This week we’re wrapping up our section on constructing masculinity while simultaneously thinking ahead to the last part of our course, “Rethinking Sex and Gender: Something Else Entirely.” Fun times--and some pretty complex theorizing about sex, gender and the body—still await us!
But first, some administrative stuff:
- Don't forget to complete and submit your "Glee" worksheets from last week in class on Thursday.
- In addition to that which is listed in the syllabus for this week, please also read Wilson and Daly’s chapter “Till Death Us Do Part” in Weitz, pp. 329-343.
- Also, please watch Tough Guise at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np2PP76_PxQ (approx. 80 mins.). I don’t want to take up valuable class time by showing this on Thursday, but it will constitute a chunk of our discussion. And taking a look at the comments on the YouTube site is certainly enlightening.
- Don’t forget to use Worksheet #6 (via Bb) to help you pinpoint the salient concepts in this week’s reading.
- And, as always, please feel free to come by during my office hours if ever you’d like to chat, brainstorm or have questions!
Now, on to business:
In chapter 3, which we read three weeks ago, Connell
introduces a conceptual framework for thinking about and making sense of
masculinity/ies that takes into account POWER RELATIONS, PRODUCTION RELATIONS
and CATHEXIS (pp. 73-75). This framework incorporates the notion that there are
multiple masculinities that exist in
relation to each other and are informed by simultaneous, intersecting identities.
The framework also takes into account that violence, as a result of CRISIS
TENDENCIES, is constitutive of masculinity/ies; violence is used to maintain
dominance and is crucial in gender politics among and between men (p. 83). The
four chapters that we’ll discuss in class on Thursday utilize this framework,
so be sure to review chapter 3 (including the appropriate questions on
Worksheet #4) before launching into this week’s readings.
Connell’s work this week uses life histories of several
groups of men whose masculinity is under pressure (i.e., experiencing CRISIS
TENDENCIES in POWER RELATIONS) to demonstrate the myriad ways in which masculinities
are constructed as fluid and multiple—even among groups of men who appear to
have much in common. Chapter 4 focuses on the construction of working class
masculinities in the wake of under-/unemployment in the capitalist labour
market. In chapter 5, Connell explores what happens when masculinities formed
within the context of the “progressive” environmentalist movement come into
contact with feminism, while chapter 6 features the experiences of men whose masculinities
were formed within the context of local gay and bisexual networks. And chapter
7 focuses on masculinities among educated, middle-class men employed in the
technology sector. Again, use Worksheet #6 as a guide.
In addition to the role of CRISIS TENDENCIES, another major
contributor to masculinity/ies is violence—or at least the threat of violence
and/or the ability to be violent (review chapter 3 for some background info on
this as well). As we’ve seen in our reading this semester, women’s bodies
have throughout history been conceptualized to varying degrees as men’s
property in law and culture. (Think, for example, of fathers “giving away”
their daughters at Anglo-Canadian weddings or women assuming their husband’s
family name upon marriage!) This link between conceptualizing women as
property and social permission to commit violence against them has long been
critiqued by feminists and has just recently been taking up by critical
masculinity studies scholars. In their article, Wilson and Daly take a look at the
simultaneity of the social construction of women’s bodies as property with that
of masculinity as violent.
And then, in Bornstein, we get a taste of what the final
weeks of this course will look like: What does it mean to go beyond gender?
What if nothing really is everything?
Happy reading, and I’ll see you in class on Thursday.
