The purpose of this thesis is to examine the various definitional strategies involved in and underlying the use of the term masculinity in social science literature, with a particular emphasis on psychodynamic literature, and to propose an additional approach (via the metaphor of the lens (borrowed from Bem, 1993)) to understanding masculinity as ideology in Althussers (1971; 1984) sense of a discourse or narrative which establishes subjectivity and identity. It suggests that masculinity could be usefully viewed as a certain type of discourse which attempts to exercise a hegemony over a more variegated and nuanced personality for the purpose of the attachment of the individual (usually male) to larger social structures and relations, in this case, to the gendered social relations of patriarchy. The idea for the thesis arose out of the writers dissatisfaction with current definitional strategies of masculinity employed in social science research and his perceived need to provide a more complex definition of the term masculinity, which would highlight its meaning for individual men whilst simultaneously placing that meaning in the wider meaning-generating structures of Western culture. It also arose from a growing frustration with all sections of the so-called mens movements attempts to delineate a type of masculinity which is respectful of the rights and needs of women and children. Finally, it particularly arose out of the researchers own interest to explore the nature of identity narratives within contemporary Western culture. Chapter One explores these problems and provides key definitions of the important terms of the thesis, including the neological verb, to hegemise, by which I refer to the process of attempting, but never entirely successfully, to establish hegemony. It also deals with other definitional questions such as the definition of patriarchy against the suggestion of the existence of multiple patriarchies (Petersen, 1998). The thesis is organised broadly into two sections. The first section, contained in Chapters One through Four, deals with what I have labelled (following suggestions by de Certeau, 1984) current definitional strategies employed in discussions of masculinity in the social sciences, with Chapters One and Two providing an overview of these strategies, whilst Chapters Three and Four take three of the six strategies identified and examines them in depth through their exemplary use in key literature from three psychodynamic schools of thought. These definitional strategies are, firstly, the three which are not explored in depth: 1) the simple reduction of masculinity to any male behaviour (which I believe is very rarely employed), 2) the argument from statistics (so that whatever men can be demonstrated to do, have, think, and so on, more often than women becomes an example of masculinity), and 3) the argument from key exemplars, (such as John Wayne), real or imaginary (again, such as John Wayne). Secondly, the three definitional strategies which are chosen for more extended treatment, 1) the strategy of definition by deferral to other, equally problematic terms (as in the works of Freud, discussed in Chapter Two), 2) the use of the process or results of presumed male child development (the views of the object relations psychodynamic theory as delineated by Nancy Chodorow, and to a lesser extent, Dorothy Dinnerstein, discussed in Chapter Three), and 3) reliance on common understandings (Jung, also discussed in Chapter Three). This last strategy is a kind of definition by default, in that the writer fails to provide a definition, assuming a common cultural background with the reader (and seems to be a very common strategy). It is my argument, reinforced by a detailed examination of certain key relevant texts, selected for both their influence and timeliness in the social sciences, that the use of any of these strategies inevitably involves the writer or researcher in contradiction and confusion. As this entire thesis is about the definitional strategies employed when using the term, masculinity, no specific definition is provided of masculinity in the opening chapters of the thesis. However, due attention is paid in Chapter Two to Connells (1987; 1995) notion that there are actually multiple masculinities, a definitional strategy, I argue, not without its own confusions. Within Connells understanding of masculinity, this thesis focuses only on notions of hegemonic masculinity. The final five chapters of the thesis sketch a further approach to masculinity on the basis of considering masculinity as a specific type of identity narrative. Chapters Five, Six and Seven provide the grounding for such a consideration through an examination of the nature of identity narratives generally, and Chapters Eight and Nine apply this grounding specifically to masculinity, and, in the case of Chapter Nine, to research about men. Chapter Five delineates the key term identity, and separates it from the concept of the self, a term with which it is often, but not always, conflated, whilst comparing both terms, self and identity, on the one hand to the Foucauldian idea of subjectivity and on the other hand, to the Freudian and Lacanian notion of the ego. Chapter Five argues that identity can be meaningfully separated from the self by two markers, 1) its basically moral nature, which in turn 2) arises out of its association with social structures and social discourses. Although no argument is made either for a singular self or a true self, it is argued that the human experience of the self and the identity is that they are often in conflict, and the self is often experienced as being an unsuccessful copy or diminished form of the identity (or identities). This experience signals what I have called the Ambassadorial function of the identity; that is, its ability to represent and commend, as well as prescribe and command, cultural norms and expectations for an individuals personality to the self. Chapter Five suggests that whilst the number of selves in a particular culture may be close to infinite (in that one body may contain many selves), the number of identities prescribed by a given culture which uses identity narratives may be multiple, but quite finite. Chapters Six and Seven explore the human attraction, at least in modernist Western cultures, to identity narratives, and suggests that their current cultural importance