Masculinities: Intro, Men's Bodies, The Social Organization of Masculinity

Introduction

R.W. Connell’s introduction to his (side note about the pronouns: according to wikipedia, R. W. was formerly Robert William and has had a sex change and is now Raewyn. I haven’t found other sources to support this, and while pronouns shouldn’t be as binary as they are, I’m just going to use “he” because it fits into the hegemonic linguistic pronoun use that I use in papers…) book Masculinities sets the book in context of current issues that interact with the text—namely masculinities as a field of study, debates and difficulties, and globalization. Connell summarizes the international study of masculinity; applied research of masculinity in education, health, and issues of violence, fathering and counseling; and intellectual applications. He outlines the debates and difficulties that the subject has encounters in the recent past (about the last 20 years) and the directions in which the field of study might go. He also notes that we must “shift our focus from individual-level gender differences to ‘the patterns of socially constructed gender relations’” (quoting Smith, xxi) in response to an increasingly globalized society.

His goal with Masculinities is, as he puts it, “to show that studies of masculinities and men’s gender practices formed a comprehensible field of knowledge” (xiii), and he the field he explores in this text is inextricably linked to other fields of knowledge.

Chapter 2: Men’s Bodies

In this chapter, Connell argues that experiences of gender are inherently “embodied” and that bodies interact with social practice by being both objects and agents of it. Under the subheading True Masculinity, Connell refutes three common views of bodies and gender—biological determinism, social symbolism (semiotics), and a combination thereof—saying that “we can arrive at a better understanding of the relations between men’s bodies and masculinity” (46). In the section Machine, Landscape and Compromise, Connell explores sociobiology and social constructivism, highlighting the limits of each approach. Although his bias is against sociobiology (he argues that it is deterministic and far too influenced by prior social discourses to be legitimate), he also finds limits to a pure social constructivist view, namely that “the signified tends to vanish” (50). This approach reminded me of some of our conversations about Butler’s social constructivism, and I was happy when Connell further explored this point in chapter 3. Connell claims that a compromise between sociobiology and social constructivism “will not do as the basis for an account of gender,” but also acknowledges that “we cannot ignore either the radically cultural character of gender or the bodily presence” (52). He proposes an approach that sees the body as an entity actively engaged with society—the body and society have a dynamic, constantly changing relationship.

In the last four sections of this chapter, Connell explores this relationship through what he calls “life-history study.” Personal accounts are given and analyzed, and Connell elaborates on the ways in which men express different aspects of cultural scripts interacting with their bodies. He seems very interested in the interplay of many complex factors: “the performance is symbolic and kinetic, social and bodily, at one and the same time, and these aspects depend on each other” (54). He does not deny the presence of constructed masculinities—indeed, he emphasizes the importance of physical expectations (i.e. in sports, or in general ability, p. 54-55) in gender construction. But unlike Butler, he does not see these bodies as a canvas upon which social scripts are painted. Rather, he states: “The bodily process, entering into the social process becomes part of history (both personal and collective) and a possible object of politics. […] [Bodies] have various forms of recalcitrance to social symbolism and control” (56).

Connell uses the rest of the chapter to explore these various forms of recalcitrance, emphasizing bodies that have not conformed to social expectations (i.e. men who have tried to fit into a binge-lifestyle to adhere to a somewhat hegemonic form of masculinity). He coins the term “body-reflexive practice,” referring to the process of “practice itself forming the structures within which bodies are appropriated and defined” (61). According to Connell, bodies are both objects and agents of practice, and this “embodied-social” realm has political implications.

Chapter 3: The Social Organization of Masculinity

This chapter builds on many of the concepts outlined in chapter 2, further defining theories and relationships between several discourses in gender studies.

Connell begins this chapter by defining the term “masculinity.” He breaks down some of the presuppositions that inform the term, such as assuming “that one’s behavior results from the type of person one is” and presupposing “a belief in individual difference and personal agency” (67, 68). He outlines four main strategies that have been used to “characterize the type of person who is masculine” (68):
1) Essentialist definitions usually rely on a feature to define what is at the core of masculinity. The obvious problem here is that what forms the “essence” of masculinity is arbitrary and varies from scholar to scholar.
2) Positivist approaches try to get to a fact-based definition of what men actually are. Connell notes that this theory is fraught with presuppositions, requires the presence of binary sex, and eschews the view that women can be masculine and men can be feminine. 3) Normative approaches set a masculinity standard for what men “ought to be,” and say that men can live up to this standard to varying degrees. Connell notes the “unwarranted assumption that role and identity correspond” that is rampant in this theory.
4) Semiotic approaches have already been examined in chapter 2, but here Connell defines these approaches as focusing on “symbolic difference in which masculine and feminine places are contrasted” (70). He notes that it can be limited in scope because it does not talk about “relationships of other kinds too: about gendered places in production and consumption, places in institution and in natural environments, places in social and military struggles” (71).

Under the subheading Gender as a Structure of Social Practice, Connell states that “gender is a way in which social practice is ordered” (71) and calls for “at least a three-fold model” of the way gender is structured (73). This approach, he argues, should distinguish relations of power (dismantling patriarchy), production (gender divisions of labor), and cathexis (emotional connection). He emphasizes the importance of going beyond gender to explore connections with race and class (among other things).

Connell then explores four relations among masculinities: hegemony, subordination, complicity, and marginalization. As this blog post is getting quite lengthy, I’ll tell you the most important part of this whole analysis: hegemony, subordination and complicity comprise one overarching type of relationship, and marginalization/authorization comprise another. These two types of relationship provide a framework for analyzing specific masculinities, and allow masculinities to enter fluid, relational domains instead of being static boxes. Connell ends the chapter by talking about Historical Dynamics, Violence and Crisis Tendencies, revisiting his tri-fold approach to gender relations.

As I read Connell, similarities and differences between this work and Butler’s struck me. What is each scholar’s place in the essentialist/constructivist debate? How does each scholar occupy space outside of this binary discourse, and what are the ways in which each scholar buys into them?

I’m also very interested in Connell’s concept of “embodiment” as it interacts with the social realm. How can we determine how active our bodies are in this script, and how much agency they really have? I'm interested to discuss this text and how others reacted in class tomorrow.