Unreasonable Men: Masculinity and Social Theory (Male Orders)

by VictorJ.Seidler (Author), VictorJ.Seidler (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $8.01

  Seidler argues that the identification of masculinity with reason has played a central role in Western social theory and philosophy. Reason is defined in opposition to nature, and mind set against body, as men have learnt to take their reason for granted. This produces an unreasonable form of reason that men learn to use to legislate for others, before learning to speak more personally for themselves. This is part of the power that men can assume in relation to women, and which is embodied in dominant forms of social theory. Emotions and feelings are discounted as forms of knowledge, for they are deemed to be personal and subjective when contrasted with the objectivity and impartiality of reason. Unreasonable Men aims to demonstrate how an Enlightenment view of modernity excluded and silenced those whom it regarded as others for being closer to nature, thereby setting the terms in which others have to prove themselves rational to enter the magic circle of humanity . Traditions of social theory carry both the dreams and demons of a modernity which could only recognize injustice and oppression as real and objective within the public world of men.