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Global Studies in Culture and Power

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What makes hegemonic masculinity so

hegemonic? Japanese American men and
masculine aspirations

Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda

To cite this article: Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda (2020): What makes hegemonic masculinity
so hegemonic? Japanese American men and masculine aspirations, Identities, DOI:
10.1080/1070289X.2020.1851005

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2020.1851005

Published online: 15 Dec 2020.

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IDENTITIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2020.1851005

What makes hegemonic masculinity so hegemonic?

Japanese American men and masculine aspirations
Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State
University, Tempe, AZ, USA

ABSTRACT
Research on ‘hegemonic masculinity’ needs to more specifically examine its
hegemonic properties by analysing how masculine ideals embodied by white
men have become pervasive and widely-accepted by men of colour through their
voluntary compliance and consent. This paper analyses the influence of hege­
monic masculinity on the lives of Japanese American men. Because they have
adopted hegemonic masculinity as an idealised standard that they aspire to, but
cannot attain, their subordinate masculinity is construed as inferior and effemi­
nate, constraining their romantic power over women. Such negative assessments
are shared by Japanese American women, who are also under the pervasive
influence of hegemonic masculinity. In response, some Japanese American men
attempt to appropriate the qualities of an idealised manliness in public perfor­
mances, indicating how they continue to conceive of their masculinities in
hegemonic terms. Although a few of them valorised Asian American manhood
in order to challenge hegemonic conceptions, such alternative masculinities may
eventually be appropriated by hegemonic masculine discourses to perpetuate
pre-existing racial inequalities.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 6 September 2019; Accepted 10 November 2020

KEYWORDS Hegemony; ideology; hegemonic masculinity; gender; race and ethnicity; Japanese Americans

Why is hegemonic masculinity hegemonic?

Hegemony is one of those general concepts in social science which has been
employed by researchers in a multitude of different ways. As a result, its
meaning has sometimes become quite vague and it is often used to refer to
any system of power and domination. Even some scholars who have examined
culture and power tend to conceptualise hegemony as simply the dominant
culture that is perpetuated by the powerful through systems of class, gender, or
racial inequality (Laitin 1986, 19, 105; Williams 1977, 110–114).
When hegemony is used in such a general manner to refer to any form of
cultural domination, it becomes conflated with ideology, which refers to the

CONTACT Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda takeyuki.tsuda@asu.edu Professor of Anthropology, School of

Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402, USA
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 T. TSUDA

process whereby the culture of ruling elites and those in power is imposed on
subordinate peoples to become the dominant cultural belief system of society.
In fact, a number of scholars have used the concepts of hegemony and
ideology more or less interchangeably and do not clearly distinguish between
the two (see Gramsci 1987; Laitin 1986, 92, 106–107; Scott 1985, 314–315).
Much of the work on men and masculinity, which is based on R.W. Connell’s
seminal concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1987; 2005, 76–81;
Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), also uses the concept of hegemony in
a rather general manner to refer to simple ideologies of masculinity.
According to Connell, hegemonic masculinity consists of dominant cultural
ideals about manhood, which are attributed to men in power and therefore
perpetuates their dominance through the subordination of women as well as
non-dominant men (such as gays, racial minority men, and working class males)
(see also Demetriou 2001).

The nature of hegemony: pervasiveness, consent, and concealed power

For hegemonic masculinity to be a really useful and distinctive concept,
I argue that it must be defined more specifically to reflect the essential
characteristics of hegemony that make it different from simple ideological
forms of cultural domination. Since ideologies are the particular cultural
worldview of political and dominant elites, they are often contested and
resisted by subordinate peoples. Therefore, dominant ideologies must be
actively imposed on them by the ruling classes through the overt exercise
of power in order to maintain their dominance and reproduce the hierarchical
social order (Scott 1985; Williams 1977, 109).
In contrast, hegemonies are pervasive cultural belief systems that are not
simply the purview of the powerful, but have permeated society to such an
extent that they are widely-accepted through the ‘spontaneous consent’ of the
‘great masses of the population’ (to use Gramsci’s famous words). Unlike
ideologies, hegemonies are not subject to active contestation by subordinate
peoples, but are deeply engrained in their consciousness and taken-for-granted
as natural and universal, thus eliciting their voluntary compliance and obedi­
ence (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, ch. 1; Lee 2015, ch. 4; 2020; Williams 1977,
108–114).
In addition, because hegemonies have secured the consent of the sub­
ordinated and remain unquestioned, they do not need to be actively imposed
or enforced by explicit forms of power and cultural persuasion (see also
Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 22; Gramsci 1987, 12, 261–263, 271; Laitin
1986, 105; Lee 2015, ch. 4; 2020). Hegemonies are culturally inculcated and
internalised by individuals through family socialisation, education, mass
media, religion, and ritual processes (see also Comaroff and Comaroff 1991,
25; Lee 2020) that often do not involve critical debate or even direct
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 3

persuasion and argument. As a result, hegemonies are not experienced as

relations of power at all (Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 22, 25) and their
nature as a form of control is concealed, obscured, and mystified.

