Friday, July 22, 2011

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –summary


The first part of Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is an historical account of the development of British popular culture in late 19th and early 20th centuries. This period, according to Stuart Hall, saw some deep cultural changes in urban working classes with the appearance of cultural industries products and technologies. Hall holds that this period is characterized by questions which remain relevant to this day regarding the relation between corporate produced culture and the image of popular culture as belonging to the masses.  

In the main part of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Hall is discussing the problematic meaning of the word "popular" in "popular culture". Hall analyzes two common understandings of this concept. The first meaning of "popular" is the one of wide circulation and commerciality. Subscribers of this view often tie popular culture with manipulative consumerism and regard it as falsification and even degradation of authentic working class cultural content and tradition. Stuart Hall only partially accepts this view for on the one hand it views working class members as easily manipulated passive consumers while on the other hand seeking an "authentic" or "original" working class culture which does not really exist. Hall prefers a more dynamic and changing description of popular content and forms.

The second definition of popular culture scrutinized by Hall is the one which views popular culture as all the cultural activities of "the people". This definition is in fact a massive inventory list of various cultural and leisure activities. Hall is critical of this perspective as well for its essentialist view and it being based on the binary distinction between "the people" and the "elite".

Towards the end of "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" Stuart Hall offers another definition of popular culture which stresses its dynamic nature and constant tension and struggle. Hall understands popular culture as an ongoing process, similar the concept of Hegemony offered by Gramsci, is which relations of control and subordination are constantly shifting and certain cultural forms gain and lose support from institutions. Preferred of marginalized cultural content and forms are not fixed, according to Hall there is a constant movement and interchange between them as a result of shifting power relations, the assimilation of poplar content into "high culture" and vice versa. What Stuart Hall is essentially offering in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is a neo-Gramscian view of the power relation between high and popular culture, with a more mutual perspective of the assimilatory take originally offered by Gramsci who thought the high hegemonic culture assimilates and sterilizes popular culture. 


Suggested reading:

Stuart Hall: "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" –review

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" initially appeared in "People's History and Socialist Theory" (1981) – a collection of essays concerned with socialism in its British contexts. Therefore Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" relies on British popular culture and its significance to the lower working class. But since Hall is attempting to deconstruct stereotypical connections between popular culture and the working class, "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" has theoretical value in relation to the understanding of popular culture as a modern phenomenon in industrialized countries.

Stuart Hall's "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" works within the tension between the perception of popular culture as something that emanates from the working class and therefore has something authentic about it, and the understanding of popular culture as an exploitative, commercial and mass communication based ally of modern capitalism. Hall's Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" criticizes views that regard popular culture as an authentic expression of the working class and as a site for cultural resistance. Hall favors a more dynamic approach which views popular culture as changing field and as a site for struggle between different social forces over the meaning and value ascribed to popular culture.

"Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" opens with an historical account of the development of British Popular culture. Stuart Hall then proceeds to discuss the meaning of the term "popular" in the phrase "popular culture". Hall is offering three different definitions of "popular" in relation to culture, and his main point in "Notes on Deconstructing 'The Popular'" is to try and point to the complexity of the relation between cultural products and content associated with "the common people" and the products and content of the culture industry. Hall points to the power relation that determine both high culture and popular culture as opposed concepts, while criticizing any attempt for an essentialist view of culture in general and popular culture in particular, and any steady association of content and cultural products with a specific social class.

Suggested reading:

  

Richard Shusterman: "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" – summary and review

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" (in "pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking art" 1992) is a defense on popular culture or popular art's statutes as an aesthetic and artistic field. Philosophy of aesthetics has often refused to relate to popular culture as a form of art on account of it lacking certain aesthetic qualities. Richard Shusterman is attempting to demonstrate how these qualities do exist in popular art, and he uses the example of rap music to demonstrate his case.
Shusterman counts six common arguments against popular art:

That popular art offers no aesthetic satisfaction; that popular art does not provide as aesthetic challenge of promote an active response; that popular art is superficial and does not appeal to the intellect; that popular art is not creative and is not innovative in its forms and styles; that popular art is non-critical, conformist and formula based; and that popular art is not stylistically developed.

For every one of these arguments against the aesthetic value of popular art Shusterman is offering a counter example or claim in order to show how popular art (in his case, rap music) does have the traits that on account of their absence popular art is denied aesthetic value.

