Male Supremacy and the Narrowing of the

Moral Self1
Michael Schwalbe

Moral action is never simply a m atter of justice reasoning

or abstract philosophizing by autonom ous individuals. Outside the
laboratories of psychologists, moral action is a process o f negotia­
tion between persons who act based on socially constructed
understandings of themselves, others, and the world. Morality and
moral problem solving are thus m atters of social practice and must
be understood sociologically. O ne m atter of particular interest for
sociologists is that of how structural conditions impinge on the
competence and performance of moral actors (Jackall 1988, Wolfe
1989, Schwalbe 1990). In this paper I offer a sociological account of
why one category of moral actors, men, exhibits a consistent failing
vis-a-vis another category, women. My account is informed by
pragmatist ethics and symbolic interactionist social psychology.
Specifically, I draw on the ethical theory and social psychology of
John Dewey ([1908] 1960, Dewey and Tufts [1932] 1985) and G.H.
Mead ([1908] 1964, [1930] 1964, 1934, 1938; see also Broyer 1973).

In this tradition two things are central to understanding

moral problem solving: role taking and the self. Role taking here is
"perspective taking," that is, trying to imagine w hat an o ther is
thinking and feeling. This is necessary both to discover the true
nature of the problem and to see how it m ight be resolved in a way
that best serves the interests and values of all concerned. T he self
is im portant because it is the source of the impulses th at motivate
role taking and because it is an object endowed with meanings that
moral actors strive to protect in the face of conflict. W hat I shall try
to show is how both role taking and the self are affected by social
inequality-in this case male supremacy-such that men are systemat­
ically inhibited from being responsible moral actors vis-a-vis women.

My contention is th at male supremacy narrows the moral

selves of men. By male supremacy I m ean the materially and
ideologically enforced condition where males are m ore highly
valued than females, enjoy greater rights to self-determ ination, and

1 T h e au th o r would like to thank M axine Atkinson, M ichael Kimmel, Sherryl

Kleinman, B arbara Rism an, and Cliff Staples for helpful com m ents o n previous
drafts o f this paper.
30 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

command vastly more institutional power. No m odern society has

yet transcended this condition, hence the problem I am describing
is ubiquitous, though variable in its local manifestations. The
concept of a narrow moral self is derived from M ead ([1908] 1964,
1934:379-389). This concept refers to a self th a t is underdeveloped
in its motivation and ability to role take. I call the narrow moral self
that male supremacy instills in m ales the masculinist self. W hile this
self does its greatest barm when men attem pt to resolve conflicts
with women, it can also cause men to harm each other.

My analysis is not an indictm ent of biological males. In fact,

it is my purpose to oppose essentialist thinking regarding gender
and morality, and to put the discussion back on sociological ground.
T he ground o f the discussion was shifted in the 1980s by claims that
the capacity for child bearing makes women m ore sensitive to
connections between humans, and thus morally superior to men,
who were sometimes said to be further handicapped by hormonal
inclinations to aggression and brutality. These reductionist claims
ignore trem endous socially-constructed diversity within the catego­
ries of "women" and "men," categories which are themselves
conventional constructions. To understand w hat members of either
category are motivated and able to do as moral actors requires full
acknowledgement and exploration of bow women and men are
products of local social arrangements.

The social-constructionist premises of my argum ent are

elaborated in the first section below. Following this, I draw on
pragm atist ethical theory and G.H. M ead’s social psychology to
show how moral action is related to the self, and how the mascu­
linist self inhibits responsible moral action. These ideas are then
used to develop an interpretation of sexual harassment. Finally, 1
describe bow the masculinist self can be changed. My hope in this
is to expose the origins of and damage caused by supremacist selves
o f all kinds, and to suggest how they can be enlarged to the point
of their own demise.

Engendering the Self

In G.H. M ead’s (1934) social psychology "the s e lf is said to

be both subject (i.e., a wellspring o f impulses, a source o f agency)
and object (i.e., a representation in consciousness, a thing we can
refer to, evaluate, feel about, and act toward). Selves are then
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 31

socially constructed in four ways: the actions of others reinforce

certain impulses and extinguish others; the actions of others toward
us tell us what we mean as social objects; others teach us language
and thus give us the ability to create new meanings for ourselves;
and others teach us criteria for evaluating our com petence and
worth. W hen we are infants we are largely at the mercy of the
adults who care for us. As we grow and learn to use language to
think creatively, we develop a greater ability to resist others and to
shape our own developm ent Even so, our selves continue through­
out life to be affected by others.

The process of gendering the self begins as soon as infants

are inspected and assigned sex category membership. O nce an
infant is categorized as male or female, it takes on a specific
meaning for members of the surrounding community, who then act
toward it in different ways based on that meaning. This begins a
process, often occurring beneath conscious awareness, in which the
impulsive behaviors of males and females are responded to
differently. It is this selective reinforcem ent of impulsive behaviors,
based on sex, that begins to create w hat we call "boys" and "girls."
The result is that males and females are behaviorally conditioned
to possess different tendencies to act. In this way the self is
gendered right down to its foundation in the body.

My use of the terms male and fem ale is intended to

emphasize that, despite our usual way of speaking, boys and girls
are not born as such but must be created. Selectively reinforcing
impulses based on sex category assignment genders the self as
subject. The self is then also gendered as an object. This m eans that
children are taught to think of and to identify themselves as either
boys or girls. The acquisition of language is a prerequisite for this,
since it assumes that children are able to apply labels to themselves
and others. Children learn what the labels m ean by experiencing
and observing the reactions these labels elicit from others. It is also
of great consequence that children learn th at these labels apply to
everyone. Children thus become aware not only o f their own gender
identity, but of gender as a m aster schema for organizing person
perception. G ender identities thus come to be perceived as centrally
defining of who and what people are.

