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Home , Femininity, Hypermasculinity, John Stoltenberg, Masculinity, Superwoman (sociology)

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MEN,, AND

JUDITH KEGAN GARDINER

s it true...that women in your society as a social construction; that is, the idea “ are treated exactly like men?” a doctor in that and are loosely I Ursula LeGuin’s (1974) science fiction defined, historically variable, and interrelated novel, The Dispossessed, asks a visiting anar- social ascriptions to persons with certain kinds chist. The anarchist replies with a laugh, “That of bodies—not the natural, necessary, or would be a waste of good equipment” (p. 16). characteristics of people with similar genitals. Then he explains that in his society, “a person This concept has altered long-standing assump- chooses work according to interest, talent, tions about the inherent characteristics of men strength—what has the sex to do with that?” and women and also about the very division (p. 17). Published in 1974, at the height of the of people into the categories of “men” and 20th-century American movement for women’s “women.” The traditional sexes are now seen liberation, LeGuin’s fantasy attempts to visualize as cultural groupings rather than as facts of as a society without differences nature based on a static division between two based on one’s anatomical sex, but one, it turns different kinds of people who have both opposed out, that primarily takes the form of allowing and complementary characteristics, desires, and women the occupational choices and sexual interests. By seeking to understand the causes, freedoms already common to men; men do a little means, and results of gendered inequality, femi- child care and are otherwise unchanged. Feminist nist theories hope to develop effective ways to theories take a number of approaches to this improve women’s conditions, sometimes by slippery goal of gender equality that are inter- making women more similar to men as they are twined with their varying perspectives on men now, sometimes by making men more similar and masculinity. They endorse some aspects of to women as they are now, sometimes by vali- traditional masculinity, critique some, and ignore dating women’s traditional characteristics, others, as they ask who will be equal to whom, in sometimes by working toward the abolition or what respects, and with what results for male and minimizing of the categories of gender alto- individuals and their societies. gether, but all simultaneously transforming The most important accomplishment of ideologies and institutions, including the family, 20th-century feminist theory is the concept of religion, corporations, and the state.

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Some women living prior to organized meanings of such ideals as liberty, fraternity, movements for women’s rights claimed that and equality and so initiated one continuing they were equal to men, as men described theme of feminist theorizing that has extended themselves; that men were not fully equal to into masculinity studies as well. the ideal of masculinity they themselves put Men’s superiority to women is a tenet of the forward; and that men and masculinity placed world’s main monotheisms, although the major women and femininity in a subordinate posi- religions also include countervailing tenden- tion. With the resurgence of a movement for cies that value women’s spiritual capacities and women’s rights in the second half of the 20th delimit male power and authority. The ancient century, varied theories developed to explain Greek philosopher Aristotle portrayed women the causes of male domination, to correct as naturally men’s inferiors in terms of reason. erroneous assumptions about both women and In the long educational and philosophical tradi- men, and to imagine new kinds of men and of tion that venerated his authority, masculinity women in new circumstances. These theories was thus rendered both invisible and normative: charged that cultural ideologies favored men, Masculinity was equated with the human ratio- that social institutions reflected these ideolo- nality of men and women were marked by sex- gies, and that men as a group benefited from uality, emotion, and their bodies. Champions of the subordination of women as a group, despite women repeatedly asked if God and nature had the great disparities that existed in the advan- made women so clearly inferior to men, why tages accruing to individual men or subgroups were such strong social inducements necessary of men in relation to other men and to women. to retain their subjugation? Thus men and masculinity play a crucial role In reaction to claims that women were in feminist theory, the body of thought that irrational, weak, vicious, and sinful, the early seeks to understand women’s social situation defenders of women repeated a number of and to articulate justice from a -centered strategies. They claimed women were equal perspective. Furthermore, feminist thinking has or superior to men, writing, for example, books been fundamental to the formation of contem- about heroic, saintly, learned, and otherwise porary men’s and masculinity studies as intel- exemplary women. In another common strat- lectual endeavors, academic subjects, and social egy, they asserted equality less by raising the movements. This chapter briefly sketches how image of women than by lowering the image men and masculinity figure in several strands of men. They thereby launched an inquiry into of feminist theory. It looks at what the treatment the meaning of equality that continues to of men and masculinity reveals about the gaps the present. Idealistic depictions of men as the and assumptions in these theories. Focusing embodiments of reason and humanity, they said, chiefly on a few key figures, it also indicates flew in the face of the evils men did: Men, too, some advantages and future directions that these were as embodied, irrational, and vicious as the theories pose for masculinity studies. misogynists claimed women were. Furthermore, created feminist theory, and men tyrannize over women rather than loving feminist theory has helped create masculinity. and protecting them as they claim to do. So That is, cultural condemnation leveled against the French medieval author Christine de Pisan women by religious writers, philosophers, and (1405/1982) has her allegorical character popular discourses across centuries and cultures Reason say “that these attacks on all women— produced rebuttals by women and men. The first when in fact there are so many excellent feminist theories were primarily defensive, and women—have never originated with me, as they questioned men’s appropriation to them- Reason” but were occasioned rather by men’s selves of essential humanity, they charged that own vices, jealousies, and pride (p. 18). men, too, were embodied as a specific gender Margaret Cavendish (1985), a 17th-century defined according to cultural ideals for people English aristocrat, suggests that women rich with similar bodies, characterized by certain enough not to depend on men financially “were psychological dispositions, and shaping social mad to live with Men, who make the Female sex institutions to serve their interests. As women their slaves” (p. 89). sought to be included in the rights and privi- In the democratizing ferment of the French leges of citizens, they questioned the gendered Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft (1985) cried 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 37

