Among Men

Moulding Masculinities, Volume 1

Søren Ervø, Thomas Johansson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781840148046
• eBook ISBN: 9781351959230
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The two 'Moulding Masculinities' volumes represent the first major publication in English of Northern European studies on masculinities. They focus on men's relationships towards each other and their bodies, primarily from psycho-dynamic and social constructionist perspectives. The contributors are drawn from disciplines as diverse as sociology, social anthropology, media studies and sports sciences, and include scholars from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, the UK and the USA. Investigating the relational aspects of masculinity, this volume describes how different masculinities are moulded within diverse structures and settings. It explores how men interact with each other and how they collectively react to and embody changing concepts of masculinity. By centering on the struggle and negotiation between different groups and discourses of masculinity and investigating the origin of dominant images and ideals of masculinity, these two volumes will widen international understanding of how historic forms of masculinity are interpreted, revived and combined in the process of moulding masculinities.

Chapter 1

Introduction

SØREN ERVØ AND THOMAS JOHANSSON

This two-volume anthology is the result of our efforts to collect innovative articles that in different ways represent a field, which we prefer to label pragmatically as “studies of men and masculinities.”¹

Many of the articles have earlier been presented at six conferences held between 1995 and 1997 by the Nordic Network for Masculinity Studies within the Nordic Summer University, arranged by the editors and financed by the Nordic Ministry Council. This early collection has been complemented by a few additional articles that have been presented at other seminars on “masculinities” in the Scandinavian countries during the same period. Finally we have included contributions from some of our visitors, among them some of the major researchers on masculinities, who have been promoting this hitherto predominantly Anglo-American subject.²

By enabling the first collective contribution from mainly Nordic scholars to “studies of men and masculinities” we hope to encourage further reading and research in other non-English cultures, which can contribute to an understanding of masculinities in a global context.

Instead of selecting articles with similar approaches, we have chosen to maintain a multi-disciplinary selection. This is not done in order to attempt a systematic overview, but rather to include the many different kinds of research that have been presented in the Nordic region under the label of “masculinity studies.” Because the subject of gender transcends traditional structures and institutions in society, including the boundaries within academia, “studies of men and masculinities” necessitate a multi-disciplinary approach. The multi-disciplinary approach also helps to establish interesting links between otherwise very different subject areas. Though we welcome the “mainstreaming” of gender studies, and hope that our anthologies will contribute further to this development, we also believe that a multi-disciplinary approach is important in order to preserve the political and critical dimension of gender studies. “Studies of men and masculinties” is necessarily linked to the political struggle for a more equal society. If this were not the case, we might fall back to a kind of research on gender that merely reproduced traditional gender categories and cultivated an uncritical notion of the gender order.

The concept of masculinity is analyzed in a variety of ways – as forms of behavior, as specific ethics, codes and historical traits. Common to most of the authors is the belief that gender is socially constructed and negotiated, and that we need to maintain a close relationship between gender theory and case-studies in order to understand and demonstrate the dynamic and contradictory nature of gender. Our aim has been to show how different masculinities continuosly intersect and interact with specific individuals, groups and historical settings, in order to deconstruct static views of gender and gender relations.

Though “studies of men and masculinities” have grown steadily over the last few years, especially in the Anglo-American countries, the field is still very tentative and needs further development in many regards. This development may depend on more contributions from other parts of the world, enabling us to develop less ethnocentric perspectives. And though we acknowledge the need for more clarified theoretical agendas,³ we also believe that diversity is still the best prerequsite for theoretical growth. The different approaches in our anthologies will hopefully enable the reader to envision “studies of men and masculinities” even beyond the present level of theoretical sophistication and diversity of subjects. We believe that it is too soon to evaluate the potential of “studies of men and masculinities” until they have been integrated into further subject areas and have been more developed internationally. Despite our belief that there is a need to develop the theoretical work – for instance to scrutinize and employ the dominant concepts of male crisis and hegemonic masculinity more critically⁴ – we do not wish to distance ourselves from the multifaceted work already published, but are content to contribute further “pieces to the puzzle,” believing that development in depth presupposes development in breadth.