Selves are gendered in yet another way. This occurs in

learning criteria for evaluating one's com petence and moral worth.
These standards are often gender specific. In U.S. society, boys are
32 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

encouraged to judge their competence by success in competition

with others, and to judge their m oral w orth in term s o f their ability
to live up to an abstract code of honor. Girls are encouraged to
judge their competence by success in meeting the needs o f others,
and to judge their moral worth in terms of their ability to care for
others.2 Instilling these distinct criteria for self-evaluation is a
powerful implanting of gender in the individual. Through this
process, others’ demands for gender- appropriate behavior become
internal compulsions.

This view does not reduce gender to an attribute of the self.

G ender per se is a m atter of stylized social practices th at normally
correspond, by convention, to sex category mem bership (Kessler and
M cKenna 1978, Connell 1987). The persistence of these practices,
which serve to reproduce structural inequality between women and
men, depends, however, on the shaping of individual selves.
Engendering the selves of girls/women and boys/men m eans making
them depend on distinct forms of social practice in order to satisfy
compelling needs for esteem, efficacy, and coherence. It is via the
gendered self that externa] coercion and internal compulsion are
linked. O ur needs for love, inclusion, acceptance, and material
support - needs which must be m et to sustain feelings of esteem,
efficacy, and coherence - are usually m et by conforming to the
expectations of others who are similarly bound to gender ideologies
and practices.

In this view we are not mechanically driven by "sex role

expectations." Symbolic interactionism sees hum ans as reflexive,
creative, and potentially resistant (we are full of conflicting
tendencies to act). Nonetheless, we still seek to satisfy the needs
and desires that have been instilled in us, and this requires
communication and negotiation with others. W hat is im portant to
recognize is that the success of this communication and negotiation
often depends on our willingness and ability to properly do gender.
We are thus kept from wholly abandoning the ideologies and social

2 Such generalizationsfit reality only loosely, since they ignore local variations
in what boys and girls actually learn about how to evaluate th eir com petence and
m oral w orth. N onetheless, th e dom inant culture o f gender in th e U.S. can be
safely said to prescribe different criteria o f self-evaluation for w omen and men.
Some em pirical evidence for this can be garnered from research on self-esteem
(Schwalbe an d Staples 1991) and from various writings on m en’s lives (see Brod
1987, Kimmcl and M essncr 1992).
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 33

practices of the communities into which we are born, to which we

must adapt, and in which we must survive. Even if we come to
recognize certain ideologies and practices as oppressive and
therefore reject them , it may be extremely difficult to transform the
selves that were shaped, from their inception, by those ideologies
and practices (Fay 1987:143-164).

I want to clarify a few further m atters having to do with the

terms male, man, and masculine. All of these term s can be elem ents
of the self-concept A male can think of himself as male, as a man,
and as masculine. As meanings applied to the self, "male" and ''man"
are identities, while "masculine" is a trait attribution. In our culture,
it is the identity "man" that is most highly valued by biological
males. It is a moral identity th at m ales must earn by engaging in a
form of social practice that is recognized as masculine by some
validating audience. In other words, "masculine" is the nam e given
to the type of performance th at qualifies a m ale to claim the
identity "man." "Masculinity" is an attribute th at is then inferred
from a m ale’s stylized social performances.

T he point of making these distinctions is to emphasize that

when we speak of "men," we are referring to a category of socially
constructed beings, not to a category of biological beings ~ despite
the conventional association between the social and biological
categories. Even those who ought to know b etter often m ake this
mistake of confusing men, which are products of society, with males,
which are products of nature.

The key implication of all this is th at I do not see the

masculinist self, or even the identity "man," as essentially linked to
biological maleness. Biological males can learn to behave in an
unlimited num ber of culturally stylized ways, not all of which need
have to do with what we think of as gender. In short, the point is
that the masculinist self, which is the bete noire of both this and
other feminist analyses of m en’s misconduct, is neither universal nor
essential. It is a contingent result of socialization into a particular
form of masculinity in a male supremacist society. I am thus writing
about those males who are transformed into m en with masculinist
selves. My contention is th at the unreflexive effort to sustain a
masculinist self inhibits a m an’s ability to act responsibly toward
women.
34 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

A Pragm atic View of M oral Problem Solving

Pragmatism takes a m undane view o f moral problems,

seeing them as ubiquitous in social life. M oral problems arise both
within and between people whenever interests and values come into
conflict. This happens between people (or between groups of
people) when incompatible goals are sought simultaneously. The
goals need not be sacred or mom entous for the conflict to consti­
tute a moral problem. If one person in a room is overly warm and
wishes to open a window, and another person is cold and wishes to
keep it closed, there is the potential for a moral problem to arise.
The point is that the situation encompasses conflicting tendencies
to act, and these must somehow be reconciled if social life is to
proceed.

It is not acceptable, however, to force action to proceed.

Rather, one must find common values in the midst of conflict and
use them as the basis for reorganizing action. W hat one thus
searches for in trying to solve a moral problem is the way to
proceed that best serves all the interests and values at stake in the
situation. Pragmatists are not relativists in this regard; all values are
not seen as morally equivalent. Values that, if acted upon, would
impede communication and progress toward mutual understanding-
which would be to threaten the social process itself-are rejected.
Proposed solutions to m oral problems must therefore be judged not
only by how well they serve stakeholders* im mediate values and
interests, but also by how well they serve a transcendent interest in
preserving and improving community life (Dewey [1908] 1960).

