What Everyone Gets Wrong About Manhood and Masculinity
The poet Robert Bly — who died on Nov. 21, at the age of 94 — was best-known for his controversial work of archetypal psychology, Iron John: A Book About Men.
In the 1990s, Americans weren’t nearly as polarized on gender as we are now; Bly’s work had broad crossover appeal. It spent 62 weeks on the bestseller list. I can still remember my father passing a worn hardcover edition to my older brother. The book became a cultural phenomenon, launching a “mythopoetic men’s movement.”
Bly and his colleagues were advocating for a men’s movement that would complement, not oppose, second wave feminism. Nonetheless, he was widely criticized by folks who recognized the movement’s latent misogyny. They were correct. A good argument can be made that Bly’s work laid the foundation for incels, the manosphere, and Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.
According to the New York Times obituary, Bly’s work “drew on myths, legends, poetry and science of a sort to make the case that American men had grown soft and feminized and needed to rediscover their primitive virtues of ferocity and audacity and thus regain the self-confidence to be nurturing fathers…
