‘What makes a masculinity masculine?’ is a very reasonable question, particularly when asked in relation to the concept of multiple masculinities. How, for example, do the members of any given masculinity know they are being ‘masculine’? And, just as importantly, how do they know if they are not?
In the second part of this trilogical critique of the concept of multiple masculinities I want to explore this question in relation to research undertaken with contemporary males regarding the ways in which they perceive and construct their concepts of masculinity, focussing specifically on the effects and implications of a prevailing paradigm of the constitution of masculinity as ‘Not-Femininity’.
Masculine as the Other-Other.
The argument for multiplicity propounded by the pro-multiple masculinity lobby is founded on the assertion that there is no singular way to either personally or socially ‘be a man’, a position originally adopted to counter a prevailing dynamic of singularly proscriptive hegemonic or normative masculinity. It is an assertion which, on first consideration, appears to make perfect sense.
However, underlying this argument is the presumption that any masculinity, in any alleged form, always has some foundational tether to the state of ‘being a man’ in a specific situation. It’s a presumed alliance that underlies the entire concept of gender. It’s also a presumption that proves remarkably difficult to sustain under scrutiny, as we will see later. But first let’s look more closely at the consequences of the alliance of man, masculinity and multiplicity and particularly at what happens when we introduce a factor that has always been a male prerogative in a patriarchal social order...the power to define.
If we return to the question of what makes a masculinity, any masculinity, masculine the answer, both historically and contemporaneously is pretty much whatever the men who hold the power to define in any given situation say it is. Whether we are looking at a singular, hegemonic ‘masculinity’ or at allegedly multiple ‘masculine’ domains the consequence is always the same in that whatever characteristics are deemed to be included in any of these domains become, definitionally, the primary province of males. The claiming of a ‘masculinity’ thus becomes a statement of primary ownership of all that has been named as ‘masculine’. Such characteristics and attributes may then be ‘borrowed’ by women but the prior naming of that which they borrow as masculine denies them any authentic ownership. So, like Judith ‘Jack’ Halberstam, as quoted in Part One, females who naturally exhibit, enact or embody any of those qualities cannot be construed as exhibiting, enacting or embodying anything that is inherently and genuinely their own. Strong, physical and feisty women cannot simply be what they are because what they are is out on loan...it’s ‘Female Masculinity’1.
The opposite, at first glance, appears to be equally true for the definitional relationship between ‘femininity’ and ‘women’, resulting in the labelling of feminine or feminised men. The construction of femininity is not, however, equivalent and never has been because the power dynamics of gender are ultimately about the power to define and to impose and enact definition. In the absence of the power to define, femininity appears to have been constructed for women without either their consultation or their consent, placing them, as Simone de Beauvoir argued, in the position of ‘Other’.
‘She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her...He is the subject, he is the Absolute, she is the Other2.’
Drawing on the accounts of contemporary males I argue in this essay that the reverse is, in fact, the truth of our current gendered reality. The reflexive defining of masculinity as not-femininity renders the former entirely dependent on the latter. When males learn from the moment of birth that acceptable masculinity is premised entirely on non-femininity their own en-genderment cannot occur without prior definition and conceptualisation of that which they are required to be in aversion to. When masculinity is conceived as not-femininity then, by definition, femininity must come into being first in order for masculinity to exist in reflexive relation to it.
Thus De Beauvoir’s ‘Other’ is only half of the story. ‘He’ in gendered practice, is defined and differentiated by reflexive reference to ‘her’, the not-feminine masculine absolutely requiring the pre-existence of the feminine in order to manifest as ‘Other’ to it. The masculine is essentially the ‘Other-Other’, creating, from the power base of the right to define, an arbitrary and illusory sense of doubly oppositional identity. ‘Woman’, having never been consulted as to the true nature of ‘her’ existence and experience is merely the screen onto which this male-dominant construct of gender is projected for ‘man’ to see what he believes he is not, or does not wish to be.
It’s an extraordinary social and sexual sleight of hand.
Researching Masculinity.
In 1990 I began a two-year research project in an all-boys school in a UK city looking at the ways in which teenage boys perceived and constructed their concepts of masculinity. The project had been generated from time spent previously as a teacher in the school where I had observed, with some fascination, the relentless drive of these boys to enact acceptable masculinity through the only way that seemed to be available to them...as ‘Not-femininity’, the pursuit and proof of which seemed to be the rationale of their entire existence at this point in their lives.
The insights and observations garnered during that time led to an extended research project that spanned the next two decades. During that time I went on to interview males and females who ranged in age from early teens to early eighties and who were drawn from a diversity of nationalities, cultures, backgrounds and sexualities, with regard to their views and experiences of gender.