M oral problems can also arise when individuals experience

conflicting tendencies to act. These internal conflicts can bring
action to a halt. For action to proceed, these conflicting tendencies
to act must be somehow reconciled. Ideally this involves some new
ordering of values and interests, rather than a forcible overriding of
one set of impulses. Through this process an individual can achieve
greater self-knowledge and potential for self-direction. Forcing
action to proceed by denial and repression simply pushes conflict
deeper into the self and makes self-knowledge harder to achieve.

M oral problems are thus like problems of any kind. They

arise because we try, either individually or collectively, to satisfy
m ore impulses at once than the environment will allow. W hen the
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 35

environm ent that resists us is an inanim ate one, we think o f the

problem as technical (e.g., how to get the com puter program to
run). W hen the resistance comes from other people, we think o f the
problem as social or moral (e.g., how to convince an editor to
publish an article written in a particular way). Although there are
many strategies that can be used to solve problems, it was M ead’s
insight that in every case we must do at least one thing: take the
perspective of whatever object is resisting us (M ead 1934:354-378).

We usually think of perspective taking with reference to

other people, so it might seem odd to say th at we m ust role take
with inanimate objects. But this is essentially w hat we do when we
try to determ ine w hat the state of an object is, such th a t it will not
bend to our wishes and allow us to satisfy our impulses. W e try, in
other words, to "get inside it*1 and determ ine from whence its
resistance arises (M ead 1938:440-441). We do the same thing with
other people. When we encounter resistance we try to imagine how
the other is thinking and feeling such that s/he refuses to do what
we want. Precisely how we do this role taking determ ines to a large
extent the quality and effectiveness of our moral action.

This analysis thus requires a careful consideration o f role

taking. But before doing so, it might be helpful to say m ore about
the difference between technical and moral problems, as this
distinction will become im portant later.

W hen we take the perspective of a resistant inanim ate

object, we treat it just so: as an object. W e might try to imagine
what it’s m ade of or how it works but we need not concern
ourselves with its thoughts or feelings, since it has none. Its
resistance does not stem from impulses o f its own, hence there is no
subjectivity to fathom. People, however, do resist because of
impulses of their own; there is subjectivity to fathom. Now the
problem is no longer a technical one of how to overcome a resistant
object. It is a moral one of how to reach an understanding with
another subject The kind of role taking necessary to do this, to
fathom and appreciate an other’s subjectivity, can be difficult and
risky.

Most analyses of moral reasoning agree about the impor­

tance of role taking (see Kohlberg 1984, Vine 1983, R est 1986,
Schwalbe 1990). It is certainly of preem inent im portance in
pragmatist ethics and symbolic interactionist social psychology. But
36 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

role taking, in the context o f moral problem solving, is typically seen

as a m atter of tttaking into account" the interests and values of
others, in a largely analytic way. O r it is seen as a m atter of
discerning psychological facts-about others’ strengths, weaknesses,
preferences, etc.-th at can then be plugged into a formula for justice
reasoning. Based on argum ents by Nel Noddings, I have come to
believe that responsible moral problem solving demands something
more.

In her book, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and

Moral Education, Noddings (1985) has sought to develop an ethics
of care. H er argum ents about the inherent limitations o f ethics
based on universal principles are compelling in their own right and
consistent with pragm atist ethics (Siegfried 1989). H ere I draw on
the part of her analysis that concerns the various ways we take
others into account when trying to solve moral problems (Noddings
1985:30-37). My strategy is to refram e her argum ents about
empathy and care in terms of role taking. I thus derive from
Noddings a view of role taking as possible to do in three ways: by
projection, by inference, and by receiving the other emotionally.
These might be thought of as strategies for connecting ourselves to
the others with whom we are in conflict.

W hen we engage in projective role taking we are trying to

determ ine what the other is thinking or feeling by imaginably
putting ourselves in the other’s place. We are asking ourselves,
"How would I feel if I were in X’s shoes?" Using this strategy we
connect with the other by looking at his or her situation and
imagining how it would affect us. Inferential role taking connects us
with others via a different analytic strategy. H ere we look for
outward signs of the other’s inner state-a frown, a slouch, a
sm ile-from which we can infer what the other is thinking o r feeling.
In either case the goal is to cognitively grasp the o ther’s thoughts
and feelings. Most discussions of the part role taking plays in moral
reasoning emphasize these kinds of analytic role taking (see, for
example, W einreich-Haste 1983; Kohlberg 1984; Schwalbe 1988a,
1990; cf. Hoffman 1984).

Receptive role taking is different. H ere we are not trying to

reason our way to a correct mental picture of the o ther’s inner
state. The goal instead is to feel with the other, to experience what
the other is feeling, to momentarily merge with the other, to
become, as Noddings says, "a duality." W hat we thus feel is neither
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 37

right nor wrong; it is simply the o ther’s feeling. Role taking of this
kind requires a willingness to let the other affect us emotionally, to
not hold the other at a m ental distance. In this way the facts o f an
other’s feelings can become the facts of our own existence, and we
can then give them full weight in our search for a solution to the
moral problem at hand. It is a key point of Noddings’s argum ent
that connecting in this way is necessary to practice an ethic o f care.

