The New Politics of Masculinity

Fidelma Ashe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134414369
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The field of masculinities research continues to expand, and has become increasingly complex. Much of the contemporary analysis of men, masculinity and power has been influenced by the work of a number of profeminist writers who have been leading figures in developing new political interventions around men's identities and power. These men have been at the forefront of interrogations of the concept of masculinity and have attempted to develop new forms of radical gender-conscious politics for men who seek to extend gender justice.

The New Politics of Masculinity is the first single-authored feminist text to engage critically with the theoretical frameworks which leading profeminist writers have developed in the field of masculinity studies. Drawing on new social movement and contemporary theory, the book examines the different models of politics that such writers have evolved for men who want to challenge dominant forms of masculinities and inequitable gender relationships. It also assesses the broader effects – on the field of men and masculinities research – of these writers' diverse theorisations of key political concepts such as masculinity, subjectivity, power and resistance.

Overall, The New Politics of Masculinity outlines the central theoretical issues for scholars and students working in the area of critical studies of masculinities, and evaluates the effects of men's gender-conscious politics on feminist scholarship and research. The New Politics of Masculinity will be of great interest to students and scholars of gender theory, sociology, and politics.

1 Introduction

Issues surrounding men and masculinities have become ‘hot politics’ in late capitalist societies. Much of the new focus on men’s identities has been a consequence of structural changes in contemporary societies interacting with the social and political effects of feminism. The new politics of masculinity is rooted in the claim that the social, political and economic conditions of late capitalist societies have exerted pressure on men’s traditional roles and identities, producing a generation of men less secure than their fathers were about their place and function in society.

The restructuring of the family, a changing workplace, the expansion of equality legislation, the challenges of feminism and alternative sexualities have all opened social debate around men’s subjectivities and ‘proper’ social roles. The political discussions that have surrounded men’s identities have meant that men, the traditional ‘genderless masters’ of public/political arenas, have been publicly and politically interrogated as gendered subjects; and more specifically as problematic gendered subjects. Men’s gender identities are now a political matter: a cause of concern.

The key terms that have emerged in popular discourses about the plight of the modern man have been ‘crisis’, ‘loss’ and ‘change’. The ‘crisis of masculinity’ thesis implies that the old certainties surrounding men’s traditional roles in the family and workplace have been swept away through social changes and increases in women’s equality, leaving the modern man dazed and confused about his roles and place in society. The qualities of ‘manliness’ have also been framed as under threat, attacked and undermined by feminism, gay culture and commercialism. The idea that men’s losses have resulted in equality gains for women has been common in recent discussions about ‘male’ crisis. Such claims have at times created the illusion that women are winning the ‘sex war’. Feminists have continually tried to pour cold water over assertions that there has been a significant transfer of power from men to women. Regardless of feminist attempts to develop a more measured assessment of social changes, sections of the Western media have continued to peddle claims that masculinity is in crisis. The popular press has increasingly portrayed modern man as a beleaguered figure suffering under the twin pressures of post-modern culture and postfeminist society.

In a changing social environment of working women, smaller families and high divorce rates, media discussions of gender relationships in the early 1990s led to the appearance of a more narcissistic and child-centred ‘new man’: a paragon of post-feminist masculinity. Susan Moore (1998) quipped at the time that one of the problems with this man was that he could not be found outside of his media representations.

However, the new politics of masculinity has implications far beyond the media’s exaggerated claims about a new generation of ‘nappy happy’ fathers. Changes in men’s identities are rooted in concrete social changes such as globalisation and economic restructuring. Moreover, increased social focus on men as a gendered category has also opened a discursive space around men’s identities, roles and power. For example, governments, non-governmental organisations and transnational institutions have integrated concerns about men’s changing social roles and identities into their agendas, and have engaged in discussing issues about men within this new interrogative space.

These are just a few examples to illustrate the new concentration on men in the contemporary period. More broadly a range of diverse and often conflicting discourses about men marks current social discussions about gender relationships and identities. Public discourses about men therefore have a degree of fluidity, and emerge in different institutional, political, organisational and geographical contexts. Many of these shifting discourses about men and masculinity are found in more concentrated forms in organisations and networks that instantiate men’s identities as a foundation for politics: in other words, forms of politics associated with men’s groups. Such groups have developed more structured agendas around issues relating to men in contemporary societies.