Richard Shusterman's "Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" and large parts of his aesthetic philosophy thought aims to oppose the elitist take against popular art, such as Dwight Macdonald's "A theory of Mass culture" which sees popular art as a threat to the "high arts" and the public's intellect. Shusterman does not subscribe to a normative judgment of high or popular art, but rather wishes to base aesthetic judgments on art's concrete everyday function in society.

suggested reading:
Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking ArtPopular Culture: A ReaderCultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (5th Edition)Performing Live : Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art

Richard Shusterman."Form and Funk: The Aesthetic Challenge of Popular Art" .in "pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking art" 1992. Cambridge: Blackwell

Thursday, July 7, 2011

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Contemporary politics of masculinity

In the epilogue of "Masculinities" R.W. Connell is attempting to describe the politics of masculinity in contemporary times, flowing the works of Goode and Godenzi which show that despite openness to challenging claims made by feminism, men still have a strong hold in the material world and the equality is still far away. Connell is suggesting a model that has four dimensions of gender relation to try to account for the interests of men in contemporary patriarchy:

Power: man have favorable positions in business, state affairs, public spaces, the family, enforcement agencies and the means to generate violence. On the other hand: men are usually the ones who are arrested and executed, they are the main target of military violence and of liberal economic competition.

Division of labor: men's income is twice that of women and they enjoy favorable position in the economy and have better access to opportunities in the men dominated system. On the other hand hazardous works are mostly held by men and they rate higher as sole-providers. They pay more taxes while welfare divides state income to their disadvantage.

Cathexis: men are given unreturned emotional support from women. Society (for instance the media and culture) favors men's pleasure over women's and legitimizes their sexual freedom. On the other hand men's sexuality is more alienated and restrained. There are less free to express their emotions and they are excluded from contact with their children during their early years.

The symbolic level: men control most of the cultural institutions and enjoy a higher level of recognition. On the other hand humanities studies are becoming more and more a feminine field and mothers enjoy greater legitimization as parents.

in relation to the body Connell notes how men's occupations make them more vulnerable to physical injury while on the other hand they are not required to wear restricting cloths or spend time and money on their appearance.

This "checks and balances" approach might give the illusion that the benefits of masculinity even out with its costs, but Connell makes sure to note that the advantages of masculinity often serve men who are not the same as those who suffers from its drawbacks, and this is where gender crosses with other categories such as race and class. If Connell is talking about a variety of masculinities, than there is a variety of social position that those masculinities provide. But this, for Connell, does not mean we should abandon the category of men all together.  



Raewyn Connell – "Masculinities", 1995
Chapter 6: A Very Straight Gay
Chapter 7: Men of Reason

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Degendering and recomposing hegemonic masculinity and gender relations

 In chapter 10 of "Masculinities" (practice and utopia) R.W. Connell suggests the strategy of "degendering" as a means for social justice in gender relations. Degendering is not to be carried out just at the level of culture and institutions but should also work on the bodies themselves. The mission of such degendering politics is according to Connell to bring about change in the practice of bodily reflection and working through the agency of the body in order to find new ways for men to use their masculine bodies.

The argument for dgendering echoes out of the feminist debate about equality and difference and the fear that equality would result in assimilation. For Connell the same problem holds for the will to criticize hegemonic masculinity that, if indeed degendered, might lose some of its more positive things and throw out the baby with the bath water. For Connell, in order to call for social justice in gender relations we must call for difference and degendering at the same time. Research and Connell's discussion shows that gendered traits and practices are common to both genders and the symbolic reintegration of these can be rather simple: body builders can work at kindergartens, lesbians can wear leather jackets etc.

Forms of Action
Following Andrew Tolson Connell points to the fact the various men's groups (the general men's liberation movement) are problematic in the sense that you cannot adopt emancipatory strategies if you are the dominating group. Anti-chauvinistic male politics that seeks social justice actually works against the interests of those man who take part in it, and such a stance should aim at breaking men's unity, not reinforce it.

