Masculinities Chapters 1-3

[I have the 1995 version so the page numbers might be different from yours.]

Chapter 1 "The Science of Masculinity": From a sociological perspective, Connell discusses in details about how early works of psychology has contributed to shaping the West's ideas of masculinity (and femininity) . He starts out by stating how scientific claims has a "definite hegemony in our education system and media"(6). Therefore, whenever speaking of sex differences, we tend to use biological findings to validate our answers without thinking of masculinity and femininity as being "culturally constructed" (5). He gives an example from a local newspaper in Sydney about why women are more likely than men to ask for directions. The psychologist quoted in the article stated "simply because the sexes think differently...for this reason that men tended not to ask a stranger for directions, because it was admitting that they were in some way inferior" (4).

Here Connell acknowledges how scientific findings can help to clarify types of knowledge about gender questions but at the same time, he questions how "scientificity was enough to establish a right to criticize common-sense knowledge [but] common sense did not criticize science" (6). He goes on to say that natural science in the West has a "gendered character", therefore "what can be expected from a science of masculinity, being a form of knowledge created by the very power it claims to study?" (7). I think Connell makes very valid points here in the first couple of pages about how willingly we accept scientific findings without questions. I do see the importance of scientific findings, but I wonder, how can we bring in the more theoretical perspectives into the education system and the media so that there will be perspectives presented rather than only that of science?

Connell continues on to discuss about psychoanalysts (Freud, Jung, Alfred Adler) who have contributed to the discourse of masculinity and what I found very interesting, this idea of "sex-role". It wasn't until the mid-century that the term "sex-role" came about through sex difference research. Expectations are set to one sex, either masculinity or femininity (man or woman). "Masculinity and femininity are quite easily interpreted as internalized sex roles, the products of social learning" (22). But sex role is not connected to the idea of sex differences but these two terms have been used interchangeably since the forties. Connell is saying here that sex role has been created to put both men and women in their places--"linked to the structure defined by biological difference, the dichotomy of male and female--not to a structure defined by social relations" (26).

Two good questions that Connell brought up in this chapter are: "is it actually masculinity that is a problem in gender politics? or is it rather the institutional arrangements that produce inequality, and thus generate the tensions that have brought 'masculinity' under scrutiny?" (42).
Chapter 2 "Men's Bodies": There's this belief that men cannot change due to their "true masculinities". In this chapter, Connell refutes three conceptions of the body: (1) biological, (2) social, and (3) the combination of these two. He proposes that "we can arrive at a better understanding of the relation between men's bodies and masculinity" (46).

Here, Connell explains how we have come to accept "natural masculinity" as an inheritance from the "masculine" genes. Connell explores sociobiology as "almost entirely fictional" because of its broad assumptions in the character traits and behaviors of women and men (47). He states that the power of this masculine perspective "lies in the metaphor of the body as machine" (48). For example words such as: functions, operates, hardwired, programmed, have been used to described how the "mechanic" body functions.

Connell suggests that as a way of rethinking, we can start by acknowledging that "the body is inescapable" in that "in our culture at least, the physical sense of maleness and femaleness is central to the cultural interpretation of gender" (52) (maybe I'm wrong but isn't this the combination of biology and socialization that he's against? So then what is he new vision?). There's the muscular gender in which we get to feel and then there's the bodily experience in which helps us to understand who we are. In the rest of the chapter, Connell gives examples of "life-history" studies to support his argument.

Chapter 3 "The Social Organization of the Masculinity": Connell starts out by defining what masculinity means. Before he names the four strategies the type that is masculine, he provides two good points of masculinity. First of all, masculinity does not exist except in contrast with femininity. Therefore, different culture have different ideas of what it means to be masculine or feminine (68). Secondly, he states that our concept of masculinity is a recent construct so when we speak of masculinity, we must be mindful that we are "doing gender in a culturally specific way" (68).

Now to his four main strategies:
(1). Essentialist- this definition usually picks a feature that defines the core of the masculine. The weakness of this is that it's arbitrary. Different scholars have claimed different universal basis of masculinity.
(2). Positivist- this approach emphasizes finding the facts and what men actually are. The problems are that there is no standpoint in this, requires categories of "men" and "women", and rules out the "masculine" woman and the "feminine" man.
(3). Normative- "masculinity is what men ought to be". This approach gives no grip on masculinity at the level of personality.
(4). Semiotic- abandon personality and define as "non-femininity". This makes it limiting in talking about gender.

Connell goes on to talk about how gender is a way in which social practice is ordered through a three-fold model of the structure of gender (1) power, (2) production and (3) cathexis (74). Connell acknowledges that in order to understand gender, "we must constantly go beyond gender (class, race)" (76).

Connell continues to talk about how gender, race and class is crucial to recognizing multiple masculinities through hegemony, subordination, complicity, and marginalization. At the end of this chapter, what Connell writes reminds me of what Vincent said "men no more than women are chained to the gender patterns they have inherited" (86).

So far I've enjoyed reading Connell and I'm excited to hear what others think of him.