Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

“This study is based on the premise that gender—whether manhood or womanhood—is a historical, ideological process. Through that process, individuals are positioned and position themselves as men or as women. Thus, I don’t see manhood as either an intrinsic essence or a collection of traits, attributes, or sex roles. Manhood […] is a continual, dynamic process. Through that process, men claim certain kinds of authority, based on their particular type of bodies. To define manhood […] is to say that manhood or masculinity is the cultural process whereby concrete individuals are constituted as members of a preexisting social category—as men. The ideological process of gender […] works through a complex political technology, composed of a variety of institutions, ideas, and daily practices.”

Bederman defines her theoretical position on the notion of gender. Manliness and Civilization is, in part, an examination of the evolving social template for defining the perfect white middle-class Anglo-Saxon American man of the late 19th to the early 20th century. Her work is intentionally situated at the turn of the century, wherein millennial ideals begin to challenge prior customs and values. This passage prepares the reader by introducing them to the lens through which her scholarship presents gender.

“Between 1880 and 1910, then, middle-class men were especially interested in manhood. Economic changes were undermining Victorian ideals of self-restrained manliness. Working class and immigrant men, as well as middle-class women, were challenging white middle-class men’s beliefs that they were the ones who should control the nation’s destiny. […] All this activity suggests that men were actively, even enthusiastically, engaging in the process of remaking manhood.”

Social, political, and economic changes at the beginning of the 20th century impacted the lives of white middle-class Anglo-Saxon men, whose once secure position of privilege and authority was beginning to be undermined and compromised by obstacles to their continued supremacy. As a response, both consciously and unconsciously, they began to eschew those Victorian-era expectations and precedents that no longer served them in their efforts to maintain their advantages.

“Just as manliness was the highest form of manhood, so civilization was the highest form of humanity. Manliness was the achievement of the perfect man, just as civilization was the achievement of a perfect race. […] Scientific theories corroborated this belief that racial difference, civilization, and manliness all advanced together. Biologists believed that as human races slowly ascended the evolutionary ladder, men and women evolved increasingly differentiated lives and natures. The most advanced races were the ones who had evolved the most perfect manliness and womanliness.”

The designation of being considered civilized was one believed to be exclusive to white individuals of European descent. Civilization itself was seen as a manifestation of the highest level of evolutionary attainment, which was only thought to be possible through the natural advancement of white people, men in particular, as they fulfilled what they thought was their eventual destiny.