As a result of this research, which I am currently authoring in book form, I came to radically alter my own views on gender, concluding that ‘gender’ is not the process that makes ‘masculinity’ but that the opposite is true. Generated from a male-dominated power to define, ‘gender’ is both masculinity’s justification and its distorted mirror, reflecting back a hologrammatic sense of identity predicated on the alliance of arbitrary ‘difference’ with attributed superiority. It’s a mirror that is increasingly starting to crack and to understand why we need to look first at how young males learn to be ‘masculine’.
Masculinising...
We are gendered before we are born. ‘Is it a boy?’ or ‘Is it a girl?’ are probably the first questions ever asked about us and the gendered trajectory of our lives begins the moment an answer is given.
The recent outcry regarding families who refused to reveal their children’s sex in an attempt to give them an ungendered headstart to personhood demonstrates how deeply ingrained gender is in our personal and collective consciousness and how very disturbing it is to question it, particularly in patriarchally dominant cultures whose entire social structures are founded on the rigid binarism of the masculine-feminine dichotomy.
Although some cultures around the world recognize three or more genders3 , accommodating both intersexed and transgendered persons as well as those who do not classify themselves as any man/woman permutation, the experience and understanding of the vast majority of the world’s population remains firmly rooted in the masculine-feminine divide.
The en-gendering process begins so early in our lives that it becomes part of our sense of self and so to question gender is to question who we think we are. It’s scary stuff, but important, so let’s look at the ways in which young males become en-gendered as ‘masculine’.
Peer Power.
Some boys are born into families where traditional gender stereotyping is taken for granted, some are born into homes where it is actively resisted, both will eventually encounter the most potent transmitters of masculinity known to man...other males, and the sooner this happens the sooner peer pressure will begin its inexorable drive to gender compliance.
Gender influences are all around us all the time but the peer pressure of youth is arguably uniquely powerful in its capacity to grant, or withhold, the psychological necessities of social acceptance and affirmation.
The following is an account given by Julie, the 29 year old mother of Adam, of his experiences between the ages of three and six.
‘When he went to playschool (aged three) there were mostly girls there, hardly any boys, and he loved it. For his fourth birthday he had a party and invited nearly all girls, only a few boys. He was really happy. They played great together. He had a great time.
Then he went on to school where there were lots of boys. Things changed. On his fifth birthday he invited mostly boys, only a few girls. The boys were noisy and boisterous and they ruined it for the girls. On his sixth birthday he refused to have any girls at all, not even his girl cousins, which was really embarrassing.
On the day he went mad because I wrapped his presents in Winnie the Pooh paper (he loved Winnie the Pooh). He said all the boys would laugh at him and pick on him if they saw it. He said they would say he was a girl. He was furious. This was just about the worst thing that could happen to him. He said they would never let him forget this and would always go on about it. He said they would say he was soft and not play with him.’
Adam’s experience, and his reactions to it, are quintessential for young males in communal environments. In just a few short years, Adam had undergone a concentrated induction course in masculinity. He had learned that, as a male, certain behaviours and attitudes were considered desirable and that he would not be admitted into the fraternity of his peers unless he actively subscribed to them. He learnt that challenging or resisting these requirements would result in exclusion and ridicule and, worst of all, the designation of him as a ‘girl’ which was clearly considered by other boys to be the lowest of the low. He learnt that acceptance into his male peer group was dependent on the rejection of his female friends, of any connotations of ‘softness’ or femaleness (such as his birthday wrapping paper) and, to a certain extent, of his mother also. It is also interesting to note the change to masculine-dominant behaviour that occurs once a peer group mentality is formed, impelling its members towards physicality and a might-is-their-right attitude.
Adam did not have such entrenched gender attitudes when he went to school but swiftly acquired them from those who did and acceded to their views to gain affirmation and acceptance. But where did these views come from?
The answer is that they are passed on by older boys and by boys with older brothers who have, in their own turn, acceded to the same kind of peer pressure to avoid exclusion and ridicule. It’s an endlessly repeating cycle as to resist or refute is to invite social suicide, turning dissenters into pariahs at best and victims at worst. The likelihood of these outcomes also turns many boys’ fathers into enablers of the process as they encourage their sons to ‘fit in’ to avoid the kinds of negative experiences that they know will await them if they don’t. Teenage boys recalled the process in their earlier years:
‘...the macho thing is there from very early on.’
Sam, 16.
‘You join in just to survive’.
Lee, 16.
‘You would have to be a very strong character to resist it. Other kids would make life hell.’
Ollie, 15.
‘I got very picked on when I was at primary school. My Mum wanted to go into the school but my Dad told me to toughen up and stand up for myself. He said that was the way it was, to get used to it.’
