Warren Steinberg

"Masculinity - Identity Conflict and Resolution" by Dr. Warren Steinberg was published in 1993. Steinberg argues that those dimensions of personality normally associated with masculinity, such as being active rather than passive, inexpressive, objective, dominative etc. are primarily the result of socialisation rather than being innate aspects of the male gender. Although the development of these masculine dimensions are essential to the normal development of a boy, he says that a teleological urge for a man to develop fully as a male human being (in later life) will require those dimensions normally considered feminine and which remain unconsciously (to use his Jungian terminology) in the anima to be integrated into consciousness.

Steingerb does not give much guidance on how this integration might be brought about. Rather he seems to consider it to be a natural process of growth that will occur if not blocked or inhibited by some problem in the man's development, normally due to a distorted or dysfunctional relationship between the boy's parents.

So the book's focus is on these problems illustrated with various case studies of men who in later life have problems with relationships, achievement, power and control dynamics. Steinberg uses psychoanalytic techniques to explain these problems in terms of problems in the man's (as boy's) development and parenting.

So in terms of a nature verses nurture spectrum, Steiberg's explanation is very much on the nurture side with some very minor and obvious concessions to innateness. It is unfair and anachronistic to criticise a book in he light of later psychological research that shows much of the theoretical basis of this book to be highly questionable. However I find it difficult to believe that this book was not highly out of date when it was written in 1993. When reading it I became convinced that it was written in the 1950's and then belatedly published in 1993, but I was then surprised to read in one of the case studies that one man needed to buy a computer for his work, so clearly it was written in the 80's-90's.

An ideological or defensive attachment to a theory or model leads to bad science. This is very much the case in psychology. All psychological theories are simplifications on a massive scale. To defend one against another is inane. Contradictions between different theories are a trivial issue compared to the problems of them being such simplifications. Psychological theories are just intellectual models that help psychologists get a handle on the human psyche. They are not discoveries of the human psyche's actual function or structure. The ego, id, persona, anima etc. only exist in the intellectual model, not in the mind.

Psychological theory is gross simplification but this doesn't mean popular psychology can't be written. Indeed some of the material left for the notes at the end of the book if incorporated in the the main text would have improved this book considerably. If you are so wrong about something, it helps to at least show that you have considered the possibility. You can always acknowledge that it is just one simplistic model and that there are others. At times, the explanations use archaic psychoanalytical language (castration complexes, penis symbolism) that I found to be just weird.

Less forgivable is Steinberg's use of nearly two pages to explain the "traditional" psychoanalytical position that male homosexuality is a psychopathology resulting from a distorted relationship between the boy's parents. This ludicrous proposal was certainly known to be false when this book was published and it is hard to see what reason there could be to perpetuate a theory that has caused so much harm. The nearly two pages of rubbish are then followed by one sentence half-heartedly acknowledging that it is indeed false. Of course Steinberg has good reason to be half-hearted about it. To concede that something as fully expressed as male homosexuality is indeed innate does serious damage to the basis of his theory i.e that the expression of masculinity isn't.

So in conclusion, I have serious problems with this book. It's main problems are that it is overly simplistic and outdated. I would caution anyone reading this book to read other books (hopefully newer) to get some balance on the subject. Modern biology/neurology shows us that (to be simplistic), women are not castrated men (Freud), instead men are chemically brain damaged women. To acknowledge that much of what makes us male is innate in fact frees us to consciously try to be more expressive of emotions and less tressed about control issues. As men, we are likely to have less conscious processes, a greater ability to concentrate on one thing at a time and a lesser ability to multitask than women and therefore have all the implications of that in our personalties.… (plus d'informations)