Hegemonic Forms Of Masculinity Research Articles

Between a rock and a hard place: women and computer technology

This paper explores certain possible reasons behind the uneasy relationship between women and technology. The cultural identification of technology with masculinity has been well documented through previous research. However, we feel it is useful to revisit this complex relationship through the scope of a more subtle distinction between ‘users’ and ‘connoisseurs’, and the struggle over power, which revolves around a specific form of hegemonic masculinity. We draw on interviews that examine students’ experiences, emotions, and statements about gender, technology, mathematics, and education, and we try to offer an understanding of the ways women negotiate their position within the dominant discourse about computing and mathematics. Our analysis employs post-structuralist discourse theory.

White Masculinity and Civility in Contemporary Canadian Short Stories

Examining the representation of white men and masculinity in two recently published Canadian short stories, both of which contend with the cultural fallout of globalization. The literary readings of “The Number Three,” by Alexander MacLeod and “The Beggar’s Garden”, by Michael Christie are located within three critical contexts: the concept of “white civility” developed by Daniel Coleman, which describes a distinctively Canadian model of masculinity; the notion of “white masculinity in crisis”; and the form of the “return story,” defined by Canadian literary critic Gerald Lynch as the concluding story in a short story cycle. The stories ultimately confirm a particularly Canadian form of hegemonic masculinity, which derives the patriarchal dividend by projecting anti-elitism, commitment to community, and civility; underneath that projection, however, the fantasy of traditional social structures and gendered labor divisions is affirmed. In their experimentation with the genre of the short story cycle and the return story, MacLeod and Christie work to represent white men reeling from an awareness of their own economic and domestic marginalization, and yet who manage to reaffirm a sense of hegemonic masculinity via the staging of gendered settlement activity, or reterritorialization. What emerges from a close reading of the two short stories is a picture of a distinctively Canadian hegemonic masculinity, whereby the assertion of the “natural” right to control space is related to—indeed, ensues from—an ability to empathize with community, to perform modest economic and domestic aspirations, and to cope with loss in civil terms.

Keeping the trauma of war open in the male body: resisting the hegemonic forms of masculinity and national identity in visual arts

The imagining of the nation-state includes the appropriation of bodies as objects on which the desire for national unity and identity is brutally inscribed. The appropriation of male bodies is accompanied by hegemonic forms of masculinities that are constitutive of the national identity. This article asks how male bodies are appropriated and post-war nationalism inscribed on them and how the hegemonic forms of masculinities are produced for the purposes of ‘healing’ the national self after the trauma of war. The article seeks also to demonstrate that the processes of appropriation can be interrupted and resisted, and alternative masculinities produced in visual art. In the text, the problematique of appropriation and its interruption is discussed by using material from three Finnish cases which relate to the ways the Finnish national identity has been constructed in relation to the trauma of the Finnish Civil War and Second World War.

Where Are the Women in Global Governance? Leaders, Wives and Hegemonic Masculinity in the G8 and G20 Summits

Although various studies have explored women's representation and participation in the central mechanisms of global governance such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, no similar study exists in the case of the summit meetings of the Group of Eight and Group of Twenty countries. This article begins by identifying the participation of women within these formal and informal fora of global governance and concludes that both summits represent sites of hegemonic masculinity in terms of space, style and, to an extent, substance. It then extends its focus towards an exploration and evaluation of the occasions when women have played an apparently dominant role in these summit meetings: as spouses. Whilst acknowledging the impact of their participation in terms of agenda setting and policymaking, in addition to the ceremonial roles they play through the various social events and photo opportunities organised on the periphery of these summits, the article concludes that these activities serve ultimately to reinforce the elite nature of summitry, in addition to a gendered division of labour and a hegemonic form of masculinity therein.