Mark, 16.
The peer masculinising process continues throughout a young male’s childhood, particularly in a school environment where boys are clustered together for long periods each day. One of the results of Second Wave feminism was the countering of gender stereotyping in schools , particularly at primary level, but the Wendy House has had a hard time competing with the reality, and viciousness, of peer disapprobation and exclusion.
If schools are potent sites for the perpetration and perpetuation of the masculinising process they hit their gendered zenith when the time comes for boys to move on from primary to secondary education. Developed countries are not normally considered to have rituals of young male initiation into adult masculinity. I would beg to differ.
The peer-related, masculinising influences that a boy may have experienced during his early years will soon come to seem, literally, like child’s play compared to the intensity with which they are applied in the early teen years. The fact that secondary schools draw their intake from various primary feeder schools means that large numbers of boys who do not know each other are suddenly thrown together in a new social mix. They have also entered an environment of burgeoning adult masculinity, where hierarchy reigns supreme. The combination of the two pitches boys into a process of establishing a place in this new hierarchy and it is at this point that the conceptualising of masculinity as ‘not-femininity’ really comes into its own, facilitated by the power of peer pressure. This is a process which occurs in both single sex and co-educational schooling.
From the age of about twelve onwards boys experience intense pressure to ‘prove’ that they are acceptably masculine by engaging in a constant and very public display of being ‘not-feminine’. They do this by very overtly (and often quite absurdly) enacting behaviours and attitudes that strike as opposite a stance as possible from anything perceived to be feminine.
This is a display that will be continuously assessed and judged by their same-sex peers whose resultant opinions will determine their masculine credibility (It is worth noting here that females only function in this process as accessories to the performance, their own gender status being too low in masculine terms to make their opinions worthy of consideration).
This intensified masculinising operates in a dual mode, focussing firstly on codification of all the characteristics by which young males have learnt to identify masculinity as definitively ‘masculine’ and secondly on a demand to enact this code in very specific ways. The confluence of the two functions both to establish individual hierarchical status within the domain of the masculine and to embed its principles in the core of individual self-concept. This core structure of masculinised self is then carried forward into any given manifestation of 'masculinity' that a young male may engage in. Although these manifestations may appear to be different, diverse and discrete, or in other words 'multiple', their underlying psychological structure, the DNA of the masculine self, is invariably the same....a factor that is pursued further in the concluding section of this trilogy.
So how do young males perceive masculinity? Whilst some of them may not either agree or be happy with its tenets there is no disagreement about the nature of the model that is handed down to them. Experienced as ....
1. Masculine = Male.
The belief that masculinity is a collection of psychological and behavioural characteristics that are appropriate to biological males and inappropriate to biological females; a belief that masculinity belongs to males.
2. Masculine = Biology.
The belief that the connection between masculinity and maleness is historically and contemporaneously biodeterministic, that men are ‘made’ the way they are and always have been.
3. Masculine = Not-Feminine.
Masculinity is primarily constructed by comparison to what it is not – its opposite gendered domain of the feminine. Or as gender psychologist Robert Stoller once said....
‘The first order of business in being a man is: don’t be a woman’4.
4. Masculine = Better-than-feminine.
The reflexive construction of the masculine employs the derogation of the feminine to present masculinity as positive and superior.
5. Masculine = Hard.
The allocation of pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional, or ‘soft’ qualities to the domain of the feminine and the derogation of those qualities, constitutes masculinity as reflexively anti-personal, anti-social and anti-emotional or ‘hard’.
6. Masculine = hierarchy.
Being masculine requires a mindset of continuous, hierarchical and comparative judgement of both self and others, requiring individuals to perceive themselves in terms of ‘better-than’ or ‘less-than’ in all aspects of their lives.
7. Masculine = Other males.
Masculinity is constructed and maintained through inter-male transmission, assessment and validation.
This masculine paradigm is then coupled with specific requirements of enactment that must be met to gain access to the fraternity of masculinity. These requirements also operate in a dual mode, in this instance impacting on the individual at both a personal and social level.
1. The individual must be willing to participate in the continuous assessment and judgement of the masculine credibility of other males.
This positions each and every young male as simultaneously both the actor and the critical audience, the judge and the judged. It also positions them as both a possible betrayer and as the possibly betrayed as no individual can ever be sure whether he will be required to pass negative judgement on a friend in order to either gain or retain group approval.
On a social level this constructs the domain of the masculine as a very insecure place for the individual whilst paradoxically securing strong group adherence to masculine principles. It constructs masculinity as prevailing through a system of divide and rule, where individuals are always expendable in the perpetuation of the greater cause.
