Jonathan Zimmerman: Homophobia Hurts Straight Men, Too
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”]
In the 1986 movie Stand By Me, an adult protagonist – played by Richard Dreyfuss – looks back wistfully on the friendships he formed in his youth. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve,” he muses. “Does anyone?”
For most American men, the sad answer is “no.” In surveys, men report that they rarely sustain intimate, long-standing friendships with other males after childhood. And the reason might surprise you: According to a large body of research, they’re afraid of being seen as gay....
It wasn’t always that way. In the nineteenth century, American men declared their love for each other in fiction, poetry, and song. And you can see it in photographs from the period, as well, which show men posing in physical embrace – sharing a chair, holding hands.
All of that began to change in the early 20th century, when new fears of “feminization” started to drive men apart. As America urbanized, the argument went, men were losing the rough-hewn virtues of the old frontier. So educators began to emphasize competitive sports, especially football, which would restore the nation’s endangered masculinity. And they also warned about “sissies” or “fairies,” which in turn led men to turn away from each other....
Read entire article at CS Monitor
In the 1986 movie Stand By Me, an adult protagonist – played by Richard Dreyfuss – looks back wistfully on the friendships he formed in his youth. “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve,” he muses. “Does anyone?”
For most American men, the sad answer is “no.” In surveys, men report that they rarely sustain intimate, long-standing friendships with other males after childhood. And the reason might surprise you: According to a large body of research, they’re afraid of being seen as gay....
It wasn’t always that way. In the nineteenth century, American men declared their love for each other in fiction, poetry, and song. And you can see it in photographs from the period, as well, which show men posing in physical embrace – sharing a chair, holding hands.
All of that began to change in the early 20th century, when new fears of “feminization” started to drive men apart. As America urbanized, the argument went, men were losing the rough-hewn virtues of the old frontier. So educators began to emphasize competitive sports, especially football, which would restore the nation’s endangered masculinity. And they also warned about “sissies” or “fairies,” which in turn led men to turn away from each other....