The Question of Identity
I read an interesting article on the history of masculine identity that put us somewhere in the time period and under the heading of “The Missing Man”. According to this piece, for the past 30 years from the 1990’s to present day, masculinity has lost its direction and has moved away from the sophistication of the fifties; the emotional sensitivity of the sixties and seventies; and the family success, marital happiness and emptiness of the eighties.[i] “This man is searching for his identity, yet plays emotional games to avoid feeling the pain he claims that he does not feel.”[ii]
Apart from being well written but opinioned, its answer to the question of identity was to “create your own definition of masculinity and live it to the fullest.”[iii] Although it sounds inspiring, what are the parameters? What do we take aim at? How do we assemble our own definition? Are we to take the best pieces of military innovations from our friends and enemies and create an effective fighting force like the ancient Roman army? Are we to take the best parts of different masculine identities and come up with some kind of patchwork quilt? Some scholars propose that relativism of our times (lack of any ultimate standard) has contributed to the loss of absolutes and has impacted the concept of masculinity.[iv]
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
Links
[i] https://www.knowledgeformen.com/what-makes-a-man/
[ii] https://www.knowledgeformen.com/what-makes-a-man/
[iii] https://www.knowledgeformen.com/what-makes-a-man/
[iv] John MacArthur, Stuart W. Scott, Think Biblically! (Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Books), 157
2
Manhood, masculinity, what are they really? One reason why this inquiry already needed a response is because every male at some point started to wonder about who and what they were regardless of the decade or historical touch-point. It’s been a part of my personal quest to search for an understanding of masculine identity -a journey I’ve stumbled on unintentionally to which I have tried to understand and frame my masculine portrait.
My Question…
The genesis of my masculinity began at my birth and subsequently, my journey into manhood began when I was a boy. At various times in my life, and more so during my late 20’s, I kept fielding this nagging question, “How does a guy know when he has become a man?” As a teen, I struggled with the things that all male teens struggle with. (As I reminisced, I wondered how guys actually make it through this journey. How do we even move through the checkpoints?) To be quite honest, my realization occurred one day when I woke up and looked around at the things in my life (wife, kids, mortgage) and decided, “Yep, I must be a man now!” I just wasn’t sure how I got there. It seemed like I arrived with my eyes closed. I’ve always felt that there was something lacking in this Western culture that produced uncertain and unfocussed males who were uncomfortable with their own identities
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
3
Hence, it is difficult to get a grasp on manhood without feeling the connection to masculinity. Understanding and defining masculinity are necessary prerequisites on the exploratory road of manhood. I believe if a guy doesn’t have an authentic sense of masculinity, manhood will be at best a destination reached in ignorance, or at worst an ambiguous phenomenon.
Without a descriptive masculine identity, what will happen to the future generation of men? Today our young men resemble the “shell-shocked” soldiers of World War 1. Some of those unfortunate sacrificial lambs suffered from what is now commonly called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). (Now renamed Post-Traumatic Stress Injury)[i] The intense stress and overwhelming sound of the exploding shells caused them to develop debilitating mental disorders. They became unable to go “over the top” and charge through No-Man’s-Land to heroically and gloriously capture the trenches of the enemy. I’ve known many young men who have been placed in environments where they have failed society’s expectations to behave and act like decent young men. They can’t go “over the top” and get a job, stay out of trouble with the law, or succeed in society.
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
Links
[i] http://www.posttraumaticstressinjury.org/
4
Why is this happening? They, like those WW1 soldiers, are often pitied or worst case executed as failures in society’s thoughts, deeds and words. The media and society are firing deadly machine gun rounds of negativity that threaten to tear them apart as casualties in our cultural “No-Man’s-Land”. Our young men are navigating through the minefield of social expectations and the barbed wire of media, much to their detriment.
As a secondary teacher, I once gave a grade 10 unit test on World War 1 and allowed the students to draw a picture or write a poem for a bonus mark on the cover page of their evaluations. One young man wrote a piece describing his frustrations on what it meant to be a man…
My Frustrations on being a “man”
This isn’t a poem; my poetry gets very personal. This is more of a rant and me trying to get my thoughts straight.