Putting hegemony back into hegemonic masculinity

Gender researchers have not sufficiently addressed what makes hegemonic
masculinity hegemonic by explicitly taking into account and emphasising the
essential attributes of cultural hegemony. A number of scholars have noted
that hegemonic masculinity is associated with and embodied by the dominant
group, which in the U.S. consists of heterosexual white males (Arnaldo 2019, 3;
Chin Phua 2007; Connell 2005, 78, 80–81; Eng 2001, 13–14; Nemoto 2006, 29;
Thangaraj 2015). As a result, not only does this white, hegemonic masculinity
lead to the patriarchal domination of women, but also of subordinate, ethnic
minority men, thus reproducing both gender and racial inequalities (Beasley
2008, 88, 94; Messerschmidt and Messner 2018, 35–36, 41).
Because this conceptualisation of hegemonic masculinity emphasises
power and domination, it is not clear how it is different from simple mascu­
line ideologies: dominant conceptions of manhood that are actively imposed
on subordinated women and minority men and enforced through the direct
exercise of power. In fact, subordinated minority and gay men are seen as
constructing and enacting alternative masculinities that contest, challenge,
and resist hegemonic masculinity by constructing and enacting alternative
masculinities (Chen 1999, 597–599; Chin Phua 2007, 915; Carabi and
Armengol 2014; Nemoto 2008, 82). However, as noted above, true hegemo­
nies, unlike ideologies, are not subject to such active contestation and there­
fore do not require the explicit use of power, cultural persuasion, or
domination. Because of this conceptual ambiguity, hegemonic masculinity
is often used by scholars as if it were synonymous with dominant masculine
ideologies (Demetriou 2001; Donaldson 1993; Messerschmidt 2012, 58).
In order to more clearly differentiate hegemonic masculinity from ideolo­
gies, the essential aspects that actually make it hegemonic – pervasiveness,
consent, and concealed power – need to be further explored. Although such
notions are briefly mentioned in numerous analyses of hegemonic masculinity,
including in Connell and Messerschmidt’s reformulation of the concept
(Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 838–839, 841, 846; see also see Beasley
2008, 88; Messerschmidt 2012, 58; Messerschmidt and Messner 2018, 41;
Talbot and Quayle 2010, 257), they are not extensively discussed or analysed
through in-depth case studies.
If white conceptions of masculinity are truly hegemonic, we need to demon­
strate how they have been propagated throughout society by concealed forms
of cultural control embedded in the mass media, families, schools, and com­
munity organisations (Chen 1999, 586; Connell 1987, 184; Connell and
4 T. TSUDA

Messerschmidt 2005, 838–839, 846) and adopted by people of colour through

their voluntary consent. This requires an analysis of how hegeomonic mascu­
linity is inflected by race and ethnicity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 845;
Messerschmidt and Messner 2018, 40) and elicits the consent and uncontested
acceptance of subordinate minority men and women, who have adopted the
standards of hegemonic masculinity (e.g. see Irvine and Vermilya 2010; Majors
2017, 16; Talbot and Quayle 2010).
The most extensive theoretical discussion of the pervasive consent and
spontaneous compliance that is an integral component of all cultural hege­
monies is R.W. Connell’s notion of ‘complicit masculinity’. According to
Connell, most men actually do not embody and enact hegemonic masculi­
nity. Nonetheless, they are complicit in it, because they benefit from its
‘patriarchal dividends’ and power over women (Connell 1987, 184–185;
2005, 77, 79; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 832). Since hegemonic mas­
culinity is most associated with white men in the U.S., it seems that ethnic
minority men are among those who do not always practice hegemonic
masculinity but are complicit in it. This is especially the case with Asian
American men, whose alternative, subordinate masculinities are often seen
as more feminised compared to white males (Eng 2001, 15–19; Espiritu 2008).
I argue that ethnic minority men are complicit in hegemonic masculinity
not only because they wish to reap patriarchal dividends, but also because
they have accepted it as a pervasive and uncontested cultural ideal about
manhood, even though they cannot realise it in their actual behaviour. As
Connell and others have made clear (Arnaldo 2019, 3; Beasley 2008, 89–90,
95–96; Connell 2005, 79; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 838), hegemonic
masculinity expresses widespread discursive ideals about masculinity that
few are able to enact, and therefore, it does not actually correspond to the
lives of most men (including white men).
In the rest of this paper, I will illustrate how hegemonic masculine ideals
associated with white men have permeated all aspects of U.S. society and have
become truly hegemonic among subordinate, minority groups by examining
the experiences of Japanese American men. Even though they are less able to
realise its idealised masculine standards, because they accept and consent to
hegemonic masculinity as the natural standard of manliness, many of them
judge their own subordinate masculine characteristics as inadequate, making it
more difficult for them to exert romantic power over women and reap ‘patri­
archal dividends’. Such negative assessments of Japanese American men are in
fact shared by Japanese American women, who are also under the pervasive
influence of hegemonic masculinity and find white men to be more desirable. In
response, some Japanese American men attempt to emulate and appropriate
the qualities of an idealised manliness in public performances, indicating how
they continue to conceive of their masculinities in hegemonic terms. However,
hegemonic masculinity is never completely impenetrable and impervious, and
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 5

may be transformed and reconfigured by the gradual emergence of an alter­

native masculine ideal that contests and challenges its prevailing assumptions.

