Abstract
The search for self-actualization that once drew Henry David Thoreau to the woods of Walden now prompts thousands of men to pack up emotional baggage for a weekend's commune with other men in the great outdoors. As participants in the so-called "men's movement" of the 1990s, their object is to "know deeply who you are as a man. Realize you are not alone" (Stanton 116). The men's movement is more accurately a coagulation of equal rights activism, consciousness-raising, academic men's studies, and mythopoetic "Wild Man" ritualism. The trends share a groping toward self-understanding, as well as recognition of the need for personal and social change on the part of a growing number of guys. Their individual politics differ radically and factions abound, but the phenomenon itself--of men struggling to articulate their feelings and redefine their role in society--is growing (Chesanow 54). Of them, Wild Man ritualism has garnered the most public attention, and lampooning in episodes of the television comedies Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Evening Shade, Dinosaurs, and Coach. Recent estimates suggest that upwards of 50,000 men in the United States have participated in Wild Man adventures of some sort (Chesanow 57). Two hundred men's groups had organized in Canada by 1989, most offering similar forms of communion (Underwood, Spring, et al. 46).
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Communication
Volume
26
Issue
2
First Page
3
Last Page
25
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Strom, Monika P.
(1994)
"Marking Gender in Solitude: Ritual Exclusivity in the "Mens' Movement","
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 26:
No.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol26/iss2/3
Copyright
©1994 Iowa Communication Association