Sex, sports, athleticism, anything linked to testosterone seems to define masculinity. Especially in our sexist, hip-hop generation, how often you get laid with hot girls seems to be the unit of which we measure our self worth. I abstain from sex and even my pro-abstinent anti-gay Christian friends call me gay for it.
It seems like men are allowed to be gay, but the word is an insult unless it’s true. I find myself being emasculated for being a virgin, and I can’t argue because I can’t define what a “man” is. Men are expected to have money. They get weird looks for wearing pink yet should be secure enough in their masculinity to wear it if you want, but don’t – it’s gay.
I try to define men by their character, since society’s definition is riddled with hypocrisy.
I have no conclusion to this but I think we need an answer.
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
5
This was 100% unsolicited if per chance you were wondering about the course content I was delivering to these students. I am fairly certain that most young men would never pen their thoughts so openly, but I guarantee all have felt this way at some point or another. We’ve all sought to develop a strong sense of gender, but it seems somewhat more elusive in today’s culture.
In one particular art collage, I observed 24 descriptions of male and female sexuality. Here are a few from the list: two-spirit, bigender, agender, pansexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, gender queer, heterosexual, demi-boy, demi-girl, gender fluid, demi-sexual, poly sexual, autosexual…and the list continued… (Even my Word spell checker was uncertain and confused, how much more so our young people?)
I led a “Discussion Club” with high school males, and during a session one young man made this comment; “My mom is more of a man than my dad will ever be.” His comment made me wonder if he had a proper understanding of masculine identity.
Further into the conversation, I asked the group if they considered themselves men. For them and even the senior students, it was a difficult question to answer. The discussion evolved to this question: “When a woman says that ‘You’re not a man’, what does she mean?” Their thoughts began with; “She’s referring to the size of…” (I won’t go any further.) However, the overall consensus was that the statement referred to a man that failed or was deficient in some aspect in his responsibilities.
So, is the portrait of manhood just about the degree of assuming or managing responsibility? Is this what measures manhood?
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
6
The 3 R’s of Masculinity
I propose for your understanding and consideration that the masculine identity can be seen in the book of Genesis and can be expressed with the ideas of “Reason, Roles and Relationship” – the 3 R’s. This phrase was selected because it is (I hope) a meaningful and memorable way to organize and memorize these concepts. We all know about “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic”, which ironically enough, the latter two does not start with the letter “R” (and makes one question the educational system).
Perhaps more familiar is the environmental initiatives to “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” which are also represented by R’s. What makes these mandates so powerful is their focus on the larger picture of saving our planet and humanity (through a powerful global effort), while at the same time including the efforts of the individual – who feels the need to pitch some paper in a blue box so it won’t go to the landfill.
The “3 R’s” in this context (Reason, Roles and Relationship) embrace a collective and individual need to be immersed in a Biblical vision and understanding of masculine identity. By starting with the Bible (Genesis 2), we have (I believe) a much more stable, enduring and less personally biased route of discovery. Furthermore, Adam’s story, the original “Genesis Man” and first male, resulted in an obvious template for understanding masculinity. The masculine identity was undergirded by a spiritual relationship with God. There was an identity of purpose as Adam understood the reason of his existence. Finally, there was a social identity seen in his role with the introduction of Eve, which began the development of family and community.
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
7
The “3 R’s” can be summarized in the following manner:
Reason focuses on the connection to “environmental life”. Biblical masculinity means living in and living out the Reason of your existence as a male, being productive and making provision and bringing identity to your world, garden and sphere of influence.
Roles focus on the connection to “social life”. Biblical masculinity means living in and living out your Roles as a man, sharing love and identity in your spheres of influence, be it as a husband, son, brother, friend or mentor.
Relationship focuses on the connection to “spiritual life.” Biblical masculinity is living in and living out an intimate relationship with God, who we identify as our Creator and Father.
Israel A. Harriott – The Genesis Man: The Masculine Identity – © 2020
Before you leave please take a moment and give us some feedback
The Genesis Man Project 
One thought on “Chapter 1”