The discussions surrounding the political implications of men engaging in feminism and gender studies have obscured the fact that “women’s studies” have also always been “studies of men and masculinities.” And if these concepts had been investigated with the same curiosity as women and femininity, “studies of men and masculinities” might have been integrated into gender studies much sooner. The monolithic accounts of masculinity as well as the lack of empirical studies of men and male cultures have necessitated a late corrective (and not merely a supplement): trying to find its place within the dispersed field of gender studies, and distinguish itself from the omnipresent public debates on “new men” and “fatherhood” fueled by women’s magazines, popular psychology and the agendas of different “men’s movements.”⁵ While “studies of men and masculinities” ought to challenge all accounts of men and masculinities (including these concepts) as well as omissions of these within gender studies, they also, supportive of feminism in general, entail criticism of traditional scholarship for its failure to include a gender concept and incorporate the insights produced by gender studies.

Basically, we feel that “studies of men and masculinities” are interesting and important, because they raise questions that are still unanswered. Though self-critical awareness and sincere respect for the many implications of men “tampering with feminism” are essential,⁶ we should not let these concerns prevent us from developing the field beyond the constraints of political correctness. The important political loyality toward feminism and theoretical dependency toward gender studies in general should not prevent us from committing ourselves professionally and critically when dealing with specific theories of gender.

The editors do not perceive “studies of men and masculinities” as a possible vehicle for contemporary men’s rights or masculinist movements, nor has there been any evidence for such a connection yet. On the contrary, many of the authors included here have declared themselves as pro-feminists, and have on several occasions been active in pointing out backlash tendencies within different men’s movements. Despite honoring the aspirations toward a politically engaged or even activistic scholarship, we do not believe that labelling research “critical,” “pro-feminist,” “gay-affirmative" and so on is sufficient to legitimize or establish the field within academia. Respectable political intentions do not produce new insights, nor do they prevent anybody from using this research with a different agenda.

Overall, we have tried to collect articles that employ the concept of masculinity in order to enhance or develop a gender perspective within areas where gender already seems to be so visible that conflicts, crises and changes within masculine identities would have profound effects on the perception and embodiment of masculinities and consequently on gender relations. In other words, we assumed that the best strategy would be to focus on dominant gender arenas, such as sexuality, the body, the family and subcultures dominated by men and male values. Among Men – Moulding Masculinities, Volume 1 aims to contribute to the investigation of relational aspects of masculinity, in order to describe how different masculinities are moulded within specific structures and settings, especially how men interact with each other, and how they collectively react to and embody the changing concepts of masculinity within male-dominated subcultures. Bending Bodies – Moulding Masculinities, Volume 2 aims to study changes within masculine identity and subjectivity and to discuss the constructions of masculinities that result from the relationship and understanding men develop toward their own and other men’s bodies, sexualities and masculine dis/abilities.

By centering on the struggle and negotiation between different groups and discourses of masculinity and investigating the origin of dominant images and ideals of masculinity, the two volumes hope to widen our understanding of how historic forms of masculinities are interpreted, revived and combined in the process of moulding masculinities.

Among Men – Moulding Masculinities, Volume 1

Robert Connell discusses how we should understand the relationship of masculinity to the state, in a way consistent with a sophisticated contemporary understanding of gender. Connell believes that by seeing gender as a social structure, as one of the ways that collective social processes are shaped, it becomes possible to analyze the state as a gendered institution and inherently a site of gender politics. Reconsidering his earlier theses about the gender-state, Connell focuses on issues about masculinity, power, and globalization, in order to develop an alternative to gender-blind theory. Connell describes the gender dynamics that arise from different situations in the history of the two main patterns describing the relations between states, “international relations” and “imperialism.” He looks at the differences between colonial, post-colonial, metropolitan and international states, and concludes with an example of how the American hypermasculine cult of weaponry is exported through the arms trade.

