Violence and the Masculine Ideal: Some Qualitative Data

Abstract

Given the family structure common in urban industrial societies, it is less easy for boys to grow up confident of their fundamental masculinity than for boys in the extended families of preliterate societies. One response to doubts about masculinity is compulsive masculinity: an exaggerated in sistence on characteristics differentiating males from females. Superior strength and a readiness to exhibit it obviously fill the specifications. This analysis explains why violence, though punishable by law and condemned by custom, nevertheless remains a clandestine masculine ideal in Western culture. The assumptions of this ideal are mostly explicitly formulated in certain subcultures within the larger culture—and especially among those segments of the population unable to wield sym bolic power. Excerpts from a tape-recorded interview with an imprisoned armed robber illustrate these assumptions.