Masculinity as Vulnerability: The Harder They Fall

Around the world, male privilege is persistent but precarious. Respect, prestige, privilege,

and power go to successful men, not necessarily to all men. In an article called “The Good

Provider Role: Its Rise and Fall,” Jesse Bernard (1981), one of the first prominent female

sociologists in the United States, noted that successful men were told to use their advantages

to be good providers for their families. This was not just an ancient idea but actually gained

acceptance in the 1800s, as the agrarian partnership of men and women gave way to a

market economy dominated by business- men.

But not all businessmen proved to be successful. Some never reached their dreams;

some succumbed to economic disaster. Whether for economic or personal reasons, many

men found themselves unable to fulfill the good provider role and withdrew from the com-

petition; frequently, in a time when divorce was rare, they simply abandoned their families.

The good provider role seems to have had many deserters. Although these deserters were

clearly vulnerable to economic downturns and wounded by social expectations, in one sense,

they were still privileged relative to their women. The men could move and start over, but

the women they deserted were often left raising families with little means of support. In

Latin America and to a certain extent in much of Africa and Central Asia, the idea of the

man as provider and protector is culturally well established. But there, too, the number of

deserters seems to be increasing.

Some men were always vulnerable because of their race, ethnicity, or class. African

American sharecroppers and Irish American stockyard workers could never support their

families in the proper style and either had to forgo family life or admit to being less than

good providers (Bernard 1981). Currently within the African American community, men

are more likely than women not to finish school and not to be employed. Men are far more

likely to be incarcerated, as well. As black women struggle to maintain their families and

communities without large numbers of contributing men, it is not clear that they are there-
fore privileged. It is clear, however, that poor black men are particularly vulnerable to loss

and humiliation. In societies that accord other men respect, advantage, and power, they find

only disrespect, disadvantage, and disempowerment.

This is increasingly true not only of U.S. black men but also of poor black men in

Brazil, the Caribbean, Europe, and across Africa. The vulnerability of manhood is realized

by Latino men in both North and Latin America, where changing economies limit their

ability to be good providers. It is also increasingly realized by working-class white men,

both in North America and now across Eastern Europe, who are far more aware of their

vulnerability than their privilege.

In an era of heavy industry, men from low-income backgrounds often found their best

opportunities in manufacturing. If these were unionized jobs with relatively high wages,

they contributed to the male advantage. Men in these jobs earned considerably more than

women in routinized clerical, service, and domestic positions. Yet as these unionized heavy

industry positions become scarce, the men and their industrial skills are extremely vulner-

able to termination, protracted unemployment, and new employment at far lower wages.

Women in industry are also vulnerable, but those with skills applicable in the service

economy may have more secure employment than the men of their families and communi-

ties. Men may still have certain privileges, more so than women, such as greater freedom

from family responsibilities, but they are most acutely aware of their vulnerability. Their

severe class disadvantage trumps their gender privileges.

This phenomenon is not purely new. In the 1800s, the paneled offices and the board-

rooms— as well as the decrepit boardinghouses, flophouses, and rescue missions—were

all dominated by men: either men who had reached the top or men who had hit bottom.

The place of women is also changing and in similarly complex ways. Women today are

more likely to be seen in the boardrooms, but they are also more likely to be found in the

rescue missions and the homeless shelters, not always as “sisters of mercy” but sometimes

as guests.