The Conundrum of Masculinity

Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity

Chris Haywood, Thomas Johansson, Nils Hammarén, Marcus Herz, Andreas Ottemo

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367873448
• eBook ISBN: 9781317200529
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Popular culture is awash with discussions about the difficulties associated with being a man. Television talk shows, media articles and government press releases discuss not simply the problem of men, but have more recently focused on the problems of being a man.

The Conundrum of Masculinity challenges highly advertised beliefs that men are in crisis and struggling to hold onto traditional masculine habits whilst the world around them changes. Indeed, whilst there is a range of valuable contributions to the field that examine how men live out their lives in different contexts, there are few accounts that examine in detail the building blocks of masculinity or how men are really 'put together'. Thus, this innovative and timely volume seeks to provide a systematic exploration of the different aspects of masculinity – in particular hegemony, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity.

An original approach to the field of masculinity studies, this book ultimately presents a critical synthesis that brings together disparate approaches to provide a clear and concise discussion to address the true nature of masculinity. The Conundrum of Masculinity will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as Gender Studies, Masculinity Studies and Sociology.

1 Introduction

Mapping the Conundrum

Introduction

Popular culture is awash with discussions about the difficulties associated with being a man. Television talk shows, magazines, editorials and government press releases discuss not simply the problems of men but also more recently the problems of being a man. Some media commentators have suggested that men are in crisis and are struggling to hold onto traditional modes of being a man whilst the world around them changes. Some argue that men are losing ground, with girls now achieving higher grades than boys at every stage in school, mothers establishing greater rights over their children, and claims that women in their twenties (for the first time ever) are being given a higher hourly paid wage than men. Men, it is argued, are being left behind. Not only is it claimed that women are gaining the upper hand; it seems that men are also becoming the ‘new’ victims in society. For example, men’s eating disorders are rising faster than those found in women, men are overwhelmingly the victims of physical violence, and men are three times more likely than women to commit suicide (Braswell and Kushner, 2012).

Therefore, it is argued that men are not simply being left behind; they are also becoming weaker and more vulnerable. Not only has the media focused the spotlight on men’s difficulties, but it has also begun questioning the very essence of what makes a man. The ‘metrosexual’, the ‘menaissance man’ and the ‘post-sensitive man’ have emerged as new gender motifs to describe new ways of being a man. Alongside this, the increasing media-led fascination with trans-gendered, intersexual and queer lives has intensified one of the most-pressing gender conundrums in contemporary society: What does it mean to be a man? In response to these media-led narratives, this book helps the reader navigate through these popular confusions and contradictions to address and explore this question. In short, the book provides a theoretically robust, empirically grounded engagement with men and masculinity to unpack the conundrum of masculinity.

It is suggested that concerns about men and masculinity, often sensationally called ‘crises of masculinity’, have occurred across history and have taken many forms but appear to take shape when societies undergo rapid social and economic transformations. For example, in the late nineteenth-century United States, there was much concern about men losing their masculinity as they migrated from rural to urban spaces. The rise of industrialisation and urbanisation, it was argued, meant that men were no longer in touch with their true selves. As Bailey (2007, p. 48) points out:

The word ‘masculinity’ which did not enter the English language until the middle of the eighteenth century, referred to the privilege awarded to men in matters of inheritance. Manhood and ‘manliness’ were the terms used in the sixteenth century to connote those qualities essential to civility, which was identified teleologically as the definitive characteristic of the adult man.

Crises at the time oscillated between men being too civil and losing their basic masculine drives. In contrast, men were also seen as being too ‘basic’ and lacking self-control and rational action. More recently, Atkinson (2008, p. 451) has pointed out that commentators on masculinity and change

contend that with the symbolic fracturing of family, economic, political, educational, sport-leisure, technological-scientific and media power bases, masculinity codes have been challenged within most social settings. As such, men no longer possess exclusive ownership over the social roles once held as bastions for establishing and performing hegemony.