Øystein Holter also deals with the frameworks that we use for interpreting gender, including masculinities. He especially addresses the long-standing questions of the relationship between capital and patriarchy, by asking whether capital is genderless, or whether male dominance is reproduced through economic relations “by design.” After outlining some common views of capital and gender, and some recent research on the capital/gender connection, Holter presents a critical gender theory that builds on this research. Finally, he discusses how a social-forms view of gender and capital may extend and nuance such a theory. Holter analyzes gender exchange as a two-tiered process. He believes that it is partly a symmetrical deal characterized by simple exchange, verging on gift and other relations, and partly a non-symmetrical deal that involves a particular form of reification of women and the feminine. He further argues that it is precisely the combination of the two levels that creates our concepts of gender. Holter also distinguishes between the gender system – as a social form that involves reference to the value form of gender – and patriarchy, which he defines as relations that lead to oppression of women, whatever their social form.

Mikael Carleheden investigates the very possibility of theorizing about any sort of gender identity in “late modern” society. His critique of postmodern gender theory, especially the work of Judith Butler, draws on Bourdieu and Benhahib to clarify the fact that gender is not something transparent, which we as subjects have direct control over. Historicity and sociality have a logic and a power of their own, which can be as powerful as biological forces, but in another way. Transferring the theory of Bauman to a gender-theoretical context, Carleheden concludes that postmodern identity, seen as an aesthetic self-construction, is not a real identity at all, since it cannot answer questions of self, questions that force us to deal with our own history.

Ella Johansson looks into the history of a Swedish male working environment – “the remote world of the lumbermen.” The main source of her observations is a collection of over 200 memoirs – the life stories of loggers, born between 1840 and 1900, taken from a museum documentary project carried out in the 1940s. Johansson insists that the meanings and practices of masculinity have to be located within their particular historical context. Her way of identifying these particular patterns is to look at the loggers’ life cycle, starting with boyhood and the socialization process. According to their memoirs it was the image of the lumberjack, and not the farmer, who represented the man the boys wanted to become. Johansson suggests that the loggers’ winter lifestyle in the forests can be characterized as both egalitarian and individualistic. Most striking to her is the consistent avoidance of anything that could contribute to the formation of a hierarchy among men.

The historian Hans Bonde tries to combine men’s studies with sports studies. According to Bonde, the linkage between men and sport was already established around the turn of the century. At that time, the family as an educational setting was increasingly left in the hands of women, and a proper mother cult developed. Because of the growing importance of work outside the home, men were separated from the upbringing of their own and other people’s boys in domestic production. The fathers, however, did not disappear from all upbringing, since some of them later undertook to socialize boys and young men and teach them self-eduction in the world of sport, developing the cult of the “coach.” According to Bonde, sport became a laboratory for masculinity, where men could create and cultivate their body, motor skills, and a character expressing competitiveness in modern society. Bonde ejnphasizes that the socialization and self-education of men were based particularly on those virtues that mothers were not expected to be able to impart to their little boys: individualism, independence, fighting spirit, courage, and discipline. Bonde’s source material consists of Nordic books and magazines about sport from the period 1880–1920.

Judging from heroic images of men in the Scandinavian wilderness, Eskilsson proposes that these images of science and the North are also images of masculinity; or rather, of one of the masculine ideals that emerged in the decades around the turn of the last century. Eskilsson is especially interested in middle-class masculinity, in which she believes there exists a connection between masculinity and the North, and where the status and conditions for mountain and arctic exploration comprise the connecting link. Eskilsson’s hypothesis is that the decades around the turn of the century witnessed the development of a successful masculine type featuring a connection between masculinity and the North, literally and symbolically. This is primarily a middle-class phenomenon. Sheer physical strength in itself- the hallmark of farmers and the working class – was not a given element in middle-class masculinity; instead, the ideal was a combination of physical strength, rationality, single-mindedness, stamina and discipline. The masculine ideal held by leading groups in society underwent a number of changes during the Victorian era. The emphasis on male austerity and earnestness was complemented by respect for “muscles,” in both the physical and the mental sense. These Victorian ideals of ascetic and athletic exercises complied well with the demands that Alpinism and mountain sports made on their practitioners.