Men’s gender politics

Men’s groups started to emerge in the 1960s and represent a new form of political activism by men around their gendered identities. These new models of political practice by men have appeared in profeminist and anti-feminist forms. Anti-feminist groups are generally orientated towards stalling or overturning the effects of feminism on contemporary cultures. In contrast, profeminist groups align with feminist perspectives and challenge the standpoints and agendas of non-feminist groups. Profeminist men’s politics is therefore orientated towards developing oppositional strategies to provoke changes in gendered power relationships and men’s traditional identities. This means that these men have tried to forge an oppositional form of gender politics within cultural contexts that have developed ongoing dialogues around the position of men.

Challenging men’s subjectivities and power have been important dimensions of contemporary feminism. Profeminists have been at the forefront of thinking through the possibilities of reinventing men’s identities and gender relationships beyond traditional models. Profeminist writers and activists have also had a significant impact on the academic field of gender studies, developing methodologies and theoretical frameworks for studying men and masculinities. Moreover, as this volume illustrates, profeminist standpoints have intermittently and unevenly influenced mainstream politics.

This book considers the perspectives and political practices that have emerged within profeminism. It discusses how this dimension of men’s gender politics has engaged with the broader social discourses that have surrounded masculinity in contemporary culture, and it assesses the standpoints and practices that profeminism has developed for men interested in changing men and society in feminist directions. This analysis of profeminism is also orientated towards charting the effects of profeminist practices on the field of oppositional gendered politics more generally. Overall it investigates the theoretical tools and forms of political engagement that profeminism offers to oppositional gendered politics in a context increasingly concerned with masculinity.

Feminists have already engaged with profeminist politics. This book adopts a slightly different approach to the existing feminist literature on men’s gender-conscious politics. Feminist commentators on profeminist politics have generally tended to treat profeminism as a homogenous group or movement. This volume attempts to illustrate how different strands of profeminism have framed and developed different forms of politics which engender different political effects. Paying attention to the various and often conflictual models of politics that have emerged in profeminism exposes the dynamics of this form of gendered politics and illustrates the internal struggles that have emerged in profeminism around issues of theory and political practice. However, like other feminist studies of profeminism, this book continues to suggest that oppositional gender politics needs to be wary of some formulations of profeminist standpoints and agendas for change.

Framework

Profeminism is made up of a network of small groups struggling around issues relating to men’s power and identities. These groups share similar concerns and try to generate progressive change in the arena of gender relationships. While bound together through this common concern, different profeminist groups have developed divergent ways of ‘doing’ profeminism. Groups involved in profeminist politics often have their own unique features and can exhibit different mixes of standpoints and practices. These groups’ diverse practices and standpoints have generated a range of concerns about the effects of profeminist theory and practice. These concerns have led to debates within profeminism and have generated discussions between feminists and profeminists about the direction of profeminism and its political effects.

The areas of contention that have emerged from these discussions have been considered most consistently and systematically by a number of prominent profeminist writers. Therefore the complexities, strategies and possible power-effects of profeminist politics have been articulated and discussed in more condensed ways by these writers. The different profeminist standpoints that each of the writers examined in this book have developed means that each has articulated different models of profeminist politics. These standpoints and models feed into and often inform debate and perspectives at the more diverse, fluid and less structured level of profeminist activity. This volume concentrates on the work of specific commentators on men and masculinity and profeminist politics to gain access to debates within and around profeminism. While the book discusses controversial issues within profeminism and examines the theoretical and political concerns raised by its modes of politics, the book is weighted towards to the more critically engaged perspectives within profeminism.

One point to note is that the choice of theorists changed throughout the writing of the book. Originally the work of Michael Kimmel was to be included: a writer and activist who has been a central figure in profeminist politics in the US. However, as the analysis developed, it became clear that Kimmel’s work was paralleling the standpoints of several of the other writers chosen, which meant that including his work would have involved significant overlap with the other perspectives considered.

Theory

This discussion of profeminism employs new social movement theory inflexed by the insights of post-structuralist analysis. The book understands profeminism as a form of identity politics. As this volume attempts to show, profeminism is a politics that emphasises identity, lifestyle, morality, everyday life and culture. It is also a form of politics that develops standpoints and agendas through various assessments of the relationship between micro and macro forms of power, a hallmark of new social movement politics. Profeminism therefore displays the dimensions of a range of other contemporary collective movements. New social movement theorists have analysed the opportunities and complications that new forms of collective political activism have generated in contemporary cultures. A new social movement framework therefore helps flesh out the field of profeminist politics and supports the analysis of its potential effects across the field of gender relations.