On a personal level it is psychologically very isolating as it makes trust difficult to establish, especially when combined with the derogation of the pro-personal and pro-social qualities that facilitate communication and relationship building.
‘You can never really trust another boy. You can never be sure they won’t use your personal stuff against you.’
Mark, 16.
‘It is very lonely sometimes. I wouldn’t tell another boy if I was upset or worried about something.’
Darren, 15.
2. The individual is required to enact acceptable masculinity via an ongoing display of overt non-femininity, evidenced in behaviours and attitudes that adopt as opposite a stance as possible from anything associated with femaleness or ‘softness’.
On a social level the manifestation of this requirement frequently propels young males into displays of ‘hypermasculinity’ that range from the absurd to the downright dangerous, and which lie at the heart of much male-dominated anti-social, violent, illegal and under-achieving behaviour.
On a personal level this dictum acts to create an inner ‘gender-policeman’ in young males by creating a powerful taboo on all pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional qualities deemed ‘feminine’. This becomes highly problematic as these are the very qualities that facilitate psychological and emotional development and maturity, making acceptable masculinity a powerful inhibitor to personal growth and adequate emotional functioning.
3. The individual is required to engage in an ongoing public display of the derogation of girls, women and anything and anyone deemed to be ‘feminine’.
This is a requirement that is purely and simply misogyny and it’s a sad fact that many boys seem to find it enjoyable.
‘It’s a laugh...it’s just what you do isn’t it? Everyone does.’
Tom, 13.
‘It’s part of being a bloke’.
Malcolm, 14.
Misogynistic insults, both to each other and to girls, are a source of both humour, bonding and masculine kudos between boys as the cruder and more misogynistic they become the higher their masculinity rating rises in the eyes of their peers. In the hierarchical mindset of masculinity female is the lowest of the low.
As feminist writer Jessica Valenti says...
‘...what’s the worst thing you can call a woman...slut...whore...bitch...cunt...what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy...Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult.5’
On an inter-peer level misogyny fulfils many functions. It bonds those who identify as masculine, whilst demeaning, intimidating and undermining those who are identified as feminine, including gay males. While some recent research6 indicates a lessening of homophobia within certain youth groupings the use of ‘gay’ and ‘queer’ as insults remains endemic, as does the overt derogation of homosexuality.
Misogyny also creates an effective underclass to the masculine hierarchy. No matter how low the status of any individual male may be within that hierarchy his saving grace is that he is not female and thus cannot fall into the quagmire of the feminine that lurks beneath.
On a societal level the consequences of misogyny are writ so large that they require no elaboration here.
On a personal level misogyny teaches young males to build their sense of adequate masculine self on the degradation of the female half of the human race, not a great prognosis for either them or any female who subsequently tries to relate to them. It also causes confusion and turmoil for many young males when they meet girls that they are attracted to and genuinely like as they are torn between their own feelings and the pressure of their peers to enact misogyny.
4. The individual is required to participate in the derogation of other males via physical and/or psychological intimidation and particularly by ascribing ‘soft’ or feminine traits to them.
On a social level this fulfils a fundamental requirement of masculine performance in that it is a highly visible behaviour that demonstrates a number of ‘hard’ qualities. The individual who is willing to actively demean his peers before an audience demonstrates both his subscription to the concept of hierarchy, his loyalty to the group and his disregard for the feelings of others in the pursuit of the affirmation of his own status, thus demonstrating dominance whilst simultaneously rejecting pro-sociality and pro-emotionality.
On a personal level the individual is internalising a mode of constructing and maintaining his own sense of adequate selfhood via the degradation of others rather than through the consolidation and valuing of his own personal qualities.
All of these elements of the masculinising paradigm are riddled with a heavy emphasis on physicality. This may range from the prevalence of constant ‘social thumping’ as a medium of both hierarchical assertion and semi-benign communication, to full-blown fighting.
The overall emphasis on hierarchy, externalization and interpersonal and communicative restriction drives young males to connect on the masculinely safe grounds of external interests and affiliations. The additional emphasis on physicality and ‘hardness’ delineates sport and physical activities as prime positive sites for the enactment of this matrix of factors. It is also, at its negative extreme, the formula for gang membership and gratuitous hierarchical and territorial violence.
Whilst all these rigid rules and requirements of masculinity appear to lead the way to manhood the reality is that they often leave young males stranded, ironically, in a personal void...a No Man’s Land of seeming and non-being where the individual has learnt to construct a sense of himself not by his own evaluation of who and what he is but by the externalisation of what he is not, coupled with an acceptance of the power of others to confer masculine identity upon him by approval (or not) of that externalisation.