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out for recognition of the common humanity of philosopher (1949/1968). both sexes. Her “Vindication of the Rights of Although they knew themselves as subjects Woman” appealed to men to “generously snap capable of transcending their immediate experi- our chains, and be content with rational fellow- ences through reason and will, they treated ship instead of slavish obedience” (p. 431). Woman as their Other—mystery, complement, When Abigail Adams (1994) wrote her husband object of desire, creature of body and change. de John Adams, one of the founders of the Beauvoir’s path-breaking book The Second Sex American republic and later president of the defended women’s claims to full personhood , to “Remember the Ladies” in and undercut men’s pretensions to fulfill their framing the new American state, she pleaded own ideals. “It is clear that in dreaming of for gender equality under Enlightenment himself as donor, liberator, redeemer, still ideals of freedom: “Do not put such unlimited desires the subjection of women,” she writes power into the hands of the Husbands. (p. 172). She attacks the myths of masculine Remember all Men would be tyrants if they superiority and confirms masculine dualities could” (p. 876). The pioneering American that elevate mind over body by insisting that feminists at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights men, too, are creatures of bodily and sexual of 1848 implicitly accepted the infirmity rather than disembodied minds: claims of men to both a rational and religious “Indeed no one is more arrogant toward basis for citizenship when they attempted to women, more aggressive or scornful, than the add women to the language of the Declaration man who is anxious about his virility” (p. xxv). of Independence: “We hold these truths to be In a current version of this critique, Rosi self-evident: that all men and women are Braidotti (2002) alleges that “the price men created equal; that they are endowed by their pay for representing the universal is disem- Creator with certain inalienable rights....” bodiment, or loss of gendered specificity into However, their statement immediately accused the abstraction of phallic masculinity,” and she men of failing to uphold their own ideals: “The suggests that men need “to get real” by recog- history of mankind is a history of repeated nizing their embodiment (p. 355). Exactly what injuries and usurpations on the part of man this means and how both men and women, toward woman” (Stanton, 1994, p. 1946). including those with physical and sensory dis- Furthermore, they said, “man” has withheld abilities, experience their embodiment is a fruit- from women “rights which are given to the ful topic in current feminist and masculinity most ignorant and degraded men—both natives studies (Hall, 2002). and foreigners” (p. 1947), a strategic attempt Twentieth-century liberal con- to divide the category of “man” by showing tinued the tradition of seeking for women the some women superior to groups of men whom privileges already enjoyed by men. Betty other men also held in disrespect. Thus feminist Friedan (1963) and the National Organi- efforts to achieve political and educational zation for Women (founded in 1966) believed equality with men argued that at least some that changing laws and educating people against women already possessed equality in the quali- erroneous prejudices would remedy gender dis- ties necessary for these privileges—immortal crimination, giving women equal opportunities souls and educable human reason—but repeat- with men to exercise individual choices in life. edly oscillated between imitating and critiquing They sought gender equity through changes in men. At least a few men agreed and even fur- law and childhood . They lobbied thered these arguments. The liberal English for equal treatment of boys and in school philosopher John Stuart Mill (Mill & Mill, and wrote children’s books featuring coo- 1970), who developed his ideas about women perative boys as well as resourceful girls. They in dialogue with his Harriet Taylor, welcomed men into their organizations and contended that an equal for both encouraged women to enter previously male- sexes would disprove men’s claims to superior dominated occupations. In all these endeavors, intelligence. their critics alleged, they merely sought women’s Despite increasing numbers of women inclusion in current, male-dominated institu- , men continued to think of human- tions, accepting a restrictively narrow model ity as made in their image, according to French of equality without questioning the masculine 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 38

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norms that valorized abstract reason and law relationship to social power, which was visibly over the bodies and emotions they ruled. symbolized in the male anatomical part that Current versions of liberal feminist theories, men feared losing and women envied. Luce however, are more sophisticated in their Irigiray (1985) reversed what she called the analyses and offer to men’s studies models “phallogocentric” Freudian concept of women’s for inquiries into the gendering of the law, the “penis envy” as instead a defining characteristic media, the state, and the professions; civil rights of the masculine psyche: this alleged female organizations open to male members with envy “soothes the anguish man feels, Freud accessible goals for social reform; and ideals feels, about the coherence of his narcissistic such as for combining traditionally construction and reassures him against what masculine and feminine personality characteris- he calls castration anxiety” (p. 51). Thus tics in individuals. There is still ample room Irigiray follows one feminist strategy in defining for further studies in these areas; for example, masculinity as a condition of lack, vulnerability, concerning what fosters boys’ and girls’ best and weakness, in an ironic mirroring of Freudian learning. Are girls still shortchanged by schools, versions of women’s lacking genital equipment especially in math and science, or are boys now and defective moral development. American suffering from a school system designed to keep theorist Drucilla Cornell (1998) develops this good girls quiet and studious? The questions Lacanian theory to argue that masculinity is not about which gender wins or loses by which kind a transcendent human norm but is always imper- of setting or practice are ripe for reframing iled by unconscious castration fears. The “bad while the idea of equality is still in contention in news for the little boy” who identifies with the numerous societal and institutional settings. power of the idealized father, she says, is that Psychologist Eleanor Maccoby (1998) “this fantasy leaves him in a constant state of represents a recent version of this liberal view anxiety and terror that what makes him a man in encouraging individuality and freedom of can always be taken away from him” (p. 143). choice for both sexes and allowing for a varied This insecurity then fuels men’s fantasies of play of masculine and feminine difference superiority to women but also provides them, across the life cycle. She sees youth “growing she believes, with the motive for joining femi- up apart” in groups segregated by sex and adults nists in challenging the gender order and so experiencing “convergence” in sex and work freeing themselves from impossible standards (p. 189). She describes greater divergence of masculinity against which they will always within each gender than between the two, notes fail. As with all uses of psychoanalytic theory, contradictory components of both masculinity Cornell and Irigiray’s feminist deployment and femininity, and emphasizes that “sex-linked leaves open the question of how much the behavior turns out to be a pervasive function Freudian or Lacanian framework distorts or of the social context” more than of individual prejudges issues of gender, sexuality, and personality (p. 9). Other feminist theorists sexual difference, both in individual human also seek to deflate gender dualism by viewing and in cultural representations. Per- gender as developmental across the life course, haps these very schema encourage the overe- so that, for example, masculinity might be stimation of the importance of sexual difference defined by boys’ development from childish- in psychic functioning, also minimizing the ness to maturity rather than by opposition to complexities of intrasexual relationships and a denigrated femininity (Ehrenreich, 1983; of nonerotic bonds and antagonisms. Gardiner, 2002). Rejecting psychoanalysis as the unscientific Another approach to disputing gender bina- projection of male fantasies, contemporary ries and the equation of masculinity with human feminist scientists join the feminist tradition of rationality lies through the psychoanalytic theo- rationally disputing sexist claims that men are ries of Sigmund Freud and his French follower superior to women and different by nature as Jacques Lacan. Freud and Lacan (Gardiner, well as the claim that science itself is gender 1992) contradictorily asserted that all people neutral (Collins, 1999; Fausto-Sterling, 1992). were governed by irrational unconscious desires, Susan Bordo (1999) describes the prevailing thus unseating male claims to superior reason, pervasiveness of in science and and that men but not women had a privileged in men’s attitudes to nature: “The phallus stands, 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 39