Hybrid Masculine Power: Reconceptualizing the Relationship between Homosociality and Hegemonic Masculinity

Most research on heterosexual interaction among men focuses on ideologies, discourses, and practices that correspond to conventional renditions of hegemonic masculinity. Specifically, previous research suggests heterosexual men in homosocial interaction tend to suppress non-hegemonic meanings in constructing a sense of masculinity. Less attention has been given, however, to the ways in which men in homosocial settings conceptualize and negotiate with masculine ideals so as to produce a “hybrid” form of hegemonic masculinity that appropriates non-hegemonic practices. This study examines the production of hybrid hegemonic masculinity through participant observation of men in the social setting of a college bar. Results show that although men did align themselves with conventional hegemonic masculinity, they also incorporated gender practices associated with non-hegemonic masculinities. Interestingly, men often engaged in emotive sharing and preferred cooperation to competition as strategies in small group interaction for reproducing domination over women and subordinate masculinities. The argument is made that hybrid hegemonic masculinity may signal a shift in the landscape of hegemonic masculine power that increasingly appropriates alternative masculinities as a way to protect and reproduce gendered power and privilege.

Learning Masculinity through Japanese University Rowing

This article is based on a larger ethnographic project that examines the construction of gendered identity within a Japanese men’s rowing club. For members, notions of masculinity and Japanese identity converge to the point of naturalization. The embodied experience of being a rower is underpinned by the cultural artifacts of hierarchy, social positioning, and group membership. Membership in university rowing clubs somatizes and naturalizes the valued characteristics associated with salary-man identity (duty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, mental and physical endurance) to the point of common sense. The resultant masculine identity is congruent with forms of hegemonic masculinity that are critical for successful employment in company-centered Japan.

Women in political arena: Insiders or outsiders?

This article focuses on two questions. Why are women underrepresented in democratic institutions and what are the barriers for their larger inclusion in political arena? Problems are analyzed from global perspective. Structural, cultural and political barriers are elaborated. The gender sensitive concept of representative democracy demonstrates legitimacy and difference in political processes. The hegemonic form of masculinity in all state institutions and procedures, in the election system, political culture and media, influences the exclusion of women on all levels of representation. Different theoretical concepts about gender representation in politics are analyzed. The author stresses greater influence of political factors - political culture, type of electoral system, party competitiveness, ideological differences, number of candidates, party and district magnitude, quota system - on women's representation in parliaments. The state of the art in representative bodies and in decision-making processes on the global level are analyzed in the third section of the article.

Re-examining Hegemonic Masculinity in High School Rugby: The Body, Compliance and Resistance

While certain patterns of masculinity can assume hegemonic status to operate at an unquestioned, common sense level use of the concept of hegemonic masculinity runs the risk of missing multiple patterns of masculinity operating within and in relation to hegemonic masculinity in and around sport. Drawing on research conducted on rugby in an Australian Greater Public School (GPS) school, this article examines the ways in which variation, diversity, and resistance can be found operating within a particular form of hegemonic masculinity. Through critical re-examination of data from a study conducted in 1997, it peels back a layer of apparent compliance with a hegemonic form of masculinity among the boys in the 1st XV rugby team to identify a form of embodied resistance in the desire of the boys in the team to adopt a style of rugby that challenged the school's traditional approach.

Masculinities fathering and health: The experiences of African-Caribbean and white working class fathers

There is a developing body of research that investigates the links between masculinities and men's health experiences, but the links between masculinities and the health of fathers has been a neglected focus for research in the UK. This paper presents some of the findings drawn from a parent study which investigated African-Caribbean and white working class fathers’ experiences of fathering, health and social connectedness. Data are drawn from interviews with 13 men (6 African-Caribbean and 7 White working class) living in a city in the West Midlands area of the UK. In this paper, I analyse and discuss African-Caribbean and white working class fathers’ stories about the meaning of health, the influences upon their health, and their health practices. It was found that for the African-Caribbean fathers specifically, anticipated or perceived racist prejudice, abuse or discrimination influenced their health experiences. However, the meaning of health for both ethnic groups of fathers was as functional capacity, that is health was an asset that allowed fathers to meet the obligations of paid work and fathering. These obligations were also associated with a restricted sense of personal agency for the men interviewed, and the associated constraints were linked to transgressive consumption of alcohol, food and tobacco. In addition, fathers were also involved in solitary ways of dealing with their vulnerability, vulnerability that was associated with fathers’ health concerns, and other difficult life experiences. Fathers’ solitary experiences of vulnerability were also mediated by hegemonic forms of masculinity. Nevertheless, the experience of fathering within the lifecourse influenced men's health experiences: reflexivity and challenges to both transgressive consumption and solitary experiences were linked to fathers’ perceived obligations to children. The significance of gender, ethnicity and social class for theory and future research with working class fathers and boys is identified, and the need for gender-sensitive public health and health promotion interventions regarding the ‘work-family balance’ and working class fathers’ personal and social skills is also discussed.