What is interesting is that such change is read through gender, and, in the context of late modernity, we have seen gender emerging as a key cultural flashpoint. The dynamic of a flashpoint is that it operates in disparate ways at the same time. What this means is that whilst highlighting the normativity of gender relations, a cultural flashpoint simultaneously fractures and problematises taken-for-granted assumptions (Mac an Ghaill and Haywood, 2007). It is suggested that these cultural flashpoints become ways to understand the conundrums that surround men and masculinity as they shine a light on the cultural expectations that underpin gender relations.

Although commentators tend to focus on an apparent collapse triggered by women’s political rights, by liberation from reproduction and by parity within the workplace (if not achieved), concern is also raised about the ways men themselves are changing. If the division between men and women is being challenged by women, it is also being challenged by men in new forms of body projects. For example, Frank (2014) discusses the emergence of ‘manscaping’ where men are beginning to self-fashion themselves by manipulating their bodies. One of the areas that Frank discusses is that of trimming or removal of hair. She suggests that this is a feminine practice that is highly transgressive for men and masculinity.

However, given that the exclusive resources through which men make masculinity are being reduced or removed, it is suggested that men are exploring new ways in which to recover their loss of male power. Thus, the body has become a device through which men can re-articulate their masculine status. A different response to the crisis of masculinity might be to reconstruct the body in a way that evidences itself as masculine. As social and cultural markers of masculinity become blurred through transformations in areas such as work, family, and politics, men are seeking alternative ways to establish ontological certainty of their identities. Therefore as resources of masculinity become less accessible, men are drawing upon a range of different resources through which to make their identities. Whereas the crisis of masculinity has been premised on the lack of access to traditional masculine resources, it is suggested that there has been a discernible shift in the resources from that of production to that of consumption. Alexander (2003, p. 535) suggests that as social structures are transforming, ‘consumption becomes more important than production.’

A similar argument exists around the phenomenon of ‘laddism’. As a contemporary form of masculinity, ‘laddism’ in the UK has been seen as a backlash response to Feminism and has been viewed as a ‘reclamation of patriarchal masculinities’ (Rizos, 2012, p. 40). It is not entirely clear how ‘laddism’ became identified as a new trope of masculinity, but commentators agree that in many ways it was a response to the predominance of the new Feminist-friendly and equality-committed representations of men from the 1980s (Carrington, 1998; Gill, 2003). The emergence of the ‘New Lads’ has often been linked to the rise of the men’s magazines Loaded and FHM; the ‘New Lads’ have been described as unreconstructed men who recognise the values of equality but would align themselves to practices that were antithetical to those values, such as objectification of women’s bodies. Unlike traditional masculine practices that involved homophobia, misogyny, and racism, it is suggested that ‘lads’ appreciate and recognise the harm of such practices and representations and therefore attempt to re-position themselves to consume the fantasies, without activating the politics. Or as Benwell (2003, p. 152) suggests, ‘laddism’ is a ‘cheeky knowingness and self-reflexiveness (commonly glossed as irony), which enables it to simultaneously affirm and deny its values… . It allows a writer to articulate an anti-Feminist sentiment, whilst explicitly distancing himself from it, thus disclaiming responsibility from or even authentic authorship of it.’ One of the strategies to regain power has been to adopt a marginal position in which white heterosexual men draw upon their victim status in order to re-articulate their power and control. In many ways, for Brayton (2007), men can hold onto their victim status and their articulation of masculine traits at the same time. Thus, through the victimisation and shaming of men to reach idealised (hegemonic) versions of masculinity, those idealisations remain intact: ‘An ironic white masculinity is produced, one that is self-marginalizing and therefore implausibly victimized’ (p. 69). However, an example of the conundrum of masculinity surrounds how young women are also involved in ‘laddish’ behaviours. Dobson (2014) highlights, in her work on young women’s social media, how they are representing themselves in ways that would be deemed traditionally unfeminine. Dobson argues that women are subverting the traditional binaries that underpin masculinity and femininity, and thus introduces a notion of gendered flexibility. It is suggested that masculinity is characterised by its flexibility, which can be taken on by men, women, transgender and intersex individuals. This constitutes a further element of the conundrum—masculinity is not something that is always performed by men; it is also something that men do not have to do. The fluidity of the concept of masculinity, the idea that it is both present and immediately absent and thus is in constant need to re-make and establish itself, is a particular tension embedded in men’s lived experience.