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not for the superior fitness of an individual unreliable performance of phallic equipment. male over other men, but for generic male Example: the explosion of the space shuttle superiority—not only over but also Challenger” or as an “archetypically endless over other species” (p. 89). Although some ceremony or gathering of maledom. Examples: conservative adaptations of evolutionary theory diplomatic functions, church functions, White reinforce traditional gender roles, for example House functions” (p. 209). in explaining male and promiscuity Legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon is the as optimizing reproductive success and so as best-known exponent of a radical feminist view- predicted strategies for human survival, Darw- point. Her theory posits male of inian feminist theorists dispute such ahistorical women as the first and most pervasive of all mythologizing. Instead, they emphasize the , the model for racism and class social construction of scientific categories, injustice and the structuring principle of all the reliance on gendered metaphors in science established institutions. She begins one book, texts, and the within science (Fausto- for example, with this grim invitation to a Sterling, 1992). They draw attention to the vast female reader: variety of primate as well as human societies and manifestations of gender and to the impor- Imagine that for hundreds of years your most for- tance in the animal world of social systems over mative traumas, your daily suffering and pain, the genetic programming. For instance, Barbara abuse you live through, the terror you live with, Smuts (1992) shows that female solidarity are unspeakable—not the basis of literature. You among primates decreases the prevalence of grow up with your father holding you down and aggression by males against females. Thus a covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs. When wide variety of feminist theorists disputes all you are older, your husband ties you to the bed definitions of masculinity that claim the nat- and drips hot wax on your nipples and brings in ural superiority of men over women and other other men to watch and makes you smile through creatures. Further work will be developing it. Your doctor will not give you drugs he has the and of science with addicted you to unless you suck his penis. respect to the gendering of nature and of (MacKinnon, 1993, p. 3) contemporary scientific practices. If one strand of feminist theory critiques This passage constructs everywoman as the supposed rationality of masculinity, another eternally a victim, despite its invisible, autho- characterizes masculinity as in itself harmful to ritative female narrator. Its version of men and women and other men. These are the theories masculinity is horrifying, bizarre, and implic- most frequently characterized as male bashing, itly culture specific: Men are represented by because they focus on male against a father who facilitates the of his daughter, women and on men’s of a husband who flaunts his sexual sadism, and a women as the very definitions of masculinity. dope-dealing doctor who forces fellatio on his These theories seek gender equality by abolish- patients. ing or dramatically transforming men and MacKinnon (1987) makes gender dependent masculinity, although they may either extol or on sex and sex dependent on male force. Such vilify the characteristics ascribed to traditional social practices as , rape, and pros- femininity. titution institutionalize “the sexuality of male Mocking male pretensions to power and supremacy, which fuses the eroticization of authority, theologian (1987) rejec- dominance and submission with the social con- ted religions dependent on a Father God and struction of male and female. Gender is sexual. sought to remake a new, nonpatriarchal lan- Pornography constitutes the meaning of that guage as a step toward defeating androcen- sexuality” (p. 148). MacKinnon does not dis- tricism. The puns and startling new word cuss the origin of this system, but her paradigm usages in her Wickedary associate masculinity implies that men have always had the rapist not with power but with the follies and failures mentality to desire forced heterosexual sex as of men as individuals and of male-dominated well as the superior physical power to accom- institutions. Thus, for instance, she defines plish it. For her, masculinity defines men, rather “male-function” as meaning “characteristically than the reverse. “By men I mean the status of 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 40