But for Connell such a form of politics is still possible, especially outside pure gender politics. Male solidarity for males' sake is problematic, but solidarity (with women) for other sakes has a lot of potential for change in gender relations. The crossing of class and gender politics (and ethnic politics as well) is especially interesting for Connell for the possibility it holds for unity which is not absolute male unity. Instead of a men's movement this will be a politics of alliances, with the struggle for social justice depending on the intersection of interests.
Education for Connell is one of the prime sites for this degendering politics. She holds that every education program must address a variety of masculinities and the crossing of race, ethnicity, nationality and class. Connell calls for a reorganization of knowledge from the point of view of the oppressed and for the pluralization of sources in education programs. Another requirement is the capacity for empathy often so lacking in hegemonic masculinity. 

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Practice and Utopia

Chapter 10 of R.W. Connell's Masculinities discusses the meaning of knowledge about masculinity to questions of social justice in gender relation. For this end Connell holds that both existing practice and possible utopia are in need of scrutiny.

Connell research in Masculinities showed some changes in awareness towards gender relations starting from the 70's; however she holds that patriarchy is still very much the order of the day in contemporary western cultures, and that the change in historical consciousness is not yet manifested in the breakdown of the institutional and material structures of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity.

The discussion of gender relations in the past two centuries are close, according to Connell, to introduce the demise of masculinity as we know it, with the wheels of change already in motion. Even reactionary stances regarding masculinity acknowledge the fact that masculinity is the subject of social transformation and is something which is currently under negotiation. Connell argues that no one assumes, and no one can any longer assume, that man and masculinity are just what they are.

In surveying the possible purposes of political action in the field of gender Connell distinguishes liberal pluralism and postmodernism. Both approaches according to Connell fail to bring into account the importance of practice, and not just politics or consciousness, in generating change or sustaining the current state of affairs. In the context of gender relations working towards social justice means to undermine straight men's favorable positions in social structures. This does not mean striving for uniformity, and Connell relies on Michael Walzer and his notion of complex equality in order to imagine the possibility of gender equality. Masculinity, in other words, does not need to be abolished but rather repositioned in the political and economical structure.  

But focusing on hegemonic masculinity's material and political gains alone will, for Connell, miss the point. For patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity, as demonstrated again and again throughout "Masculinities", in sustained through bodily division which are themselves sustained through reflexive bodily practices. The social organization of these practices into a patriarchic gender order is the cause of the hierarchic social order. All this leads R.W. Connell to argue for the strategy of degendering – the dismantlement of hegemonic masculinity and the decomposition of gender relations. 

see also:

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Masculinity Politics

Politics of Men and Politics of Masculinity
R.W. Connell opens chapter 9 of "Masculinities", titled "Masculinity Politics" by indicating the fact the public politics is masculine politics in almost every sense. Even in western countries women are still heavily underrepresented in power position, with a variety of formal barriers and hidden strategies to keep them out of the public sphere. Feminism has failed to mend to inequality but did manage to draw attention to it, and men's position regarding gender relations has become an object of politics.

Connell defines masculinity politics as all those process and struggles regarding the male gender and its position within gender relations. It is masculinity in need of an answer. Masculine politics for Connell wishes to trace the production and accumulation of gendered power, which for her stands at the base of some of the most crucial political questions of our time.

As stressed time and time again in Connell's Masculinities, there is no one masculinity but rather a number, not unlimited, of masculinities which are surveyed throughout 'Masculine Politics":

A therapy of masculinity
The challenges brought about by the feminist attack on patriarchy have led to the formation of a type of masculine politics which focuses on healing the wounds caused to heterosexual men by changes in gender relation. Connell describes the emergence of therapy groups and literature which attempt to reconcile men's denounced position and to soften their guild caused by feminist criticism.

The therapy of masculinity, according to Connell, is not so much about supporting the reform of gender relation as it is about finding a relevant political position within it. The foundation of this politics is that of cooperative masculinity (Masculinities, chapter 3), which does not comply but does cooperate with hegemonic masculinity. In this stance, the men do nor bear the blame for the wrongs of hegemonic masculinity, but are also not oppressed by it. The therapeutic practice and the images of the mytho-poetic movement tend to narrow the gap between men and women and to allow for adaptation in the field of personal relationships, unlike the more inflexible types of masculine politics which follow.