Methodology and fieldwork

I conducted fieldwork and participant observation for one and a half years in
San Diego and Phoenix. Fifty-seven in-depth interviews were completed, which
generally lasted from two to three hours and were recorded and transcribed.
Initial contacts were made with the Japanese American Historical Society of San
Diego, the Nikkei Student Union (at the University of California at San Diego),
and the Japanese American Citizens League (in Phoenix). In addition, through
snowball sampling, I also interviewed many Japanese Americans who did not
participate in these organisations (all names are pseudonyms). In addition,
I conducted extensive participant observation by attending numerous organi­
sation meetings and community events (including public youth performances
related to masculinity), and also socialised with various Japanese Americans on
many occasions. All interview data and fieldwork notes from participant obser­
vation were coded using ATLAS.ti.
My interview sample consists of roughly equal numbers of U.S.-born
Japanese American men and women aged 19 to 72. My interviewees are
monoracial Japanese descendants with the exception of a limited number of
biracial individuals (who were half Japanese/half white) and over 60% of my
interviewees were married. None of my interviewees identified as gay. Since
asking Japanese American men directly about masculinity and manhood could
be abstract and somewhat awkward, I elicited masculine experiences through
specific questions about romantic relationships. In order to assess the perva­
siveness of hegemonic masculine ideals, I asked a similar set of questions about
Japanese American men to my female interviewees. Although the two
Japanese American ethnic communities I studied are quite different,
a comparison of coded data among individuals of the same age groups did
not find significant differences in the experience of masculinity.

The pervasive influence of hegemonic masculinity

Hegemonic masculinity and Japanese American men
The subordinate masculinity of Asian American men has been culturally
represented as effeminate and emasculated (Eng 2001, 15–19) and they
have generally been stereotyped in a negative manner as weak, wimpy,
small, nerdy, and asexual. Asian American men have also been portrayed as
lacking assertive and aggressive qualities and as being shy, restrained, pas­
sive, and socially awkward, especially around women (Cheung 1998, 174–176;
Chin 2015; Chin Phua 2007; Chua and Fujino 1999, 393–395; Eng 2001, 2;
6 T. TSUDA

Espiritu 2008, 99, 103–104, 126–127; Iwamoto and Liu 2008, 213–216; Mok
1999, 107; Nguyen 2014, 3–4). However, it is clear that Asian American
masculinity appears in such an unfavourable light in the United States
because it is viewed through the idealised lens of white, hegemonic mascu­
linity and seen as feminised and emasculated in comparison. Such character­
isations are largely absent among portrayals of Japanese masculinity in Japan
(e.g. see Hidaka 2009), where invidious contrasts with Western, white hege­
monic masculinity are not made.
Many of the Japanese American men I interviewed seemed to feel inade­
quate and inferior because they could not live up to the hegemonic mascu­
line ideal they felt were epitomised by white men in the U.S. (see also Chen
1999, 588), demonstrating its pervasive reach and universal acceptance even
among people of colour. Of course, most white men are also unable to
embody the idealised masculine standard, despite the fact that it is most
often attributed to them. However, because they are part of the ethnically
unmarked majority group, such masculine inadequacies are simply seen as
individual deficiencies and do not make them feel ethnically emasculated as
a group nor produce derogatory stereotypes.
Therefore, the prevalence of hegemonic masculinity as a widely-accepted,
but unattainable standard for Japanese American men undoubtedly has
negative romantic consequences for them that reduces their patriarchal
power over women. Although masculinity is partly constructed in relation
to femininity and is often displayed in front of women, studies of hegemonic
masculinity have generally neglected its relationship to romantic desirability
and sexuality (cf. Chin Phua 2007; Nemoto 2006, 30–31). Because most of my
interviewees assumed that white men represent the natural standard of
romantic attractiveness in the U.S., they felt that their alternative, subordinate
masculinity simply did not measure up, making them romantically undesir­
able to women (see also Chin Phua 2007, 911; Mok 1999, 107).
Not surprisingly, feelings of masculine inadequacy were most prevalent
among youth (who were generally single and looking for/in romantic rela­
tionships) and less prevalent among older and married men. However, some
of the older men mentioned such experiences when they were young. ‘In
high school, I wanted to be white, blond, and tall’, Ron Inoue remarked. ‘I
think I could have been more popular if I was white. And I probably would
have had more girlfriends if I was white’.
Like Ron, my younger Japanese American interviewees emphasised their
lack of physical stature, strength, and sexuality when compared to white men.
However, they also felt the unattractiveness of Asian men was also related to
their personality, which again does not meet the standards of (white) roman­
tic desirability. According to Yuki Sumimoto:
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 7

I think they [Asian American men] are seen as more square. Like uptight, not as
exciting, spontaneous, and wild and adventurous. I think that’s a real negative
for Asian men. I think it’s a stereotype, but maybe, it is the truth, because Asians
are really studious, and studious people become like that. Kind of nerdy. So if
you look at the film industry, I don’t think there are any cases where the [Asian]
male star hooks up with a beautiful woman. It’s always a white man. Asian
Americans just aren’t portrayed as really sexy guys.

The inability of Japanese American men to embody hegemonic masculinity

diminishes their ability to attract women and reap patriarchal dividends. This
was especially the case with white women. Like other interviewees, Matt
Honkawa felt that the feminised, subordinate masculinity of Asian American
men explained why there are so few white women dating and marrying them.

