‘Othering Masculinity’ is an essay written to accompany the video ‘Othering Masculinity’, which was created for presentation to the Sibéal 2011 Conference of the Irish Postgraduate Gender and Feminist Network, University of Limerick, 2011. Both the video and the essay are part of a project which focuses on the concept of ‘accessible ideas’ and which aims to make academic perspectives available to a broader constituency, particularly in relation to the allying of feminist activism with supporting analysis.
For at least the last two thousand years, from the advent of Ancient Greek philosophy onwards, a capacity for logical and analytical thinking has been extolled as a prime attribute of the masculine domain and yet, paradoxically, both the concept of masculinity itself and its theoretical analysis are riddled with seemingly illogical and irreconcilable assertions and contradictions. ‘Othering Masculinity’ explores the unexpected outcomes and implications that emerge when both the current constitution of masculinity and its prevailing theorisation as multiple are subjected to the practice of logical interrogation that has been one of its own most historically esteemed and appropriated characteristics.
MASCULINITY: THE NO-SINGULARITY MULTIPLICITY.
When Second Wave feminism identified masculinity as a problematic for study the correlation between masculinity and biological maleness seemed clear. Men had dominated the global social order for at least as long as written history had existed and women had suffered concomitant subordination for the same length of time. The causality seemed obvious, and at least part of the remedy seemed to lie in an analysis of the problematic. It quickly became clear however that defining the problematic was, in itself, problematic, as under scrutiny ‘masculinity’ as a concept proved remarkably difficult to pin down and define in any form that could be logically or evidentially substantiated.
The apparently incontrovertible assumption that masculinity was the primary sociocultural manifestation of biological maleness ushered in the equally incontrovertible observation that there was no singular way to socioculturally ‘be a man’. From the undeniable accuracy of this observation the entirely logical conclusion was drawn that masculinity was, therefore, ‘multiple’, a concept that was consolidated as the theory of ‘multiple masculinities’ in Professor Raewyn Connell’s 1995 publication ‘Masculinities’.
The extent of the influence of Professor Connell’s theorisation cannot be underestimated as it was rapidly adopted as the prime tenet of the study of masculinity, becoming an established principle within all other subsequent branches of gendered study and embedding laterally across a broad range of other academic disciplines. It is a theory that remains largely uncontested to the present day and it is used to inform policy-making in areas as diverse as education and international relations.
It is also the point in the study of masculinity where the traditionally masculine characteristic of logic begins, ironically, to part company with both the concept of masculinity itself and the analysis of that concept.
In his book ‘Men and Masculinities’, first published in 2002, Stephen Whitehead wrote...
‘One can have some sympathy with those who wish to see an underpinning logic or causality to masculinities. For this perspective seems to speak to our common-sense and everyday experience of gender relations...’ 1
..and Raewyn Connell’s own original ‘Masculinities’ opens with reference to the ‘logical examination’ of the conceptual terms of gender which, under that examination...
‘...waver like the Danube mist.’ 2
She then goes on to explain this ‘wavering’ by reference to the ‘gender relations’ to which Whitehead has referred...
‘Masculinity and Femininity are inherently relational concepts which have meaning in relation to each other, as a social demarcation and a cultural opposition. This holds regardless of the changing content of the demarcation in different societies and periods of history. Masculinity as an object of knowledge is always masculinity in relation.’3
It is important to draw a distinction here between an expectation of logicality within the concept of masculinity itself, such as that to which Stephen Whitehead refers, which if the concept is inherently illogical is an expectation that can never be fulfilled, and an expectation of logicality within the analysis of the concept which should certainly always be fulfilled, it being perfectly possible to be logical in the pursuit of the analysis of that which may be illogical.
Viewed in this light the theorisation of masculinity as multiple produces some interesting results, both in terms of the logically extrapolated outcomes of its main tenets and in the progress of those tenets through the work of other writers and theorists in the field of gender.
The central tenet of multiple masculinity theory, that masculinity cannot be singularly defined but can only be understood as a multiplicity or plurality is an interesting place to begin in exploring the relationship of logic to both the concept and its analysis.
The assertion that a plurality (masculinities) can exist without any defining or verifying singularity (masculinity) is based upon a variety of ‘evidences’ all of which rest upon an assumed correlation between masculinity and maleness. These evidences are, in themselves, correct. There is no singular way to socioculturally “be a man” and it is certainly true that “being a man” has been an historically moveable feast, ranging from the extolling of inter-male relationships as the highest and purest form of love in Ancient Greece to our recent decades of rampant homophobia and from the foppery of 16th century courtly manhood to contemporary rock-hard street cred. But the apparent rightness of these evidences only serves to position this theory as completely wrong in any logical sense.