Although there are a number of texts in the field that provide excellent overviews of the study of men and masculinity, currently what is missing is a systematic exploration of the different aspects of masculinity. In other words, there are a range of valuable contributions to the field that examine how men live out their lives in different contexts. However, there are few accounts that examine in detail the building blocks of masculinity or how men are ‘put together’. This book unpacks the conundrum of masculinity by engaging with how masculinity is made up. It achieves this in two unique ways.

First, the book offers a comprehensive, up-to-date renewal of the key concepts that underpin approaches to masculinity. The book explores four different concepts that can help to explore what we understand as men and masculinity: hegemony, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity. The book explores these concepts in order to lay bare what makes masculinity. Thus, the book places at its centre a more complex analysis of power that allows an inter-relation between the social, cultural and inter-personal. It does this by locating masculinity as part of structures of inequality such as class, ‘race’/ethnicity, age, and sexuality, whilst at the same time acknowledging the fluidity and the malleability of gender. It is within this tension between the structural and cultural, and how it is lived out within both men’s emotional histories and their future aspirations, that we unpack men’s behaviours and what masculinity means.

Second, this renewal of the key concepts signals a shift towards an understanding of masculinity as a process that moves from a focus on individuals and/or local contexts towards an understanding of the relationships that connect individuals and contexts. It has been suggested that these connections are often characterised by the dependence on, or the collapse of, differences between other men and women. For example, it is often argued that heterosexual masculinity is established through an ‘Othering’ of that deemed less authentically masculine such as gay-identifying men. At the same time, there is an emerging approach that argues sexual difference is becoming less important and that men are now accommodating homosexuality as part of their masculinities. In these accounts, it is sameness with other men and women which forms the basis of men’s identities. In response, the book suggests that in order to understand the nature of men’s behaviours and identities, we need to understand sameness and difference as fluid, fragmented and passing (dis)connections that are contextually contingent. This shifts the focus of the book towards the processual nature of masculinity, to explore their practices and the meanings attached to those practices rather than simply trying to locate men within gendered dualities.

The Conundrum of Masculinity takes an original approach to masculinity by attempting a critical synthesis that brings together a number of different concepts, providing a clear and concise discussion to address the question of what masculinity is. Central to the study of masculinity are tensions between the changes and fluidity of masculinity and static positions of power. It is important that this complex and multifaceted area of study is clearly unpacked and systematically examined.

Aims of the Book

Theoretically, this book builds upon the differing approaches outlined above, to explore the problematic, negotiated, and contested nature of masculinity and the range of ways that it is understood at individual, organisational, cultural and societal levels. It has a number of interrelated aims in providing up-to-date accounts of research and writing on men and masculinity across a number of different social and cultural arenas. The aims are developed in the context of making explicit an extended evaluation of how we understand and unpack the conundrum of masculinity.

1. It explores the popular cultural juxtapositions between older and more traditional masculinities that are often characterised by anti-Feminism, emotional stoicism and misogyny (Wade and Couglin, 2012), with ‘softer’ versions of masculinity currently framed through notions of metrosexuality, inclusive masculinities and post-masculinity frameworks. The book will critically explore these different characterisations to address current popular confusions about what masculinity is.
2. The book also aims to produce a synthesis which acknowledges structural differences as accounted for in earlier Feminist writings that focus upon patriarchal relations, while incorporating insights from more recent reflection on representation, identity and cultural difference with reference to men’s contemporary social experiences. Tracing a shift from earlier mono-causal models of power to more inclusive forms of power, the book explores the interplay and intersection between different social divisions and cultural differences—including sexuality, class, ethnicity and generation.
3. The book provides an understanding of masculinity that recognises the importance of wider social and cultural transformations that are characteristic of late modernity. The book uses four key concepts that are used to engage with masculinity, namely, hegemony, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity. Such concepts operate as devices to explore how men and masculinity can be understood historically and transnationally within different social, cultural and economic contexts.