I think it has a lot to do with stereotypes. Asian men are seen as wimpy, maybe
not as assertive, a little more timid. What a girl looks for in a guy is someone
who really knows what he is doing. More assertive and masculine. And the
preconceived stereotype is that Asian guys are not like that. So white women
won’t even consider us I think. And Asians are not seen as the model of male
beauty. If you look at how the media portrays it, all the good-looking, sexy men
are either American or European. It’s almost never Asian men. The Asian
appearance is not seen as attractive.

In fact, because of their inability to meet the white masculine standard, some
Japanese American youth I interviewed explicitly admitted that they are not
capable of attracting white women. According to Steve Okura, a young man,
‘I’ve had dating conversations with my boss, whom I’m friendly with, and she
asked, “Steve, would you ever date a white girl?” And I kept telling her, I just
don’t feel I’m good enough for a white woman. I’m just not big enough, buff
enough, aggressive enough’.
Others interviewees felt they could not romantically compete with white
men even for the affections of Asian American women. In fact, one inter­
viewee spoke about his nagging feeling that white men were ‘taking our
women’. Likewise, another young Japanese American man (despite being tall
and handsome in my opinion) related his feelings to me as follows:

I think Japanese American people, we as a group lack physically in size, height,

weight, everything like that. I think that’s why we can’t compete with white
guys, because we’re just not as tall, not as muscular. Because look at the athletes
and stuff, they’re all really tall and we just aren’t like that . . . So the Japanese
American girls, they don’t have to date Japanese American guys. They go for
white men. So I just feel I can’t compete with them, you know? It’s out of my
control, so I can’t do anything about it.

In this respect, it is interesting to note that among the 18 married or previously-

married Japanese American men I interviewed, none of them had married
a white woman. Most had married Japanese American women, and a few
8 T. TSUDA

had married other minority women. In contrast, a majority of married or

previously-married Japanese American women had married white men.
Because white men are seen as the exemplars of a romantically desirable
hegemonic masculinity (even if many cannot actually meet the illusory
standard), they enjoy privileged access to minority women, whereas minority
men do not have such interethnic privileges, thus reproducing racial hierar­
chies. Therefore, hegemonic masculinity not only promotes the gendered
subordination of women to men, but also the ethnic subordination of min­
ority men to white men.
Because many of the Japanese American men I interviewed have consented
to the manner in which dominant, white society views masculinity, it has
become hegemonic and pervasive among them as an uncontested and taken-
for-granted ideal to which they are unfavourably compared. This produces self-
denigrating discourses about their own deficient masculinity. Although most of
my interviewees were well-educated, middle-class professionals or college
students, none of them mentioned that socioeconomic success makes
Japanese American men romantically attractive to women. As scholars have
noted, the stereotype of Asian American men as model minorities is often
desexualised because they are seen as sacrificing romantic and sexual relations
for academic and socioeconomic success (Lu and Wong 2013, 247, 348).
Apparently, hegemonic masculine attributes which make white men romanti­
cally desirable become undesirable characteristics when they are racialised and
ascribed to Asian American men, reducing them to asexual overachievers who
are geeks and nerds. As a result, the relatively privileged socioeconomic status
of Asian American men compared to black and Latino men does not enhance
their masculinity.
Interestingly, the only Japanese American men who expressed explicit con­
fidence in their masculinity were two bi-racial youth I interviewed who were
half white. ‘I pretty much flirt with everyone, but white women are a bit more
receptive’, one of them said and then added somewhat jokingly, ‘I like to think
it’s because I’m handsome . . . But seriously, they just assume I’m white, which is
always romantically advantageous to being completely Asian. But even when
I tell them later that I’m half Japanese, it’s never been an issue’. Such statements
were quite a contrast to my mono-racial male interviewees and shows the
difference some whiteness makes when it comes to male attractiveness.

Japanese American women and hegemonic masculinity

Since gender is inherently a relational construct and ideals about manhood are
often defined in contrast to images of femininity, studies of masculinity need to
examine relationships between men and women. However, as noted by some
scholars, most research about hegemonic masculinity tends to exclusively
analyse the experiences of men (and the hierarchical relations between their
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 9

different masculinities) and have not sufficiently examined their associations

with women (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 837; Nemoto 2008, 81; Talbot
and Quayle 2010, 256). When women are brought into the analysis, it is often
assumed that they comply with the accepted norms of ‘emphasized femininity’,
which complements hegemonic masculinity and therefore reproduces patriar­
chal power relations that ultimately subordinates them to men (Connell 1987,
186; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 837).
In order to truly understand the hegemonic nature of hegemonic mascu­
linity as a widely-accepted and uncontested belief system, we must not only
examine how it has been culturally inculcated in men, but also secured the
generalised consent of women (see e.g. Irvine and Vermilya 2010) in ways
that reinforce both structures of gender and racial inequality. Women comply
with hegemonic masculinity not simply because they engage in supporting
behaviours that sustain the dominance of men, but also because they view
men through the same hegemonic lens, which causes them to acquiesce to
their gendered domination.
Instead of simply feeling oppressed and dominated by hegemonic mascu­
linity, women often desire it when seeking romantic partners, as studies of
Asian American and other women have shown (Mok 1999, 107; Nemoto 2006,
30–31; Talbot and Quayle 2010). Because Asian American women have also
adopted white, hegemonic masculinity as the pervasive standard of male
attractiveness, they share the negative images that majority society has about
Asian American men (e.g. see Espiritu 2008, 130; Iwamoto and Liu 2008,
216–217; Nemoto 2006, 43), including as romantically undesirable partners
(see also Iwamoto and Liu 2008, 218; Mok 1999, 107). As a result, some of
them have developed a strong preference for white over Asian American men
(see also Mok 1999, 107; Nemoto 2006, 30–31).
My interviews indicated that not only do Japanese American men measure
themselves against the white hegemonic masculine ideal and find them­
selves wanting, so do many Japanese American women. For instance, accord­
ing to Karla, who was married to a white man:

So I’d say the images of Japanese American men are a real negative when it
comes to romance. Asexual and kind of boring. That’s probably what a person
thinks when someone says, ‘You want to go on a date? I have this great Asian
friend for you.’ And [the woman] is immediately thinking: he’s a wimpy com­
puter nerd who wears glasses and he’s 35 and still a virgin.

When asked about the paucity of white women who date Asian American men,
Carol Hashimoto responded: ‘It’s how the media portrays Asian men as socially
inept. They make a good salary but that’s it. They don’t have a personality. All
they do is work hard, but they can’t carry on a conversation and they’re
awkward. That’s how they are portrayed, as nerds’.
10 T. TSUDA

As evident in the above remarks, none of my female interviewees viewed

the socioeconomic and educational success of Japanese American men as
a positive attribute, despite the fact that it aligns with hegemonic masculine
ideals, and instead, saw them as hardworking and awkward nerds. Others
spoke of the relative unattractiveness of Japanese and Asian American men
compared to white men.
‘I would say Asian American men don’t fit the stereotype of the sexy,
desirable man’, Yoko Matsuda observed. ‘It’s not exactly like the stereotype of
Italians or Spanish, like the Latin lovers or whatever’. Likewise, according
Shannon Suyama, who was also married to a white man, ‘A lot of the
Japanese American female friends I had, none of us would ever date Asian
guys, especially Japanese [Americans]’, she recalled. ‘We all dated white men.
Because of the stereotype [of Asian men] we had in our minds. So we were like,
“Anybody else! Anybody else is OK”. I have this [male] cousin who really wants
to meet women. But he can’t date one even if his life depended on it. It’s not
going to happen’.
Only a couple of Japanese American women said that Asian American men
are seen as romantically attractive and only a few explicitly stated that they
preferred to date and marry them. As noted above, a majority of them were in
fact married to white men. In this manner, it was quite clear that a number of
them judged the manhood of Japanese American men as inadequate
because they had also internalised the idealised images of hegemonic mas­
culinity, which demonstrates how it truly pervades all parts of society through
the voluntary consent of the subjugated. As was the case with Japanese
American men, few Japanese American women questioned the legitimacy
of the hegemonic ideal of masculinity represented by white men, or
expressed a strong preference for a completely different type of man,
which is the ultimate indication of its status as an uncontested cultural ideal.

The performance of hegemonic masculinity

Some Japanese American youth I observed during my research engaged in
public displays and performances of hegemonic masculinity in an attempt to
counter derogatory and emasculating stereotypes (see also Thangaraj 2015).
This again indicates its generalised acceptance among men of colour as
a pervasive and unquestioned ideal of manliness that they wish to approx­
imate. Gender is performed not only in everyday social interaction, but also
through staged performances to public audiences (Alexander 2004, 390, 392;
Butler 1988, 527).
Such public displays of hypermasculinity provide Japanese American
youth with opportunities to challenge the manner in which they are com­
monly portrayed and stereotyped (see also Chin 2015, 59), especially because
staged performances are carefully rehearsed and controlled, and apparently
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 11

detached from the constraints of everyday existence. By reclaiming their

manliness on hegemonic terms, they also wish to make themselves more
romantically attractive, thus asserting patriarchal power and dominance over
women that apparently eludes them in their regular lives.
The performative aspects of hegemonic masculinity is also a topic that has
not been sufficiently explored in the literature. Butler (1990; 1996) argues that
the iterative nature of gender performances destabilises prescribed identities
and categories through inherent variations, subversive possibilities, and
necessary failures and reconfigurations, therefore preventing them from
becoming essentialised and fully constituted. By stressing that there is no ‘I’
that precedes performative enactment but that identity is an effect of perfor­
mances, Butler perhaps ascribes too much agency to individuals to create
themselves through their reiterative acts (Tsuda 2016, 221, 235–236). It is
quite evident that most gender performances reinforce more than under­
mine prescribed gender categories and hegemonies, as Butler (1988) herself
also emphasises.
Rather than destabilising hegemonies and producing new gender cate­
gories through their cultural performances, Japanese American youth tend to
reproduce masculinity as hegemonically constituted. In an effort to distance
themselves from their subordinate and denigrated Asian American masculi­
nity, they attempt to emulate and appropriate the qualities of hegemonic
masculinity by constructing and enacting images of an idealised manhood,
instead of contesting them (see also Cheung 1998, 194–195; Chin Phua 2007;
Chua and Fujino 1999, 407–408; Eng 2001, 31, 118–124; Espiritu 2008,
129–130; Nemoto 2008).
The most notable hypermasculine performance among Japanese
American youth that I observed during my fieldwork was at the general
meeting of the Nikkei Student Union (NSU) at UC San Diego. The meeting
was raucous and juvenile, took place in a large auditorium, and included skits
and performances on stage showcasing the masculinity of the male, NSU
board members.
After the introductory formalities were over, five good-looking Japanese
American women were paraded onto the stage, asked to sit in chairs, and
promptly blindfolded. Suddenly, the auditorium lights were dimmed (as if to
create a romantic atmosphere), and the board members strutted on stage,
approached the women, and started wooing them with sexy, provocative
moves. A couple of them even posed as rock stars with microphones, sun­
glasses, and open shirts that revealed their muscular physiques.
When the blindfolds were removed from the women, all of them were
clearly surprised at what the men were doing. In fact, a couple of them looked
quite embarrassed and uncomfortable, but could not move since the men
were literally on top of them, and they were forced to watch the displays of
hypermasculinity at very close range (it almost seemed as if they were
12 T. TSUDA