How can a plural (no matter how relative or discursive) exist without a singular? Or in gendered terms how can the proponents of any allegedly ‘multiple’ masculinity know they are being ‘masculine’ if there is no singular conceptualisation of masculinity against which they can construct or assess their performance?
The singularity of the assumed correlation between masculinity and maleness would certainly solve the problem but it cannot be employed because it does not stand up to logical interrogation in its own right. No matter how a ‘masculinity’ may be culturally or relatively configured, in any era, location, form or context, its attributional entourage can only ever be drawn from the total domain of all human qualities, attitudes, propensities and behaviours. The manifestation of the full range of those indices of humanness within biological women and across the spectrum of lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex and transsexual individuals belies and refutes any claims that biological maleness may make for any definitive or exclusive prerogative from which a ‘masculinity’, any masculinity, may be constituted. This constitutional difficulty generates further interrogations.
If the logical-evidential refutation of the male-masculine link negates the ability to substantiate any individual masculinity as definitively masculine then how does the concept manage to manifest itself in multiplicity? And if multiplicity theory maintains that it does then what answer does it give to the question of what makes a masculinity, any alleged masculinity, masculine?
If we return to the text of Raewyn Connell’s original theorisation her statement that...
‘Masculinity does not exist except in contrast with femininity.’4
...appears to answer the question telling us not only that a masculinity is masculine because it is not feminine but that it cannot exist at all without its feminine significator. The construction of masculinity as not-femininity is certainly evidenced in the gendered experience of young contemporary males5 and yet the logical progression of the defining of masculine as not-feminine produces questions and conclusions that not only counter but actually reverse established perceptions of gender.
If the answer to the question ‘What is masculinity?’ is that it is not-femininity then the answering of the question ‘What is femininity?’ should become crucial to both the study and the analysis of masculinity. If masculinity is not-femininity and can only exist as not-femininity then femininity must come into being first in order for masculinity to manifest in reflexive relation to it.
Viewed in this light the concept of woman as ‘Other’ as first described by Simone de Beauvoir is, in reality, only half the story of a reflexive construction of gender. De Beauvoir stated that...
‘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 Other.’6
...and in doing so she identified the enduring male right-to-define inherent to a male-dominated social order and the employment of that right to position woman as ‘Other’ and lesser.
However, when masculine is not-feminine then that power to define is used to create an Other specifically for masculinity to ‘Other’ itself against, positioning masculinity as the ‘Other-Other’ in a doubly oppositional process of gendered identity creation. This process inversely reconfigures and completes De Beauvoir’s original description, which can now be expressed as...
She is defined and differentiated by him in order that he may define and differentiate himself. He makes her Other in order to make himself. He makes himself as the Other-Other.
A reconfiguration that reveals the totality of a process which situates ‘gender’ as a product of masculinity and not, as is normally perceived, the other way around.
Multiple masculinity theory rests heavily on historicity and argues that ‘gender’, as reflexive, is a relatively recent concept. This argument is based on an asserted distinction between the historical casting of the feminine as an inferior form of the masculine and the more recent situating of it as the repository of the pro-personal, pro-social and pro-emotional, with the concomitant rejection and derogation of these qualities by the masculine.
Plato’s description of the damning of Orpheus as ‘soft’7 on the grounds that..
‘...he was, after all, a cithara player...’8
(Symposium)
...is redolent of contemporary masculinity in a way that suggests nothing much has changed but that debate is beyond the scope of this essay and is, in any case, a moot point when the masculine principle of constituting the feminine as inferior has produced a remarkable consistency of subordination for women both globally and historically.
The answer to the question ‘What is Femininity?’ has likewise precious little to do with biological femaleness as women’s historically subordinate position has meant that they have not been consulted on the matter of either its existence or its constitution. Enduring male-dominance has constructed femininity, like masculinity, as whatever that dominance has determined it to be, suiting contingency and context at any given time and in any given location.
Despite the absolute centrality of femininity to both the existence and the defining of masculinity its coverage in the vast plethora of studies of ‘masculinities’ is scant, an extraordinary situation given that it is the definitional plank upon which the whole edifice is resting. The encyclopaedic resumé of masculinities studies ‘The Handbook of Men and Masculinities’ published in 2005 by Kimmel, Hearn and Connell illustrates this dearth, there being no entry for ‘femininity’ in the index of its five hundred pages of contents.
Conversely, despite the fact that no definitive link can be substantiated between maleness and any definitive conceptualisation of masculinity the study and analysis of ‘masculinities’ over nearly two decades has accrued, in the words of the concept’s originator...’An ever-growing library of descriptive studies’9......of men.
The reality is that ‘femininity’ is the pink elephant in masculinity’s blue corner. In the absence of a substantive identity of dominance a relative one has, both historically and contemporaneously, been required to be created. The problem, however, is that ‘femininity’, like masculinity, can only be ascribed its subset of attributes from the pool of all possible human characteristics and, as with masculinity, those attributes manifest untidily and inconveniently across the spectrum of all people and in doing so expose the arbitrariness of their allocation, that arbitrariness being ‘gender’.