Masculinities and Violence: Interruption of hegemonic discourses in an English classroom

In this paper I explore ways in which adolescent male students perceive war and violence and related gender discourses. My research is situated in a Year 10 English classroom in a private boys’ school in Perth, Australia. Interviews with students and their teacher provide opportunities to explore perceptions and ideas on issues relating to war and violence. It appears that discourses of violence are closely associated with hegemonic forms of masculinity which specifically exclude females. It also appears that although pedagogical practices do not condone violence, they retain violence in an unquestioned, unchallengeable position in classroom discourses. I found that discourses which challenge war and violence were not always easily accessible to these adolescent male students.

Heavy‐metal Humpty Dumpty: dissonant masculinities within the context of the nursery

To operationalize a feminist poststructuralist approach necessitates research of a close‐up nature in order to track shifting subject positions through a range of social contexts and to explore the interpersonal and intrapersonal power relations that operate within them. Adopting this theoretical perspective, together with Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity, this paper explores the practices and beliefs of one male nursery teacher, Ian, as he attempts to carry out a Government‐funded initiative aimed at increasing the involvement of fathers and male carers in his nursery. Data are drawn from a sequence of interviews with Ian, his colleagues, and the participating fathers and male carers. The analysis shows how Ian experiences identity dissonance which can be interpreted as a struggle with competing aspects of masculinity as he slips in and out of forms of hegemonic masculinity, sometimes complicit and sometimes struggling to resist. This interpretation problematizes the essentialist nature of the concept of hegemonic masculinity.

Destined to Come to Blows?

In 1994, a democratic government came to power in South Africa for the first time in the country's history. But political transition is never a single event or moment. Rather, it is a continuous process that faces setbacks and contradictions. One of the questions we might ask about a society in transition is to what extent its gender order has changed or is changing. The present paper sets out to read the country's transformation drama through the lens of contested conceptions of South African masculinity. The article is focused on one particular version of masculinity which it terms “rational-intellectual man,” and the argument is that a legacy of racism and the persistence of racialized modes of reasoning continue to marginalise black men from this and other powerful, high-status forms of hegemonic masculinity.

Just one of the boys? A life history case study of a male physical education teacher

Studies of physical education teacher training have already established that hegemonic forms of masculinity are reinforced and reproduced both in the hidden curriculum (Flintoff, 1997) and the informal student culture (Skelton, 1993). Given this, an important feminist concern is whether male PE teachers whose own masculine identities are anchored in their athletic prowess simply ‘teach’ their young male charges to construct hegemonic forms of masculinity through PE and school sport and/or whether they necessarily marginalize and inferiorize female students. This paper provides a life history case study of a male PE teacher’s role both in reproducing and challenging gendered norms in his capacity as coach of a schoolboy and schoolgirl Australian Rules football team.

Considering the Role of Men in Gender Agenda Setting: Conceptual and Policy Issues

The international gender equality agenda evolved into one of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes. Within this process, the role of men gained increasing attention in the debates on gender equality. This resulted in the inclusion of ‘men's role’ as one of the themes of the agenda of the Commission on the Status of Women for the year 2004. While this is another step forward in the global efforts for achieving equality between women and men, its potential risks should not be overlooked. Therefore, it is necessary to revisit the concept of gender and carefully assess and monitor how the role of men is included in the agenda. This article starts with the premise that gender inequalities are the product of historically determined gender order in which the differentially assigned male female attributes are unequally structured in layers of privileged and subordinate positions of masculinities and femininities. The concept of patriarchy is brought back into the analysis to capture the interlinkages between the various status hierarchies that lead to shifts in hegemonic forms of masculinity that reproduces itself under diverse and changing conditions. Thus, while the article attempts to account for the generic and universal characteristics of gender inequality, at the same time, it draws attention to its specific socio-cultural manifestations. Finally, policy guidelines are offered for the consideration of the role of men in gender agenda setting. Accordingly, it is suggested that men's initiatives for alternative masculinities are acknowledged and that the questions regarding which men, in what kinds of alliances and for which end are reflected upon in formulating policies.