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masculinity that is accorded to males,” but war, provoke feminist theorizing about the not to those persons who are “defined as subor- relationship between masculinity and these dinated by force as women are” (p. 170). Men predominantly male activities, with the goal must work constantly to keep this masculine of eliminating these horrors rather than of control and dominance in place, and the place militarizing women. Sociologist Nancy Chodo- of subordinated men, including , is row explores the links between masculinity, rendered ambiguous in this account. , and violence, attributing men’s Although male domination is universal, aggression more to cycles of humiliation MacKinnon (1987) believes, it is also shaped by and domination among older and younger men contemporary society: “women are the property than, like MacKinnon, to men’s sexual exploi- that constitutes the personhood, the masculi- tation of women. She rejects the Freudian nity, of men under capitalism” (p. 159). Further- theory that all people are innately aggressive more, in her view, the standards for all aspects and instead sees aggression in both sexes as of culture are masculine: “masculinity, the male defending the self when it is endangered either standard for men” (p. 71), establishes patriarchal by physical force or by humiliation and shame. law and relegates women to the “private, moral, However, she believes that men are more valued, subjective”; men, on the other hand, psychologically prone to respond to humiliation accrue to themselves the values of the “public, by violence against others than women are ethical, factual, objective” (p. 151). She claims (Chodorow, 2002). Ecofeminist theorists also that every quality that distinguishes men from derive war from a “militarized ‘cult of mas- women is affirmatively compensated by society: culinity’” in which man conquers nature and defines national security as the protection of Men’s physiology defines most sports, their needs (Seager, 1999, p. 168). This define auto and health insurance coverage, their “environmentally destructive ethos includes a socially designed biographies define workplace cultivation of , secrecy, frater- expectations and successful career paths, their nity, and an inflated sense of self-importance” perspectives and concerns define quality in schol- (p. 169). At its most extreme, Joni Seager arship, their experiences and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art, their alleges, the “culture of nuclear destruction” is military service defines citizenship, their presence “a private men’s club, within which masculinity defines family, their inability to get along with is both an explicit sexualized expression and each other...defines history, their image defines an implicitly taken-for-granted context” God, and their genitals define sex. (MacKinnon, (p. 172). Thus, for ecofeminists and for many 1987, p. 36) global feminists, a masculinity that validates competition among men and domination over It is not merely the case that men make women also imperils the planet. For some of their behavior the norm for all people but these theorists, masculine attempts to dominate that these norms are themselves harmful. Porno- nature contrast with more feminist attitudes graphy impels male bodies to act, creating a of attunement with nature. This masculine total mind-body split that apparently constitutes arrogance, they believe, leads to the extinction masculinity but not femininity. For MacKinnon, of species, the depletion of natural resources, the masculine has always defined humanity, war, and the destruction of ecosystems necessary but the masculine is inhumane. The ultimate for human survival. solution to this grim paradox is the abolition These radical feminist theories attack of both masculinity and femininity; that is, the masculinity rather than simply defending abolition of gender, although feminist-inspired against sexist charges about women’s inferior- laws, like those she and pro- ity. Their vision of masculinity can be violent posed to outlaw pornography and sexual harass- and negative, void of any of the positive charac- ment, might help to identify and ameliorate teristics traditionally assigned to masculinity. such negative consequences of eroticized Moreover, the superior force of disembodied masculine dominance (MacKinnon, 1987, reason sometimes seems appropriated in them pp. 200-201). to that of the female spokesperson for the voice- Not only but national and less and oppressed category of other women. ethnic violence, as manifest in torture and Nevertheless, some male theorists agree with 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 41

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these radical feminist and ecofeminist positions. women’s traditional characteristics. Such For John Stoltenberg (1989), the only ethical theories tend to portray masculinity and femi- position for persons with penises is antimascu- ninity as complementary, with both containing line feminism. Thus he encourages other male good as well as bad traits. Psychologist Dorothy humans to join him in Refusing to Be a Man. Dinnerstein (1976) argues that the universal Exaggerated as the claims of female control of early child rearing explains may sometimes seem, it succeeded in breaking both male dominance and misogyny, because all long-standing commonsense assumptions about infants fear their mothers’ life-giving or with- the naturalness of heterosexual predation and holding powers and transfer these unconscious the triviality of female complaints against male associations to other women. Chodorow (1978) treatment of women in streets and offices. With also explains men’s and women’s disparate its focus on the harms women experience, it personality structures through psychological articulated as a crime and dispositions linked to female-dominated child sexual objectification as a pervasive component rearing. Because boys, unlike girls, form their of . Once stated, these perspec- masculine not through direct tives made sense to some men as well, both with imitation of the same-sex parent but through regard to relations with women and to relations separation and contrast from their mothers, she among men. Men around the world work now hypothesizes, they develop a sense of self that with other men to reduce gendered violence is independent, autonomous, and individuated; through profeminist organizations such as conversely, girls’ selves are more interdependent, the Global Network of Men and Mentors on nurturant, and empathic. Violence Prevention, as well as in environmen- Rather than accepting male dominance as tal and peace organizations (Freedman, 2002, necessary to human society, Chodorow’s popu- p. 287). Some men’s studies already address lar theory of 1978 explains it through forms men’s bullying and harassment of other men in of child rearing that have been universal in the workplaces and schools. A question that is still past but that modern technologies and social open is the usefulness to men’s theorizing of the arrangements can now alter. Furthermore, she model of harm developed by radical feminists. describes masculinity as so limiting for men’s Aída Hurtado (1999), among others, critiques lives, rather than so enjoyably privileged, that masculinist men’s studies on the grounds that men should also have incentives for change. If although they trumpet men’s “wounds” from fathers take equal responsibility with mothers childhood, they leave white upper class male for early child care, she argues, gender inequal- privilege intact and unexamined. “The Western ity would disappear, women would be relieved male tradition cannot theorize from of the unfair burdens of caregiving, and men a position of privilege,” she claims, but, rather, would gain a satisfying intimacy with their only one of a “victimhood” that “leaves the sta- children, women, and each other. Chodorow tus quo untouched” (p. 126). However, accurate (1978) thinks “equal ” could bring all assessments of men’s self-perceptions and per- people “the positive capacities” now restricted ceptions of others that avoid both justification to each sex separately, and both sexes would and blaming may well be necessary to those also be more flexible in their choice of sexual designing psychological incentives for social objects (p. 218). This optimistic theory about change. gender transformation requires dramatic changes In contrast to radical feminist theories, in men’s lifestyles as they assume heavy child- many cultural feminist theories do not see male care responsibilities to produce more egalitarian aggression and other traditionally gendered personality structures in the future; women, attributes as innate but rather as developed on the other hand, will continue their current within individual psychologies by mother- multitasking of work and family obligations. dominated child rearing and other widespread Current empirical studies in parenting show social practices. Whereas sharply binary “domi- some changes in fathers’ and mothers’ tasks nance” theories such as MacKinnon’s seem in and commitments of time and emotion to danger of positing a masculinity that obliterates their children. The effects on the parents, femininity, these “difference,” “cultural femi- the children, and society at large await future nist,” or woman-centered theories validate investigation. 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 42