The Gun Lobby: Defending Hegemonic Masculinity
For Connell to preserve to rule of hegemonic masculinity is to preserve a whole institutional and ideological system. She relates to the example of the gun lobby and the NRA which has strong masculine characteristics and which ties masculinity with firearms and heroism. Despite some evidence against the link between masculinity and the heroic violence, Connell holds that the images of male heroism bear cultural relevance. They produce epitomes of masculinity which are an essential part of the politics of hegemonic masculinity. Defending hegemonic masculinity is not a unified campaign, but rather one which takes place in a variety of, often contradicting, contexts and institutions, all working to preserve men's prominent role in all spheres of society.   

Gay Liberation
R.W. Connell holds that the main alternative to hegemonic masculinity in western recent history is that of gay masculinity, and that the most explicit political opposition to hegemonic masculinity was articulated by the homosexual liberation movement. The initial objectives of the gay movement regarded mostly private rights, but have slowly, especially with the breakout of AIDS, began to form a politics of pressure groups reminiscent of those of ethnic minorities, seeking collective rights. Connell argues that masculine politics is inseparable from the gay presence around it. Yet the homosexual community is not an automatically opposition to hegemonic masculinity, but rather an alternative which has a presence that prompts a dynamic of change and negotiation within masculine politics.

Exit Politics
The concept of practice implies that social action is always creative, and for Connell this means that straight men can also resist hegemonic masculinity and fight patriarchy. The men liberation movement attempted, since the 70's, to create new gender relations based on social justice. Though ambivalently accepted by feminism, attempts to organize male movements in support of the women and gay liberation movements, "refusing to be a man", have been prevalent. This anti-chauvinistic politics sometimes resorted to gender vagueness such as cross-dressing and drag shows as a form of cultural protest. Connell argues that masculinity is shaped in relation to a comprehensive structure of power and in relation to general symbolization of difference. Anti-chauvinistic male politics is directed towards to former, while crossing gender lines is directed towards to latter. According to Connell exit politics operates at the edges of mass sexual politics, as the possibility of negating hegemonic masculinity. For Connell this type of masculine politics represents the most significant chance for change in the gender order of our time. 

suggested reading:

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": The History of Masculinity: Present day masculinity

In the concluding segment of chapter eight of "Masculinities" (1995) titled "The History of Masculinity" R.W. Connell offers a perspective through which to examine changes in the global network of gender relations and modern masculinities.

Connell holds that the deepest change on the global scale is the exportation of Euro-American gender order to the colonial world, especially with capitalistic mode of production creating local versions of western patriarchic institutions. These conditions provide a place for transforming gender ideology and its corresponding images, and the disappearance of traditional local forms of masculinity.

These changes, the imposition of western hegemonic masculinity on the rest of the world has also induced counter reactions, such as in Muslim countries where traditional masculinity is reasserted with a growing discrimination of women.

Urban western men are the prime beneficiaries of the new economical world order, as for Connell, of the new gender world order. Giving these circumstances, Connell is not surprised that men are very aware of the changes in their position and the claims that undermine their privileged status. 

R.W. Connell suggests that the massive growth in material possession of men in metropolitan countries was accompanied by an escalation in the crisis of masculinity, the legitimacy of patriarchy and gender order. The feminist challenge to western masculinity has brought about tension with the third world regarding the western-originated tradition of racism and chauvinism. In the local context, oppositional movements opened the door for a variety of gender relations, types of masculinities and sexual identities. Connell finds ample evidence for these developments in contemporary popular culture.

Connell argues that men in metropolitan countries occupy a paradoxical moment in the history of masculinity. On the one hand they possess the greatest power in history to shape their own future; however, on the other hand, the category of "men" in rich countries does not indicate a group which is able to chose and execute a single historical course. For R.W. Connell this is a moment is the history of masculinity in which men have achieved ultimate power only to find themselves fragmented as a gender, with a multitude of masculinities replacing a single uniform notion of masculinity.

see also:

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": The History of Masculinity: Modern changes

Over the past 200 years hegemonic masculinity has giving way to new varying forms of masculinity, this is due, according to R.W. Connell to challenges on the patriarchal order posed by women, the logic of the gendered accumulation process of industrialized capitalism and changes in imperial power relations.

The rise of modern professional armies tied violence with rationality and bureaucratic organization. Fascism was for Connell the bare imposing of masculine domination in societies that were moving towards women's liberation, and its defeat at WW2 closed the lid on this type of hegemonic masculinity.

