Interview with N

by Russ

N is a male, 71 years old, born at the tail end of the horse drawn era. He has lived in Maine full time for at least 35 years.

Me:  What’s your idea of masculinity and why?

N: Actually, I have a rather jaundiced view of the idea of  ‘masculinity’.  It’s just that so much of what goes under the guise of mascullinity is just insecure chauvanism.  It’s a matter of trying to assure oneself of having a power by right of being male, rather than by having earned it.  So much that is toted as being masculine is a matter of trying to garners some kind of status.

Me:  What was it that drew you to settle in Maine?

N:  Lack of population density, interesting water.  Lack of pop density is major, I don’t like crowds.

Me:  What different masculinities have you encountered in Maine?

N:  I have a problem with simply the concept of masculinity per se.  I would say, an entire spectrum, it isn't a matter of levels. There are people who are confident of themselves and in their status, they don’t have to claim masculinity. And then there are those sorry people that have really lousy self images that do a lot of chest thumping in the name of masculinity, hoping to gain something they haven’t earned.  I have a rather different view of it than the advertising view, the media.  The media uses the concept of masculinity as a sales device.

Me:   Do you see yourself as masculine or feminine?  Why?

N:  I’m a male. That’s physiology.  I was raised in a very conservative, traditional, late victorian atmosphere.  My mother was in her middle 30’s when she was born, and she accepted her parents value system without questioning it very much.  So that’s the value system I was raised in, quite conservative.  I guess I was raised as a gentlemen in an old fashioned sense.  I see myself as masculine because I see myself as a gentlemen, which implies all sorts of old standards and norms which nobody thinks about anymore.  I open doors for ladies, I hold chairs, I do not tolerate the powerful abusing the less powerful.  And although I don’t think about it as being masculine, I suppose that in general terms, that is considered masculine.  I do it as a matter of habit and self concept rather than as a matter of trying to thump my chest.

Me:  What were some of the factors in your life that molded your idea of masculinity?

N:  That, and believe it or not, Walt Disney comic books.  Back in the late 40’s and early 50’s.  If you go back and read Donald Duck and Huey, Louie, and Dewey, Donald's three nephews were very upright, upstanding gentlemen.  And I also read sir Arthur Scott before I was ten.  Ivanhoe in particular.  And ivanhoes was a paragon of knighthood and defending his family, which I wanted to do. Which is ultimately why I divorced my wife, because I didn’t feel like I could defend my kids against her any other way.

Me:  At what age do you first remember having a sense or idea of masculinity?

N:  I would say, between age 1 and 2.  Don’t forget at that time I was living in army camps, and that was during the second world war.  So I was an army brat, and there was the military bases or concept of masculinity and it’s been hard to escape it.  Mostly what I remember from that is chauvinism.  I became aware of masculinity because of chauvinism.

Me: so you saw a lot of that?

N: Of course, you can’t avoid it in the military setting.

Me:  Are men fundamentally different from women?  How and why?

N:  Yes they are, because of evolution.  I would point out the naked ape, men had to be the risk takers, you don’t need as many men as you need women, men dont have to live long to pass on genetic material, women do. So women have to be more selective.  And you have, there are basic things, like sense of direction.  Men, because as a matter of evolution evolved as hunters, they had to know how to get home.  Women have a better sense of networking and community, as a group.  Women have more of a concept of their place in a community where men have more of a concept of themselves in a heirarchy, which accounts for a lot of chauvanism and appeal to masculinity.  They want to be higher ranked and have more access to females.

Me: So you would say that men are they way they are because of DNA?

N:  Not solely because of their DNA, but because of our culture that over the eons resulted from

it.  If you want to see a culture which is absolutely terror stricken by the idea of female competence, just look at islam.  SO what you get is a lot of males with lousy self concepts based on their artificial concept of masculinity, and they can’t tolerate any competition from females?  That’s the concept of masculinity gone seriously awry.  Perpetuating power.  You get the same thing among radical survivalists in the united states, in essence they’re no different.  Nazi’s, militia groups, all male dominated, and highly chauvanistic and think that their exclusivity makes them more valuable.

Me:  Is the masculinity you see in Maine different from the rest of the United States?

N:  Only in that it’s more rural and urban.  It’s not as dense, we don’t have the gang structure. There’s another example of it.  The street gangs you find in urban areas aren’t present in Maine, there’s a little bit, not much, and most of it is imported.  Most of the crime in maine is imported from Massachusetts and New York.

Me: what do you mean by that?

N: your drug crime is mostly imported.  You look at who’s getting arrested for it and its blacks in Massachusetts and NY. On the other hand, domestic violence is local, but your drug and gun crime is usually imported.

Me:  What is universal to maleness, masculinity, and being a man?

N:  well, hormone I’d suppose.  This idea of what it means to be a man, I have a very fuzzy view of, because I’m more concerned of what it is to be an upright human being who has earned their place in society.  Look up the social contract.  We all play by the same rules and we benefit by playing those rules.

Me:  How are men socially measured in Maine?

N:  That’s not a big part of my life. I’ve always had a lot of female friends on an equal basis.

Me:  Are men naturally more violent and sex-focused than women?  And why?

N:  Yeah I would say so.  Again it goes right back to evolution.

Me:  What ideals are held by Maine men, and are they different than male ideals in the rest of the united states?

N:  I don;t know. I go back to urban versus rural there rather than Maine versus other states. Where you have a rural economy with a lot of outdoor activity, men tend to be more relaxed then when they’re all jammed together in the city.  Population density is critical in all of this.

Me: Would you say population density lead s to crime?

N:: It leads to anonymity. Anonymity leads to crime. You don’t have as much crime in a community where everyone knows everyone.  And that crime that does happen is usually a matter of young people with lousy judgement.

Me:  Are you a Mainer?  What makes you a one?

N:  I go back to Maine is a state of mind.  I am a mainer in that I appreciate the semi-rural, with access to more sophisticated culture.  I just appreciate Maine as a whole . You got to remember Maine has the highest average age of any state in the union.  Maine has the most homogenous culture of any state in the union, although we do have enclaves like the somalis in lewiston and the wealthy summer people who move to Maine in places like camden, rockport, cape elizabeth.  By and large Maine has a pretty uniform culture and value system.

Me:  What stereotypes and prejudices have you come across in Maine?  Or, are they any different than the rest of the U.S.?

N:  Well, they tend to be local versus people from away.  The stereotypes include massachussets and NY drivers, who are much more aggressive and less inclined to let the other guy go ahead on the road.  Mainers aren’t as defensive of their space as people from more crowded areas.  The stereotypes tend to be stereotypes that apply to folks “from away”.

Me:  What is feminism?  Is it relevant in today’s society?

N:  I lived through the radical feminism, where women didn’t want men holding doors and resented any sort of, what before had been accepted as gentlemanly politeness.  That sort of feminism was the rejection of any notion of difference between males and females at all. And that softened considerably now, we’re forty years later from that kind of radical feminism.  And I don’t really think it’s a tremendous issue anymore except in such places as women not earning equal pay for equal work.  Actually there’s sort of a counter feminist movement going on now, awhile back having both husband and wife working was the norm.  And I think increasing numbers of women are going back to the household and raising their kids instead of farming them out.  That seems to be a possible trend.