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Unlike MacKinnon’s and other radical than as stable characteristics of individual feminist theories that simply posit a dominating personality (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & masculinity as the origin of gender inequality, Tarule, 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Maccoby, 1998, Chodorow’s (1978) psychoanalytic theory pp. 198-199). This is a rich field for future explains masculinity as a defensive and com- research, especially in social contexts outside pensatory formation in individual men’s devel- the college survey laboratory or therapist’s opment. Identifying with their individual consulting room. mothers, women become mothers in turn, but Theories of gender complementarity based men become masculine by identifying with on the psychological asymmetries of child the male roles in society. “Masculine identifi- rearing are subject to the criticisms that they cation,” she says, “is predominantly a gender underestimate the effects of social dominance, role identification. By contrast, feminine historical and cultural differences, and differ- identification is predominantly parental,” based ences among members of the same sex. However, on a becoming like her mother, whereas their emphasis on the importance of fathering being a father has been a minor part of most has found widespread acceptance among both modern men’s identity (p. 176). Thus gender is masculinist and profeminist masculinity theo- defined by men’s difference from women in rists (Gardiner, 2002). Profeminist scholars these theories but asymmetrically rather than and Michael Kaufman (1995), in a relation of either simple opposition or for example, argue that manhood is dangerous negation. According to Chodorow, this leaves when formed in flight from femininity. They contemporary men confused about how to be cite Chodorow and Dinnerstein, among others, masculine. She asserts that it is “crucial for to claim that “men need to heal the mother everyone...to have a stable sexual identity. wound, to close the gap between the mother who But until masculine identity does not depend cared for us and the mother we have tried to on men’s proving themselves, their doing will leave behind” (p. 28). They contrast themselves be a reaction to insecurity rather than a creative with the masculinist men’s movement of Robert exercise of their humanity” (p. 44). Bly (1990), which urges men to “cut our psychic In her early discussions of masculine umbilical cord” with women rather than sharing identity formation based on feminist object- with them in the labors of bringing up the next relations psychology, Chodorow (1978) claims generation (p. 27). that masculinity based on negation of the If radical feminist theories sharply divide mother is a defensive construction likely to masculine power from feminine powerlessness be rigid, formed on unrealistic and cultural feminist theories focus especially and narrow cultural norms, and disadvanta- on psychological differences between men and geous to both the individual and the culture. women, other theories are more attentive to the However, her more recent defenses of hetero- myriad differences that divide men from other sexuality as potentially as varied and exciting men and women from other women, as well as as the lead her to embrace the to the commonalities between the sexes and view that all formations of unconscious desire the relationships among the various categories have defensive, possibly even perverse com- of (Lorber, 1994; Maccoby, ponents (Chodorow, 1994, 1999). Thus, if 1998). Feminists of color and many feminists defensive personality structures can be as influenced by Marxism emphasize the inter- flexible, complex, and exciting as nonde- connectedness of gender with other social hier- fensive ones, there is no longer a theoretical archies, including nationality, ethnicity, social reason to polarize masculinity as formed class, racialized identities, and sexualities. negatively and defensively in contrast to a African American feminist theorist Patricia Hill more positive femininity. Similarly, although Collins (1999) explains that the “construct of feminist assessments of moral reasoning and intersectionality references two types of relation- “women’s ways of knowing” initially appeared ships: the interconnectedness of ideas and the to polarize a rigid abstract masculinity against social structures in which they occur, and the interdependent and interpersonal female styles, intersecting hierarchies” of social power; “view- current theorists see these gendered styles as ing gender within a logic of intersectionality dependent on variable social contexts rather redefines it as a constellation of ideas and social 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 43