My view, in accord with Noddings, is that projective or

inferential role taking is a necessary b u t not sufficient kind o f role
taking. N either of these strategies brings the weight of the o ther’s
experience fully to bear on our moral reasoning. N either strategy
allows us adequately to experience others as subjects, to fathom
their subjectivity in a way th at is essential to responsible moral
problem solving. By projection and inference we can form in our
minds a construct of the other, and it is imperative th at we do so;
moral reasoning cannot proceed w ithout such constructs. But we
must do something more, which can be done only via receptive role
taking: form in our bodies the feelings of the other.

Justice is of course b etter served by purely cognitive role

taking than by no role taking at all. As Kohlberg (1973) has argued,
to find a fair solution to a moral problem it is necessary to role take
to discover the interests that must be balanced against each other.
T he difficulty that persists, however, lies in the need to discover also
the weight that must be given to others’ feelings. To do this we
must not only project and infer, we m ust receive and feel with.
Receiving the other emotionally ensures th at we will take others’
feelings seriously. W hen we truly feel with the o ther we are forced
to reckon with the weight of the other’s feelings as equal to our
own. It is this, it seems, that men so often fail to do vis-a-vis
women.

The Self and M oral Action

T he self as subject comprises impulses to role take. In

M ead’s terms, others are the objects that "answer to" impulses to
role take. The point is that these impulses m ust be ingrained in the
self in order for role taking to occur. T here must also be impulses
present to respond to others as subjects in their own right. T he self
must be ready, in other words, to respond to others as partners in
communication rather than as objects whose resistance must be
38 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

overcome. The agentic phase of the self of a responsible moral

actor thus predisposes the actor to role take and to appreciate the
subjectivity of others.

T he self as object comes into play because we derive a

sense of coherence from the meanings we give to it. In trying to
make sense of the world and our place in it, we become attached to
ideas about who and w hat we are. Typically we try to act in ways
consistent with these self-conceptions, which may be such th at they
either aid or inhibit moral problem solving. For example, seeing
ourselves as honest, compassionate, generous, peaceful, and
committed to justice can be powerful sources of motivation for
moral action. Trying to reaffirm self-conceptions such as these is
likely to produce good results.

But we may also give meanings to ourselves th at produce

poor results. It is not that we define ourselves as evil, cruel, greedy,
violent, and unjust and then seek to reaffirm such perverse
self-conceptions, although this may occur in some cases. The
problem, more commonly, is that we try to reaffirm positively
valued self-conceptions but do so in a way that inhibits moral
problem solving. For example, we might strive to preserve concep­
tions of ourselves as rational, independent, strong, and in control.
Acting to reaffirm these self-conceptions would, under many
circumstances, be laudable. B ut when circumstances call for
openness to the feelings of others, recognition of our dependence
on others, acknowledgement of our weaknesses, and willingness to
relinquish control, then striving to protect these ideas about
ourselves can impede moral action.

Coordinating any kind o f action with others requires that

we evaluate our impulses and actions from the perspectives of
others. Some of these others are specific persons whom we know
and whose perspectives we have internalized. But according to
M ead we also create abstract, synthetic perspectives called "general­
ized others," which are elem ents of the m ature self. These are the
perspectives of the groups and communities to which we belong.
Just as we might imagine how a particular other would respond to
a proposed act, so too we might imagine how a group or community
would respond to the act. But here we would imagine it being seen
as good or bad, right or wrong, as bringing consensual praise or
condemnation. W hen we think in these ways, and adjust our acts
accordingly, we are under the sway of the attitudes predom inant in
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 39

the groups that have socialized us. The existence o f generalized

others in individual consciousness is w hat makes self control, as
M ead said, social control.

In M ead's view, the self is thus the psychic mechanism that

both makes possible and motivates moral action. It is also a
thoroughly social product. T he impulses th at constitute the agentic
phase of the self have their origins in the body b u t are selectively
reinforced throughout a lifetime of interaction with others. In this
way the individual's most basic tendencies to act are socially shaped.
M eanings given to the self as an object are likewise derived from
interaction. By observing how others treat us we learn w hat
meanings to give to ourselves. And it is through encounters with
others that we form in our minds the abstract perspectives, the
generalized others, that give content to our moral consciousness. In
sum, it is social experience that determ ines the form and content of
moral selves and w hat their capacities for moral action will be (see
Schwalbe 1991 for further discussion of the moral self).

The M asculinist Self

In a male supremacist society those born with penises are

given special treatm ent. This is true in many ways. But w hat is of
concern here is treatm ent that affects the developm ent o f the moral
self. As per the discussion above, there are four things to consider:
the meanings given to the self as an object, the criteria according to
which the self is evaluated, the impulses em bedded in the agentic
phase of the self, and the content of the generalized other. I turn
first to the meanings attached to males as social objects in a male
supremacist society.

Being born male affords a child treatm ent as a special kind

of social object. To put it bluntly, males are treated as more
im portant than females. As a male child comes to consciousness of
this, the result is a conception of himself as superior to those who
are not in the category "male." Male children do not have to cloak
this notion in ideology. For them, a m ultitude of signs convey the
message that if you are male you are simply better; there is no
doubt as to which is the privileged category. Male supremacy is also
reinforced as male children learn that what is said and done by
females can be taken less seriously than w hat is said and done by
males, who are generally more powerful and dangerous.
40 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

M ale children also learn th at their status within the privi­

leged group is contingent upon continuous identity work. This
m eans fashioning a self-presentation th at others will interpret as
signifying not only maleness but masculinity. Males m ust therefore
habitualize a m anner of self-presentation (or a form of social
practice) which ensures that others define them as boys o r men, and
which elicits the imputation of masculinity. Failure to do this m eans
a loss of power and privilege relative to males who construct and
present more masculine selves. M ale-ness is thus only a starting
point; m anhood and masculinity m ust be accomplished in locally
appropriate ways (Kimmel 1987, Gilm ore 1990).