There are three primary assertions made about masculinity within its original theorisation as multiple and these remain its key tenets.
‘MASCULINITY’ is a singularity that only exists as a plurality
BUT
It does not exist at all unless defined reflexively
AND YET
It can be anything, anytime, anywhere.
Add to these the fact that its extensive canon is comprised of the study of men despite the fact that it has no logical-evidential link to them, that its essential defining factor of femininity remains largely invisible and that its alleged multiplicity could, quite feasibly, embody the femininity that is its definitional host (and in doing so would logically negate itself) and the question pertains as to whether this is an adequate answer to Second Wave feminism’s original enquiry,
‘What is Masculinity?’
ILLUSION AND REALITY.
In 1994, just prior to the publication of Connell’s ‘Masculinities', David Collinson and Jeff Hearn wrote a paper entitled ‘Naming Men as Men.....’ in which they raised the following concerns regarding multiplicity theory...
‘The concept of masculinities remains somewhat vague and imprecise, lacking in definition (indeed, this is the case in its singular as well as pluralised form)..’10
And they then went on to raise the question...
‘What is specifically masculine about particular masculinities?11’
It was a question that was neither heeded nor answered at the time and the conceptual error which they highlighted perpetuated and magnified throughout the insistent trajectory of the theory’s proliferation.
The answer to their question is that there isn’t anything that is specifically ‘masculine’ about ‘masculinities’ precisely because masculinity itself cannot be logically substantiated in any way at all other than as a legitimation of dominance, wherein the Butlerian enactment of the illusion of masculinity creates a hologrammatic projection of social ‘reality’.
By ignoring its own foundational flaws multiplicity theory has continued to tether masculinity to men in its practice whilst disavowing the connection in its stated perspective and in doing so it has perpetuated the problematic that was its own genesis. In spite of this, Raewyn Connell, in a joint article with James Messerschmidt12, reaffirmed her belief in the integrity of multiplicity theory in 2005, concomitant with the publication of the second edition of ‘Masculinities.’ The article states.....
‘This basic idea has stood up well in twenty years of research experience.13’
This is not an assertion that stands up to scrutiny. The majority of the theory’s resultant articles and books regularly expound at length on both ‘masculinity’ and ‘masculinities’ without ever defining the meaning of terms that are used interchangeably despite the theoretical imperative of non-singularity. Non-defining publications are far too numerous to list and many are written by those considered eminent in the field. Of the established texts that I have in front of me at time of writing there is not one that attempts to adequately define the ‘masculinity’ or ‘masculinities’ that are their subjects, although each one is written, at length, entirely about men. The confusion caused by this failure to adequately define is embarrassing to witness but seems to pass unnoticed within the canon and examples are not difficult to find.
Judith Halberstam states in her acclaimed book ‘Female Masculinity’
‘I was a masculine girl and I am a masculine woman.’14
..but then reveals that she has no definitive answer to what masculinity is...
‘What is masculinity? If masculinity is not the social and cultural and indeed political expression of maleness, then what is it? I do not claim to have any definitive answer to this question, but I do have a few proposals about why masculinity should not reduce down to the male body...’15
And despite evincing ‘manly’ physicality as definitive of masculinity her entire book is based on the ‘manliness’ of women.
She concludes...
‘If masculinity were a kind of default category for children, surely we would have more girls running around and playing sports and experimenting with chemistry sets and building things and fixing them and learning about finances and so on.’16
Thus an established academic tells us she was masculine despite stating that she does not know what masculinity is, other than that it should not be the manliness upon which she then bases her book. She fails to ask why her own natural and authentic way of being should be labelled ‘masculine’ at all and she perpetuates some excruciating gender stereotypes in her conclusion as a result.
Despite this, Todd W. Reeser, author of ‘Masculinities in Theory’ hails this work as ‘groundbreaking’ and sorts out the issue of authenticity thus.....
‘Masculinity inscribed on the female body is not simply male masculinity transposed...but should be viewed as another type of masculinity...’17
He does not consider the ontological possibility of her mode of being as being authentically female and thus fails to question why it should be named as ‘masculine’, and in doing so he both re-asserts the norm of the primacy of masculine attributional ownership and renders Halberstam’s existence as yet another ill-defined ‘multiple masculinity’.
Joseph Gelfer, in ‘The Masculinity Conspiracy’, 2011, writes in answer to the question ‘What is masculinity?’