actually tied to their seats). The immobilisation of the women was seemingly
necessary not only to bring them under the complete patriarchal control of
the male board members, but also to ensure that they did not run away with
white men,1 clearly symbolising how hegemonic masculinity involves the
submission of women.
Two of the subsequent performances at the meeting consisted of the NSU
board members dancing to R & B and hip hop music by imitating African
American styles and moves while first wearing basketball jerseys and then
tight shirts (they had rehearsed the performance for weeks). The audience
loved the displays of masculinity and were cheering and yelling as if the
board members were bona fide rock stars (one did an athletic backflip on
stage, which elicited the loudest roar). Throughout the performance, audi­
ence members shouted things like ‘You stallion!’ ‘You’re hot!’ and ‘Stud!’ to
encourage and egg on the board members, although there was also some
awkward laughter at the apparent absurdity of Japanese Americans trying to
act like black men.
Asian American men have increasingly appropriated black masculinity as
sexy, tough, and cool in order to rebel against desexualised, model minority/
nerd stereotypes (Thangaraj 2015, 146–147), which I witnessed several times
during my fieldwork, including a performance by the UCSD Chinese American
hip hop group and a recorded performance from a Japanese American rapper.
Because Japanese and Asian Americans are racialised as foreign others, they are
unable to emulate idealised white images of masculinity (see Eng 2001, 31,
118–124; Thangaraj 2015, 88). In contrast, black hypermasculinity is more easily
accessible for them since it can be expressed through familiar forms of popular
culture (hip hop and rap music) (Oware 2011), sports like basketball, and
gestures and styles of dress (see Majors 2017; Thangaraj 2015, 88).
How effective are such attempts by Japanese American youth to defy
emasculating stereotypes and prove their manliness? As Judith Butler notes,
because staged performances can be dismissed as ‘not real’ compared to
gendered performances enacted in everyday contexts (Butler 1988, 527; see
also MacCannell 1973), their subversive potential may be limited. As a result,
they may not enhance the masculinity of these Japanese American youth in
their ordinary lives and translate into actual romantic conquests that enable
them to reap patriarchal dividends over women. In fact, almost all of those who
were cheering and shouting at the NSU meeting were other men, and not
women (some of whom seemed to think the hypermasculine displays were
a bit ridiculous, judging from their faces).
In addition, the audience for such staged performances (and others
I observed during my fieldwork) consisted of only Japanese and Asian
Americans. In this manner, they are an example of the ‘marginalised masculi­
nities’ of non-dominant men who embody aspects of hegemonic masculinities
but remain marginalised nonetheless (Connell 2005, 80–81). For instance,
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 13

although black men (and other men of colour, such as Latinos) have interna­
lised hegemonic masculine standards, they lack the resources to fully realise an
idealised manhood through social mobility because of their socioeconomic
marginalisation, causing some of them to engage in less desirable forms of
hypermasculinity that involve sexism, homophobia, violence, and risk-taking
(Majors 2017, 16–17; Oware 2011, 26; see also Arnaldo 2019).
Asian American masculine displays are not necessarily socioeconomically
marginalised, but often ethnically marginalised and confined to the safe spaces
and privacy of local Asian American communities, where such performances
are supported in a positive atmosphere free from criticism, racialised stigma,
and microaggressions (see also Chin 2015, 58). For instance, I wondered how
the attempts of NSU board members at the general meeting to act masculine
and sexy in front of women would have been received by a white male
audience. As for their rendition of hip hop dance and black masculinity, they
may have faced snickers and even been ridiculed and laughed off the stage by
an African American audience. In contrast, masculine performances by blacks,
such as through rap music and athletics, are more likely to be displayed to the
general public as part of mainstream American popular culture and sports (see
Alexander 2004, 383; Majors 2017; Oware 2011). The marginalised confinement
of Japanese American masculine performances to co-ethnic audiences limits
their public impact and ability to challenge prevailing racial stereotypes.
Among Japanese American men, taiko (traditional Japanese drumming)
has become another way for them to publicly perform their masculinity in
a hegemonic manner (see Konagaya 2005). Taiko became wildly popular after
the 1990s among Japanese American youth and there are now hundreds of
taiko ensembles.
Because taiko performances are loud and physically powerful, they can be
a demonstration of masculinity for young Japanese American men. This is
especially the case when they play huge drums, which can range from 6 to 10
feet in diameter and require considerable strength and stamina. The massive
pounding can reverberate throughout a large hall and produce a truly hyp­
notic effect. Therefore, the taiko performances of Japanese American men
can counteract how they have been stereotypically represented as effemi­
nate, small, and weak (Konagaya 2005, 134–135) as well as passive and
asexual model minorities.
This was emphasised by Steve, who used to be president of the UC San
Diego student taiko ensemble. ‘Because of images of Asian men as kind of
wimpy with really flimsy physiques, to be able to play taiko is very empower­
ing’, he noted. ‘A Japanese American [playing taiko] is buff, and especially on
those huge odaiko drums – just railing on those. You’ve got to have good
muscles and endurance to keep that up. So yeah, there’s definitely a masculine
feeling from that’. In fact, a number of young Japanese Americans claim that
playing taiko makes them feel ‘cool’, ‘hip’, ‘flashy’, ‘trendy’, and ‘sexy’.
14 T. TSUDA