Constructing a self of any kind also involves learning how

to evaluate i t In U.S. society the masculinist self is evaluated
according to three principal criteria: its ability to control, its ability
to successfully compete, and its ability to produce. If a male can do
these things, up to prevailing local standards, he can evaluate
himself as entitled to the valued moral identity "man." H e can also
expect his claim to the identity "man" to be honored publicly. The
problem here is not with the process of self-evaluation per se, but
with the peculiar standards in effect. Masculinist standards of
self-evaluation lead men to depend on control, competition, and
production as their primary means for maintaining a sense of
efficacy and moral worth, and this has high costs for both men and
women.

My contention is not that control, competition, and produc­

tion are intrinsically bad; indeed, a case could be m ade th at these
things have high survival value for humans. The problem is th at the
masculinist self is neurotically dependent for its survival on
gratuitous control, competition, and production, and responsible
moral action suffers because of this. The imperative to deal with
others as subjects whose feelings and desires are no less im portant
than one’s own, and who must be understood and negotiated with,
not tricked or forced into some course of action, cuts off w hat are
for the masculinist self two primary sources of self-esteem: control­
ling others and outperforming them. The compulsion to produce
may also distract from consideration of others’ feelings and foster
a prem ature leap to instrum ental rationality; th at is, there may be
a desire to resolve conflict by "fixing things" before understanding
is achieved. In short, because of what the masculinist self needs to
survive, it resists the demands of responsible moral action.
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 41

T he particular form o f masculinist self-evaluation that has

become dom inant under the influences of Calvinist Protestantism
and Enlightenm ent rationalism may underm ine responsible moral
action in another way. These historical currents have led to a
condition under which men may evaluate themselves as more
morally worthy to the extent th at they repress feelings and act on an
abstract code of honor. U nder this condition m en seek to affirm
their moral worth by denying what their feelings, o r anyone else’s,
tell them is right or wrong (Seidler 1991:65-84). The results of this
can be hideous when the code o f honor in force includes a prescrip­
tion to obey "legitimate authority," which usually m eans m en with
more institutional power. We thus get men who can derive self­
esteem from resolutely discharging their assigned duties, w hatever
those duties might be. Thus during the G ulf W ar we heard U.S.
soldiers proclaim their pride in doing well the job they had been
assigned, a job that included bombing to death 100,000 hum an
beings.

A further problem arises because the masculinist self tends

to universalize its peculiar criteria of self-evaluation. In o ther words,
men with masculinist selves evaluate others according to the same
criteria they apply to themselves. Those who can m eet these criteria
are admired and taken seriously; those who cannot are seen as weak
and unworthy of serious consideration. So if women, or other men,
cannot set aside their feelings and do w hat an abstract code of
honor says is right, then their credibility as moral actors is suspect
in the eyes of men who are imbued with masculinist selves. Men
may thus feel justified in taking women’s perspectives and feelings
less seriously when there is conflict to be resolved. To the extent
they do, the receptive role taking necessary for responsible moral
problem solving is once again underm ined.

The agentic phase of the masculinist self can inhibit

responsible moral problem solving because of its sheer lack of
impulses for role taking. This is not to say th at men im bued with
masculinist selves never take women’s perspectives. T hat would be
impossible; some role taking is necessary for doing anything
together. So even masculinist selves contain impulses to role take.3

* M any men may also resist ro le taking vis-a-vis w omen because th e dem and
to role take rem inds them o f th eir powerlessness in th e workplace, w here they
must tak e th e perspectivesof th eir bosses in o rd e r to avoid trouble (see Schwalbe
1986:92-98,130-135; 1988b). M any men may thus experience role taking as an act
42 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

My contention is that these are impulses to engage in projective and

inferential but not receptive role taking. Thus while the masculinist
self contains impulses to role take in the ways necessary to over­
come women’s resistance as objects, it lacks impulses to role take
in the way necessary to receive their feelings as subjects. The
masculinist self is equipped, in other words, to deal with women as
sources of technical rather than moral problems.

It is not just that male privilege disinclines men to engage

in receptive role taking vis-a-vis women. It is that, as with relin­
quishing control, this kind of role taking would threaten the survival
of the masculinist self. This is a self premised not only on dis-identi-
fyingwith women, and on denying dependence upon them, but also
on remaining insulated from their pain. If this pain were to be fully
felt, its roots in the patterns of domination that sustain masculinist
selves in other ways might become obvious. The pain th at men
cause women would then become m en's pain and men would be
motivated to destroy the masculinist selves causing it. A suicidal
dilemma is thus avoided by avoiding receptive role taking. An
inevitable by-product is moral irresponsibility in action vis-a-vis
women.

