and largely unavailable to women--is essential to political discourse. I haven't read his book, and after hearing him play the "moral courage" game by condemning radical feminism and same-sex relationships, I suspect it'll eventually join Iron John and Fire in the Belly on the shelf full of useless books written by strange middle-aged men who apparently feel qualified to tell me what I'm supposed to think, feel, and aspire to. But just looking at the (jarring) excerpts I've seen from his lecture, I'd like to sit down with this man and explain to him that women have seldom run governments primarily because governments tend to be despotic, and men tend towards physical strength. We draw national boundaries on battle lines, and (mostly) men fought and died to put those battle lines where they are. It's an unavoidable part of our shared human history, but I'd like to think we're moving past all that. "Manliness" in politics has everything to do with manly despotism and the inertia it has generated, and it's just plain bad science to throw biological essentialism into the picture when so little has been done to get rid of that inertia.
I'm not suggesting that he be stripped of tenure or anything, but this is the sort of half-logic you expect from a guy with a rebel flag on his pickup--not a tenured professor at the most prestigious university in the country. How do Harvard dons get away with this kind of lazy thinking?
I do sort of agree with some of what he had to say about sexuality, but he has no business wagging his finger at women and telling them to be "modest" (in the name of "the erotic") while taking a "boys will be boys" approach with men. That's the latest verse of a very old, very creepy song. As Feministing puts it:
Besides the disgusting double standard going on here, am I really supposed to care what this guy thinks is erotic?
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