arises out of both personal need and social compulsion. In order to establish personal motivations for the adoption of the identity, Chapter Six takes a necessary detour through conceptions of agency as they appear in the work of Anthony Giddens (1979; 1984), Rom Harre and his associates (particularly in Harres discussion of positioning theory, Harre and van Langenhove, 1999a) and in the recent work of Judith Butler (1997). Each of these asserts the possibility of human agency against some post-modernist interpretations of Foucault, Althusser, and others which suggest agency is entirely an artefact of discourse (an interpretation denied by Foucault himself (Foucault, 1994/2000, p. 399)). Although I do not believe any of these accounts provide a particularly satisfying notion of agency, they do make it plausible to consider the possibility that identities take on their compelling nature because they provide an answer to individual concerns, as well as the role they play in the construction of human subjectivity, and of course, it can also be argued that some of these individual concerns are themselves created by social subjectivities. Chapter Seven examines this collusion of interest which occurs in modernist Western cultures which promote the adoption of identity narratives. Based on theoretical work by Otto Rank (1936a; 1936b), Ernst Becker (1962/1977), Theresa Brennan (1993; 2000), as well as on research by Theweleit (1977/1987; 1978/1989) and Foxhall (1994; 1995), it suggests that identities serve to protect a person from overwhelming fears of mortality, change and the flow of life (see also Goodchild, 1996). As a result of these fears, an individual is primed to adopt narratives which attach them to larger, less changeable social wholes, whether these narratives are of a collective religious nature, or whether, as in the case of modernist culture, they are identities. These fears can then be exploited to instil identities which serve wider, and not necessarily equitous, social purposes. Chapter Seven concludes, however, that such a project is always unsuccessful, for as Butler (1993, p. 2) states, Bodies never quite comply with the norms by which their materialization is impelled. No strategy, however clever, can solidify the processes of flow. Chapter Eight presents the case for considering masculinity as a type of identity narrative, which, because of its relationship to biological sex and gender, reflects the social relationships between the genders in modernist cultures (the assumption that there are only two genders acknowledges a cultural belief, and not the writers own assumptions about gender). It suggests that it makes sense to think of masculinity as an identity discourse to which both men and women are initiated as they come to understand the specific speaking conditions under which this discourse must be appropriated (these occur more often for men than for women). It further proposes limiting the use of the term masculinity to those societies which have two necessary pre-conditions; 1) they rely on identity narratives generally, and 2) they are patriarchal. It argues that many societies which are/have been patriarchal do not/did not have a concept of masculinity, and men exercised their privilege over women and children through other forms, such as in the social roles they played. (For example, Connell, 1993, p. 604, cites classical China as having a patriarchal, yet non-identity based culture.) Chapter Eight argues that to refer to mens conceptions of masculinity in these societies is to import an anachronistic term into discussions of those societies conceptions of manhood. Chapter Eight further suggests that the speaking conditions for the employment of masculinity must be learned by the members of a culture, and that mens everyday behaviour is often non-masculine; in fact, I suggest it is usually non-masculine unless the male is made aware that the situation requires the production of the masculine identity narrative. Following suggestions from narrative therapy (for example, Jenkins, 1990; 1996; White, 1991; 1992; C. White and Denborough, 1998), I believe greater hope for promoting equity towards women and children and respect for diversity amongst men can be achieved by focusing on those occasions when a male is not speaking masculinity than for reform of masculinity, which in my view, remains locked into its relationship to patriarchal social relations. In this sense, I present further arguments which I believe buttress the case already made by MacInnes (1998) that the abolition of the masculine identity narrative totally (and perhaps gender narratives generally) is more desirable than the reform of masculinity. Chapter Nine briefly illustrates the application of this approach to researching masculinity through the understandings of the development of the masculine identity narrative generated by two male focus groups using the memory work methodology pioneered by Frigga Haug (1987; 1992a) and extended by June Crawford and others (1992). In all, this thesis contributes to the current debate on the nature of masculinity by seriously considering the implications of the links masculinity provides to patriarchal social relationships as an identity narrative. The specificity of these links, as well as their deeper functioning within human life have, to date, been largely unexplored in the literature on men. The thesis explores these links through the use of some of the literature which first brought the problems identities seek to resolve to academic and therapeutic attention (such as the work of Rank and Becker). Further, in proposing an approach to masculinity limited by cultural constraints (that is, patriarchy and the general presence of identity narratives), the thesis facilitates a potential shift in the literature from approaching masculinity via one of the definitional strategies to a more focused definition, which allows one to delineate when a man is being masculine and when a man is not being masculine. As such, this allows for a re-emergence and perhaps a re-appreciation of the diversity and multiplicity that lies not only between individuals, but also within each individuals life and experiences.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/253674 |
| Creators | Frey, Ronald Michael |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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