Responsible action is also underm ined because of the

generalized others harbored by the masculinist self. In other words,
the group perspectives synthesized within the masculinist self take
male supremacy for granted and define the param ount social reality
as based on the experiences of men (Ferguson 1980:153-176).
W ithin this reality women are indeed valued-for their capacities to
satisfy impulses; they are also seen as deserving of understanding-
because they can present all sorts of annoying technical problems.
W hat they are not seen as is subjects whose thoughts and feelings
are of equal value to men's. In fact, masculinist generalized others
can be defined by their inability to bring this possibility into
consciousness. This relative devaluing of women may seldom be
explicitly acknowledged, though it is evidenced continually in word
and deed in ways that the masculinist self, like the proverbial fish
in water, may never perceive.

o f submission. In this wc see capitalism inflicting upon men a w ound th at leaves

them unable to b e emotionally intim ate with others. Perhaps it is th e self thus
dam aged th at many men try to protect by rejecting w om en's dem ands for u n d e r­
standing.
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 43

T he origins of masculinist generalized others are not

mysterious; these perspectives are formed through experience in
groups w here males and masculinist values are dom inant. W ithout
experience in groups where expressions of male supremacy are
exposed and rejected, no feminist generalized other can be formed.
The masculinist self is thus unable to consider prospective acts from
any perspective that does not m ake male experience param ount. So
even when sophisticated justice reasoning is brought to b ear on
moral problems, the justice sought by the masculinist self is always
within the framework of male supremacy.4 Again, the moral
limitations of the masculinist self can be seen as stemming from its
trained incapacities.

It is not my claim th at men per se, o r even all forms of

masculinity, are immoral. My point is simply th at the masculinist
self, and a form of masculinity premised on compulsions to control,
to compete, and to produce, limit men as moral actors, especially
vis-a-vis women. A t the same time I recognize th at the masculinist
self, with its desire for autonomy, can produce valuable concerns for
justice, law, and principles of ethical conduct — all of which can
serve to protect individual freedom and preserve civil society. Some
moral goods have thus issued from the masculinist self. The
problem, however, as Gilligan (1982), Noddings (1985), and others
(T ronto 1987) have argued, is th at justice, law, and principles of
ethical conduct are not adequate for solving all moral problems. As
humans, most of our moral problems are problems o f comm unica­
tion, understanding, tolerance, and respect for difference. These
require an ethics of care to help us see w hat our responsibilities are
to others and how to balance them against responsibilities to
ourselves. W hat I have called the masculinist self is immoral, in this
view, because its existence is premised on not caring about wom en’s
pain. It simply cannot survive the demands o f enacting an ethic of
care when trying to resolve conflicts with women.

4 Justice is always specific to a form o f life. It necessarily presupposes a

backdrop o f values against which judgm ents o f fairness a re m ade. F o r exam ple,
given the value presum ptions o f capitalism , w orkers can be seen as tre a te d justly
even while they are thoroughly exploited (see Neilsen 1988 for a discussion o f this
issue in M arxist theory). T h e sam e principle applies to serfs u n d er feudalism and
women under patriarchy (cf. O kin 1989). T o see th e injustice built into a form o f
life often req u iresad o p tin g a perspective th at presum es a fundam entally different
set o f values.
44 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

I want to underscore the sociological nature o f this argu­

ment. It is not my contention that men, o r at least most men, are
willfully evil beings who conspire to exploit and oppress women. It
is that men are inhibited, by their own power and privilege, from
developing their hum an capacities to become fully responsible
moral actors, especially in conflicts vis-a-vis women. W hat I have
tried to show is how a male supremacist society shapes the selves of
m en so as to underm ine their motivation and ability to act in
morally responsible ways toward women. In such a society m en are
socially constructed to see women's pain as less im portant than their
own, to deny responsibility for it, and to refuse to see it as dem and­
ing for its alleviation any radical change on the part of men.

The Example of Sexual H arassm ent

Some men who foist unwanted sexual attention upon

women may indeed be pathologically egocentric o r grossly inept.
But most sexual harassment issues naturally from the masculinist
self and occurs within the bounds of norm al behavior as defined by
male supremacy. Much harassm ent is thus never perceived as such,
nor is its harm evident to those who routinely perpetrate i t This
was dramatically illustrated in the case of A nita H ill's charges of
sexual harassm ent against Clarence Thomas. M uch o f w hat occurred
in the Hill/Thomas case can be interpreted as a result of role taking
failure by men imbued with masculinist selves.

M em bers of the Senate confirmation panel could not

appreciate, first of all, the profound difference in power between
A nita Hill and Clarence Thomas. As H ill's boss and m entor,
Thom as held enorm ous power over her career. It should have been
easy enough to take Hill's perspective and understand, if nothing
more, that she valued her career and was therefore reluctant to
publicly accuse Thom as and risk retribution. Yet this seem ed to be
impossible for the white male senators to do. T heir power and
privilege limited them to rudimentary, projective role taking. At
best they could imagine being offended by persistent, unwanted
sexual overtures. But they could not understand why anyone who
was truly offended would tolerate such overtures for very long,
because that is not what they would do. These wealthy white male
senators could not imagine being relatively powerless and vulnera­
ble, and thus unable to escape a harassing boss. It was hardly
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 45

surprising, then, that they doubted H ill's account o f Thom as's

behavior.

It was clear also th at the senators were unable to appreciate

the complexity of H ill's perspective. She was not just a woman, or
a black woman, but a t the same time an ambitious professional,
subordinate employee, and adult sexual being. T h at this created
within Hill a complex mix of feelings, values, and motives seem ed
beyond the senators' grasp. Because of this, they could little
understand the hard choices Hill was forced to make. A s a result
the senators, and many similarly handicapped observers, im puted all
m anner of twisted motives to her. T o the extent th at Hill was
understood at all as a woman, it was from the perspective o f a
masculinist generalized other. Hill was thus judged as morally
suspect because she did not live up to a traditional fem inine code
of honor by valuing her "purity” m ore than her career. O f course,
if Hill had been a man no such issue would have arisen, since it is
accepted that men must sometimes swallow their pride to achieve
success.

