The return of the loving father: masculinity, legitimacy and the French and Dutch Restoration monarchies (1813-1815) (original) (raw)
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The Return of the Loving Father: Masculinity, Legitimacy and the French and Dutch Restoration
BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 2012
matthijs lok and natalie scholz Historians of gender often see the construction of hegemonic images of masculinity as the result of long-term cultural processes. In this article we investigate the influence of short-term political events on the shaping of dominant political masculinities by comparing the representations of the early French and Dutch Restoration monarchies. The events of the political transition of 1813-1815 greatly influenced the competition of different models of masculinity existing in the early nineteenth century. In both countries the newly established monarchs aimed to legitimate their insecure rule by presenting themselves as 'loving fathers' returning to their despairing children after the dark years of exile. The Dutch monarchy differed from the French case with regards to the role of women in the monarchical representation and the duality of the representation of William I as father and hero. Unlike Louis XVIII, William could present his fatherly rule as a return to the national tradition of domesticity (huiselijkheid). Masculinity and political crisis It has often been observed that in times of deep crisis gender categories play a particularly important role in political discourse. At such moments gendered concepts and images are often used to confirm one's own party's strength and legitimacy, as well as to undermine the credibility and authority of the enemy, whether domestic or foreign. Gender historians of political culture, who soon began to study masculinity intensively, have paid a great deal of attention to this aspect, for example in the context of the French Revolution, the Third Reich or, most recently, the early Cold War. For this reason, the
Historians of gender often see the construction of hegemonic images of masculinity as the result of long-term cultural processes. In this article we investigate the influence of short-term political events on the shaping of dominant political masculinities by comparing the representations of the early French and Dutch Restoration monarchies. The events of the political transition of 1813-1815 greatly influenced the competition of different models of masculinity existing in the early nineteenth century. In both countries the newly established monarchs aimed to legitimate their insecure rule by presenting themselves as ‘loving fathers’ returning to their despairing children after the dark years of exile. The Dutch monarchy differed from the French case with regards to the role of women in the monarchical representation and the duality of the representation of William I as father and hero. Unlike Louis XVIII, William could present his fatherly rule as a return to the national tradition of domesticity (huiselijkheid). Masculinity and
Gender and Politics in World History from the Renaissance through the Age of Revolutions
This course explores the politics of gender, and the gender of politics in world history from the Renaissance through the Age of Revolutions. We will study formal politics-statecraft -and its relationship to the politics of family and everyday life (and vice versa). From Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince (1513) through Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), gender constructions have shaped the everyday lives of men and women as well as the establishment of governments, empire, and commerce. We will analyze gender and sexuality as ways of signifying and structuring power and as significant factors in historical change. Like the rest of the core courses, this class aims to understand history in order to illuminate the processes that continue to influence our world. In addition to understanding the ways that past conceptions of gender and politics shaped the present, we will consider the contemporary concerns that shape our understandings of history.
British Masculinities Beyond Patriarchy, 1689-1702
2017
Title: British Masculinities Beyond Patriarchy, 1689-1702 Author: Owen Anderson Brittan This research project examines multiple constructions of masculinity during the reign of William III (1689-1702), a period often overlooked by historians of masculinity. Historical interpretations of masculinity in the early modern period have focused heavily on patriarchal models of masculinity and the accompanying gendered relationships and expectations associated with the household. Recently, historians have turned their attention to cultures of politeness and civility in the public sphere. Yet masculinity in this period was more diverse than these prominent models allow because it could be constructed through a number of different processes. Using normative literature and experiential records, this project seeks to add to the scholarship on nonpatriarchal constructions, understandings, and norms of masculinity. Four non-domestic settings were particularly prominent and recurrent throughout th...
Her-story Untold: The Absence of Women’s Agency in Constructing Concepts of Early Modern Manhood
Social and Cultural History Journal 4:4, 2007
In 1994 John Tosh was able to write that 'feminists have come to feel happier with the study of masculinity'. 1 Twelve years later men's historians can ill afford such optimism, as the fears of feminist and women's historians concerning the subversive potential of the history of masculinity have been reawakened. Mrinalini Sinha's important study of the historiography of Colonial Indian masculinity, published in 1999, offered an awareness of the rising sentiments of caution felt and voiced by feminist scholars about men's studies and men's histories. She recognized that the central purpose behind the feminist call for studies of masculinity -to realize a fuller understanding of gender relations and the organization of gendered power -had not been achieved by those who answered that call. One year later Bryce Traister's essay 'Academic Viagra' aptly detailed the imperialistic nature of men's studies. He argued that American masculinity studies 'effectively crowds out the women and texts responsible for the rise of feminism' and 'shifts Americanist cultural criticism, once again, into the dominant study of malekind '. 3 In 2004 Toby Ditz's historiographical survey, which was focused through a lens of early American gender history, showed not only that men's history has eschewed the original aspirations of feminists for men's studies, but also that it has a worrying capability to overshadow women's studies and women's histories. 4 Ditz argues that to remedy the potentially imperialistic nature of men's history we should seek to realize how, when and why men had power over other men and women. I want to take Ditz's argument one step further and suggest that there is a real need to develop studies of masculinity beyond the concern of male power. Taking the seventeenth century as an example, this review essay will indicate that historians and JORDAN Her-story untold 575