What Is Hegemonic Masculinity?

Patriarchy is a social system where men dominate and govern most of the world’s economical, educational, familial, health, political, and religious systems. This political social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior females, has been taking it toll on different demographics. To maintain dominance, men exude their sensitive, inferior “masculinity” through various forms of psychological control, manipulation, violence, and terrorism. The subservient role-playing woman has to orchestrate to patriarchal chime by being nurturing, obedient, passive, and weak

Sociological imagination highlights how society places the two sexes in unequal positions of wealth, power and privilege. It is therefore very useful to look beyond the gender itself and see the global issues associated with it. There are differences regarding the type of gender in different countries, the levels of gender inequality and the amount of violence that are necessary to maintain both systems of difference and domination. Women were always viewed as weak, sensitive, dependent and unintelligent so the society formed a view that they have to sit home, do the housework and raise the children. They were always considered less skilled, incapable of doing a hard work and even now women are more likely to be paid less than man. Women are more likely to be abused and they are less likely to have access to formal power. According to the United Nations, “At least one in five of world’s female population has been physically or sexually abused by a man at some time in their life” (UNFPA, 2000: p. 25).

One of the key concepts detailed by Pringle (2007), is the idea of hegemonic masculinity, which was originally coined by Connell (1995). Connell suggest that the concepts of hegemony and masculinity have been intertwined, which has created a social form of a masculine ideal, developed around male dominance, power and patriarchy over groups who are deemed “weaker” such as women and homosexual men. Hegemonic masculinity is essentially a socially elite or desirable status, with which the “performance of ‘masculinity’” can be legitimately practised within society.

Barbara Perry’s article “Doing Gender and Doing Gender Inappropriately” addresses violence and gender, and how gender is influenced through the way it is perceived in society. The construction of gender comes in polar extremes, with masculine dominant men and feminine subordinate women. Gendered violence is used to control women as a class. It is a systematic tool used by men to reinforce gender norms and patriarchal ideas of masculine superiority and feminine inferiority. It “terrorizes the collective by victimizing the individual”. Like any dichotomy, it has scripts, and to deviate from these scripts will leave you labeled as ‘unnatural’ and ‘immoral’. These scripts “constrain everything from modes of dress and social roles to ways of expressing emotion and sexual desire”. In Judith Lorber’s “A World Without Gender” we are introduced to the possibility of eliminating gender and how “degendering [would] undercut the patriarchal and oppressive structure of Western Societies”.

By Marilyn Frye’s conception of oppression, men cannot be oppressed. She sees sexism in terms of mainly its institutional and structural states, with interpersonal and personal expressions perpetuating the oppression. Because of her views, she concludes that men as a group cannot be oppressed. However, there are problems with her analysis and ultimately I will argue that men can be oppressed as a group - but only by other men. They can suffer under the institutional sexism that Frye describes but the institutions and structures are created by and mainly perpetuated by men.

To understand either work’s take on hegemonic masculinity, it is important to identify masculinity as a gendered hegemony. In her definition of gender, Judith Halberstam notes that gender is socially systematized, performed, and reproduced in cultures, institutions, and individual identities (Burgett, Bruce, and Hendler, 116). In a like manner, in her article on gendered violence, Mimi Schippers notes R.W. Connell’s research on masculinity to expand this definition, implying that masculinity is central to gender relations. In short, Connell defined masculinity as “simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage… in gender, and the effects of these practices on bodily experience, personality, and culture” (Schippers, 86). Here, masculinity is classified as a social position, the set and practice

In order to fully understand a more in depth evaluation of both why and how men conform to this social phenomenon, one must know how hegemonic masculinity is defined. This term was made popular by Connell’s work Gender and Power which critiqued the male social role and how hegemonic masculinity has developed (Connell 830). Scholars agree that hegemonic masculinity is characterized by “being emotionally detached and

“A great achievement of women’s movements worldwide has been their success in ‘breaking the silence’ about male violence against women in intimate relationships” (Vickers, 2002). Having broken the silence of violence it has also broken the silence of oppression. The ongoing battle(s) of women’s rights suggests that the silence of oppression is of the past and the future holds equality for all alike. “…power is the capacity to terrorize, to use self and strength to inculcate fear, fear in a whole class of persons” (Dworkin, 1981). Male dominance exhibits and practices fear toward those of different classes, its use is to gain power to which control is given. “In the male system, sex is the penis, the penis is sexual power, its use in fucking is manhood” (Dworkin, 1981). The male mind indicates that without a penis an authority of power is dismissed and overlooked. Unfortunate for society today male hierarchy continues to be the dominant practice and the penis is a visual and vital form of power. “Male sexual power is the substance of culture” (Dworkin, 1981). Although women have come a long way their oppression and limited amount of power in society has yet to be broken and adjusted because of this visual of the male penis extracting power in society.