And though it enhanced her credibility with some audienc­

es, the composure Hill exhibited may have hurt her in o ther ways.
H er lack of emotional display did not give the white m ale senators
the kind of information they needed to infer w hat she felt while
being harassed. In fact, this coolness might have led them to infer
that whatever occurred between her and Thom as could not have
been of much consequence. It also allowed the senators to avoid
feeling any of her anguish via receptive role taking. Because such
role taking did not occur, even if the senators believed her charges
to be true, they could not fathom the harm Thom as had done.
Obviously Hill was in a bind, since a more emotional display would
have allowed doubters to invoke the even more damning stereotype
of a hysterical woman. Hill simply could not win in the masculinist
context in which the hearings took place. She had neither the power
to compel role taking, nor the chance to induce it w ithout losing
credibility.

It was clear, however, that the senators were able to take

Thom as's perspective. W hen Thom as used the lynching m etaphor
he invoked a powerful image o f black men being brutalized because
of irrational accusations about their sexuality. This was a clever ploy
to exploit white guilt and to create a male bond with the senators.
Thom as's use of the lynching m etaphor and his display o f anger
46 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

allowed the senators both to feel for him and with him. His
perform ance allowed the senators to engage in projective, inferen­
tial, and receptive role taking all at once. In that m om ent he
becam e a fellow man about to be figuratively castrated because of
an irrational accusation (cf. hooks 1992).

T he masculinist selves of the white male senators and of

C larence Thomas provided a basis for connection between them , a
connection that got Thomas a seat on the Supreme Court. These
masculinist selves also made it unlikely that H ill's situation, actions,
and feelings-and the seriousness of Thom as’s crime-would be
understood. The Hill/Thomas case revealed what is true in most
cases of sexual harassm ent Men typically fail to role take in the
ways necessary to appreciate a woman's feelings o f violation and
powerlessness, and her fears of confrontation, retribution, or rape.
Charges of sexual harassm ent are thus often seen as exaggerated or
as fabricated out of misunderstanding o r spite. These ideological
understandings of sexual harassm ent issue from and serve to protect
the masculinist self.

Expanding the M oral Self

Expanding the moral self m eans changing it in four ways:

instilling imputses to engage in receptive role taking, attaching new
meanings to it, using different criteria to evaluate it, and incorporat­
ing a feminist generalized other. Expanding the moral self thus
entails creation of a new set of ideas about the self as an object,
and the creation of a new set of impulses to impel a different way
of being. These changes, applied to the masculinist self, in effect
destroy it.

An expanded moral self must include strong impulses to

engage in all kinds of role taking. In terms used in a previous
analysis (Schwalbe 1988a), this means strengthening the "propensity
to role take." But this propensity must now extend to receptive as
well as projective and inferential role taking. This m eans that
expanding the moral self will predispose men to feel with women
and to give equal weight to their feelings in the face o f a moral
problem. W hereas the masculinist self naturally responds to women
as resistant objects that present technical problems, the expanded
moral self responds to women as persons whose subjectivity must be
fathomed and who must be negotiated with as equals. TTie moral
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 47

self is (re)program med, so to speak, to respond to women in ways

that a masculinist self cannot.

As an object, the expanded moral self is conceived and

evaluated differently from the masculinist self. Though it is
conceived of as strong in many ways, it is not conceived as inherent­
ly superior, in control, strictly rational, or detached. It is conceived
as justice-loving, respectful, compassionate, tolerant, and inter-
•dependent. These are the m eanings it becomes im portant to
reaffirm in action vis-a-vis women. D ifferent criteria are also used
to judge the worth of the self. Self-evaluation is not based on
abilities to control others and to rem ain emotionally unaffected by
them. The expanded self is instead judged by the strength of its will
to nurture others, to connect with others both intellectually and
emotionally, and to act responsibly in relation to others when hard
conflicts arise.

An expanded moral self also contains feminist others and

a feminist generalized other. T he feminist others are the internal­
ized perspectives of specific women; the generalized o ther is an
abstract, synthetic perspective. W hat is special about these perspec­
tives is their sensitivity to expressions of male supremacy and the
pain it causes. By adopting these perspectives it becomes possible
to see and respond to expressions o f male supremacy in ways that
the masculinist self does not permit. It thus becomes possible to see
more clearly and widely the consequences of proposed solutions to
moral problems. The goal is not simply to become m ore adept at
anticipating w om en’s objections. It is to truly expand the scope of
moral consciousness by learning to take more, and m ore diverse,
perspectives into account.

How do masculinist selves begin to grow toward their own

demise? H ere I can only suggest a few possibilities. First, an
opening must be somehow created for receptive role taking. I say
that an opening must be created because normally this kind of role
taking is too threatening for the masculinist self. T he opening is
most likely to occur when men with a strong sense o f justice see
women they love hurt by the unjust and thoughtless acts of other
men (cf. Stoltenberg 1989). In such an instance the legitimacy of the
woman’s pain is unquestioned and accepted. But what is also
im portant is that a man be able to see the pain as stemming from
other m en’s attem pts to preserve their own masculinist selves. T h at
is the crucial connection. A man must be able to see himself
48 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

represented in the act that caused the pain, but only after the pain
is felt and accepted.

W hat this can do is to pit a m an's love for justice and for
a specific woman against his own masculinist self. T here is no
guarantee that this will produce a thoroughgoing transform ation of
the self. But it can create the tension necessary to start the process.
My point here is that the masculinist self, with its own ingrained
love of justice and desire for women, contains the seeds of its own
destruction.

