Aaron W. Voyles looks back on the ways male hierarchy was perpetuated in his college years.
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College is a series of tests. For many folks, that’s literal. Luckily for me, I chose to be a creative writing major and therefore had few run-ins with exams. But there are tests of confidence, of character, and, of course, manhood.
While we sometimes associate a series of bizarre contests of manhood with media depictions of fraternities, life is filled with people of all genders evaluating and being evaluated on that gender. I lived in the Honors Hall and was far from involved in Greek life, but all men face tests that determine the hierarchy of their friendships and peer group.
Some of the tests I passed. Some I failed. And the culmination of my scores on these assessments determined my relative level of coolness in each group. And depending upon which configuration of men I was with, the tests were different and my ranking varied. No doubt my status was lower in my residence hall than it was with my close friends, for instance.
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Here are some of the simple, everyday tests that I went through:
- Do you drink?
- Are you willing to sneak alcohol into the hall?
- Are you cool with not staying in the room so my girlfriend can come over?
- Can you get this girl to go out with you?
- Do you smoke?
- How do you react when the police show up?
- You aren’t going to turn us in, are you?
- How good is this mix CD you made?
- Can you win this arm wrestling contest?
- How do you react when cussed out and insulted?
- How far can you hit this piece of fruit with that golf club?
Many of these tests may not appear to have anything to do with masculinity, but they are structuralist in design. Combined, they give the group a sense of who has confidence in what and who is the toughest.
From there, a sense of coolness and the hierarchy of manhood can be created. I think each of us in college groups wanted to be competent (or even “the best”) at something, even if that thing was as stupid as hitting rotten fruit pieces in the parking lot.
Fear of not being competent and therefore not being manly can drive both people’s response to these tests and the very creation of the tests in the first place. Not only did I undergo such tests, but I undoubtedly put others through some as well. By doing so, the pressure would be on them instead of me to complete that eating contest, keep up with the number of shots everyone was doing, or anything else.
These tests actually start way before college, of course. I still remember kids in my middle school ridiculing a boy because was shaking with nervousness at having to use a wall-less urinal. His discomfort at peeing in front of others was seen as a lack of manhood. The hierarchy shaped from there.
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What is interesting about the tests in college is that they are both more important and less. They are more important because college is the time where young people are told to find themselves and discover their calling and their place. Being forced into a hierarchy may alter or delay that process for some.
At the same time, they are less important because there is more flexibility. As I said above, I passed some of the tests but failed others. When I failed those tests, however, I could move to my other peer groups, not as trapped as I felt in high school by them. Through shifting and moving in those peer groups, I found what I was most interested in and who I was most interested in hanging out with. I even found where I was the most comfortable being a man.
At the time of these tests, I felt as though passing it was all that was important. But my masculinity really had nothing to do with any of these manhood tests at all.
Ultimately, these tests are not going away in the near future. By shining a light on these for men entering college, maybe we can approach these with more understanding of their context. How we respond and react to the tests we fail is what really helps to derive our sense of self and of manhood.
Ditching the Dunce Cap is a biweekly Friday column from Aaron W. Voyles on the University of Texas-Austin. He welcomes your comments. This column is not affiliated with the university.
Also in Ditching the Dunce Cap:
Catching Up on Your Reading
Resolutions, Because of the Man Box
The Meaning of a Decanter
Can Tattoos Help Men Talk About Themselves?
Everybody Wants to Fit In. Everybody Wants to Stand Out.
That Time Snuggleupagus Made Me Uncool
The Space Between Lifts
Video Games as a Way to Connect with College Men
Vomit. Sorry.
and more..
—Photo Ryan McGilchrist/Flickr