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practices that are historically situated within the West African origins of many African and that mutually construct multiple systems American people or the small-town American of oppression” (p. 263) The categories these black South as models for more ideal and harmo- theorists describe are not additive but trans- nious societies than those of the contemporary formative, so that, for example, mas- capitalist West. culinities are not simply Anglo masculinities In response to some second-wave white with a salsa beat or a dose of but feminists who drew analogies between the complex responses to Hispanic cultures, Catholic disadvantaged positions of women and African religion, dominant American middle-class white Americans, African American feminists pub- masculine assumptions, and the internal dynam- lished the pioneering text All the Women are ics of Latino families (Gonzalez, 1996). These White, All the Blacks are Men, but Some of multidimensional feminist theories allow for Us are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (Hull, more theoretical nuance as well, as seen in Scott, & Smith, 1982). African American Hurtado’s (1999) “blasphemies,” addressed to feminist theorists repeatedly sought to balance and positing, for example, white sympathy and critique for African American men’s differential treatments of white women, men. Michelle Wallace (1990) began her book who are needed to reproduce white children, Black Macho and the Myth of the and of women of color, who become used rather (originally published in 1978) with the premise as sexual and economic objects. that African American men felt deprived of Black feminists have repeatedly sought to manhood by white supremacy, so that it was balance understanding of the particular oppres- a revolutionary claim for human dignity, not sions experienced by women of color with a tautology, when striking male garbage sympathy toward the vicissitudes of men in their workers mobilized by the Reverend Martin communities. They critically examine the dif- Luther King, Jr., wore signs saying, “I am a ficulties that men of color face in achieving man” (p. 1). According to Wallace, African mainstream versions of masculinity and critique American men in the decade of the black those forms of masculinity that depend on power movement (1966-1977) came to believe sexism and male supremacy. In addition, they that “manhood was essential to revolution” and join male black intellectuals in indicting the that authority over women was a primary projections of endemic social problems such agenda for liberation (p. 17). Thus African as male or substance American feminist discussions of masculinity abuse exclusively onto blacks. Both male and were also discussion of the relationships female theorists situate African American between men and women within African gender characteristics within the common American communities and of the relationships history of U.S. racism and the legacy of slavery. between these communities and the dominant In particular, they speak of the dispersal of white culture. families and cultures; the imposition of alien One prominent African American feminist ideologies, physical hardship, and degrading theorist who has returned to these issues repeat- servitude; and the denial of education, opportu- edly over the decades is . Writing nity, sexual choice, and occupational mobility. in collaboration with minister and public intel- Chattel slavery was literally dehumanizing, in lectual Cornel West (1991), she bases her that it did not recognize the human status of discussion and models her goal of an African slaves in law or practice (Williams, 1991, American “beloved community” on “a vision pp. 216-236); infantilizing, in that it did not of transformative redemptive love between recognize the adult status of slaves but kept Black women and men” (see the dedication). them as wards and dependents judged incapable Portraying the ideal bonding between African of citizenship; and sometimes also emasculat- American men and women not through sexual ing, castration figuring prominently in the ter- metaphors but as political friendship, hooks rorist postbellum tortures of lynching (Ross, (1984) sees men as “comrades in struggle” 2002). These discussions affirm the strength (p. 67). She argues that the poor or working necessary to survive such conditions and the class man has been hurt—and sometimes hurts resulting cross-sex unity of African American others—by being unable to live up to dominant communal experience, and at times they invoke definitions of masculinity 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 44

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because he does not have the privilege or power tense area in contemporary discourse but an society has taught him “real men” should possess. essential one if there is to be research rather Alienated, frustrated, pissed off, he may attack, than mere rhetoric in the future. abuse, and oppress an individual woman or Thus the theories of feminists of color expand women, but he is not reaping positive benefits the categories of gender analysis beyond a from his support and perpetuation of sexist masculine-feminine binary, often looking to ideology [and so is] not exercising privilege. (hooks, 1984, p. 73) larger structures of oppression and social repre- sentations to explain tensions between African American men and women and inviting African Looking back to her childhood, hooks American men to join in both theorizing and (1992) describes a harmonious African community building. However, the disparity of American community where “there was no explanatory schemes among these various monolithic standard of black masculinity” and feminist theories may help indicate some of many men, despite their difficulties in attaining the gaps in each. If some white men who have breadwinner economic status, were “caring and not experienced racist oppression are sexist giving” (p. 88). In recent years, however, she or violent toward women, this explanation is believes that media distortions confuse men unlikely to be the whole story for African and women, white people and people of color, American men either. Conversely, if external eco- with their “stereotypical, fantastical repre- nomic and social pressures rather than innate sentations of black masculinity,” and some aggression or gendered psychological identifica- African American male celebrities augment tions influence the expressions of masculinity in these distortions with swaggering, self-centered African American men, such causation is likely “dick thing” masculinity (p. 105). Although to be operative for other men as well. Currently, she thinks African American men “receive many studies are segregated less by gender than respect and admiration” from white as well as by academic discipline, whereas more inter- other African American men for flaunting their disciplinary analyses of the effects of racism and ostensible sexual prowess and domination of sexism on the lives of all people are warranted. women, she sees these new ideals as spurious Other U.S. theorists of color and global and harmful (p. 93). African American man- feminists currently join African American hood should once again connote providing and feminists in analyzing ways in which mas- protecting, she believes, rather than its current culinity is constructed in specific historical and emphasis on men’s “capacity to coerce, control, cultural contexts. For example, Anna Maria dominate” that has ruined relationships Alonso (1992) describes a Mexican construc- between sexes in the black community (p. 66). tion of masculinity in which the independent In contrast, hooks models a kind of feminism peasant is fully masculine, in opposition to the built on cooperation between men and women. wage worker, who is “both like a child and “Revolutionary feminism is not anti-male,” she like a woman because he relies on others claims, but rather seeks the full development for his sustenance” (p. 414). Chandra Talpade of all individuals (p. 63). She thinks femi- Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres nism can help both men and women attain (1991) show British imperial rule in the “capacity to be wholistic....Rather than operating through “the ideological construc- defining manhood in relation to sexuality, we tion and consolidation of white masculinity as would acknowledge it in relation to biology: normative and the corresponding racializa- boys become men, girls women, with the tion and sexualization of colonized peoples” understanding that both categories are synony- (p. 15). Chilla Bulbeck (1998), who describes mous with selfhood” (p. 69). African American global often overlooked by Anglo male theorists are responding to such feminist feminists, reports on changing categories of calls. Philip Brian Harper’s (1996) book Are We same-sex behavior and “third ” around Not Men? Masculine Anxiety and the Problem the world (p. 154). Evelyn Nakano Glenn of African-American Identity, for example, (1999) traces the problematic effects of equating addresses the varieties of African American masculinity with independence in “the racial- male experience and the relationships between ized gender construction of American citizen- African American men and women. This is a ship” (p. 22), and Valentine Moghadam (1999) 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 45