T he idea of an expanded moral self is not merely a fiction

I have invented to aid this discussion. It is a construct for articulat­
ing the experience of many men who are now struggling to over­
come the masculinist selves ingrained in them. Many men have seen
the problems created by masculinist selves: the alienation th at arises
when status, power, and wealth are recognized as m eaningless goals
for a hum an life; early disability and death from stress-related
diseases; the inability to maintain satisfying relationships with
women; the loneliness that comes from fear of other men; the
emptiness and lack of energy th at come from living an unfeeling
life. I think it is necessary for men to see these problems as
endemic to embracing a masculinist self, and to see an expanded
moral self as the solution.

T he growth of the moral self has implications for m ore than

how men resolve conflicts with women. It also has implications for
how m en act toward each other. A greater propensity to engage in
receptive role taking, the embrace of new self definitions and
criteria for self evaluation, and the formation o f new internal
perspectives are changes that will inevitably affect all social
relationships. Such changes may lead to the recognition that any
form of domination, w hether its victims are women or men, is
immoral. To nurture the growth o f the moral self is thus to reject
not only what a male supremacist society has m ade o f us as men,
but also to challenge the inequality that is its basic principle of
organization.

From a pragmatist perspective it is ethically imperative to

work to further the social process. In general terms this m eans
developing our abilities to role take, to understand others, and to
find the best solutions to moral problems. I have tried to show that
in the context of a male supremacist society this imperative
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 49

translates into an imperative to constantly strive to expand the

moral self. To do this is not really a sacrifice; it is a way to discover
what we can be as individuals and as m em bers of peaceful com m u­
nities. Only in this way can men discover w here their human
interests truly lie, and discover also the kind o f society they must
work with women to create in order to realize those interests.

Conclusion

In developing this analysis I have tried to articulate an

aspect of contemporary male experience. Although the term s used
to describe it can vary, the struggle to expand the masculinist self
is a real one. Many profeminist men have recognized the problems
created by their adaptation to a male supremacist society and now,
having rejected male supremacy, are working to transform them ­
selves (cf. Seidler 1991). My account of this process tries to show
how inner experience is connected to the structure o f social life. It
shows how some men have internalized and are experiencing the
larger struggle between feminism and patriarchy.

T he pragm atist ethical theory upon which I have drawn has

advantages for understanding connections between gender and
morality. First, it is more true to the real world in recognizing that
responsible moral problem solving requires ethics o f both justice
and care (Bologh 1984, Blum 1988). Pragmatist ethics are anti-
K antian in arguing against exclusive reliance on abstract principles
of any kind when moral problems arise; situations, and the people
involved, must be dealt with in their particulars. It is indeed
essential to feel with and care for specific persons (Benhabib 1987).
But this is not enough; role taking must also involve a generalized
other, for only by taking the perspective of the community into
account can civil society be maintained. Civil society, albeit
sometimes less than civil, is, in the pragm atist view, a necessary
backdrop for enacting an ethic of care.

To understand the connection between gender and morality

I thus believe it is necessary to recognize the dialectical natu re of
m oral problem solving, to see th at it must alternate betw een the
ethical poles of justice and care. We cannot care for individuals
without caring for the communities in which they live; and this
requires concern for equity and justice. The self is the balancing
point that determ ines how we will weight these ethics. C hange the
50 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

self and the balancing point shifts. W hat previous analyses have
suggested is that women and men, im bued with different selves,
operate with different balancing points (Gilligan 1982). Pragm atist
ethics, joined to M ead’s social psychology, shows us how much more
complex the story is.

The sociological story I have told might be read as "taking

men off the hook," so to speak. It seems to shift responsibility from
the individual man who causes women pain to an abstract "male
supremacist society." In a sense this is true; no one is responsible
for the historical conditions into which s/he is born. But pragm atist
ethics does not obviate individual responsibility for the consequenc­
es of action in the face of moral problems. O n the contrary:
individuals are expected to question the adequacy of tradition and
of universal principles and to formulate the best course of action
they can. W hat this presupposes, however, is awareness of w hat the
problems are, understanding of where they come from, and insight
into how they might be overcome — all of which stem from prior
social experience. My analysis thus does n ot take men off the hook;
rather, it drives the hook through the masculinist self right into its
patriarchal origins.

T here is, however, another m atter for which responsibility

must be diffused. This is the responsibility for challenging the
masculinist self and for nurturing its expansion. No old self survives,
nor does a new self emerge, in a social vacuum; only communities
can give and take away selves. It is thus necessary to work together
to root out the many habits of thought and action th at unintention­
ally reinforce the masculinist self. New sources o f self-esteem and
self-efficacy that do not feed the masculinist self must be created.
This effort, which m ust be undertaken by women and m en together,
is not simply to transform men; it is p art of creating a new comm u­
nity of fully human selves th at are not narrowed by inequalities of
any kind.

The masculinist self grows out of one kind o f inequality.

O ther systems of oppression and exploitation produce diminished
selves of other kinds. In U.S. society we thus see not only mas­
culinist selves but racist and elitist selves as well. The basic problem,
of course, is the institutionalized devaluing and abuse of one group
of people by another. This creates narrow selves th a t seek to
m aintain the perverse conditions of their own survival. Yet it also
generates tension between and within selves, and this tension,
SCHWALBE: MALE SUPREMACY 51

properly handled, can be the impetus for transformative moral

action.

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