Defining John Brown’s Masculinity: Not Toxic

This video clip comes from a John Brown: America250 Roundtable discussion with environmental psychologist Shawndel Fraser, M.A., and historian Margaret Washington, Ph.D., John Brown and Abolitionist Women, hosted by John Brown biographer Louis A. DeCaro Jr., Ph.D. In this clip, Fraser explores John Brown’s masculinity through her work with contemporary men who earn a living with their hands.

TRANSCRIPT:

Lou DeCaro: I have one more thing that I'd like to have Shawndel share—her impressions and thoughts. Again, talking about masculinity and John Brown, I know we talk about the fact that he was a very sensitive father. Some of the comments I saw flashing talked about his concern for the education of his daughters. So much could be said: his ability to cook, his ability to perform surgeries, and things like that. How would you define him in that regard when you look at him from your vantage point as a psychologist, and how do you reflect on masculinity? Is there a way that you would kind of describe him if you were going to do a profile?

Knowledge to uplift, house, protect, nurture, and nourish is masculinity, defined

Shawndel Fraser: His approach to masculinity is at the root of how I look at masculinity in my work. The knowledge of various crafts and trades is not necessarily just about the making, building, and fixing of things; it is in service to humans over time. Being a person of service and using the strength, wherewithal, and knowledge that one has to uplift, house, protect, nurture, and nourish others—that for me is a definition of masculinity. I find that our culture doesn't always see the ways that men are loving. As humanity tries to balance out how we understand everyone and everything, we have gone to a perspective where we associate men with stoicism, which we've inherited from many conquering cultures before this empire existed.

We neglect "doingness" as a signal of devotion and love—that attention to detail and the willingness to put your whole body into any action. Whether it is cooking for your raiders before you all make the ultimate sacrifice (though hoping not to have to make that big of a sacrifice), or nurturing your children to a degree that they are willing to follow you—male and female children both—or that your wives say "yes" to this different type of life, it speaks volumes.

This nurturing, nourishing, caregiving set him apart as a leader

Even though he wrote those letters to Mary saying, "No, don't come," and later, "Yes, do come," she wanted to be by his side. It speaks to the fact that she wasn't thrilled he was gone. If he had been an unloving, ungentle man, she might have felt differently when he was murdered. Instead, she took herself through the transportation of the 1850s to Virginia—hostile territory where they wanted to do terrible things to his body—to bring him back home according to his last wishes.

That devotion, which we are very easily able to recognize in women and feminine people, is clearly evident in the way he lived his life. That people would follow him to what would be their death and risk their bodies to claim his body speaks to a masculinity that is paramount. How many people know men today that they would do those things for?

Outro music thanks to Chorus Angelicus via The John Brown Project