Men and masculinity
Intellectual origins of the topic
Patriarchy – ‘father rule’
- Social, economic, legal, religious, customary dominance by men
Masculinity
- The state of possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of, or appropriate to, a man
- ‘unwomanly’
- implies a relational construct (Roper & Tosh) based on either gender, race, class
history of masculinity
- evolved from
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- work on women’s history
- men’s movement of late 1970s and early 1980s
- men pay a v. high price for patriarchy
- society’s expectations on men too high
- prevent them from expressing their emotions
- response to certain orthodoxies
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- history writing focussed on men which
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treated masculinity as an unproblematic, all-inclusive category
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assumed men’s behaviour regulated by ‘hegemonic’ definitions of masculinity
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marginalised forms of male behaviour that were deemed ‘unmanly’
Models of masculinity
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Importance of religious belief and thinking on constructions of masculinity
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18c elite - variety of notions
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based on military and public power + private pursuits of hunting, drinking, duelling
- libertine culture
- ‘the rake’
- ‘civil society’
- libertine culture
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David Hume
- early 19c – influence of Evangelical religion
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home was central to masculinity (Tosh)
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domestic ideology
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influenced masculinity as well as femininity
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this model of masculinity beset with contradictions and inherent tensions (Davidoff & Hall)
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- homo-sociability
- male bonding
- drinking – culture of the pub or tavern (Anna Clark)
- consumption and display
- blood sports, incl. bare-knuckle boxing matches
- male bonding
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appealed to libertine members of the aristocracy and rougher strands of working class
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often associated with violence towards women, other men, animals
- late 19c/early 20c - hegemonic masculinity
- ‘all embracing male stereotype’
- combination of external qualities (e.g. physical strength and endurance, courage) and internal qualities (e.g. self-control, stoicism)
- qualities typical of the English public school system
- chivalrous and protective of women
- frequently centred on Empire
- civil servants
- missionaries
- businessmen
- muscular Christianity’ – confusing and controversial phenomenon
- ‘all embracing male stereotype’
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appealed to the middle class, less popular with sections of working class
- mid 19c onwards - work-based norms of masculinity
- complex, probably only achievable by a minority of working-class men
- ‘aristocracy of labour’
- respectable artisans
- complex, probably only achievable by a minority of working-class men
This version of masculinity - product of domestic ideology transmitted from middle class or an independent working-class identity?
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Fatherhood
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Most important masculine role?
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Multiple models of fatherhood
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3 most common – polar opposites
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distant/brutal
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involved/loving
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absent from home/constant presence
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fatherhood and masculinity – based on
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birth and rearing of legitimate sons
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successful inter-generational transmission of ideas of masculinity
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19c models of fatherhood
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elite – contained contradictions and paradoxes but re-inforced dominant models of masculinity (David Roberts)
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upper-class fathers typically
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remote (physically and emotionally) from their sons
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benevolent
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dominant
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working class – multiple models
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(Lummis) – fathers absent for extended periods but involved when at home
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(Chinn, Ross) – fathers largely alienated from their homes
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Alternative models of masculinity
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Deviant masculinity
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Non-white men
- Young single men
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‘yob culture’
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resistant to
- patriarchy
- ‘muscular Christianity’
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- Young single men
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temporary or permanent condition?
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homosexuals
o early c19 – law concerned with prevention of homosexual activities in public
o 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act
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homosexual acts in public or private were criminalised
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punishable by 2 years’ imprisonment, with or without hard labour
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1895 trial of Oscar Wilde, sentenced to 2 years + hard labour
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late c19 – differing views of homosexuality
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legal and scientific (Michel Foucault, Jeffrey Weeks)
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police and legislators – homosexuality = a crime
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doctors, psychiatrists – scientific methods, particularly medical treatments for nervous and sexual disorders
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results of this debate
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failed to reduce incidence of homosexuality
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encouraged development of
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distinctive homosexual identities
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visible homosexual subcultures
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classification of deviance based on powerlessness
Crisis of masculinity
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Situation where traditionally dominant forms of masculinity have become so distorted that men no longer know what being a ‘real’ man means
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Problematic and complex issue
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Historical explanations
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Late 19c – part of fin de siecle pessimism
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‘hegemonic’ masculinity challenged by
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‘New Women’
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visible homosexuals
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early 20c – masculinity challenged by
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WWI (dealt with later in course)
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Historical explanations unsatisfactory
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identification of periods of ‘crisis’ implies that masculinity is stable at other times
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men’s anxiety about their gender identity
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based on need to free themselves from ties to their mothers and
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to make transition from boyhood to manhood distinctly and irrevocably
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Roper and Tosh –
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masculinity is always in crisis
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masculinity is in a continual process of contestation and transformation
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masculinity is a relational construct
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mens’ power over women/other men is an organising principle of masculinity
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method of organisation may change over time
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but dominance and subordination remain