Chapter Synopsis

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the importance of exploring masculinity, drawing from several examples from popular culture to underline the contradictory and confusing stories being told about men. It highlights the importance of a book that not only provides a way of making sense of men and masculinity but also connects theory up to specific practices. The chapter then provides a brief overview of the aims of the book and its rationale. It then situates the study of masculinity within the political context of social policy and academia. The chapter finally provides a short summary of the subsequent chapters and their key themes and contexts.

In Chapter 2, a brief historical overview of the different approaches that have underpinned Masculinity Studies establishes the various models that have been employed to capture the nature of men’s lives. Importantly, the chapter engages with the notion of ‘cultural epistemology’, the evidential framework that is used to explain men’s attitudes and behaviours. One of the themes to emerge from this discussion is to recognise how masculine subjectivities are subject to the structural reproduction of gendered inequality, oppression and sexual violence. At the same time, the chapter also highlights how masculinities are also contextually driven. However, rather than simply repeat existing commentary in the field, the chapter opens up the discussion to explore how masculinity is constituted, drawing upon Queer Theory and Trans Studies.

Building on the previous chapter’s exploration of the field and the theories and concepts that have been central to it, the four chapters that follow explore in more detail the particularly important concepts of the four ‘Hs’: hegemonic masculinity, homosociality, homophobia and heteronormativity. In Chapter 3 (‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Stability, Change and Transformation’), the challenge of thinking about transformations of hegemonic masculinity, and the moving in-between of stability and change, takes centre stage. Central to the discussion are different ways of conceptualising and theorising power. Traditionally, power and power relations have often been understood as macro-phenomena, underpinning and stabilising such ‘immobile’ structures as patriarchy. This chapter investigates how different relationships between men and men and between men and women, according to Connell (1995), form an intrinsic part of the patriarchal order, through the notion of hegemonic masculinity. It points out that an important aspect of the concept of hegemony is that it never means total power and control but instead points at a balance of forces and is to be understood as a response to, and consequence of, a continuous and ongoing struggle for power. This chapter submits to the view that hegemony is an important analytical concept when trying to understand the connection between masculinity and power. However, it also pushes the concept of hegemonic masculinity to its limits in suggesting that an analytical decoupling between hegemony and masculinity is warranted. The overarching argument is that such a decoupling could enable masculinity researchers to better grapple with transformations within hegemonic masculinity. It would also enable one to recognise the utopian potentials of change and not only respond to change as reconfigurations of a hegemonic masculinity understood basically as the equivalent of continuing patriarchy. The chapter uses empirical research based upon changing understandings of fatherhood and how fatherhood is being practised by what is sometimes referred to as ‘new fathers’. The conceptual and theoretical development proposed builds on Paul Ricoeur’s work on ideology and utopia and Laclau and Mouffe’s theorising of hegemony. Through this, the chapter aims at opening up new ways of analysing gender, power and masculine subjectivity.

The concept of homosociality describes and defines social bonds between persons of the same sex. It is, for example, frequently used in studies on men and masculinities, there defined as a mechanism and social dynamic that explains the maintenance of hegemonic masculinity. A popular use of the concept is found in studies on male friends...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Mapping the Conundrum
• 2 Approaching Men and Masculinities
• 3 Hegemonic Masculinity: Stability, Change and Transformation
• 4 Homosociality: Misogyny, Fraternity and New Intimacies
• 5 Homophobia, ‘Otherness’ and Inclusivity
• 6 Heteronormativity, Intimacy and the Erotic
• 7 Post-masculinity: Thinking Over the Limits of Masculinity
• 8 Conclusion: Conundrums and Concepts
• Index