The profound and mandatory rejection of qualities deemed feminine further robs young males of legitimate ownership of the pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional skills required to relate fully to both themselves and to others.
Boys learn to be masculine on the grounds of difference allied with gendered superiority and they consequently learn to construct their sense of self via the affirmation of that assumed difference. The confluence of all these factors predisposes boys, by their mid-teens, to a mode of being that devalues the development of inner qualities whilst simultaneously valorising externalized actions and misogynistic attitudes and which impels them to seek constant approval for a concept of masculine self based on these parameters. This places them under acute pressure to accede to the defining of themselves by others whilst being simultaneously denied the inner resources necessary to adequately define themselves.
The process of masculinising thus situates many young males as profoundly ‘outer’ orientated, ‘inner’ deprived and precariously dependent on a constant supply of external affirmation to maintain an adequate sense of self. The adage of the fragility of the male ego is not without foundation as the ego built primarily on the concept of what it is not, as opposed to what it is, and which requires the constant approval of others to sustain itself does lack a secure and self-defining foundation. Anything which consequently threatens the external affirmation necessary to shore up this shaky edifice, either to negate that affirmation or to interrupt the required constancy of supply, is perceived as a direct threat to the core sense of masculinised self. It is no exaggeration to say that ‘self’ is the sacrifice made for entry into the fraternity of masculinity.
As boys move on to being men their reactions to perceived threats to self include fear, anger and a propensity to rely on ‘difference’ as a substantiating and justifying marker of masculinity in a way that women do not seem compelled to do for femininity. To understand this difference, and to understand more about the construction of gender as a function of masculinity we need to look first at the parallel process of ‘feminising.’
Feminising...
It has been argued in support of the concept of multiple masculinities that masculinity cannot be considered as a singular entity because it has not remained historically constant in its manifestations.
Examples quoted in support of this range from the extolling of homosexual relationships in Ancient Greece to the wearing of excessive frills by Elizabethan gentlemen and to the various configurations of masculinity that have arisen to support the demands of industrialisation, imperialism and general warmongering in more recent times.
The fact that ‘masculinity’ can morph its way from inter-male relationships as the highest form of love through the wearing of tights, frilly collars and face powder to the homophobic hubris of the khaki cog in the war machine would appear to scream its arbitrary absurdity rather than its multiplicity. It does, however, have one constant that pertains throughout the entire matrix of its existence, both linearly through time and across all strata of its hierarchical construction. Its foundation is always its demarcation from the state of femaleness coupled with the attribution of inferiority to that state.
Whilst men in any era may manifest ‘masculinity’ according to the dictates of their time, and whilst they may exist at various levels of comparative masculine status the way they learn to perceive themselves as masculine in relation to their womenfolk changes little over time, predicated always on a male-dominated right to define and demarcate both difference and superiority. Regardless of the grounds that difference may be constituted upon, whether from the Aristotlean view that females were embryos that failed to reach their full human potential, to a contemporary teenage paradigm of softness-aversion the aim is always to create as much clear blue (of course) distance as possible from femaleness.
Historical and global male-dominance may have conferred the definitional luxury of masculinity being anything, anytime, anywhere but its reliance on the demarcating of femininity as inferior and subordinate remains constant, as evidenced in the pronouncements of male philosophers and thinkers across centuries and as embodied in all the world’s major religions. From the Ancient Greeks’ ‘pernicious view of women’7 to twenty-first century rap, taking in just about every prominent man in between, femininity has a long history of being constructed by men which is a Sisyphean task as female resistance to the inequities of feminising is masculinity’s other historical constant.
Feminising, the process of telling biological women what to be, convincing them that it’s natural because they’re ‘different’ and getting them to accept their consequent subordination is, and always has been, a constant war of male attrition because women just will not stay in the Pandora’s Box of femininity constructed for them. Every age has seen women pushing against the gendered boundaries imposed upon them, as the current upsurge in global feminist activism evidences and which is occurring in tandem with that of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups who also occupy subordinated positions within the confines of the binarising and feminising constructs of gender.
Whilst the details of the process of contemporary feminising are not pertinent to this essay its principles and effects are as, reflexively, they shed further light on the nature of the masculine.
Males learn to be masculine by being told what not to be, which is feminine, and that domain is further tabooed by instilling in young males a fear of contagion should they stray into its territories...girliness is infectiously emasculating and is thus to be avoided at all costs.
It’s different for young females. From pinking to primping they are told what to be. ‘Boy’ is not a prolific playground insult and ‘boyness’ is not catching because only boys can be boys. A boy can easily become a ‘girl’ by being soft, weak, emotional, insufficiently aggressive etc. or by liking or doing ‘girl’ things. A boy being a girl is a demotion. A girl doing boy stuff is not, conversely, a promotion as she’ll be vilified as a freak, a perversion, an ‘abortion’ in boy slang who’s not doing ‘girl’ properly.