While new social movement theory has been concerned to assess collective action in contemporary societies, post-structuralist philosophies have developed new insights around the key concepts associated with new social movements, namely subjectivity, power and resistance. While this study does not adopt post-structuralism’s nonnormative stance, it does recognise the importance of analysing the power-effects of knowledges that emerge around the concept of identity. Post-structuralist theory offers a range of theoretical tools to assess the effects of new formulations of identity. For post-structuralists like Foucault and Butler identity is constituted within diverse and shifting relationships of power. Identity, they suggest, does not precede culture but is constituted within social networks of power.

These theorists therefore suggest that defining identity ties subjectivity to a set of regulatory ideals. However, they contend that deconstructions of identities that unhinge identities from regulatory norms allow new possibilities around subjectivities to emerge. Subsequently it seems important to examine how the concept of identity operates in movement-politics. This volume pays special attention to the way in which the concept of men’s identities is formulated within profeminist politics and traces the effects of deconstructions and reconstructions of identity within profeminism. Identity, of course, is a multi-faceted term and this study unpacks its dimensions to explore how profeminism frames, not only the concept of ‘men’ but other categories such as sexual difference, gendered experience, emotions and bodies.

Examining how aspects of profeminist identity politics intersect with the concept of power is also a key theme in this study. As already indicated this analysis of profeminism reflects the post-structuralist orientation towards examining the effect of knowledge-production around gendered categories and their relationships to power on profeminist modes of gender politics. Furthermore it highlights the profeminist analysis of micro-level forms of power on the constitution of inequality and considers how this has affected more modernist and structuralist analyses of systematic networks of power within profeminism. This framework is not the only possible analytical approach to men’s gender-conscious politics. However it does provide a particular theoretical lens to examine some of the key areas of debate within profeminist politics. Furthermore it offers a way of focusing on the disruptive possibilities of profeminism within contemporary political contexts.

Structure of the book

The first part of the book outlines the context of profeminist politics. Chapter 2 briefly examines the emergence and dimensions of profeminist politics within contemporary contexts marked by shifts in gender relationships. Chapter 3 positions profeminism within the social and political contexts of late capitalist societies. It assesses the disorientating effects of these contexts on traditional forms of identities and, more specifically, on gendered identities. Chapter 4 reads profeminism through a new social movement framework to highlight the conceptual and political terrain of profeminist politics. Chapter 5 engages with the broader field of men’s gender-conscious politics and examines the discourses that have been generated by alternative men’s groups. The last chapter in this part of the book engages with feminist critiques of profeminist politics, particularly in relation to the concepts of identity and experience.

Part 2 of the book deals with profeminist perspectives and charts how different profeminist writers have engaged with the concepts of men’s identities, power and resistance. It also examines how different writers have formulated profeminist politics in relationship to feminism and lesbian, gay and bisexual politics. Although there are overlaps between these writers’ analyses of men and masculinities there are also significant areas of disagreement. Chapter 7 examines the work of Victor J. Seidler, chapter 8 concentrates on the work of John Stoltenberg and chapter 9 engages with Jeff Hearn’s model of Critical Studies of Men. The final chapter assesses Raewyn Connell’s framework of hegemonic and pluralistic masculinities. Although Connell has never identified as a profeminist, her work on masculinities has been extremely influential in terms of developing the field of profeminist theory and politics.

Part 1

Contexts

2 Men Doing Feminism

A contemporary movement?

I’ve been digging women like never before, in new ways.

Anon (Men’s Liberation 1971: 8)

Profeminism is not a new phenomenon: however its contemporary form has a number of unique features that distinguish profeminist practice in late industrial societies from earlier forms of profeminist activity. This chapter examines the emergence and organisation of modern profeminism highlighting the ‘newness’ and specificity of contemporary profeminist politics. The chapter also charts some of the interrelationships between profeminist agendas and other forms of gendered politics. By mapping some of the features of profeminism and its affinities with other oppositional gendered communities the chapter commences the process of excavating the contours of profeminist politics, examined more fully in subsequent chapters.

