Chapter 6 - Conclusion

From masculinity to humanity

Hierarchic masculinity is a system of power relations, a fluid organisation of status within an order of gender, accepted as normal and everyday, reflexively engendered in the body, and supported by a system of opposition and exclusion.

Hierarchic masculinity provides a problem for everyone because it has developed into a system of domination. Lynne Segal defines the current form of masculinity as "an abstraction, condensing notions of power and authority."(1) This notion of "condensing" identifies the cause of the subordination of women and of low or outsider status men. Domination results when systems of power become inaccessible, when they "condense", assuming the guise of imperatives. Heterosexuality and binary gender identity are such imperatives; they are compulsory, legally enforced and state supported and unquestioned elements of socialisation and everyday interaction. Domination is a system of constraint that becomes intolerable when individuals have few means of modifying it.(2) Here a strategy of flexibility must be employed to overcome it.(3) This flexibility involves the notion of synthesis, or reflexivity, which is a central notion concerning subjectivisation, as a part of power relations. This flexibility is central to Foucault’s understanding of power as a strategical complex. This complexity always allows for plasticity, power always involves the possibility of resistance, reversal and change, which is the other face of power.(4) These resistances are the counter-discourses and counter-ideologies found outside the current regime of truth which provide competition and cause division between people and institutions. This is evidenced by the activism of homosexuals in a heterosexist state, or in men who support feminism and reject masculine hierarchy, or in theories of androgyny or separatism which reject the gender order.

Domination and Liberation

Understood in this way, though hierarchic masculinity is oppressive, it is not absolute, nor is it unchallenged. Masculine ideology must constantly negotiate its position or do battle with opposing discourses. This struggle can be found in the anti-feminist discourse which seeks to reproduce male supremacy and police women’s consciousness.(5) It can be found in the "machoization" and "clone culture" in gay culture, whereby the positivity of an outsider sexuality has been re-subordinated through a counter-reaction to stereotypes and effeminacy in trying to prove that gay men were "real men" too.(6) These struggles are responses to the danger that alternative forms of masculinity and sexuality threaten the gender order. Homosexuality, by default, instantaneously breaks out of all the cultural assumptions about sex by the fact that it's not accepted in the same way that heterosexuality is; if it is accepted at all. This rupture occurs because homosexual relationships do not implicitly assume anything about monogamy, polyamory, marriage, co-habitation, children, family, and so forth. This influences potential partners to isolate and discuss these issues consciously and up front, unlike traditional sexual relationships which assume a general dynamic. However, though homosexuality is challenging heterosexism, it has still not gone far enough in challenging male supremacy and its ideological link with capitalism. The existence of the "pink pound" for example, illustrates that "the male gay movement, in fact, was effectively co-opted into the already exploding development of capitalist consumerism through the expansion of a profitable subculture."(7)

A possible solution to the problem of hierarchic masculinity could lie in the understanding of ideology and power/knowledge. It seems that whether ideology can be dismantled, altered or replaced with social relations which are not instrumental, or whether hierarchic masculinity will always exist in some form or another, is a matter of optimism or pessimism. However, the understanding of the self outlined above has optimistic implications for how we understand masculinity. A Foucauldian understanding of power allows us to avoid the misunderstanding that "if we adopt a conception of masculinity which simply defines it as a relationship of power, or as the top place within the hierarchy of powers, then we are tempted into thinking that it is ‘possible to abandon our masculinity’."(8) This abandonment is impossible because of the proliferation and omnipresence of masculinist hierarchies. However, it is possible to reflexively re-adjust or re-define masculinity as an ideology and a practice. To do this, we must understand and challenge the constitution of our bodies and perceptual behaviour within the social context of masculine hierarchies.

In pursuing sexual equality we can and should seek "public support for sexual equality in material and ideological terms". What we cannot do is ask men to change their identity, because this conflates the ideology that has disciplined them, with their selves.(9) As MacInnes has theorised, the self cannot be altered simply at will. The model of wilful personal change was inherited from the "Kantian-Protestant tradition that says that we can cut out or eradicate those parts of ourselves, or our feelings and desires, that we judge wanting, as if reason provides some kind of neutral arbiter...".(10) Opposed to this particular understanding of the self, we must understand that there is then, "no authenticity, in our sex or elsewhere, to provide (psychic) security".(11) It is not possible to become the kind of self we want to be, to "find oneself", only to understand what has informed the development of our self. When this understanding is widely achieved, the ready-made order of gender will not longer provide a refuge from existential angst and will begin to loose its appeal because it will no longer be "fundamental data".