Neither is the masculine domain a place of butch contagion for females, rather it’s a place they have no right to enter, a place they must not sully with their presence. Males make the ‘Keep Out’ signs for both domains, but the warnings are different.
The sign they place on the feminine domain is for the benefit of males, that one says...
‘Keep Out – Danger.’
The one they erect on the borders of the masculine domain is a warning to females, that one reads...
‘Keep Out – Trespassers Will Be Persecuted.’
Boys avoid the feminine because they are taught that it will inherently diminish their masculinity. Girls learn that masculinity rules and that they’re not allowed in...two very different ways of perceiving the opposite gendered domain.
Girls are told what to be, the feminine being proscriptive, and what they are told to be is pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional for which they are generally affirmed and approved if they comply. There are significant downsides to this, not least in that it disproportionately propels girls and women towards the personal and social service work of the world, with all its concomitant disadvantages. But there is one major advantage that generally goes unrecognized and which, by comparison reveals the extreme limitations and negative consequences of masculinising.
To fully understand this we need to first consider the concept of the developing self.
As children we depend upon the input of significant others to form and consolidate our sense of who we are. This reliance on external input to define ourselves is consequently a normal part of our psychological development. Ideally, as we mature, we develop inner structures and resources that facilitate a growing capacity for self-definition, allowing the concept of self to move from being constructed from the outside-in to being formulated from the inside-out. The individual capable of self-definition constructs a solid core of self-concept that can withstand the vagaries of input from the external world. The self-defining self is its own power source. The self-defining self is the ultimate grown-up. This may be an ideal but it’s one which the feminine paradigm of gendering gives a big head-start towards attaining, in direct contrast to the effect of masculinising.
The allocation of the pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional to the feminine bestows a whole raft of ‘inner’ based qualities that are the building blocks of the capacity to reflect upon, and relate to, both the self and others. These qualities are then coupled with a gendered paradigm founded on Being as opposed to Not-being. The masculine is constructed as not-feminine, the feminine just is. The feminine has to be Something in order for the masculine to Not-Be it. The reality of gender under scrutiny is the opposite of time-honoured myths and stereotypes of the feminine in which it has been continuously represented and demeaned as deficit, lack and void...wherein lies the extraordinary sleight of hand that is ‘gender’.
Females are told what to be and they are allotted all the qualities necessary for building an inner-consolidated sense of self, a sense of themselves as Being. The accounts of many women show this to be a predicator of personal development that continues throughout their lives, despite huge outer pressures and constraints that may work to restrict them, both socially and personally. It is also far easier for females to move into the domain demarcated as ‘masculine’. Firstly, because the early prohibitions to entry that they encounter swiftly come to be seen for what they are, as arbitrary and defensive, and secondly because they do not experience any demotion of selfhood in accessing this domain. Females thus, over time, have a far greater opportunity of gaining access to the total domain of all human qualities...a significantly better prognosis for mature and fully developed selfhood. Thus although the prime function of feminising is the production of an underclass subordinated by difference (who may be of either biological sex) it has a potentiality for personal empowerment unwittingly incorporated into its structure.
In contrast, masculinising creates a template for gendered selfhood that is founded on the principle of Not-Being which denies access to all the qualities required to build an inner-consolidated sense of self and which fosters an acute reliance on external affirmation, all of which mitigate against the capacity for self-reflection and self-definition. This is further compounded by the deep and early entrenchment of the taboo on the ‘feminine’ which links its ascribed qualities to diminishment of masculine selfhood, making it far more difficult for males to cross gendered borders on the way to a whole, mature and developed sense of self.
The consequences of this become apparent for many males as they progress into, and through, adulthood where the legacy of the masculinising process leaves a lasting, and sometimes lifelong, impact.
Men and Masculinity.
‘Masculinity’ is inescapable. In a global social order that remains intractably male-dominated and whose functional dynamics are an observable replication of teenage male masculinising, nothing and no-one escapes its influence.
We thus all have some perspective on masculinity regardless of where we are positioned in the matrix of variables that constitutes our socially categorised identity. In this section I want to analyse the views and experiences of men with regard to their concepts of masculinity. This is not to disregard the contributed views of women or of individuals who identify as trans or alternately gendered. Rather, it is to focus on the prime purpose of ‘masculinising’ as constructing the self-concept of biological males in a gender-binarised order, as definitively and conventionally ‘masculine’.