Masculinity is described as possession of attributes considered typical of a man. Hegemonic masculinity is a form of masculine character with cultural idealism and emphasis that connects masculinity to competitiveness, toughness, and women subordination. Masculinity hegemonic is the enforcement of male dominion over a society. Masculine ideology dates back to the time of agrarian and the industrial revolution in Europe when survival compelled men to leave their homesteads to work in industries to earn a living for their families while women remained at home to take care of family affairs (Good and Sherrod 210). Women did not work in industries then because industrial labor was considered too physical beyond their capacity. This led to

Throughout the history of the world, patriarchy has been rooted into the very essence of our lives, shaping our thoughts and actions. Patriarchy is present in virtually every society and unfortunately is the underlying problem to most violence in the world, particularly violence towards women. Patriarchy exemplifies the misogyny that has been ever-present since probably the beginning of every society. Whether it is discrimination towards women, lack of equal rights, or

Masculinity, a seemingly simple concept. Yet, when examined more closely, it is clear that masculinity is constantly changing in its definition as well as in its most basic essence. Throughout the years, one can see this evolution firsthand by looking back at the men who have been portrayed in popular media in the United States of America. From the suave Don Draper types of the 1950s to the more casual, educated, and easygoing men- with perfectly chiseled abs, of course- that are portrayed in media today, the difference is clear. This drastic, yet unsurprising, shift in ideals, as well as the exponential increase of media consumed every day, has led to a change in how “masculinity” is perceived, as well as how it is enforced by society in the modern day. Alarmingly, this trend has led to the birth of so-called “toxic masculinity”, a bastardization of the original ideas behind masculinity which has created an enormous, detrimental effect on society as a whole. As defined in the article The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity and Being a Man, toxic masculinity is “manhood as defined by violence, sex, status, and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything… where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured,” (O’Malley) This is a clearly displayed truth, and it’s astounding to see how even from a young age boys are taught not to show emotions other than anger, conditioned to believe that being “like a girl” is the worst possible

The definition of masculinity shows young males that in order to be respected, power must be applied upon others and intimidation is the only method of gaining this respect. Through the use of this power and intimidation, females are often oppressed and kept under the control of men. Woman has need of the male in order to gain human dignity, to eat, to enjoy life, to procreate; it is through the service of sex that she gets these benefits; because she is confined to that function, she is wholly an instrumentality of exploitation (De Beauvoir, 360). Males use power over women to reassure their manliness and to portray their masculinity. This violence is not only present in households. It is also present in masculinity versus nature in a capitalist society, where the environment must be altered and destroyed for economic gains. It appears that violence against nature-that is, the impossible and disastrous drive to dominate and conquer the natural world-is integrally connected with domination among humans (Kaufman, 7). Another example of showing this power is through rape and sexual abuse. Through rape, men display their dominance in the most violent and gruesome ways. As Kaufman notes, in the testimonies of rapists on hears over and over again expressions of inferiority, powerlessness, anger (15). By committing this crime, males display their physical strength upon the victim and this is what masculinity is defined as, a display of power and

Masculinity and femininity are unescapeable. We are taught how to be masculine or feminine from birth but for men, the highest form of masculinity achievable is hegemonic masculinity. In this essay, I will define hegemonic masculinity, discuss how it perpetuates homophobia by restricting the way men interact with one another and by the use of the word fag, and how it perpetuates gender inequality through the expectations of violence, no emotions, and being breadwinners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore patriarchal values that reinforce violence towards women in intimate partner relationships. This paper argues that patriarchy and the social construction of masculinity reproduce male violence against women. The following sub-issues that that will be discussed are patriarchy, capitalism, the religion of Islam, and the construction of masculinity and femininity. All the sub-issues encompass patriarchy values which allows inmate partner violence.

Patriarchy usually means a family that is male-dominated and headed by the father. It is a social construct in which men and masculine roles are considered to be absolutely superior to women and feminine roles. A society is considered patriarchal when it is male-dominated, male-centered, and male-identified. Being a male-dominated culture means that positions of power and authority in the political, economic, legal, religious, domestic, educational, and military spheres are usually reserved only for men. Male-identification means that a culture’s ‘normal’ way of living is based on men and their lives. Male-dominance means that the culture has been shaped by men in a way that mostly serves male interests. Patriarchal societies are male-identified because their core ideals concerning what is morally right, desirable or normal are connected with how they think about masculinity or men in general. They are always male-centered, with the culture’s focus is