Book ReviewsThe Myth of Masculinity.PleckJoseph H., Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981, 229 pp., $22.50 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Masculinity. A Miniature How-to Guide for that Notoriously 'Unmarked' Category
in Yearbook of Women's History 40. Living Concepts. 40 Years of Engaging Gender and History (2021) pp. 53-58, 2021
Considering the hard time Dutch gender historians have incorporating the concept of masculinity in their research, this paper is set up as a miniature ‘how-to-guide’. After briefly discussing its notorious ‘unmarked’ character, the inherently plural nature of masculinity is introduced as useful guiding principle. Then some examples of possible methods and their relative merits are given. Meanwhile, eclecticism in one’s methods is also recommended as a working strategy. The essay concludes with a plea not to underestimate the value of contradictory findings and the opportunities they offer for a more advanced analysis of masculinity.
The Social Organization of Masculinity, by Raewyn Connell
The Social Organization of Masculinity, by CONNELL, Raewyn, 2005
"The task of this chapter is to set out a framework based on contemporary analyses of gender relations. This framework will provide a way of distinguishing types of masculinity, and of understanding the dynamics of change. Defining Masculinity All societies have cultural accounts of gender, but not all have the concept 'masculinity'. In its modern usage the term assumes that one's behaviour results from the type of person one is. That is to say, an unmasculine person would behave differently: being peaceable rather than violent, conciliatory rather than dominating, hardly able to kick a football, uninterested in sexual conquest, and so forth. This conception presupposes a belief in individual difference and personal agency. In that sense it is built on the conception of individuality that developed in early-modern Europe with the growth of colonial empires and capitalist economic relations. But the concept is also inherently relational. 'Masculinity' does not exist except in contrast with 'femininity'. A culture which does not treat women and men as bearers of polarized character types, at least in principle, does not have a concept of masculinity in the sense of modern European/ American culture. Historical research suggests that this was true of European culture itself before the eighteenth century. Women were certainly regarded as different from men, but different in the sense of being incomplete or inferior examples of the same character (for instance, having less of the faculty of reason). Women and men were not seen as bearers of qualitatively different characters; this conception accompanied the bourgeois ideology of 'separate spheres' in the nineteenth century. In both respects our concept of masculinity seems to be a fairly recent historical product, a few hundred years old at most. In speaking of masculinity at all, then, we are 'doing gender' in a culturally specific way. This should be borne in mind with any claim to have discovered transhistorical truths about manhood and the masculine. Definitions of masculinity have mostly taken our cultural standpoint for granted, but have followed different strategies to characterize the type of person who is masculine. Four main strategies have been followed; they are easily distinguished in terms of their logic, though often combined in practice."
'Be a Man': The Construct of Masculinity through Ages
The juxtaposition of reviews of three exceptionally articulate books on masculinity traversing the ancient, medieval and modern periods of India's historical past with an insight on the very changes and continuities of gender relations and studies.
Toward a new sociology of masculinity
Theory and Society, 1985
The upheaval in sexual politics of the last twenty years has mainly been discussed as a change in the social position of women. Yet change in one term of a relationship signals change in the other. From very early in the history of Women's Liberation it was clear that its politics had radical implications for men. A small "Men's Liberation" movement developed in the 1970s among heterosexual men. Gay men became politicized as the new feminism was developing, and Gay Liberation politics have continued to call in question the conventional understanding of what it is to be a man. Academic sex-role research, though mainly about women in the family, was easily extended to the "male role." From several different directions in the 1970s, critiques and analyses of masculinity appeared. Quite strong claims about the emergence of a new area of study, and a new departure in sexual politics, were made. The purpose of this article is to bring together these attempts, evaluate them, and propose an alternative.
South Asian Popular Culture , 2020
Introduction to special issue on Masculinities, co-edited with Praseeda Gopinath