Masculinity appears to be multiple and certainly men live their lives, as men, in a multitude of different ways and in a multitude of contexts. Male contributors to this project range in age from twenty-one to seventy-four and represent fifteen nationalities worldwide. Their educational and occupational status spans unemployment to university professorship and they are from a variety of ethnicities. Most are heterosexual, some are gay, just one is asexual. They are uniformed, hoodied, tattooed, and suited. They seem to be very different but the things that they cite as being markers of masculinity in their lives are very similar, regardless of the personal or social contexts in which they are manifested. Their views did not reveal anything new or surprising with regard to the ways in which men perceive masculinity. Success, status and sport are as important in Athens as they are in Accra. Respect, responsibility and honour are cited as masculine ideals by men from Kingston to Krakow and potentially negative aspects such as aggression, dominance and desire to control are masculine-identified propensities that clearly do not confine themselves to boundaries of either race, deprivation or privilege. Fatherhood is a key marker of masculinity to many men and the status associated with the ability to ‘provide’ remains enduringly important to masculine self-esteem.
Amazingly (to me at least) the concept of man as ‘Head of the Household’ is still alive and kicking in the twenty-first century.
Men who actively challenged conventional notions of masculinity either identified themselves as pro-feminist or stated that they did not wish to replicate their own fathers’ negatives modes of masculine being. Some men cited influences in their lives that had enhanced their capacity to be self-defining and to withstand peer pressure. Many of these men did, however, find that their positive intentions were difficult to maintain in relationships, where their consciously adopted positions were undermined by the early, and deeply rooted, masculinising of their personal psychology, particularly in relation to the need for affirmation.
And it is a rare man indeed who is not stalked by the behemoth of the masculinised self-concept – the fear of failure. The legacy of the teen-identified masculinising paradigm leaves the masculinised self-concept precariously dependent on external affirmation and overly fearful of any sense of failure that threatens to destabilise or even annihilate the sense of self. This was expressed in different ways by many men but is encapsulated here by David, a thirty-six-year-old English bank worker.
‘When my wife or boss criticise me, even for something quite unimportant, I feel as if I am fighting for my life...I feel like I am disappearing.’
Men who were prone to either physical or psychological abuse of their partners and/or children were candid in relating experiences where this threat to sense of self, with its subsequent sense of failure and annihilation, sparked abuse and violence as the self literally fights for its own survival. Rob, 43, is a father, a writer and film-maker, all of whose relationships have been marked by domestic violence sparked by threats to his sense of self.
‘When I was in relationships I would feel the slightest thing as a reflection on myself...stupid things like something going wrong, something breaking down....I took everything personally then I would lash out, go mad. Then my partners would criticise and I would feel and get worse.’
Men across a range of ages, cultures, ethnicities and contexts reveal a commonality of themes that echo both the masculine parameters and dynamics of their youth and the affirmation of male peers that features so strongly in teen masculinising remains crucial for many adult men.
‘Men need times when they get together...men need to be allowed to be men, it’s important.’
Rossa, 33, Irish woodsman.
‘Men need men. What kind of man can you be on your own?’
Marcus, 31, Canadian musician.
‘Sometimes you feel like you’ve lost your manhood...being with other men gives you solidarity...you get back with the boys and it gives you back that feeling that you run things.’
Dean, 32, Jamaican photographer.
‘I feel torn. If I go out to do things (with other men) it causes rows (with partner) but if I don’t I feel like I am losing my identity.’
Al, 29, Italian chef.
The early prohibition on the pro-personal and the subsequent meeting of males on the safe ground of external interests also remains prevalent.
‘Blokes don’t talk do they? That’s why they go on about cars, computers, football, never themselves.’
John, 27, English salesman.
‘It would be the same at home (South Africa)...men discuss ‘important’ topics, politics, sport...not themselves.’
Yusuf, 28, South African student.
‘Football, golf, whatever...it’s all male bonding, communication.’
Derek, 42, US lecturer.
Most revealing, however, is what happens when men are asked to explain and justify WHY they consider their examples of masculinity to be definitively ‘masculine’, as under closer scrutiny it becomes extremely difficult for them to substantiate any of their cited abilities, propensities or qualities as definitively or exclusively belonging to the domain of biological maleness. The historical variability of ‘masculinity’ and the numerous examples of women who either embody or enact qualities delineated as masculine, or who have moved successfully into previously ‘masculine’ domains, render the logical defining of masculinity as definitively ‘masculine’ an impossible task. Even the ultimate example of male morphology, the possession of a penis, becomes difficult to substantiate as the acid test of masculinity in the light of increasing activism by the transgendered community. Faced with this conundrum two strikingly dominant themes emerged from men’s attempts to pin down some definitive sense of the masculine.
