Hegemonic masculinity
In gender studies, hegemonic masculinity is a sociocultural practice that legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of the common male population and women, and other marginalized ways of being a man. Conceptually, hegemonic masculinity proposes to explain how and why men maintain dominant social roles over women, and other gender identities, which are perceived as "feminine" in a given society. It is part of R. W. Connell's gender order theory, which recognizes multiple masculinities that vary across time, society, culture, and the individual.
The conceptual beginnings of hegemonic masculinity represented the culturally idealized form of manhood that was socially and hierarchically exclusive and concerned with bread-winning; that was anxiety-provoking and differentiated ; that was brutal and violent, pseudo-natural and tough, psychologically contradictory, and thus crisis-prone; economically rich and socially sustained. However, many sociologists criticized that definition of hegemonic masculinity as a fixed character-type, which is analytically limited, because it excludes the complexity of different, and competing, forms of masculinity. Consequently, hegemonic masculinity was reformulated to include gender hierarchy, the geography of masculine configurations, the processes of social embodiment, and the psycho-social dynamics of the varieties of masculinity.
Proponents of the concept of hegemonic masculinity argue that it is conceptually useful for understanding gender relations, and is applicable to life-span development, education, criminology, the representations of masculinity in the mass communications media, the health of men and women, and the functional structure of organizations. Critics argue that hegemonic masculinity is heteronormative, is not self-reproducing, ignores positive aspects of masculinity, relies on a flawed underlying concept of masculinity, or is too ambiguous to have practical application.
Description
Terry Kupers of The Wright Institute describes the concept of hegemonic masculinity in these terms:History
"Due to social inequalities in Australian high schools, Sociologist Connell introduced the Hegemonic masculinity idea, that takes a look at male roles and their characteristics." These beginnings were organized into an article which critiqued the "male sex role" literature and proposed a model of multiple masculinities and power relations. This model was integrated into a systematic sociological theory of gender. The resulting six pages in Gender and Power by R. W. Connell on "hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity" became the most cited source for the concept of hegemonic masculinity. This concept draws its theoretical roots from the Gramscian term hegemony as it was used to understand the stabilization of class relations. The idea was then transferred to the problem of gender relations.Hegemonic masculinity draws some of its historical roots from both the fields of social psychology and sociology which contributed to the literature about the male sex role that had begun to recognize the social nature of masculinity and the possibilities of change in men's conduct. This literature preceded the Women's Liberation Movement and feminist theories of patriarchy which also played a strong role in shaping the concept of hegemonic masculinity. The core concepts of power and difference were found in the gay liberation movement which had not only sought to analyse the oppression of men but also oppression by men. This idea of a hierarchy of masculinities has since persisted and strongly influenced the reformulation of the concept.
Empirical social research also played an important role as a growing body of field studies documented local gender hierarchies and local cultures of masculinities in schools, male-dominated workplaces, and village communities. Finally, the concept was influenced by psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud produced the first analytic biographies of men and showed how adult personality was a system under tension and the psychoanalyst Robert J. Stoller popularized the concept of gender identity and mapped its variation in boys' development.
Original framework
The particular normative form of masculinity that is the most honoured way of being a man, which requires all other men to position themselves in relation to it, is known as hegemonic masculinity. In Western society, the dominant form of masculinity or the cultural ideal of manhood was primarily reflective of white, heterosexual, largely middle-class males. The ideals of manhood espoused by the dominant masculinity suggested a number of characteristics that men are encouraged to internalize into their own personal codes and which form the basis for masculine scripts of behaviour. These characteristics include: violence and aggression, stoicism, courage, toughness, physical strength, athleticism, risk-taking, adventure and thrill-seeking, competitiveness, and achievement and success. Hegemonic masculinity is not completely dominant, however, as it only exists in relation to non-hegemonic, subordinated forms of masculinity. The most salient example of this approach in contemporary European and American society is the dominance of heterosexual men and the subordination of homosexual men. This was manifested in political and cultural exclusion, legal violence, street violence, and economic discrimination. Gay masculinity was the most conspicuous subordinated masculinity during this period of time, but not the only one. Heterosexual men and boys with effeminate characteristics ran the risk of being scorned as well.Hegemonic masculinity is neither normative in the numerical sense, as only a small minority of men may enact it, nor in an actual sense, as the cultural ideal of masculinity is often a fantasy figure, such as John Wayne or John Rambo. It also affects the construct and perception of the idealised male body from an exclusively Western perspective. Hegemonic masculinity may not even be the commonest pattern in the everyday lives of men. Rather, hegemony can operate through the formation of exemplars of masculinity, symbols that have cultural authority despite the fact that most men and boys cannot fully live up to them. Hegemonic masculinity imposes an ideal set of traits which stipulate that a man can never be unfeminine enough. Thus, fully achieving hegemonic masculinity becomes an unattainable ideal.
Complicity to the aforementioned masculine characteristics was another key feature of the original framework of hegemonic masculinity. Yet still since men benefit from the patriarchal dividend, they generally gain from the overall subordination of women. However, complicity is not so easily defined as pure subordination since marriage, fatherhood, and community life often involve extensive compromises with women rather than simple domination over them. In this way hegemony is not gained through necessarily violent or forceful means, but it is achieved through culture, institutions, and persuasions.
The interplay of gender with class and race creates more extensive relationships among masculinities. For example, new information technology has redefined middle-class masculinities and working-class masculinities in different ways. In a racial context, hegemonic masculinity among whites sustains the institutional oppression and physical terror that have framed the making of masculinities in black communities. It has been suggested that historically suppressed groups like inner city African-American males exhibit the more violent standards of hegemonic masculinity in response to their own subordination and lack of control. This idea of marginalization is always relative to what is allowed by the dominant group, therefore creating subsets of hegemonic masculinity based on existing social hierarchies.