To shore-up conceptions of manhood many men have turned to archetypal images of masculinity found in New Age neo-Jungian therapeutic and spiritual movements. Men have enthusiastically embraced these movements’ essentialist and depoliticized constructions of gender, examples of which are freely harvested from myths and rituals across cultures and historical epochs.[1]
Smith’s thesis proceeds to examine the ways in which certain groups of Pagan men have applied two allied masculine mythopoetic Warrior archetypes as a way of invigorating their spiritual practices – respectively those of Robert Bly’s Iron John[2] and the Green Man, which is often synonymous with Wicca’s Horned God.[3] These are, therefore, essentialist readings of masculinity rooted in notions of natural male sexual potency, environmental stewardship and agency built around innate physical and psychological strength.
Given this mythopoetic essentialization of masculinity, Men’s Mysteries are obviously beset by the same types of criticism levelled at
mythopoetic eco-feminist constructions of women and feminine spirituality. Just as some Pagan women place the idea of the essentialist
expressive, nurturing woman at the heart of their practices – a figure akin to the archetypal housewife figure[4] − essentialism leads some Pagan men to adopt a ‘version of manhood which corresponds rather neatly with this
society’s dominant conception of masculinity.’[5] That is, essentialized gender differences mirror gendered forms of discrimination.[6] Thus, Smith argues that not only do these new Pagan masculinities seek to entrench gender difference within Contemporary Paganisms, but they also threaten the development of anti-essentialist forms of theaology (for both men and women):
- ↑ Smith, ‘The Wild/Green Man: Exploring the Mythopoetic Legacy within Modern Paganism’s Constructions of Gender’, 1.
- ↑ Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men, New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc. 1990.
- ↑ See Michael Kaufman and Michael S. Kimmel, ‘Weekend Warriors: The New Men’s Movement’ in Harry Brod and Michael S. Kimmel (eds.), Theorizing Masculinities, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 1994, 259-88; Ken Clatterbaugh, ‘Mythopoetic Foundations and New Age Patriarchy’ in Michael S. Kimmel (ed.), The Politics of Manhood: Profeminist Men Respond to the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement (and the Mythopoetic Leaders Answer), Philadelphia, Penn: Temple University Press 1995, 44-63.
- ↑ Ann Oakley, Housewife, London: Allen Lane 1974.
- ↑ Kaufman and Kimmel, ‘Weekend Warriors: The New Men’s Movement’, 270.
- ↑ Scott Coltrane, ‘Theorizing Masculinities in Contemporary Social Science’ in Harry Brod and Michael S. Kimmel (eds.), Theorizing Masculinities, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications 1994, 39-60, 45.