The first is a resort to delineating masculinity as an inherent ‘difference’ from femaleness and the second is the pervasive citing of a biodeterministic and evolutionary basis as the justification for that perception of ‘difference’. Man the hunter and woman the nurturer remains a core male belief that surfaces regularly, even in the accounts of the newest of New Men. Only a handful of three hundred and twenty male contributors did not, at some point, refer to these two factors and age, education, ethnicity and occupation made no discernible difference to the quoting of these factors as justifications of ‘masculinity’.
‘Yes, okay, women can now do virtually anything that men can but I absolutely know that men and women are different, they are not the same. You can’t take that difference away, you can’t deny it...it’s in our genetic inheritance. Men are essentially hunters.’
Bob, 42, English website designer.
‘Men and women are different, that’s how it’s always been, that’s how it’s meant to be...and a good thing too.’
John, 54, Irish journalist.
‘There are still those ancient roles in us I believe – it’s the hunter thing.’
Shaun, 49, English marine consultant.
‘Difference is not sexist, it’s innate...men like that difference, they don’t want to lose it, they need it. Men need to confirm their difference to be men.’
Dean, 32, Jamaican photographer.
‘We are different, that cannot be changed...this goes back to the time that we were once hunters.’
Andrzej, 29, Polish construction worker.
‘It is not a question of what women can do today..there is an essential difference that we carry from the past.’
Odi, 37, Zambian teacher.
Irritation, and sometimes anger, were regularly expressed with regard to contemporary women, and feminism in particular, who were perceived as seeking to deny or eradicate this ‘difference’ which is so important to the maintenance of the masculine.
‘Of course women should have equal rights but I think it’s more than that...We’re not the same and it’s ridiculous to pretend we are...it’s taking away what makes men men.’
Bill, 41, English salesman.
‘Feminism did a lot of harm. Women should accept they are not the same as men.’
Andrew, 35, English engineer.
‘Men and women are different. Men do not challenge women’s difference...women challenging male difference is causing many problems.’
Zubash, 30, Asian accountant.
This importance of a sense of ‘difference’ as a foundational marker of masculinity to men contrasted sharply with the perspectives of women on femininity, where none of them cited difference from men as a crucial ‘feminine’ determinant.
Masculinity is certainly a personal and social ‘reality’ for the vast majority of men but it’s a reality that they find they are unable to definitively substantiate and justify when it is placed under logical and evidential scrutiny. Faced with the paradox of the illusion of this ‘reality’ a resort is made to the citing of a ‘difference’ that they ‘know’ as their truth, even if it cannot be pinned down as a describable or evidential entity.This ‘knowing’ or ‘male intuition’8 is an interesting reversal of the gendered stereotype of female eminencing of intuitive feeling over logical evidence.
In addressing the question of what makes a masculinity masculine the experiential and observable data of ascribed attributes and manifested enactments are never the answer, regardless of the social, cultural or temporal context from which they are drawn. This information tells us only what is contained within the primary ownership space of the masculine domain at any given time and in any given place, suiting the power dynamics of the moment and the context. It is only by pressing the questioning one stage further to request a logical and evidential substantiation of WHY any given factor allotted to that domain is definitively ‘masculine’ that the entirely arbitrary and illusory nature of masculinity is revealed.
Biological maleness has never conferred inherent or exclusive ownership of any human attributes but it has certainly conferred the power to arbitrarily and reflexively claim that ownership. That claim is the construct of gender, which is both the justification and the perpetuation of that power. ‘Gender’ is the sleight of hand that makes the illusion of masculinity seem real and a good illusionist will always divert the audience’s attention away from the deception...which is exactly where the concept of multiple masculinities comes in, as we will see in the concluding part of this trilogy..
‘Multiple Masculinities: the Postmodern Emperor’s New Clothes.’
(available shortly)
Gaia Charis...09/11
References and footnotes.
1.’Female Masculinity’, Judith Halberstam, Duke University Press, 1998.
2.’The Second Sex’, Simone De Beauvior, Penguin, 1984 ( first published in 1949 ), p.16.
3.For a good summary of the subject alternate genders see Wikipedia ‘Third gender’.
4.’Sex and Gender’, Robert Stoller, Karnac, 1968.
5.’Full Frontal Feminism’, Jessica Valenti, Seal Press, 2011.
6.’No Longer a Fairytale’, Mark McCormack and Eric Anderson, New Internationalist 444, July/August 2011.
7.’Misogyny : the World’s Oldest Prejudice’, Jack Holland, Running Press, 2006, p.13.
8.Quoted by contributor ‘Bob,’ aged 42, english website designer.
9.’Masculinities’, R.W. Connell, Polity, 1995, p.68.