‘...masculinity is not what men do...The common assumption is that masculinity (even with its differing forms in space and time) is something done by men, whereas femininity is something done by women. Often this is true but it doesn’t have to be. Men can be feminine and women can be masculine...masculinity is a vast spectrum of differing gender performances, something we enact. Indeed, to use the term ‘masculinity’ in the singular is quite misleading, it should really be ‘masculinities’ in the plural. And masculinity can just as easily apply to women as it can to men.’18
We are thus told that masculinity is not what men do but sometimes it is and that women can do it too (even though it’s not what men do) and it should be plural but the singular applies to both men and women even though we still don’t know what ‘it’ is.
Available wordage does not allow for further examples of the illogicalities and contradictions of multiplicity theorising but they are legion, as is further evidenced in the current exposition of ‘masculinities’ by the theory’s originator Raewyn Connell. On her website www.raewynconnell.net she gives the following answer to the question ‘What are Masculinities?’
Conflating the singularity that multiplicity theory refutes with the plurality of the question’s subject she states...
‘Masculinity is a pattern of practice. It’s NOT an attitude and it’s NOT what’s in people’s heads...it’s what they actually DO in the world.’19
The defining of masculinity as action bereft of any mental imperative is a supreme inversion of logic, replicating the principle of the no-singularity multiplicity by asserting that the multiplicity of masculine practice can occur without any impelling attitude or thought in the mind of the singular individual. It also situates ‘masculine practice’ as effectively ‘mind-less’ and , more worryingly, severs action from intention in a way that could be interpreted as indicating that the prolifically negative and destructive effects of much masculine practice are nothing to do with the men who are the prime subjects of multiplicity study, those who are, quite literally, its ‘canon-fodder’.
The absurdity of this assertion would be harmless enough if it were confined only to academia but multiplicity theory informs policy-making across a broad spectrum of issues worldwide, impacting on our lives at every level from the personal to the global and is thus powerful in its influence. Professor Connell’s own work, for example, informs UNESCO decision making with regard to the exploration of strategies for the promotion of peace.... particularly in relation to destructive and aggressive ‘masculine practice’, which in reality is male behaviour.
In my own research, undertaken with males varying in age from teens to seventies, I found it to be repeatedly evident that both physically and psychologically destructive behaviours had their root in the effects of the masculinising process on the individual male sense of self. When males learn to feel adequately masculine on the shifting ground of reflexive being they are continually and frighteningly aware of the constant illusion that is ‘masculinity’. They live with the knowledge that masculinity is very much all in the mind. The precarious selfhood that this engenders is easily threatened and a violence of response, whether by words or fists, is invariably a sign of that selfhood fighting for its own life in the face of challenge. Peace will not come, either to the world or to individuals, until the illusion that underlies such insecurity of self is acknowledged and biological males are allowed to constitute their sense of self, free of taboo, on the foundation of whole personhood.
One of the male contributors to my own research said that if the illusion of masculinity was exposed there would be ‘a lot of very angry men out there’. The problem is that there already are, for precisely that reason. Other male contributors cited the attributes of logic and rationality as key factors of both their own concepts of the masculine and of human progress. It is ironic that those two factors are so conspicuously absent in the exploration of the one phenomenon that most consistently threatens that progress – masculinity itself.
If multiplicity theory is correct and masculinity cannot be singularly defined then there is, logically, only one answer to the question ‘What is masculinity?’, that being.........
‘ It isn’t’
Is the theory man enough to take it ?
Citations:
1. Whitehead SM, Men and Masculinities, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2002, p.42.
2. Connell RW, Masculinities (First Edition), Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995, p3.
3. Ibid, p44.
4. Ibid, p68.
5.http://www.gaiacharis.com/site/index.php/gender/164-multiple-masculinities-trilogy-part-2masculinity-as-not-femininitythe-reality-of-the-illusion
6. De Beauvoir S, The Second Sex, Penguin Modern Classics, Harmondsworth, UK, 1972 (First published 1949), p16.
7. Cahn SM, Classics of Western Philosophy(Sixth Edition), Hackett Publishing, US, 2002, p86.
8. Ibid, p86.
9. Connell RW, Masculinities (Second Edition), Polity Press, Cambridge, 2005, pXVII.
10. Collinson D and Hearn J. Naming Men as Men: Implications for Work Organization and Management in Whitehead SM and Barrett FJ, The Masculinities Reader, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001, p151.
11. Ibid, p152.
12. Connell RW and Messerschmidt JW, Hegemonic Masculinity:Rethinking the Concept, Gender and Society, December 2005;Vol 19, 6.
13. Ibid, p .846
14. Halberstam J, Female Masculinity, Duke University Press, US, 1998, PXII.
15. Ibid, p1.
16. Ibid, p269.
17. Reeser TW, Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction, Wiley-Blackwell, UK, 2010, p132.
18.Gelfer J, The Masculinity Conspiracy,
http://masculinityconspiracy.wordpress.com/book-chapters/chapter1a/chapter1b/
19.Connell R @ http://www.raewynconnell.net/p/masculinities_20.html
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