The Revolt of the Primitive

An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness

Howard Schwartz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351475174
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Revolt of the Primitive explores the psychological dynamics of political correctness and gender warfare. Author Howard Schwartz argues that perceptions of men as abusers, sexual predators, and deadbeat dads have become firmly entrenched in our culture due to fantasy rather than solid, objective facts. This volume delves into the psychological forces that have given rise to these ideas and reveals the hard facts about men and women in our society.Schwartz illustrates how feminists have taken the most vulgar stereotype of men and pronounced it a universal and inviolable cultural norm. He then examines his thesis in the context of work and the work organization, discussing how the feminization of the workplace has been driven by the archetypal need to remake it into a maternal world, banishing the limitations that shape survival and progress. He examines the traditional sexual division of labor and its alleged oppressive nature. He also discusses the psychological forces that drive the idea of placing women in combat roles in the military.Howard S. Schwartz is a professor of organizational behavior in the School of Business Administration at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and is one of the founders of the International Society for Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO).

Chapter One

Scenes from a Sexual Holy War

If it was ever a man's world, it certainly isn't anymore. What previously were male preserves have given way to the integration of the sexes. Indeed, in many areas of society male preponderance has been replaced by female preponderance. And if it cannot be said that every element of this transformation has been taken as a cause for celebration, certainly there has not been much about it that has led many to be deeply concerned.

A story by Tamar Lewin in the New York Times (1998) illustrates an aspect of this. The headline reads: “U.S. Colleges Begin to Ask, “Where Have the Men Gone?’ ” More than ten years ago, Lewin reports, women became the majority on college campuses, and their proportion has been increasing ever since. Although in the U.S. population as a whole there are slightly more college-age men than women, Department of Education statistics reveal that there were 8.4 million women and only 6.7 million men enrolled in college in 1996, the last year for which statistics are available. The department projects that by 2007, the gap will be even larger, with 9.2 million women and only 6.9 million men. This transformation has taken place across the full range of institutions of higher education. Women outnumber men in public institutions as well as private, and in religiously affiliated, four-year and two-year schools.

The problem that concerns the education experts is, of course, that given the widening income gap between high school graduates and those with advanced degrees, men's failure to pursue higher education will seriously limit their life choices. There is a concern that if the balance goes too far, the minority of males may feel uncomfortable. So colleges are doing what they can to give guys a break. At the same time, though, there is a danger in going too far in this direction. Lewin (1998) quotes a former college professor as saying:

“It used to be that you worried at 55 percent women, but the new wisdom is that anything up to 60 percent is O.K., ” he said. “Probably nobody will admit it, but I know that lots of places try to get some gender balance by having easier admissions standards for boys than for girls. Recently, at a school where I was giving a speech, I asked “How far down the list are you going for boys?’ and the answer was'All the way.’ The problem is that if you take men who are not of the same caliber as the women, the highest-performing women leave, because the men aren't as interesting.” (p. 38)

For the most part, this shift is not much to worry about, the story assures us. It is just a reflection of people's aptitudes, interests, and the choices they make. It isn't entirely clear what men are doing instead of attending college. Nor are the experts sure why, in their view, men are less committed to higher education. They do list a number of factors that may be having an influence, such as girls' greater success in high school and a strong economy that may give boys a sense that they can make their way without higher education, for example in computer work or the military. At any rate isn't it a bit sexist to think that a preponderance of females might be a cause for concern? Did we worry when there was a preponderance of men?

The idea that the absence of men from our colleges is simply a benign facet of our changing times is one that, for a number of reasons, doesn't quite add up. For one thing the idea that it is normal for a majority of college students to be male, and abnormal for them to be female, is based on the idea that men are the primary breadwinners within the family, whereas the care of children is primarily the role of the mothers. That may be a social arrangement that has given way to increased equality, but such a shift would move the proportion to 50-50. Any more of a change needs another explanation. The idea that, in the current economy, men are moving into occupations that do not require higher education, such as the military, is also questionable. In fact the same period that has shown a decline in the number of young men in college has also shown a decline in their enlistment in the military, which dropped from 34 percent in 1991 to 27 percent in 1997 (Department of Defense, 1997, 1998; Wilson, 1998). Nor does it seem to arise from the fact that women are just better suited for higher education and that in order to get men you have to go “all the way down.” The fact is that men's scores on the most recent math SAT were substantially higher than those of women and were even slightly higher on the verbal SAT (Chute, 1999).¹ The SAT is one of the best measures we have for predicting college success, and these results make it difficult to understand how the claim that women are simply better suited for college can be sustained.

