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104 THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF
in particular produced widespread reconsideration of masculinity,
to the extent that it began to be understood as a category in need of
considerable revision. In the 1970s, for example, issues raised by the
Women’s Liberation Movement led to the view that men suffer as much
as women under patriarchy, and that they therefore needed to reject
‘traditional male roles’ by becoming ‘more sensitive and emotionally
expressive’. 33 A men’s movement began to emerge to champion this idea,
but such developments quickly led to a perception that masculinity
was now in ‘crisis’.
As a result, the reconsideration of masculinity began to change
direction during the 1980s. It was argued that knowledge and experience
of masculinity had been enfeebled and impoverished by a variety
of forces, including industrialization, urbanization and feminism. A
reclaiming of the ‘deep masculine’ was therefore proposed, as a means
of regenerating and invigorating men’s ability to contribute positively
to their society and culture, and in particular their relationships with
women and children. Following the example of a branch of feminism
which sought to reclaim and ‘valorize’ mythic imagery of the goddess
as a source of strength and inspiration for women, the ‘mythopoetic
men’s movement’ turned to myth and legends for sources of the ‘deep
masculine’ that was felt to be missing in men’s lives. Famously, this
project was facilitated through workshops or retreats, during which
groups of men would withdraw into the wilderness to enable a fuller
connection to their masculinity.
E. Anthony Rotundo observes that the exploration of masculinity in
such men’s workshops bears a strong resemblance to ideas about masculinity
that circulated in the late nineteenth century. 34 He notes that
during the fin de siècle, a more corporeal version of masculinity arose
to compete with models of manhood that emphasized the cerebral qualities
of reason, morality and psychic discipline. The focus on the body
accompanied a neo-romantic celebration of nature as the space where
men could physically connect with their masculinity, and drew upon
the celebration of ‘primitive man’ in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
and Friedrich Nietzsche. Certainly, representations of masculinity from
this period often displayed the male body in outdoor, competitive, or