Competing (and complicit) masculinities

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.