Remaking Men

 

Many of us who follow the news in Italy have been shocked by the number of women who have been murdered, especially in the past few weeks. "Feminicidio" is the crime - femicide - the killing of women and girls by men because of their gender.  More than a hundred Italian women a year meet a violent death at the hand of their male companions. Italy is not unique.

Pietro Grasso is the president of the Italian Senate, he has held that position sine 2013. He earned his spurs as a magistrate first and later as public prosecutor in Italy's fight against organised crime. A few days ago he appeared on the news with a statement. It starts like this:

“Ti chiedo scusa a nome di tutti gli uomini, scusateci tutti, è colpa nostra, è colpa degli uomini. È un problema che parte dagli uomini e solo noi uomini possiamo porvi rimedio”.

'I apologise in the name of all men, forgive us all, it's our fault, it's the fault of all men. It's a problem that starts with men and only men can provide remedy.'

Not everyone was pleased. Not all men felt they had to apologise for something that they hadn't done, and never intended to. And those who thought that somehow the women who were killed in some way asked for it believe they had no reason to apologise at all, for anything. You can't please all of the people all of the time, after all. Nevertheless it was a bold statement, and a courageous one, from a man used to being in the firing line in more ways than one.

We can debate the rights and wrongs, the whys and wherefores, but like many things, none of us has a definitive answer. There are those who take up banners in the streets to protest, those who, like Pietro Grasso, disassociate themselves, and plea for change, there are journalists and philosophers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and, perhaps more importantly, hordes of ordinary men and women who live their lives without violence who propose, debate, discuss what the answer might be. All these people, and no true, unequivocal answer. In questions of right and wrong there often isn't.

It helps to think in terms of Jung, and his thinking around the Anima and Animus. In Jung's model of the unconscious, the two archetypes are down there at the bottom, in the abyss, deep into the personal unconscious. Anima is the soul, Animus, the spirit. Anima represents the feminine, Animus the masculine. Because they're out of reach of our conscious, everyday mind, sometimes they flare up, and we lose control. There seems to be an Animus overload...

Picking a book at random from my shelf, luck would have it that I have stuck a post it note on page 80 of Erich Newmann's The Fear of the Feminine (1994) (yes, he's a guy...  I'll get to Emma Jung in a minute...).

"The most superficial and most recent layer of the animus world arises from the patriarchate. This animus world expresses itself in opinions and assertions that, on closer inspection, prove to be property of the archetypal masculine, patriarchal spirit. They arise from a the world of male consciousness and of the masculine spirit that is extrinsic and foreign to woman and the Feminine. They express the patriarchate's inner rulership over woman. This is why this level of animus actually belongs no to woman's nature but to male culture."

Hmm... Pretty patronising if you ask me, but then again perhaps that's what it's all about... There is lots more, but we mustn't forget that Neumann, like everyone else including me and you, was a child of his time. There's also Hillman's negative father, or Joseph Campbell's Hero where women can only come to consciousness through the masculine. There's Robert Bly and Iron John, where men have forgotten to be men, and David Tacey with Remaking Men, the list is almost endless.

Back to Emma Jung and her little book on Anima and Animus. Caught up in a complex relationship with Jung and his 'other woman' Toni Wolff, she had problems of her own to deal with, not to mention the fact that at that time the moment she married Jung all her worldly goods we automatically transferred to her husband. Dispossessed in more ways than one. And yet:

What is really necessary is that feminine intellectuality, logos in the woman, should be so fitted into the nature and life of the woman that a harmonious cooperation between the feminine and masculine factors ensues and no part is condemned lo a shadowy existence.

Then there's language. I found myself explaining at school that in Italian (same applies to other Romance languages) if there is a group of people that is made up of both men and women, the gender used is masculine. One of my pupils asked why. It's a grammatical rule, but Helèn Cixous might just have hit the nail on the head with Logocentrism. Crime is masculine, sin is feminine. Like what's happening now: men commit the crime, but not before women commit the sin (seen through the eyes of the perpetrator). And we haven't even touched on the concept of 'container' and 'contained'.

This is turning into a long post.

It's just that we seem to be living in a time where we are going back instead of forward. Perhaps we have gone too far too quickly. Lines have flattened, and no-one has a clue. Political correctness allows us to make no distinction between anything or anyone. Our identities have faded to an extent that we have little left. To counteract this women are becoming more feminine (Anima) and men more masculine (Animus). A bit like turning the hot tap full on if the water's too cold and then getting burned. All around are "real men" and "real women" with a culture that exalts the body perfect, and a pop culture with videos that would have been censored even thirty years ago.

I don't know if it's a problem only men can resolve, as they say, it takes two to tango. And how can I forgive an entire gender. Like most people I don't have a clue.