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investigates the interconnections among huge In contrast, some poststructuralist feminist military expenditures, deindustrialization, civil theories, especially those claiming the rubric conflict, the rise of fundamentalist movements, “,” interrogate the very concept of gender and the consequent “reinstitutionalization of as tied to specific kinds of human bodies. That patriarchal gender relations” in the developing is, they question the foundational categories world (p. 132). Typical of this postmillennial of men and women altogether and may wish perspective is Cherríe L. Moraga’s (2002) inclu- to eliminate or proliferate gender beyond the sive definition of the concerns of women of current male-female dichotomy. color in terms affecting both men and women Poststructuralist feminists tend to see gen- throughout the restructuring globe: She includes der as fluid, negotiable, and created through “immigrant rights, indigenous peoples’ water and repeated performances rather than as fixed or land rights, the prison industrial system, milita- innate. They believe their view is more liber- rism, [and] ” (p. xxvii). ating than the ideas of either traditionalists Because these global and multicultural or other feminists. Although they do not claim feminists all seek to make an impact on mixed- that androgyny or gender convergence has gender communities defined in opposition to already been achieved, their theories forecast the dominant white , they tend a multiplicity of gendered possibilities for to adopt the position of collaborators in strug- people rather than only two opposed condi- gle with male colleagues from their consti- tions. In her highly influential book Gender tuencies, adding their methodological tools Trouble (Butler, 1990), philosopher Judith of intersectional analysis to antiracist and Butler calls gender “a kind of persistent imper- antiglobal organizing strategies. Their visions sonation that passes as the real” (p. x). Her of equality look to a more inclusive and fairer goal is not to make it more genuine but to future for both sexes throughout the world. As convince others of its artificiality. “As a strat- hooks (2000) wrote, egy to denaturalize and resignify bodily cate- gories” in a less polarized manner, she The only genuine hope of feminist liberation lies proposes “a set of parodic practices based in a with a vision of social change that takes into performative theory of gender acts that disrupt consideration the ways interlocking systems of the categories of the body, sex, gender, and classism, racism, and sexism work to keep women exploited and oppressed [in relation to] a global sexuality and occasion their subversive resigni- white supremacist [that] enslaves fication and proliferation beyond the binary and/or subordinates masses of Third World frame” of masculinity and femininity (p. xii). women. (p. 109) She often repeats her belief that to “denatural- ize” is to rename in a way that is liberating and The gendered work of global systems and progressive. Part of moving “beyond the binary of various human ecologies will be important to frame,” in Butler’s work, is her deemphasis on future research agendas, as will such areas as masculinity and femininity in favor of “gen- the differential gendering and sexualization of der,” understood as potentially multiple and new technologies. variable. Neither “masculinity” nor “feminin- As we have seen, many strands of feminist ity” appears in the index to , theory seek to make masculinity visible as a although “bisexuality,” “feminism,” “phallogo- gender, rather than allowing it to retain the pres- centrism,” and “sex/gender distinction” are all tige of being equated with human rationality or represented. Butler’s work thus continues the the invisibility of being equated with economic feminist strategy of seeking liberation from or scientific law. Some of the feminist theories traditional constraints by disputing the natural- discussed here divide masculinity sharply from ness of gender altogether, but its distinctive either a devalued traditional femininity of contribution lies in the argument that institu- passivity and sexual objectification or from a tionalized creates gender revalued femininity of nurturance and empa- (Butler, 1997, p. 135). If it were not socially thy. Intersectional and multicultural feminist useful for there to be two sexes to marry one theories retain gender as a crucial element in another and divide work and kinship, she the complex, changing, and interrelated social claims, people would not need to be divided hierarchies they describe throughout the globe. into the categories of men and women at all. 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 46

