Stoltenberg is unusual within masculinity studies in arguing that it is impossible to be a man without subordinating women (Beasley, 2005: 202). Almost all those involved in masculinity studies are highly critical of dominant forms of masculinity. However, most have some sympathy for men and are keen to point out that not all men are privileged within patriarchal society. Stoltenberg (2000a/1989; 2000b/1993), on the other hand, argues that all men do enjoy privilege — and indeed are complicit — within patriarchy and that only by refusing to take on manhood can change be brought to the social order. This aligns him with radical feminists such as Dworkin and Mackinnon (Beasley, 2005: 199—201). Stoltenberg is a modernist, promoting liberation and adhering strongly to notions of men as a coherent group. The strength of his position lies in his willingness to focus relentlessly on the need to change the dominance of men over women and especially to protest the way in which violence is used to maintain masculine domination. Other masculinity theorists can tend to drift away from an agenda of social change (Messner, 1997), by cleaving to more sympathetic views of men as not all bad. However, while Stoltenberg’s commitment to ending sexism is admirable, if men inevitably learn to do masculinity as a form of domination over women, how is it possible for him (and other men) to resist and to protest against their own privilege (Beasley, 2005: 204—5)? Also Stoltenberg’s insistence on seeing manhood as a unified position of sexual dominance neglects more complex understandings of masculinity.
Although written in 1995, Connell’s book Masculinities remains one of the best pieces of sociology on the diversity of ways in which masculinity is done. He maintains that to understand gender requires looking not just at discourse, but also at such things as production and consumption, institutions, and social struggle. Connell argues that masculinity is constructed in relation to what it is not, and that means especially, but not only, femininity. We understand what ‘masculine’ means by contrasting it to things we think of as ‘not masculine’. He agrees with the 1970s work of Juliet Mitchell (1975) and Gayle Rubin (1975) who crafted an understanding of gender as a complex set of different logics that do not always make sense and could be overturned over time. However, as Connell suggests, there are some meanings associated with masculinity that gain dominance for a time (for example, see Kimmel (1996) for a history of manhood in the USA). These dominant
meanings constitute hegemonic masculinity, where hegemony refers to the process by which a group is able to assert its way of seeing the world as the way of seeing the world. Other less powerful versions of doing the masculine are always compelled to refer to hegemonic masculinity. Very few men actually behave according to the hegemonic masculine pattern, although it is a standard to which all men are compared. This standard, and therefore surrounding meanings, change as society changes. Connell looks at the challenges in the late twentieth century facing those close to hegemonic versions of the masculine, in particular middle class men in new technical occupations. First he sets out how certain more marginal groups of men are under particular pressure because of changing discourses about masculinity. These groups include unemployed working class men, men in the environmental movement, and gay men.
Unemployed working class men are no longer able to ‘be men’ in the same ways as their forefathers. They have had to readjust their notions of how to be masculine, which were previously based on them being the ‘breadwinner’. Unskilled, unable to get regular work, and perhaps dependent on women’s wages, many fashion their identities in a form that Connell (1995) calls ‘protest masculinity’.This is a version of masculinity that takes aspects of hegemonic masculinity and remakes them within a context of poverty. It is a lashing out against a world over which they have little control. Violence and an aggressive heterosexuality are usually key to such ways of doing masculinity, although there are variations. They are trying to conform to hegemonic masculine standards, as far as they are able, while also protesting against some of the more middle class ‘niceness’ of those standards. Others within the group try to find alternative ways to be masculine; Connell gives the example of one who becomes a crossdresser, trying to live life as a woman. However, these alternatives tend to be individualized projects focused on changing the self. There is not the collective struggle Connell argues is necessary actually to change the gender order. One might expect to find more focus on wider political and social change within another group of men engaged in the environmental movement.