Technological and economical development brought technical skill and knowledge to the forefront and created a new tension between control based masculinity and skill based masculinity. With metropolitan masculinities going through a process of rationalization, violence was slowly pushed aside to the colonies. Men at the front were very different from men in the city.

The late 19th century saw a sexual cleansing of masculinity, with homosexuality defined, medically and legally, as a social type.

Industrialism separated the domestic space from the workplace and accompanied with the dominant role of wage changed the institution of family, with a new type of masculinity arranged around earning abilities. A massive continental relocation of workforce had for Connell an important implication on the formation of modern masculinities. With black masculinity viewed by white masculinity as a social and sexual threat, a harsh gendered and racial regime was enforced in these places. Relocated white working-class workforce, encountering massive hardships, formed a new development in the history of masculinity which was now again based on solidarity and not individualism and competition.

Colonial power, according to Connell, played an important role in the history of masculinity in colonial states, creating types of local masculinities in India, South America and Africa.

R.W. Connell concludes her survey of the history of masculinity in modern time with the assertion that that the history of masculinity is not linear but rather a complex process of interacting masculinities with dominant hegemonic masculinities, subjected and marginalized masculinities all constantly interacting.

see also:


suggested reading:
Staging Masculinities: History, Gender, Performance

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": The History of Masculinity - summary

In chapter eight of "Masculinities" R.W. Connell reasserts her previous proposition according to which masculinities are historical objects. In order to understand the present pattern of masculinity Connell wishes to go back to the time of its formation. For Connell, the origins of contemporary masculinity are found at the time of increasing European and American power and the rise of global imperialism and global capitalist economy. In other words, modern masculinity has had to do with global violence.

Early Modern Masculinity
When surveying the history of nowadays masculinity R.W. Connell starts with the 16th century, the undermining of the power of the Catholic Church and the spread of renaissance and protestant culture. On the one hand this period replaced the ideal of the ascetic monk with a cultural emphasis on institutionalized heterosexuality. On the other hand the rise of the idea of self expression brought about individuality, which according to Connell is fundamental for masculinity as it is for imperialism.

Another development of this age is colonial settlement. Connell argues that colonialism was gendered from its beginning, a product of the male-only occupations of maritime trade and soldiery. The first settlers of the west were for Connell the first examples of modern masculinity, characterized with violence and a search for gold and converted, and a tendency to be recalcitrant.

The third development in the 16th century is the growth of cities as centers of commercial capitalism. The gendered consequences of this development were only apparent later on, but the included individuality, rationalism and free enterprise. Capitalist culture according to Connell founded a form of masculinity which created a new type of gendered labor.     

 A fourth development followed from the 16th and 17th century religious wars. These wars according to Connell overthrow not just the existing class order but also the gender order. At this time patriarchal order was established with the aid of the new power of the nation state, with professional armies and a new relation between military violence and nationalistic patriotism.

see also:
history of masculinity 
present day masculinity 


Raewyn Connell – "Masculinities", 1995
Chapter 6: A Very Straight Gay
Chapter 7: Men of Reason

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": A Whole New World

After examining the masculine protest type in chapter 4 of "Masculinities", R.W. Connell turns to address a radically different type of masculinity in chapter 5 of "Masculinities" titled "A Whole New World", the "wimps" – men who have tried to reshape their masculinity following feminist critique. In this chapter Connell surveys the life stories of six heterosexual men who were involved with environmental activism, a field that she correlates with the rise of feminism.

All of the men in Connell's study initially tied themselves at least to some extant to hegemonic masculinity. Yet all these men have developed what Connell terms "heterosexual sensitivity" that at least in one case study evolved out of identification with the mother which led to identification with other women, and all men had some significant role played by powerful women in the course of their early lives. 

The men all became active members of the environmental movement in different ways. Connell describes how it offered them a powerful mixture of personal relationships and cultural vision. She argues that being active served a number of needs such as solidarity, moral action a sense of personal value. For Connell, this type of activity performed a valuable function in the production of gender politics.

Connell argues that the environmental movement challenged the hegemonic masculinity on a number of its principles, such as a practice and ideology of equality, an emphasis on solidarity and collectiveness, a practice and ideology of personal growth and one of organic wholeness. But while being fertile ground for challenging hegemonic masculinity, these aspects still needed the help of feminism.