Based on an empirical study of young German men’s collective orientations, Michael Meuser raises the question how changes in women’s lives have affected the generation of men who grew up during the second women’s movement, and how they cope with the change in gender relations. Meuser believes that the popular talk about a far-reaching crisis of masculinity is overgeneralized, and he hesitates to define traditional masculinity as obsolete. Instead he insists that cultural interpretive patterns are marked by considerable longevity, and that they are still efficient, even when the social conditions that established them have changed. Even under the conditions of de-traditionalized gender relations, men are dependent on the culturally available symbolic inventory of masculine identity formation. As fundamental identities are tied to gender, a radical break with the cultural defining practices and discourses of one’s own gender must be paid for by a deep habitual insecurity. Therefore any reconstruction of men’s orientation has to pay attention to continuities as well as changes. Meuser distinguishes between two patterns of orientation among the young men: a threatened self-confidence caused by the feminist critique of traditional masculinity, and an egalitarian attitude based on pragmatic arrangements. Finally he discusses how masculinity can be “modernized” in the direction of egalitarian practice and what role men’s consciousness-raising groups play in this process.

Ulf Mellström presents his anthropological study of Swedish engineers, and their professional identity and life career. He outlines two possible perspectives on how to study the construction of gender identity in daily technological practice. First, a perspective where microsociological situated activities are in focus. Secondly, a biographical perspective where the construction of gender identities can be studied from practices of socialization. A combination of these perspectives is, according to Mellström, the most processual and dynamic way of looking at the production and reproduction of gender identity. Mellström has found that the milieu of engineers provides insight into the reproduction of a masculine technical sociability in daily practice. This socialibity rests upon a reproduction of masculinity in the microsocial situations of everyday life as well as the masculine practices of socialization where a lifelong close relation to technology is of crucial importance and partly constitutes what it means to be a man in Swedish society. Mellström suggests that the “eternal youth” offered by the world of technology provides a peaceful existential corner, a social continuity, for men longing for a carefree existence in a world full of demands from both family and society.

Philip Lalander has analyzed the rituals of a group of young right-wing Swedish politicians through interviews and observation. His contribution is an attempt to problematize their construction of culture and identity, through an analysis of two positions, which are seen as valuable in this culture: the Swedish hero and the perverted politician. These ideological positions are shown to be closely linked to attempts to ritualize masculinity within this group. Though Lalander views this micro-culture as an alternative culture, he also describes how common cultural traditions (e.g. of drinking) and concepts (e.g. of male honor) are reinforced as a temporary vaccination against feelings of uncertainty and ambivalence.

In order to understand what attracts Norwegian young men into the right-wing underground, Katrine Fangen has used participant observation to study skinheads. She describes how these men idealize masculinity and romanticize male heroes. In many ways the approval of fellow males is more important to them than that of female participants. This kind of homosociality might be seen as the core feature of such quasi-military communities, and the way the men express intimacy in this setting is physical and brutish. Fangen suggests that these men become addicted to a blend of adventure and excitement and the manifold possibilities for contesting a postural sense of masculinity. This is the reason the community becomes so important to activists, providing them with a sense of importance and commitment they would not experience with the same strength anywhere else. Through underground actions and street violence, right-wing activists are taken seriously as a threat by the outside world. According to Fangen, the resul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Men, gender and the state
• 3 A Theory of Gender, Patriarchy and Capitalism
• 4 The Emancipation from Gender: A Critique of the Utopias of Postmodern Gender Theory
• 5 Beautiful Men, Fine Women and Good Work People: Gender and Skill in Northern Sweden 1850–1950
• 6 Masculine Sport and Masculinity in Denmark at the Turn of the Century
• 7 Masculinity and the North
• 8 Modernized Masculinities? Continuities, Challenges and Changes in Men’s Lives
• 9 Technology and Masculinity: Men and their Machines
• 10 Contingency and Desire: The Ritual Construction of Masculinity in a Right-Wing Political Youth Organization
• 11 A Death Mask of Masculinity: The Brotherhood of Norwegian Right-Wing Skinheads
• 12 Fathering, Masculinity and Parental Relationships
• 13 Men’s Lack of Family Orientation: Some Reflections on Scandinavian Research on Families
• 14 Fatherhood and Masculinity: Non-resident Fathers’ Construction of Identity
• 15 Masculinity and Paranoia in Strindberg’s The Father
• 16 Phallic Lovers, Non-phallic Lovers: Stereotyped Masculinities in Women’s Novels of the 1970s
• 17 Fathers – The Solution or Part of the Problem? Single Mothers, their Sons and Social Work
• Index