G101, Summer II

Pascoe

Review: hegemonic Masculinity,

Compulsory masculinity, & Masculinity and
Sexuality in youth

Female Masculinity (ch. 5)

 Quiz #3

Pascoe, July 19, 2010

1. How is gender performative?

 Define the term or describe a situation from Dude,
You’re a Fag,” that demonstrates gender as
performative.

2. What is fag discourse?

Review: Performativity
 Gender is unstable and thus requires constant attention and
repetition to maintain the illusion of a natural, coherent,
unified gender presentation.

 Gender is accomplished through a stylized repetition of

acts.

 Individuals must constantly, unconsciously or consciously,

cite or reference established gender norms in order to
project a legible gendered identity.
Review: Performativity
1)Heterosexualizing processes at school

2)Compulsive heterosexuality
hegemonic masculinity

3)Fag Discourse
Review: Compulsive heterosexuality
  Excitement felt as sexuality in a male supremacist culture
which eroticizes male dominance and female submission.

1)No sissy stuff- Men are active, women are passive objects
2)Big Wheel- success = Control of women, number of
sexual partners
3)Sturdy Oak- Not emotional attachment or romance, but
merely sex
4)Give ’em hell- Aggressive, dominating interactions
Review: Rape paradigm/Culture
 A culture in which masculinity is predicated on
overcoming women’s bodily desires and control. A
culture in which rape and other sexual violence
(usually against women) are common and
prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media
condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage
sexualized violence.
Review: Fag Discourse
 Masculinity as Repudiation (“no sissy stuff”)

 Not just invoking or citing gender norms.

 
 Also requires repudiating or renouncing those qualities or
individuals who are cast out of socially validated gender and
sexuality categories.

 Constitutive outside/ abject identity/OTHER

 Imagine gender as a box…..
Review: Multiple Masculinities Model
 Hierarchy largely, but not exclusively, based on
adherence to norms

 Categorized in terms of relative degrees of power

and privilege
 Hegemony
 Concept derived by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

 Describes the way dominant classes (genders, nations, etc.) maintain their
power – not by (just through) brute force but by achieving legitimacy,
winning “consent,” and making their rule appear commonsense or simply
“the way things are.”

 Hegemony is maintained (and must be continually maintained: it is an

ongoing process) by dominant groups and classes ‘negotiating’ with, and
making concessions to, subordinate groups and classes’
 hegemony doesn’t imply oppression (although oppression might be present); it
depends upon negotiation, stability, consensus

 Popular culture comes to be viewed as the terrain upon which hegemony is

secured or contested . . . Examples?

 Constant battle between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces –

(remember Foucault, power is diffuse… think of the “green movement” and
the commercialization of going green….)
 Hegemonic masculinity
 Idealized version of masculinity at a particular time and
place- Unattainable for most men
 Gender practices that support gender inequality
 At the top of masculinities hierarchy
 2 meanings:
 1) The unattainable ideal masculinity/males are measured against
and
 2) the embodied representatives of that masculinity who present
enough traits to be recognized as hegemonic
Complicit Masculinity
 Masculine individuals who reinforce and benefit,
at least to some degree, from hegemonic
masculinity.

 Masculineindividuals who benefit from

hegemonic masculinity, but do not enact it.

 “Patriarchal dividend”
Marginalized masculinity
 Masculine individuals who are positioned
powerfully in terms of gender
practices/presentation, but not in terms of race or
class.
Subordinated masculinity
 Menwho are oppressed by definitions of
hegemonic masculinity
Gender maneuvering:
 The ways in which groups act to manipulate
relations between masculinity and femininity as
others commonly understand them.