Some of the men in Connell's study experienced feminism with guilt, and most of them interpreted it as relating to personal relationship and not large scale politics. The encounter with feminism prompted a process of personal change and redefinition of the men's masculinity. Connell notes that the moment of separation from hegemonic masculinity was for the men essentially a passive choice, as opposed to the assertive control of hegemonic masculinity. They also gave up on their careers to become more dependent on others, women of course included. Giving up on the benefits of hegemonic masculinity was for these men a way to develop new desirable characteristics, especially emotional openness and sensitivity.        



Raewyn Connell – "Masculinities", 1995
Chapter 6: A Very Straight Gay
Chapter 7: Men of Reason

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Live Fast Die Young - summary

In chapter four of Masculinities ("Live Fast Die Young") R.W. Connell examines the life stories of young working class men. She notes how the working class was usually viewed as sexually conservative but to the contrary it was the working class who historically brought about new family structures.
Connell argues that conditions in the capitalistic workplace influence the construction of masculinity and examines contemporary patterns of employment and their implications on masculinity.

The narratives of all the young men interviewed by Connell display similar starting points and some similar characteristics such as the importance of family ties in the lower labor market, a tendency for radical pragmatism , an experience of violence, both initiated (and sometimes glorified) and state violence. Most of the men in Connell's study experienced the education system as foreign power and have begun to shape their masculinity in relation to this power, sometimes leading them to meet the power of the police and corrective systems. Connell concludes that state power is not an abstraction in the lives of these men, but rather a concrete material power.

Connell argues that heterosexuality is enforced on the men interviewed, although some of them have experienced homosexual relations and one of them eventually discovered himself as a cross-dresser. The ideology which surrounded the life stories of the men in Connell's study is characterized according to her by strong contradictions and tensions such as a scornful attitude towards women and admiration of them.
Connell employs Alfred Adler's concept of masculine protest as resulting of an experience of helplessness in early life and manifested later on with exaggerated and sometimes aggressive claims to power.
The biographical narratives in Connell's study indicate similar starting points but diverge later on in life. Masculine protest is a masculinity which borrows themes of hegemonic masculinity and co-opts them in the context of poverty and hardship. Some of the men had a relationship of cooperation with hegemonic masculinity and enjoyed its benefits while others rejected it and have moved outside of the common masculine identity.

According to Connell the key to understanding the differences between the men in her study is the political nature of their process. Most of the men were deprived of the benefits of patriarchy due to their low starting points, if they accept this lose they justify their deprivation, if they protest against it they are blocked by the state's power. One of the ways to resolve these tensions described by Connell is to embrace marginality in a highly extrovert manner. Another strategy is to completely distance oneself from hegemonic masculinity. An interesting note that Connell makes is that despite the chauvinistic attitude of some of the men in her study, many of them actually experience domestic equality. 

suggested reading:

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": Relations within Masculinity

In chapter three of Masculinities ("The Social Organization of Masculinity") R.W. Connell is searching for a structure of gender that will incorporate three different types of relations: power relations, production relations and cathectic relations.

Power relations: the prime axis of power in contemporary western culture is the subordination of women to the rule of men, what the women liberation movement referred to as patriarchy.
Relations of production: the gendered division of labor turns capital into a gendered form; this is because the accumulation of capital is related for Connell to the field of reproduction,
Cathectic relations: following Freud Connell perceives passion is emotional energy invested in subjects, and the practices which shape passion are gendered and can raise difficult questions such as those regarding homosexuality.

Gender for Connell is not an isolated subject but one that is present in all aspects of society, and consequently all social practices are constructed, among other things such as race and ethnicity, through the prism of gender. Masculinity as a gender category therefore intersects with other power relation systems such as race and ethnicity. Connell concludes that gender and masculinity cannot therefore be understood in separation of other social arrays and structures, arrays and structures which in turn cannot be understood without appealing to gender. 

Relations between masculinities
In light of the aforesaid, Connell holds that one should not talk about masculinity but rather about masculinities. Connell is not concerned with identifying white masculinity or black masculinity, bourgeois masculinity of blue collar masculinity, but to examine the relation between these masculinities and to avoid a fixed typology of masculinities.

Connell examines the main practices which structure masculinity in western modern culture: hegemony, subordination, cooperation and marginalization.

