(WP) Masculinity and the Other

Writing about the novelist Russell Banks in the current issue (March 8th) of the New York Review of Books, Diane Johnson observes Banks' preoccupation with the way conventional images of masculinity blight his characters' lives. She then cites Martha Nussbaum:

"The Philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum, writing about patriotism, points out how much mischief, even downright evil, is done in the world because of "diseased norms of manliness." In her view, which is informed by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, these arise from primitive emotions of shame and disgust. Disgust stems from our unease with our mortal bodies, because they will 'die and decay,' but it is often projected onto others, either the other sex or other ethnic groups. Most important, says Nussbaum, studies associate the feelings of disgust and shame with 'aggression against the weak and against women,' something that seems an ingredient, if not the root, of a lot of the political and religious ferment we see everywhere in humiliated societies, and is very much one of Banks' concerns."

The full article is not open source, so you will have to pay for it or go to the library if you want to read it, but this excerpt alone gives some perspective on the concrete, practical importance of Beauvoir's existentialist concept of 'the Other.'