Men in the environmental movement have been forced to confront traditional stereotypes of masculine behaviour because they are working with strongly feminist women and trying to respond to feminist demands for respect and more egalitarian roles. Men may therefore find that they have to learn new ways of interacting with women as equals. They learn to be pro-feminist, and try to value traits within themselves that might conventionally be labelled ‘feminine’. However, this does not mean that they reject masculinity or a ‘heterosexual sensibility’ (1995: 124), as Barry Ryan, a nurse who is part of this group explains:
I’m still really masculine and I feel definitely male and I like that too. I like some aspects of being male, the physical strength I really like, I really like my body; that sort of mental strength that men learn to have whereby they can choose to put aside their feelings for the moment, which I think is great. (Connell, 1995: 123)
Men in this group guiltily distance themselves from many aspects of hegemonic masculinity defined by their feminist political colleagues as oppressive. However Connell argues that they fail to find positive alternatives, focusing more on trying to not be too conventionally masculine, and again these are largely individual responses which do not address the need for wider social and political change.
Gay men are a group one might expect to be more politically aware in their attempts to rethink their masculinity. Masculinity is usually defined in terms of a particular heterosexual aggressiveness. Western culture assumes that opposites attract, so to be gay is thought to mean to be feminine in some way. Although the men Connell spoke to are attracted to other men, and this calls into question their masculinity, they do not really challenge norms about how to be men. That is, they behave in a fairly conventional masculine manner. As one of the gay men he spoke to explained:
If you’re a guy why don’t you just act like a guy? You’re not female, don’t act like one. That’s a fairly strong point. And leather and all this other jazz, I just don’t understand it I suppose. That’s all there is to it.
I am a very straight gay. (quoted in Connell, 1995: 156)
All of these groups of men described above are struggling to define themselves as men in relation to hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic versions of masculinity are closely tied into capitalist values of rationality, calculation, and self-interest, but Connell is clear that he does not think hegemonic masculinity simply maps onto capitalism. Hegemonic masculinity is defined against femininity and ‘other’ identities considered not properly masculine. It is a way of thinking about masculine identity in which rationality and authority have become central. Connell is critical of the hegemonic version of masculinity, and points out that it is largely a myth. He allows that dominant ideas about being a man have shifted from an emphasis on physical strength to an emphasis on bodily and emotional control, on a ‘scientific’ approach to the world, and on the exercize of authority. However he argues that reason has limits as a basis for legitimation of hegemonic masculinity. It is capable of being used to undermine masculine authority. Rational arguments about the need for gender equality and how it is better for business to appoint the best person for the job have become widely accepted. Yet they challenge masculine authority, especially for men whose lives and livelihoods are dependent on the new
knowledge-based or ‘technical’ occupations founded on rational ways of thinking. However, even such supposedly highly rational workplaces are not entirely rational. He gives the example of a pilot called Charles Lawrence who, despite working within the highly rationalized aviation industry, is paradoxically very superstitious (Connell, 1995:177). In addition Connell notes that rationality is always challenged for these men when they have to deal with body issues, sexuality, and emotion — aspects of life deemed irrational. Even those close to hegemonic masculinity struggle to ‘be men’.
In his attention to how gender is constructed around changing discourses, Connell approaches postmodernism but he remains committed to a structural approach overall (Beasley, 2005: 226). That commitment to structuralism is present to some degree in even the more ‘poststructuralist’ versions of sociology. Such commitment does not, as the history of sociology has demonstrated, preclude an interest in meanings. Connell offers analysis of the part meanings and structures play in the shifting and divergent ways of practicing masculinity. Whilst it may allow men to be represented as victims (Beasley, 2005: 229), generally his insistence on gender as a set of ordered relations means that different masculinities are always understood in relation to other gender categories, especially femininities. The problem with Connell’s work is perhaps that he becomes a little too immersed in the individual details of these complexities, at least when talking about the sets of life histories he collected. This can serve, ironically, to highlight men’s experiences of the world in ways that again put women at the margins (Beasley, 2005: 230).Thus it may be that his approach is not entirely successful in deconstructing the masculine. This may be because of the problems associated with seeing gender as something people ‘do’.