In deepest contradiction to the idea that the dearth of men in college is an aspect of a benign transformation is the fact that it takes place alongside other developments that cannot possibly be called benign. Among these are the increase in acts of murderous violence, such as the Littleton massacre, and the enormous rise in the rate of suicide among young males, which has increased threefold since the 1950s (Department of Health and Human Services, 1995) and which is six times as high as that of young females.²

IS THERE A CRISIS OF BOYHOOD?

The incidents of violence and the suicide statistics point to the possibility that the lack of young men in college is part of a much wider crisis of males in our society. In fact there is plenty of evidence to support this view, and it has become quite popular. Much of this evidence is proffered in a spate of contemporary books on the “crisis of boyhood” that are now making their way among us. Among the experts who write these books, the idea that our boys are in a perilous state is widely regarded as an established fact.

This presents us with what appears to be a puzzle. We have the view that the disappearance of men from college is a perfectly normal aspect of a benign and even beneficial transformation. On the other hand we have the view that boys are in state of crisis. These appear to be in contradiction. What is odd is that though both these views are widely held, they are not brought into juxtaposition in public discussion. The idea that the social processes responsible for the increasing female dominance in our colleges might have had something to do with the painful state of our young males is simply not an item for discussion. How could anyone fail to make this connection, even if only for the purpose of research? Especially, how could this connection fail to be made by experts on boys? Who are these experts?

I believe we may say without controversy that those who brought us the emergent female domination of college, along with the idea that it is natural and even desirable, were feminists. Certainly the fact that feminists see themselves as advocates for women is no secret, as we see from the self-statement of their division within the American Psychological Association:

Division 35—Psychology of Women promotes feminist research, theories, education, and practice toward understanding and improving the lives of girls and women in all their diversities. Encourages scholarship on the social construction of gender relations across multicultural context, and applies its scholarship to transforming the knowledge base of psychology. Advocates action toward public policies that advance equality and social justice, and seeks to empower women in community, national, and global leadership.³

By extension, we might expect that those who are now telling us about the horrors of growing up as a boy, and who would presumably be expected to advocate for boys, might identify with their sex the way feminists do. They might call themselves “masculinists, ” or something of the sort. But that is not what happens. On the contrary they identify with feminists. This is the Position Statement of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, Division 51 of the American Psychological Association:

The Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM) promotes the critical study of how gender shapes and constricts men's lives, and is committed to an enhancement of men's capacity to experience their full human potential. SPSMM endeavors to erode constraining definitions of masculinity which historically have inhibited men's development, their capacity to form meaningful relationships, and have contributed to the oppression of other people. SPSMM acknowledges its historical debt to feminist-inspired scholarship on gender, and commits itself to the support of groups such as women, gays, lesbians and peoples of color that have been uniquely oppressed by the gender/class/race system. SPSMM vigorously contends that the empowerment of all persons beyond narrow and restrictive gender role definitions leads to the highest level of functioning in individual women and men, to the most healthy interactions between the genders, and to the richest relationships between them.⁴

The debt to feminism, in theme and in ideological orientation, is clear enough and is explicitly acknowledged. The idea that when feminism triumphed it triumphed over men and that the single-minded pursuit of the exclusive interests of women might negatively affect the well-being of men is not going to come from this group.

Part of the reason, then, why this possibility is not on the agenda is that the experts who now tell us of the boy crisis also believe that the accession of girls to dominance is normal, natural, and legitimate. They see the rise of girls as a reversal of previous domination and an occasion of moral triumph.

