Emancipating Adam

Adam, the first man, brought out of the dust and particles of the earth, whose life was breathed out of God’s nostrils, whose responsibility was to take dominion over all of creation and give them names. Adam, the root of masculinity, the masterpiece of the divine, from whose rib Eve and the feminine race were birthed. Adam, who by the sweat of his brow will labor for the food he will eat. His is the image of God, and God was pleased.

Surely Adam and the Adams that came after him, both past and present, are of tough stuff, burdened yet esteemed. Adam and masculinity had the footholds of society. But now Adam is in trouble. And he is as exiled as he can be.

A recent study conducted by researchers of the University of Washington on the topic of manhood was published in the journal Social Psychology. The research was aimed at identifying how men compensate when their masculinity is threatened or questioned. The conclusion: Men make up for a threatened masculinity by 1) rejecting feminine traits, or 2) exaggerating their masculinity to some extent.

How appropriate this study is in a society where gender roles are starting to thin. While women doing masculine things is cause for celebration, men doing feminine things fail to achieve the same level of positive attention and even elicit suspicion and ridicule. For a woman to be like a man is to be strong, to level up. But for a man to be like a woman is to be weak, to be soft. It is not surprising that the study is titled “Manning Up” because to man down is incomprehensible. (The full title of the study is “Manning Up: Threatened Men Compensate by Disavowing Feminine Preferences and Embracing Masculine Attributes,” written by Sapna Cheryan, Jessica Schwartz Cameron, Zach Katagiri, and Benoît Monin.)

In the Philippines, there is such a strong hold on ideas of a macho image. Which is why the media can be cruel to matinee idols who defy the archetype, their allegations masked in blind items and gossip columns. Or why public displays of affection between two young boys on reality TV is such a strong trending topic. Or why it is so shocking for a basketball player to be gay because basketball is as masculine as can be.

To attack a man—boxing champ, president of the nation, chief executive of an empire, son of a media queen, or husband in apron and cleaning gloves—is to challenge his masculinity. Perhaps this emasculation is in the light of how society shames femininity. But some of the most hurtful jabs to masculinity come from some women themselves.

The study was conducted on male students of Stanford University, who were asked to squeeze a handheld device presented as a part of a different research topic. The respondents were given fictitious scores using fictitious criteria. Some were given scores that were categorized as “female,” meaning the force they exhibited was feminine, and the others were given scores that were categorized as “male.” The respondents were subsequently asked to fill out a questionnaire asking about their height and other personal data.

The results showed that those who were given “female” scores in the prior test increased their height by “three quarters of an inch” in the questionnaire, exaggerated the number of their romantic relationships, presented themselves to be more athletic, and expressed little to no interest in products that were identified to be feminine. Those who were given “male” scores did not manifest the need to modify themselves.

It is a puzzling and yet poignant irony—how men are supposed to be strong but their masculinity is a fragile, delicate thing. To provoke it is to rouse the ire of the man in question. Apparently, if there is one thing that Adam and his race can be troubled about, it is the burden of proof of their masculinity, as if it were an ideal to be conformed with rather than something to be expressed freely. It leaves me wondering if masculinity is indeed in crisis. Are we as exiled as Adam was? Has masculinity killed the man?

In Philippine folklore, the first man is named “Malakas” and the first woman, “Maganda.” While the feminine trait is a state of being, the masculine trait is an action. In that case then, masculinity can possibly be taken away and it would not take long before a boy or a man who fails to be strong cannot be perceived as a man anymore. If a man is strong one moment, as manifested in his career or in his relationships, he is the alpha of the pack. But if this is taken away from him, it wouldn’t take long before his masculinity is degraded and he becomes someone else’s bitch.

I will be honest about it: I can be touchy when my masculinity is questioned. But I am more troubled by the fact that I am scarred in the first place, when I shouldn’t even be. It shouldn’t take long before we actually begin to emancipate Adam and his race.

Someday, when granted the opportunity to have a son, I would want him to express his masculinity because it is his inheritance—being a man, rather than something he has to do—to be a man. Masculinity embodies the traits of logic, of firmness, of courage, and of strength. And that cannot be negotiated for today’s standard of manhood—unsuppressed sexuality, unjustified promiscuity, aggressiveness, toughness, rudeness, superiority. I would want him to express his masculinity well, because masculinity is richly layered and cannot be expressed in just a single way. I would not want him to live in a state of fear, like a lot of Adams do, on guard to defend their masculinity. Adam was exiled. But he is yet to be emancipated.

* * *

[email protected]