Guest Columnist — Patricia Leigh Brown: Manly men make return

Friday, Nov. 2, 2001 | 5:07 a.m.

Patricia Leigh Brown writes for the New York Times.

They are the knights in shining fire helmets. They are the welders, policemen and businessmen with can-do attitudes who are unafraid to tackle armed hijackers -- even if it means bringing down an airplane.

The operative word is men. Brawny, heroic, manly men.

After a few iffy decades in which manliness was not the most highly prized cultural attribute, men -- stoic, muscle-bound and exuding competence from every pore -- are back. Since Sept. 11 the male hero has been a predominant cultural image, presenting a beefy front of strength to a nation seeking steadiness and emotional grounding. They are the new John Waynes. They are, as the former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently, "men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe."

Of course, war has traditionally brought out America's inner Schwarzenegger. But since the September attacks, the firefighter coated with ash and soot has provided a striking contrast to the now prehistoric-seeming male archetype of such a short time ago: the casually dressed dot-commer in khakis and a BMW.

"Before Sept. 11, ruggedness was an affectation you put on like an outfit," said David Granger, the editor in chief of Esquire magazine. "Now there's a selflessness being attributed to rugged men. After a decade of prosperity that made us soft, metaphorically and physically, there's a longing for manliness. People want to regain what we had in World War II. They want to believe in big, strapping American boys."

Some observers like Carol Gilligan, a professor of gender studies at Harvard and a visiting professor at the New York University School of Law, have noted that men's rising star has all but eclipsed that of the many heroic women who have risen to the occasion, be they firefighters or police officers.

Still, to cultural defenders of manliness who have deplored the last decade's gender-neutral sex roles, nirvana has arrived. Camille Paglia, the conservative social critic, said: "I can't help noticing how robustly, dreamily masculine the faces of the firefighters are. These are working-class men, stoical, patriotic. They're not on Prozac or questioning their gender."