Profeminism old and new

Feminism emerged as a movement concerned with women’s inequality, standpoints and empowerment (see Spelman 1990). By the 1970s the Second Wave of feminism had developed a modern social movement forged through the energies of women. Although a diverse movement, Second Wave feminism often invoked the ideals of female solidarity and interconnectivity between women, notions which acted to frame feminism as a movement by women for women (Butler 1990; Rowbotham 1983; Rich 1976). Central to notions of female unity was the claim that women were connected through their experiences of oppression and their shared political interest in overthrowing systems of gender power.¹ Feminism’s emphasis on securing women’s gendered interests implied that men’s power and masculine forms of dominance would have to be undermined (see for example Dworkin 1974). Second Wave feminists therefore attacked the central sites of men’s power, including gendered practices and institutions, and also masculine ideologies, ethics and values more generally (Eisenstein 1984; Tong 1989; Clough 1994).

Regardless of Second Wave feminism’s emphasis on challenging men’s power, from the 1960s a section of men openly declared solidarity with the feminist movement and supported women’s struggle for gender justice (Strauss 1982; Clatterbaugh 1990; Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992; Messner 1997). Digby (1983b) has written about the peculiarity of the profeminist political standpoint. He notes the strangeness of profeminist men’s affiliation with a feminist movement that seeks to undermine men’s collective social power and individual gendered advantages. This narrative about the novelty of an oppressor identity joining in common cause with an oppressed identity has been implied by other profeminists (Pease 2000).

Yet history is littered with examples of members of dominant groups identifying with and participating in activism to reduce inequalities affecting subordinate groups. For example white Americans were active in the civil rights movement, middle class intellectuals have a history of aligning with the working class and heterosexuals have campaigned for the rights of gay, lesbian and bisexual people (Broad 2002). This type of political standpoint is therefore not new or particularly strange. As explained below, if profeminism has any novelty it lies in the degree to which men have deployed their identity as an organising principle for profeminist activism. Men involved in profeminism generally take the interrogation of their gendered identity as the starting point for feminist activism. The instantiation of a dominant identity as a basis for gender politics is one of profeminism’s most distinctive political features.

The role that men’s identity plays in contemporary profeminism is more easily identifiable if modern men’s alignment with feminism is contrasted with earlier generations of men’s support for women’s equality. Men’s affiliation with feminism is not peculiar to contemporary times. Historically feminism has had a number of male supporters and allies (Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992). American research has documented how, ‘since the founding of the country’ men have been involved in supporting women’s struggle for equality (Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992: 2). These men were not leaders or even central figures in women’s movements for equality but as Kimmel (1992) notes, historically men have been active in women’s struggles.

For example men such as Thomas Paine, John Dewey and Ralph Waldo Emerson supported women’s campaigns for property rights, equal access to education and suffrage (Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992). In his lecture Woman delivered to the Women’s Rights Convention in Boston in 1855 Emerson illustrated the sometimes passionate nature of this support. During this lecture on women’s suffrage Emerson declared: ‘ . . . Let the laws be purged of every barbarous impediment to women’ (Emerson 1992: 219).

While historically a small number of men have embraced the ideal of greater equality between the sexes, the 1960s saw the emergence of a new kind of profeminist men’s politics. Prior to the 1960s men who supported feminism tended to be isolated figures who gave their support to campaigns designed to improve women’s social position. Although a few groups did exist such as the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage, these groups tended to promote specific equality campaigns (see Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992: 32). In the late 1960s a new stage of profeminist activism emerged. Men in industrialised countries, such as the US, UK and Australia, organised profeminist men’s groups that focused on the relationships between their identities, gender power and feminist theory and practice. Kimmel’s (1998) historical research suggests that reflection on men’s identities was also an element in earlier profeminist thinking. However this element was underdeveloped, marginal and limited in earlier profeminist activism and demonstrates little resemblance to the contemporary profeminist politicisation of men’s identities.

For previous generations, normative forms of men’s gender identity had been relatively unproblematic. Certainly, historically, gendered identities have undergone change and have at times been surrounded by anxieties about the ‘proper roles’ of men and women. However, as subsequent chapters will illustrate, such anxieties have been relatively mild in relation to contemporary concerns about men’s normative gender identities. Before the Second Wave of feminism hegemonic models of male identity were viewed as normal; the standard by which others were judged and expected to aspire (see Rich 1976; Daly 1979; O’Brien 1983), or the standard to which others should be given access (see Kimmel and Mosmiller 1992). Men’s identity was therefore framed as that of the ‘generic human being’ (Kimmel and Messner 1989: x). In contrast profeminism emerged as a form of politics that viewed men’s identities as sites for political engageme...