The main problem with trying to garner men’s support for equality and the dissolution of the gender order is that men appear to have little to gain and a lot of power to lose, this is why "the project of transforming masculinity has almost no political weight at all".(12) The general benefits of the gender order to men, and the belief in its truth, are too great to rouse resistance against it, especially when women invest and believe in it also. The rejection of the gender order and the problems associated with it can only take place in the different areas which intersect with gender. On a superficial level, there are oppositions between masculine hierarchies and between men and women that could result in useful fissures in the gender order. This has been expressed in the change from patriarchy to fratriarchy and the rise of feminism. But there are also tensions between classes, "races", political movements and sexualities. Men’s relations to women and to gay men can result in men allying with feminism or gay liberation.(13) Men in racial "minorities" might see that their subjection is a result of the Otherness which male supremacy supports. Otherness, the structure of all prejudice, including racial prejudice, might be fought by men in forging closer alliances with women in the same racial groups. Men will not move to abolish the current gender order as men, but as allies in struggles they involve themselves in on many different fronts, be these sexual, ecological, racial, economic or feminist. In the sense that a masculine order defines Otherness and is defined in turn by it, and sometimes seeks to destroy it, men and masculinity are closely tied to the future of Otherness.(14) This is why feminism has been conceived as a movement to end all forms of oppression.(15) All other forms of oppression must end if women are to be free, because a woman’s gender identity intersects with all other forms of social identity. That said, some theorists consider masculinity so damaging and destructive to men, that men might become desperate enough to want to stop the harm done to them, and will seek ways to change masculinity.(16) In this way, men will be active against hierarchic masculinity as men, not as gays, eco-radicals, pacifists, blacks or paupers. However, these changes in masculinity must ultimately bring about the abolition of the gender order to avoid the dangers of reforming masculinity so as to modernise male power again and re-subordinate Others.(17)

Would it be possible to abolish the gender order without falling into the problem of re-subordinating oppressed Others by abandoning the notion of "the norm"? In what ways might masculinity and femininity be consigned to the ideological sepulchre? The notion of difference could be used to achieve this, not in terms of difference between the genders, but between individuals. Anne Phillips outlines the problem thus: "The relationship between the sexes is peculiar in one respect, for each sex is defined precisely through its relation to the other... the categorising of people by their physiognomy... only makes sense in relationships of domination and subordination."(18) Phillips is not advocating androgyny or asexuality, but is writing about the false and oppressive enforced homogeneity found in the binary idea that there are "men" and "women". For Phillips, the first step towards a new identity for women and men is the recognition of difference not between the two gender groups, but more importantly, within these groups. Because there is always a difference between a gender group and its members, there is a disparity between "the norm" (an ideological abstraction) and the actual subjects. This recognition allows individuality to be emphasised without regard to gender. This can be achieved by reflecting the diversity of "subject positions" (or differences) within the structure of a gender group. Since no list of differences between people can be complete, particularly because identities are always changing, this diversity can only be learnt through trial and error.(19) A group is thus understood in relational terms between its members, rather than in terms of common attributes.(20) This would allow for the wider recognition of the greater differences that exist between people, than those that supposedly exist between men and women. This is the first step towards people understanding each other as human individuals as opposed to this type of man or that type of woman.

Hermaphroditism

There are other lines of attack against the gender order. One possible route would be the recognition that there are not just two discrete biological sexes. Scholars have documented the medical classification of hermaphrodites, and the interventions which have defined the two sexes and resulted in the modification of the intersexed to ensure they fit the correct gender expectations. If, as Alice Dreger wishes, the paternalistic medical establishment ceased their surgical alterations of the intersexed, the existence of these people in their unaltered state would challenge a culture which demands biological conformity as part of gender ideology. That surgical procedures obliterate other sexes in demanding that they fit the proscribed categorisations is part of the investigations and inventions that define sex and sexuality which Foucault calls "scientia sexualis".(21) It is also further evidence of the damage done to people by the exigencies of the gender order.(22)

The wider recognition and acceptance of so called "hermaphrodites", or the intersexed, would unsettle the binary opposition of "male/female" that the gender order relies on. That the intersexed pose a danger to the order of things is evidenced by their criminalisation in earlier centuries.(23) It is unlikely that the gender order could co-opt these people as the genital ambiguity of the intersexed doesn’t imply a third option, hermaphroditism is never quite so clear; it could instead dissolve the importance of genitals as a site of identity. The genitals and gonads are not the only area of bodily ambiguity however, Andrea Dworkin writes that sex ambiguity is present in all sexes, partially because people have essentially the same bodily structure; differences in this basic structure (height, weight etc.) are culturally relative. In addition, the gonads and hormones are not entirely male or female and an individual’s chromosomal sex could be indirect contradiction to her/his gonadal sex. Furthermore, there are other chromosomal formations other than XX and XY, and secondary sex characteristics can be shared by both sexes (e.g. men with breasts, women with beards). Finally, there is the issue of parthenogenesis which further damages any claims to sex duality, complementarity and opposition. Humans are a multi-sexed species.(24)