But then what do these experts tell us is the trouble with boys ? What explanation can they provide that will acknowledge the boy crisis, and at the same time preserve their allegiance to feminism? Well, to sum the matter up, their answer is that boys are in trouble because they are expected to become men; their problems arise from the fact that they are not allowed to be woman enough.

ALL THEY NEED IS LOVE

Given the importance of feminist thought within the new psychology of boys, it is not surprising that its intellectual core would arise from the work of feminist thinker Carol Gilligan and indeed as an extension of her thoughts on girls (1996; Norman, 1997). According to Gilligan, girls, as they come into adolescence within a patriarchal world, lose their “voice, ” their feelings, and therefore their capacity for authentic relationship. They feel the necessity to buy into an artificial and socially constructed reality. Boys do so as well. The difference is that boys' loss occurs in early childhood, rather than in adolescence.

This difference has consequences for the ways in which the transition is made and comprehended. Specifically boys adopt the patriarchal world at the level of “concrete operations… (the way things are), ” whereas for girls the internalization takes place at the “formal operational level… as an interpretive framework (the way things are said to be)” (Gilligan, 1996: p. 251). The result is that girls and women are better able to see the artificiality of social life. They are therefore conscious of an experience that for boys is likely to be inchoate, and their resistance is closer to the surface.

Still it is the similarities that are important. For both boys and girls, what they experience is that:

They are losing connection, they cannot say what they are feeling and thinking, and they are losing relationship and finding themselves psychologically alone. The division between inner and outer worlds creates a psychological instability and heightens the risk of being thrown off balance in times of stress. (Gilligan, 1996: p. 250)

With specific regard to boys, this means that:

Young boys come under pressure from without and within to give up close relationship and to cover their vulnerability—to separate their inner world, their self, from the outer world of relationships. (Gilligan, 1996: p. 250)

[B]oys are more at risk-—more stuttering, more bed-wetting, more learning problems—in early childhood, when cultural norms pressure them to separate from their mothers They feel they have to separate from women. And they are not allowed to feel that separation as a real loss. (Norman, 1997: p. 50)

What we are discovering is how vulnerable boys are. How, under the surface, behind that psychic shield, is a tender creature who's hiding his humanity. I often say about my own three boys, who are now grown, that I feel that the world muffles the very best qualities in them, meaning their sensitivity. (Norman, 1997: p. 5.)

This separation, this loss of connection and sensitivity, creates a “psychological wound or scar” that remains with the boy into manhood where it forms the root of his masculine character:

To be a real boy or man in such cultures means to be able to be hurt without feeling hurt, to separate without feeling sadness or loss, and then to inflict hurt and separation on others. What is at stake is boys' manhood, boys' masculinity, their birthright in a patriarchal social order. But this conception of manhood places boys and men psychologically and often physically at risk, because it impedes their capacity to feel their own and other people's hurt, to know their own and other's sadness. (Gilligan, 1996: p. 251)

Gilligan thinks this is pretty bad news for everyone: “After a century of unparalleled violence, at a time when violence has become appalling, we appreciate again the fragility of humans. We understand better why closeness and vulnerability create the conditions for psychological growth. And we also know more fully the costs of their violation” (Gilligan, 1996: p. 258).

That's quite an indictment of masculinity, but before we buy into it, we do well to note Sommers's (2000) observation that Gilligan's assertions concerning the violent consequences of patriarchy and of premature separation from mother are entirely unsupported by empirical evidence. In fact they appear to be diametrically opposed to the research that has been done over the last thirty years and that has found that it is the absence of the father that is associated with the problem. As she puts it:

The boys who are most at risk for j uvenile delinquency and violence are boys who are literally separated from their fathers. … In Fatherless America, the sociolog...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Copyright Acknowledgement
• Dedication
• Author Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Scenes from a Sexual Holy War
• Chapter 2. The Sexual Holy War and the Meaning of Work
• Chapter 3. Feminist Reattribution of Work’s Discontents
• Chapter 4. The Sin of the Father
• Chapter 5. Political Correctness and the Revolt of the Primitive
• Chapter 6. The March of the Virgin: Psychodynamics of Sexual Politics and the Issue of Women in Combat
• Chapter 7. Conclusion: Littleton and Beyond
• References
• Index