Fighting For American Manhood

Fighting For American Manhood by Kristen Hoganson is an gender interpretation of the Spanish-American War and the Philippine War. Her argument, as I see it, is that issues of gender deserve a place in explaining the American imperial impulse at the turn of the 20th century. She makes a pretty good argument.

Gendered language was used heavily in the public discourse and political debate over the issue of war with Spain. Politicians who favored war portrayed Cuba as a damsel in distress, and America as the dashing masculine hero that would come to her rescue. The issue of American manhood was also very much on people's minds. Many took the position that the thirty years of peace accompanied with commercial prosperity since the Civil War had left the younger generation of men soft and generally lacking in masculine and martial values. War was seen as a way to remedy this, an ethos very much advocated by Teddy Roosevelt. The (falsely) perceived attack on the USS Maine was framed in terms very much like a duel: America had been challenged by Spain, and no honorable man can refuse such a challenge. The debate in Congress over war was essentially a penis measuring contest, and anyone who waxed on the issue (President McKinley and Senator Hoar) had their manhood questioned. A brawl actually broke out on the floor of Congress -- testosterone was flowing like Natty Light at a frat party. Hoganson also makes the argument that war was a way to deflect the Women's Suffrage movement that was picking up steam, although I think this argument is a little bit weaker than her other points.

This is the first gender history that I have ever read, and it was pretty amazing to read how much these guys talked about manhood and such. It's pretty crazy. Its hard to oppose something when your manhood and, by extension (no pun intended), your political power are attached to that issue. Very few did oppose war, in the end. It seems like Hoganson tries to advance gender as more important than other issues that lead America to war (commercial interests in Cuba, the non-gendered issue of the USS Maine, and imperialism in general) and she doesn't sell me that far. But I definitely think, after reading this, that issues of gender were central to the language of war, if not a significant ideological underpinning behind it.