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Butler’s performative theory of gender has Queer theorist Judith Halberstam (1998) been enormously productive for the development catalogues varieties of masculinity in female of queer theory as a field and for the advancement bodies, what she calls “masculinity without of an antihomophobic political agenda in alliance men,” including the androgyne, the tribade, with the movement for gay, , bigender, the female husband, the , and the and rights (d’Emilio & Freedman, king. She concludes that “we are all 1997). Many male queer theorists have analyzed ” and that “there are no transsexu- abject and alternative masculinities among men als”: Contemporary possibilities for surgical in relation to hegemonic masculinities (Bersani, transformation of the body “threaten the bina- 1988; Thomas, 1996). Some women queer theo- rism of homo/heterosexuality by performing rists, too, have focused specifically on alternative and fictionalizing gender” (Halberstam, 1994, masculinities, especially as they are represented pp. 225-226). That is, with the categories of in the media. For example, film theorist Kaja men and women unstable, people cannot be Silverman (1992) argues for the progressive categorized by habitual sexual desire directed potential of nonphallic masculinities that avoid toward one or the other of two categories. dominant masculinity’s disavowal of powerless- Halberstam (1994) seeks an end to “compulsory ness and instead “embrace castration, alterity, gender binarism” and its replacement by more and specularity” (p. 3). Even more radically, flexible, depathologized forms of “gender pref- other queer theorists embrace masculinity when erence” (p. 277). Nor are masculine women the its signs are manifest in female rather than only ones with a vested interest in masculinities, male bodies. For example, sociologist Gayle as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1995) notes. “As Rubin (1992) argues that the lesbian categories a woman, I am a consumer of masculinities, of butch and comprise an alternative but I am not more so than men are; and, like gender system, not a simple imitation of the men, I as a woman am also a producer of two conventional genders of male masculinity masculinities and a performer of them” (p. 13). and female femininity. Although she admits Furthermore, Sedgwick claims that masculinity that are created within the and femininity are not opposite ends of the environment of heterosexist society, she claims same continuum but rather “orthogonal to they refigure traditional gender in ways that each other”; that is, independent variables in may be either reactionary or liberating for the “perpendicular dimensions” so that a person individuals involved and for society as a whole. could be high or low in both scales at once She says that “like lesbianism itself, butch and (p. 15). This arena looks particularly fruitful for femme are structured within dominant gender psychological studies in masculinity and queer systems” and may either resist or uphold those theory as well as in feminist scholarship. systems but never completely escape them Although some contemporary feminists (p. 479). Thus butch is specifically lesbian want to claim masculinity for women or multi- masculinity, configured differently but always ply genders, other feminists strive to minimize in relation to heterosexual men’s masculinity, or to eliminate gender which is itself a complicated, changing, and altogether. Psychologist Sandra Lipsitz Bem sometimes self-contradictory social constel- (1993) explains that she found the concepts lation. For some women, she says, feeling they of androgyny and of too had traits often ascribed to men, such as athleti- limiting to fit her own needs and so came to cism or aggression, seems to have impelled think that “gender polarization, androcentrism, their butch identities; for others, sexual desire and biological essentialism” all reinforced for other women implied to them their own male power and so distorted the possibilities masculinity. For yet other women, the primary for gender equality (p. viii). Sociologist Judith impulse toward a butch identity seems to have Lorber (1994) stresses the multiplicity of been the feeling that they were inwardly or “gendered sexual statuses” that might be cate- essentially a man. Ways of achieving congruence gorized by genitalia, object choice, appearance, with that feeling include adopting men’s mascu- gender display, kinds of relationship, relevant line signifiers, such as a necktie or moustache, group affiliation, sexual practices, and self- or, these days, a surgically transformed body. identifications (pp. 58-59). Her fundamental 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 47

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goal is the abolition of gender by structuring bettered. Feminists ridicule masculinist men’s equality so thoroughly into society that many studies and welcome profeminist efforts by men. forms of sexuality are recognized as equally American feminist journalist valid and gender no longer organizes social life (1992) announces that “women want a men’s at all. This view takes the abolition of gender as movement” if that means men will “become the only way of eliminating gender inequality more nurturing toward children, more able to talk and as a positive goal in itself: “When the infor- about emotions,” and less violent and controlling mation about genitalia is as irrelevant as the (p. v). English psychologist Lynn Segal (1990) color of the child’s eyes...then and only then regrets the “slow motion” of men toward gender will women and men be socially interchange- equality and muses that the literature of mas- able and really equal” (p. 302). Until then, of culinity “uncannily mirrors” its feminist fore- course, research that documents actual change bears: it “focuses upon men’s own experiences, in attitudes, behaviors, and institutions will be generates evidence of men’s gender-specific of special value. suffering and has given birth to a new field of Poststructuralist feminist and queer theories enquiry, ‘Men’s Studies’” (2000, p. 160). At encourage the flexibility and variability of both present, feminist theorists are citing masculinity identity and desire and the decoupling of gender scholars more frequently than previously, and identity and . Although female vice versa. Feminist thinkers are benefiting from theorists seem especially interested in female- the theoretical insights and empirical findings embodied masculinities and sometimes warn of masculinity studies that concern the complex their male colleagues about exclusive attention asymmetries, changing histories, local conditions, to male practices, queer theories generally are and institutional variances of gender in a wide accommodating to male practitioners and variety of specific settings. disruptive of the that many Current textbooks in women’s and mas- feminists feel upholds male dominance. On the culinity studies agree in their basic feminist other hand, queer theorists pay little attention premises, all describing hierarchies of domi- to some of the central concerns of other kinds nance, relationally defined gender, and multiple of feminist theorizing: to parenting, for example, and interactive axes of social oppression or citizenship, or the gendered politics of work, (Gardiner, 2003). In a rapidly changing world although both male and female queer theorists marked by contradictory forces of war, violence, are now more frequently incorporating antiracist, disrupted ecologies and economies, fundamental- global, and other multifactored perspectives into ist backlash, enhanced opportunities for women, their analyses. the feminization of poverty, the casualization The movement for women’s equality has been of labor, the decline of traditional male wages, one of the most successful social movements of the objectification of male bodies, the recognition the past century, despite the varying oppressions of more diverse sexualities, the reconfiguration of still suffered by women around the globe. nationalities and ethnicities, the rise of liberating Feminist theories have been shaped by women’s social movements, and what Donna Haraway changing place in contemporary societies, and (1989) calls the “the paradoxical intensification these theories have sometimes proved effective in and erosion of gender itself ” (p. 191), feminist changing both men’s and women’s theories continue to develop in conversation and conditions. The widespread establishment of with men’s and masculinity studies and other women’s studies programs in colleges and uni- movements for social justice. They continue to versities, especially in the United States, has cre- seek an equality for men and women and for ated a pool of practitioners of feminist theory and people around the globe at the highest level inspired the establishment of men’s and mas- of human imagination and aspiration rather than culinity studies as well (Boxer, 1998). Although the lowest common denominator. As Gloria masculinist men’s movements sometimes decry Anzaldúa (2002) comments, “in this millennium feminism, generally men’s studies treat feminism we are called to renew and birth a more inclusive and feminist theory as scholarly big sisters, feminism, one committed to basic human rights, perhaps dull, dowdy, outmoded, or too restrictive, equality, respect for all people and creatures, and but nevertheless models to be followed and for the earth” (p. xxxix). 03-Kimmel.qxd 3/5/2004 4:15 PM Page 48

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