However, in contrast to hegemonic masculinity, taiko groups and perfor­

mances do not involve the patriarchal subordination of women. Although
taiko in Japan is dominated by men, in the United States, women have always
performed in taiko ensembles and have actually outnumbered men (Ahlgren
2011, 13). In addition, in order to avoid gendered inequalities, women and
men can equally share leadership and other responsibilities in some taiko
groups, and both play strenuous pieces and large drums (Ahlgren 2011,
74–75). Clearly, there is a diversity of hegemonic masculinities embodied
and performed by different groups of men (see also Beasley 2008, 97–99;
Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 845).

Challenges to hegemonic masculinity: towards a more

‘democratic manhood’?
Of course, not all Japanese American men are completely subjugated by the
logic of hegemonic masculinity and can only understand and conceive of
their own manhood in hegemonic terms. Even the most pervasive and
engrained cultural hegemonies are never absolute and beyond contestation,
but are always potentially vulnerable to challenges and subversions
(Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, 24–25; Gramsci 1987, 60–61). This is also the
case with hegemonic masculinity, which, as Connell notes (1987, 186; Connell
and Messerschmidt 2005, 832–833, 835) is historically constituted under
specific circumstances, and is thus subject to change and transformation in
a ‘struggle for hegemony’.
Some scholars have expressed a desire for Asian American men to escape
the confines of hegemonic masculinity by resisting what Nguyen (2014, 2)
calls ‘the strategy of remasculinization . . . as a defense against feminization’.
Such attempts to appropriate and over-identify with hegemonic masculinity
in response to their feminised position has caused Asian American men to
assert their authority over women and unwittingly reinscribe patriarchy
(Espiritu 2008, 129–131; see also Cheung 1998; Eng 2001, 21; Thangaraj
2015, 152–158). As Chua and Fujino (1999) suggests, we need to get beyond
binary constructions of Asian American men as either effeminised or hyper­
masculinized by examining how some of them construct alternative mascu­
linities or ‘ethical manhoods’ (Parrenas Shimizu 2012) that are more
moderate, compassionate, and democratic, and not positioned in opposition
to women (see also Arnaldo 2019, 15; Kim 2006, 254–255).
In order for this to happen, the subordinate masculinities of Asian
American men must become positively construed and valorised as an alter­
native ideal about what it means to be a man that can therefore resist and
challenge hegemonic masculinity (see also Carabi and Armengol 2014, 1).
Instead of seeing their alternative masculinity as effeminate and inferior, such
feminised characteristics could be appropriated by Asian American men as
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 15

desirable masculine qualities (Cheung 1998, 191) in order to construct an

idealised image of men who are more considerate and caring and willing to
engage in domesticity than those glamorised by hegemonic masculinity.
Thus, the hierarchical order of masculinities can be potentially subverted, so
that a pervious subordinate masculinity comes to be viewed as superior to
hegemonic masculinity.
In fact, a number of researchers have observed such alternative masculi­
nities emerging among Asian American men that are emotionally sensitive,
nurturing, polite, and domestically-oriented (Chua and Fujino 1999, 407–408;
Iwamoto and Liu 2008, 225; Nemoto 2008), thereby promoting egalitarian
and respectful relations with women instead of their subjugation. Although
such masculine discourses were somewhat rare among my Japanese
American interviewees, a few of them did construe their own subordinate
Asian masculinity as a positive ideal and directly questioned the superiority of
hegemonic masculinity. Interestingly, they tended to be older, middle-aged
men who were married. It seems they were still young enough to be con­
cerned about manliness, but since they were no longer under romantic
pressure like youth, they had been able to step back from and critically reflect
on hegemonic discourses about masculine desirability. For instance, consider
the comments of Rick Morimoto:
I think compared to the typical man, I’m less patriarchal and believe more in
gender equality. My wife and I split household duties 50/50. The first thing I always
did when I dated in the past is invite the woman over for dinner and cook her
a good meal. I always felt women are attracted to men who can cook well.