Nostalgic Correspondence and James Boswell's Scottish Malady

The essay examines James Boswell's correspondence with his friend, John Johnston of Grange, most of which dates from the 1760s; the essay emphasizes the correspondence that transmitted Boswell's London Journal. The essay argues that these letters invoke a form of social melancholy that surrounds a mythical and absent Scottish past, and that this mythos is closely connected to midcentury rhetorics of spontaneity and sentiment. The mythos of Scotland involves a particular sort of masculinity— spontaneous, sentimental, and unproduced—which Boswell and Grange understand to be no longer available in eighteenth-century Britain, where hegemonic forms of masculinity are understood to be polished, refined, and calculated.

‘We Decided to Give it a Twirl’: single-sex teaching in English comprehensive schools

This article reports the recent experiences of single-sex teaching in 31 co-educational English comprehensive schools, often implemented because of the perceived need to raise boys' achievement. Since it was often undertaken on a short-term basis, its effectiveness is difficult to evaluate, although some positive aspects were noted in some schools in terms of raised achievement levels and increased confidence and participation in class. In other schools, however, single-sex teaching appeared to have little impact on achievement levels and led to increased problems of behaviour management in boys' classes, with male bonding between male teachers and male students reinforcing the qualities associated with hegemonic forms of masculinity. The authors conclude, therefore, by suggesting that single-sex classes can provide a positive and successful experience for girls and boys where there is strong commitment from staff, a willingness to evaluate and to diffuse good practice, but crucially where gender reform strategies are in place to challenge any practices and behaviours that reinforce stereotypical gendered roles.

Motives for ‘Laddishness’ at School: Fear of failure and fear of the ‘feminine’

Abstract‘Laddish’ behaviours in school have been identified as impediments to the academic progress of some boys and girls. This article provides and discusses empirical evidence to support Jackson's proposal in an earlier article that ‘laddish’ behaviours may act to protect the self‐worth and/or social worth of many boys, and that ‘laddishness’ may be prompted by both a fear of academic failure and a fear of the ‘feminine’. Drawing upon data from interviews with 50 boys across two secondary schools, the article focuses upon a key characteristic of ‘laddishness’, namely, the overt rejection of academic work. It is suggested that overtly rejecting academic work serves a dual function for some boys. First, it enables them to act in ways currently consistent with hegemonic forms of masculinity in their schools. Secondly, it provides an excuse for failure and augments success.

Patriarchal Machines and Masculine Embodiment

Hegemonic masculinity is a concept that has been of central concern in gender research on different masculinities. However, with the exception of the pioneering work of Wajcman, it has not been widely discussed in relation to studies of science and technology. In this article, which mainly draws on anthropological fieldwork among car and motor mechanics in Penang, Malaysia, a certain form of hegemonic masculinity, based on an intimate embodied interaction with machines, is being discussed. Such a masculinity is furthermore founded on an anthropomorphization of the man-machine relationship in which the machines are transformed into subjects in what might be termed a masculine technical sociability. In such a sociability, machines are understood as a means of a performative and embodied communication enabling masculine homosocial bonding linkages.

Complicity and Reproduction in Teaching Physical Education

ABSTRACT This paper draws on data collected from a life history study to consider the social significance of masculine identity in teaching physical education (PE). Using Connell's (1995) theory of multiple masculinities and gender power relations from a critical post‐structuralist perspective, notions of hegemonic masculinity are problem‐atized. It is argued that complicity to a hegemonic norm represents a form of masculine teaching identity that facilitates the reproduction of hegemonic forms of masculinity and patriarchy in PE and school sport. The data illustrate that in managing their masculine teaching identities to accommodate the social expectations placed upon them, the participants draw upon their background experience and in so doing shift their teaching identities towards a complicit masculine teaching identity. Although unintentional this situation represents a dilemma that serves to perpetuate a link between generations of PE discourse and practice helping to reproduce and legitimize hegemonic masculinity and the gender order in physical education.

Masculinity and Child Care: The Reconstruction of Fathering

In this article we focus on a group of fathers who use parental leave and how they include care-giving in their construction of masculinity. The fathers shape their own masculine form of care-work differently from the mothers' interaction with the child. Both mothers and fathers, however, take part in the process of reproducing masculinity as the norm by giving masculine care higher status. Care-giving activities are adopted by the hegemonic form of masculinity with its strong connection to paid work.