Masculinity Unraveled: The Roots of Male Gender Identity and the Shifting of Male Ego Ideals Throughout Life

Abstract

A model of masculine gender identity development is presented that demonstrates how a male's sense of his masculinity and the ambiguities of his gender are being reworked throughout his life. Of factors shaping the boy's sense of masculinity early on, particular emphasis is placed on the role of the involved father, the nature of the parental relationship, and the mother's recognition and affirmation of her son's maleness. While healthy masculine gender identity is founded predominantly on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother, it does not result from what has been traditionally viewed as the boy's disidentification from her (and from the feminine more generally). Indeed, boys who need to violently repudiate their identifications with their mother are more susceptible to a fragile, rigid masculine identity and narcissistic psychopathology. A case example of a young adult man illustrates the impact of identifications with both parents. The interplay of early masculine identity development and later life challenges confronting the adult male is briefly noted. "Masculine" ego ideals shift across developmental junctions until, ultimately, a more mature sense of masculinity emerges: the phallic wish to deny differentiation and maintain unlimited possibility is renounced and mourned and certain real limits concerning sex, gender, and generational differences are accepted. This reshaping of the "masculine" ego ideal consequently involves the transformation of a man's previously adaptive "phallicism" into more realistic, "genital" ego ideals-an achievement involving interplay between masculine and feminine identifications and the integration of antithetical elements no longer so unconsciously gendered. j a p aTraining and Supervising Analyst,

Gender Differences in the Representation of Congenital Physical Disability. How Disability Intervenes In the Formation of Gender

“…As it has been noted by Diamond [9], the fact that seems to socialize males in a regulatory way, compiling them with the social standards of masculinity is the feeling of "shame" that drives them to renounce any sign of need in case they are characterized by others as "sissy boys" [9,10]. Therefore, the requirement that seems to determine masculine identity refers to the capacity to disclaim any characteristic, attitude or desire that refers to this "passive" period in the life cycle of the individual, identified with femininity.…”

“…Bearing all the above in mind, it seems that paternal absence prevents male participants from extricating themselves from the symbiotic relation with the mother by relieving the anxiety and the feelings of loss that accompany any attempt to disengage from the maternal object [9,17,23]. As a result these men didn't seem to successfully complete the separation -individuation stage, together with the opportunity to clarify their bisexual identifications.…”

Analysing Masculinity from the Key Theoretical Lenses and Searching for Linkages with Violence against Women

“…A man takes pride in his phallus, and this pride demonstrates his assertiveness, aggression and strength through the means of speaking, extending, thrusting, and penetrating. More specifically, the phallus is characterised by self-display, haughty reserve, and an instrument of aggression, recklessness, misogyny, and an excessive need to display one's potency (Diamond, 2006(Diamond, , p. 1101. Haddon (1998cited in Cossins: 2000 states that the key characteristics of masculine sexual ideals are; potent, penetrating, outward thrusting, initiating, forging ahead into virgin territory, opening the way, sword line, able to cut through, able to clear or differentiate, goal-oriented, to the point, focused, directive, effective, aimed, hitting the mark, strong, erect.…”

An Exploratory Analysis of Critical Incidents of Closeness in the Mother/Son Relationship

“…The mother's willingness to support her son as he enters the world of his father (and other men) is significant, because, as Diamond (2004aDiamond ( , 2004bDiamond ( , 2006 noted, the son's masculine identity "is strongly affected by his mother's feelings about his physicality, sensuality, and temperament. .…”