Hegemony: the concept of hegemony of taken from the works of Antonio Gramsci, and in its adaptation in Connell's theory one form of masculinity takes precedence as the preferred type over other masculinities and aims at maintaining its privileged status. The existence of hegemonic masculinity is sustained on condition of some overlapping between a cultural ideal and institutional power. The nature of Hegemony as suggested by Gramsci is dynamic, and it can be challenged by other forms of masculinity that in time gain or lose hegemonic power.

Subordination: hegemony warrants the subordination of one group to the rule of another, in the field of masculinity Connell argues that the predominant subordination of our age is the subordination of homosexual masculinity to heterosexual masculinity through a number of material practices. 

Cooperation: few are the men who actually completely meet the definition of hegemonic masculinity, but many of them nevertheless enjoy its benefits. Connell therefore suggests that relations of cooperation exist between hegemonic masculinity and different groups that take part in it and sustain it without completely belonging to it.

Marginalization: this type of relationship characterizes a situation in which one masculinity is oppressed by another (usually the hegemonic masculinity) or alternatively empowered by it (like black athletes that are turned into of model of hegemonic masculinity).

This system of hegemony/subordination, cooperation and marginalization/empowerment is according to Connell a dynamic system of practices, not identities, and any gender oriented analysis must therefore account for developments in these relationships. 

R.W. Connell – "Masculinities": The Social Organization of Masculinity - summary

After illustrating how main currents of research (psychoanalysis, social sciences  and gender role theory) have failed to produce a coherent science of masculinity, R.W. Connell concludes that the problem is that masculinity is not a coherent object of study, at least not if taken in isolation. Connell therefore devotes chapter three ("The Social Organization of Masculinity) of "Masculinities" to a methodological declaration of intent for the rest of her book, mapping her object of study and defining masculinity as collection of practices within a system of gender relations.

Definitions of masculinity
R.W. Connell argues that the term masculinity in its modern use is derived from European individuality that evolved with the growth of colonial empires and capitalist economy, and therefore masculinity in the sense that we use it is a relatively novel concept. As she suggested in chapter 2 of "Masculinities", masculinity for Connell is a relational term which is always defined in opposition to femininity.
Connell locates four main strategies for defining masculinity: the essentialist strategy, the positivistic, the normative (a standard of masculinity) and semiotic definitions, all rejected by Connell who nevertheless borrows from the semiotic approach the idea the masculinity exists in relation to a complex symbolic system.

Gender as constructing social practices
According to Connell, gender is a manner in which social practices are organized. These practices relate to the processes of reproduction and human bodily structures. The practice of gender in not limited to isolated actions but to branched arrays referred to by Connell as collections of gender practices. 
Connell describes how institutions are gendered not only as a metaphor but also in an active manner. The state, for example, is gendered since state organizational practices are constructed in relation to the field of reproduction – the fact that it is still mostly men who hold key position of power in the state is not only the reason for the state's masculinity, but also its outcome.

Connell quotes Gayle Rubin who perceived gender as a complex structure in which several logical systems conjunct. Connell therefore proceeds to argue that masculinity includes different systems, and this inevitably leads to internal contradictions and historical change.
For Connell, in order to acknowledge gender as a social pattern it must be viewed as a product of history as well as the producer of history. The last two centuries have been characterized by the rise of gender politics, with the male group looking to sustain its privileged position and the female group looking to undermine the existing structure of power relations. Patriarchy instills men with financial, political and symbolic gains, and the politics of masculinity is therefore not only a personal matter of identity, but also one which relates to questions of social justice.

Connell argues that the ideology of patriarchy legitimizes violence towards women and subordinated forms of masculinity as a result of the hegemonic masculinity's superiority over them. Furthermore, violence is a male institute which usually functions between men (like in war). Violence of minority men is the rebellion of masculinities which were marginalized by hegemonic masculinity. Violence is according to Connell a part of the system of domination, but it is also a sign of the system's weakness, for it wouldn’t have to resort to intimidation if its legitimacy was not questionable. Therefore Connell argues that today's masculinity is, in Jürgen Habermas's terminology, crisis inclined with the collapse of the legitimacy for the patriarchic order. The main point R.W. Connell makes here is that changes in gender relations over the past centuries have led to far reaching changes in the practices of masculinity.



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