Likewise, according to Mark Tsuchida:

Asian men don’t have to feel inferior. There is nothing wrong with the way we
are. In fact, there are some white women who are crazy about Asian men. Not
many, but there are some. I think they like us because we are like, softer, more
understanding and gentle. They don’t necessary like the gung-ho, aggressive
alpha-male type who shows off his stuff.

If such re-evaluations of alternative Asian masculinities gradually spread among

Japanese American men (and possibly women) over time, hegemonic mascu­
linity may eventually be displaced and supplanted by this more inclusive,
democratic masculinity as the new hegemonic ideal.

Conclusion: hegemony and the incorporation of alternative

masculinities
This paper has contended that hegemonic masculinity is hegemonic because it
is an ideal about manhood which has been propagated and become
entrenched in society through the voluntary consent of individuals, impacting
even the lives of subordinate men of colour who are less able to conform to its
16 T. TSUDA

idealised images. Among Japanese American men, the hegemonic standard of

manliness attributed to white men has indeed become widely-accepted and
pervasive, leaving them feeling romantically undesirable and disadvantaged as
minority men because they do not resemble the hegemonic ideal. In fact, such
discourses are commonly-shared among Japanese American women, indicat­
ing their hegemonic reach and influence among both genders. Because hege­
monic masculinity is seen as the purview of white men (even if many cannot
live up to its ideals), it gives them privileged access to minority women at the
expense of minority men. Therefore, not only does hegemonic masculinity
reproduce unequal gender relations, it also becomes a hierarchical form of
ethnic subordination when it crosses racial lines.
In response, some Japanese American men engage in cultural performances
that defy emasculating images of them by demonstrating and trying to prove
their manliness. In the process, however, they may perpetuate both the racial
domination of white men idolised by hegemonic masculinity as well as the
gendered subordination of women that it often entails. However, cultural
hegemonies are never absolute, since they are historically constituted and
susceptible to subversive challenges and resistance. Instead of being seen as
inferior, the alternative masculinity of Asian Americans can be reconstituted in
a positive manner to become a new, idealised conception of a democratic,
compassionate manhood that challenges hegemonic masculinity.
Eventually, such alternative masculinities may replace hegemonic masculi­
nity as a superior ideal at the top of the masculine order (and even become
a new hegemony). This would potentially disrupt the racialised male hierarchy
as well, since the most desired standard of manliness could be claimed by Asian
American (and other similar minority men), instead of simply by white men.
However, I would argue that a more likely outcome is that aspects of
democratic, egalitarian masculinity will eventually be appropriated and
absorbed by hegemonic masculinity to produce a hybrid masculine ideal
(Demetriou 2001, 345–346) that incorporates features from both hegemonic
and nonhegemonic masculinity in a non-binary manner (Carabi and
Armengol 2014, 8–9). This is the case with Japanese American taiko discussed
above, a hegemonic masculine performance that promotes inclusive and
egalitarian relations with women. In this manner, the challenge of alternative
and subordinate masculinities can be managed and domesticated by hege­
monic masculinity through the selective incorporation of their oppositional
attributes (Hirose and Pih 2010, 203, see also Williams 1977, 113).
Such a transformed hegemonic masculinity that is inflected by more
inclusive and moderate qualities may be able to maintain its dominance
and remain within the privileged domain of white (and in the future, possibly
Asian American) middle-class men. In fact, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and
Michael Messner argue that traditional hegemonic masculinity may have
already selectively incorporated the attributes of alternative, inclusive
 IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 17

masculinities and may no longer be that patriarchal. They claim that a shared
cultural image has emerged of the ‘New Man’ epitomised by the ‘white,
college-educated (heterosexual) professional who is a highly involved and
nurturant father, “in touch with” and expressive of his feelings, and egalitarian
in his dealings with women’ (1994, 202). Although it is again questionable
whether these dominant white men actually live up to such standards, it may
become a cultural ideal nonetheless that eventually obtains generalised
hegemonic acceptance and consent. However, according to Hondagneu-
Sotelo and Messner, this new image of the ideal white man:
requires a counterimage against which to stand in opposition. Those aspects of
traditional hegemonic masculinity that the New Man has rejected—overt phy­
sical and verbal displays of domination, stoicism and emotional inexpressivity,
overt misogyny in the workplace and at home—are now increasingly projected
onto less privileged groups of men: working-class men, gay body-builders,
black athletes, Latinos, and immigrant men (1994, 207).

In other words, despite its greater democratic inclusivity, this transformed hege­
monic masculinity continues to be claimed by dominant white males (and
eventually by relatively privileged ‘model minorities’ such as Asian Americans)
and its previous, negative aspects, which have been expunged, are now attrib­
uted to the marginalised masculinities of the working class, African Americans,
and socioeconomically disadvantaged immigrant minorities. As a result, this
reformed masculine ideal begins to operate like its hegemonic predecessor as
it becomes entrenched across society and is used to judge marginalised mascu­
linities as undesirable and inferior, thus maintaining and reproducing unequal
racial hierarchies where whites (and Asians) are positioned above Latinos and
blacks. In this case, although cultural hegemonies may be transformed, prevailing
ethnic and social inequities continued to be perpetuated.

Note
1. As noted earlier, there were interviewees who were concerned that they could
not romantically compete with white men, who are ‘taking’ Asian American
women away from them.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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