Trangression

Foucault’s thought implies an ultimatum – we must subjectivise ourselves through reflective, transgressive and transformative actions, or we become normalised by disciplinary power and internalise the gaze. The practices of the self are then, either a mode of resistance against present forms of power, or acquiescence to those forms through ignorance or political alliance. For those who want to resist, new forms of subjectivity are required to escape present power structures.(25) These new forms of subjectivity would involve engaging with cultural taboo. Engagement with taboo is important because it constitutes a critique. In relation to hermaphroditism, bodily alteration would certainly offer challenges. Though piercing and certain, less dramatic, body modifications have been co-opted by the mainstream, facial and bodily implants, men with breasts, women with penises and other genital and sex characteristic changes, would blur the false boundaries of sex, expressing a form of transgression which transvestism only does temporarily and transexualism does in private. Foucault suggests taking drugs, living in communes, and the dissolution of sex divisions.(26) Communes would allow for the creation of new spaces, relationships and social structures; drug taking could allow for the temporary dissolution of identity and self which could open ways to more permanent and willed changes. The challenge to sex divisions would not just come from biology and its medical or cosmetic alteration, but from the formation of relationships not structured by sexuality and gender, perhaps in the different chemical or social contexts Foucault recommends.(27)

Androgyny and pansexuality

Because compulsory heterosexuality is a corner-stone for masculine hierarchies, any attempt to dissolve heterosexuality's domination by multiplying alternative relationships would shake the structure of gender and provide another front for offence. Foucault writes that "the rallying point for the counterattack against the deployment of sexuality ought not to be sex-desire but bodies and pleasures."(28) These alternatives would not involve new sexualities; such things are the categories, the deployments, by which the science of sex operates and controls. Like the concept of gender, the related concept of sexuality must also be abandoned. Homosexual and lesbian protests and activism must be a means to an end - that of abandoning "homosexuality" and "lesbianism" along with "heterosexuality". As part of this resistance, men could learn to be gay themselves as part of breaking down fixed points of definition.(29)

The androgynous end is of bodies which do not conform to a rigid polarity, it is of pleasures which do not reduce to a classification or exclusivity. The aim is to move from a gender order to a gender disorder. Sexual relationships which are not exclusively heterosexual or monogamous would be the source of change. These new relationships would require an end to conventional roles and to heterosexual genital activity as the main source of focus and value.(30) The whole body would be the site of sexual experience, pleasure would be multiplied and spread from limited penetrative activities to a holistic and embracing sensuality.

As gender and sexual identity breaks down, there could be more space for pleasure, creativity and diversity, "the result would be a kind of gender multiculturalism".(31) At its most extreme, we would witness an emergence of an androgynous and pansexual culture, a form of sexual anarchy. This means there could be space for the inclusion of other animals, children and older people in a non-system where there are no Others.(32) Child sexuality and consent would not longer be a source of fear, danger or anxiety.(33) So long as people begin to relate outside the heterosexist gender order, gender can be challenged. New relationships, a new form of life and culture, would result. Foucault notes that the fear of such changes go towards explaining the oppression of Others.(34)

Ars Erotica

A further challenge to compulsory heterosexuality and indeed, other sexualities and their homologous and exclusive practices could involve the implementation of an "ars erotica" as opposed to our current practice of scientia sexualis. This is the process of initiation or teaching by a learned practitioner who knows the art of erotica. Our science of sex (psychoanalysis, sexology, medicine, even jurisprudence) is the analysing of desire rather than the increasing or discovering of pleasure. Such analysis requires the kinds of intimate surveillance we have considered above, and results in rigid normative definitions of sexual and gender practice. The West’s "erotic art" is currently not a practice, but a representation, something to view, not a person to interact with. It is essentially voyeuristic, probing and invasive, echoing the scientific technique. Our culture’s erotic practice has atrophied and been replaced with the examining, questioning science, ever vigilant for deviation; categorising, and controlling for its own ends.

Ars erotica is not completely dead however. New forms of erotic relationships are imagined in art. They could be imported from other cultures. They are invented on the fringes of society. Foucault and some lesbian theorists and artists consider the BDSM communities to be an active site of erotic invention and gender challenge.(35) It is certainly the closest Western societies comes to an erotic art of initiation and teaching. However, this learning from an experienced and careful teacher need not be within the controversial dynamic of BDSM, it could be contextualised in religious mysticism, artistic romanticism, secular exploration and increase of pleasure, or some other form of emotional intensity and system of meaning and learning.

Foucault would have us take our cues from writers like Jean Genet and Georges Bataille. Ann Walker and Pat Califia could be further platforms for change and inspiration in these directions. Though the dangers and controversies of such writings are evident, their value with respect to the dissolution of the gender order is also evident. For example, Bataille challenges the gender order and its science of sex by expressing conflict. Our sexual interactions are defined and neutralised by the social conventions, language and representations supported by the rationalisations of the gender order. But the writings of Bataille points the way out of this because they "constitute a break with the rationality of socially imposed identity." Bataille does this by affirmed eroticism as a ritual.(36) The sexual mysticism and violence in Bataille’s writings constitutes an imagined ars erotica. Mysticism and violence are not the only means by which this end could be reached, but Bataille demonstrates that the dissolution of the gender order would result in a form of irrationality, which is often exemplified by mysticism and violence. Following this insight, Bataille writes of the necessity of an irrational symbology; only this can express freedom independent of rational and ideological determinations.(37) Only by approaching sexuality obliquely can manipulative control be avoided.

To some, these conclusions may represent the worst excesses and failings of feminist and Foucauldian theory. Indeed, these conclusions may be considered to offer good reason to maintain the gender order. However, such sceptics would need to be aware that these possibilities could create an ungendered people who would live with a greater personal autonomy to build relationships which are no longer oppositional, exploitative, or hierarchical, without ideological or coercive manipulation. This could herald "a new kind of human being and a new kind of community".(38) The cultural history of gender and sexuality could not be removed, but it would be altered. Removal would result in a loss of the worthwhile cultural elements that have come from hierarchic masculinity and oppressed Otherness. For example, traits such as strength, independence, leadership, ambition, and the ability to be analytical can be perfectly healthy and useful character traits once they have been removed from the compound of hierarchic masculinity. The positive heritage and elements of masculine, feminine, gay and lesbian cultures would be distributed amongst everyone without stigma or barrier. The negative elements of Otherness simply could not exist.

  • (1) Segal, L. - Why Feminism? p165
  • (2) Foucault, M. – Foucault Live, p327
  • (3) Ransom, J. S. – op cit. p160-165
  • (4) Foucault, M. – What is Critique? p59
  • (5) Cockburn, C. - "Men’s power in organisations: ‘equal opportunities’ intervenes" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p85
  • (6) Edwards, T - "Beyond sex and gender: masculinity, homosexuality and social theory" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p114-115
  • (7) Edwards, T - "Beyond sex and gender: masculinity, homosexuality and social theory" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p116
  • (8) Seidler, V. J. - "Men Feminism and Power" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p219
  • (9) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p143-144
  • (10) Seidler, V. J. - "Men Feminism and Power" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p2204
  • (11) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p147
  • (12) Connell, R. W. - Masculinity, p 241
  • (13) Connell, R. W. - Masculinity, p 242
  • (14) Horrocks, R. - Masculinity in Crisis, p157
  • (15) Warren, K. J. - "The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism" in LaFollette (ed.) Ethics in Practice, p661
  • (16) Horrocks, R. - Masculinity in Crisis, p185
  • (17) Segal, L. - Why Feminism? p167
  • (18) Phillips, A - Which Equalities Matter?, p95
  • (19) Phillips, A. - "Dealing with Difference: A Politics of Ideas or a Politics of Presence?" in Benhabib, S (ed). Democracy and Difference, p145-146
  • (20) Young, I. M. - "Polity and Group Difference" in Ethics, Vol. 99, p260
  • (21) Foucault, M. - The History of Sexuality, Vol.1, p51-75
  • (22) See Foucault, M (ed). - Hercule Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite, Dreger, A. D. - Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, and Kessler, S. - Lessons from the Intersexed.
  • (23) Foucault, M. - The History of Sexuality, Vol.1, p38
  • (24) Dworkin, A. - Woman Hating, p176-183
  • (25) Ransom – op cit. p144
  • (26) Foucault, M. - "Revolutionary Action: ‘Until Now’." in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, p222
  • (27) Foucault, M. - Foucault Live, p384
  • (28) Foucault, M. - The History of Sexuality, Vol.1, p157
  • (29) Foucault, M. - Foucault Live, p382
  • (30) Dworkin, A. - Woman Hating, p185
  • (31) Connell, R. W. - Masculinity, p 234
  • (32) Dworkin, A. - Woman Hating, p187-192
  • (33) Foucault, M. - Foucault Live, p264-274
  • (34) Foucault, M. - Foucault Live, p332
  • (35) Foucault, M. - Foucault Live, p330-331 and p384-388
  • (36) Hollings, K. - "The Slaughterhouse of Love" in Bataille, G. My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man, p200-201
  • (37) Hollings, K. - "The Slaughterhouse of Love" quoting Bataille, G. "Ecrits posthumes" in Bataille, G. My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man, p199
  • (38) Dworkin, A. - Woman Hating, p192

My Writings:

Other:

Links:

Please consider making a small donation to keep this site ad-free.