Chapter 3 - Hierarchic and Hegemonic Masculinities

Connell has influentially theorised the complexities of masculinity, understanding masculinity as hegemonic. Hegemony does not imply total control because masculinity is dialectical; it is not just a process of one-way socialisation.(1) What it does imply is that masculinity is a form of cultural dominance of society which excludes women and excludes men who do not conform to the hegemonic model in question or who fail to do so.(2) Because of the variety of hegemonic masculinity, the hegemonies can come into conflict with each other "a classic example is the annual fight between police and bikers at the Bathurst motorcycles races in Australia."(3) The exclusivity of dominant hegemonic masculinity results in other forms of hegemonic masculinity which are usually on the edges of the law, in the lower classes or belong to ethnic and sexual minorities. However, despite their divergence these various forms of hegemonic masculinity have much in common and typically re-work elements from the dominant hegemony that they do not already share.(4) Connell describes the dominant form of hegemonic masculinity to be "exemplary". The dominant form sets standards, has popular support and damns those who fail. Exemplars are represented in the major genres of popular culture, often the exemplars at the top of the hegemony are purely fictional, or idealised. Occasionally real men, often celebrities or sports-stars, are considered among the exemplars, boasting the standard the dominant hegemony demands.(5) Connell differentiates between the other types of hegemonic masculinity which are not the dominant form as: marginalised (or protest), complicit and subordinate. What is expelled from the dominant form is subordinate (typically gay masculinity). Marginalised hegemonic masculinity is "always relative to the authorization of the hegemonic masculinity of the dominant group."(6) The majority of men practice complicit masculinity, the form that benefits from "the patriarchal dividend", that is; the subordination of women. These men have a connection to the exemplar form, but they do not embody it. They are not involved in overt domination or absolute displays of control. These are the "ordinary" men who do not question the gender order.(7)

Though extremely useful as a theoretical tool for this investigation, certain problems with the notion of hegemonic masculinity present themselves which make theoretical alterations necessary. The term "hegemony" implies a central source, a monolithic, overarching, singularity. Masculinity is typically conceived of in these terms, lending masculinity the appearance of hegemony. Though, Connell recognises that there are alternative masculinities, the theory lacks the kind of complexity that is found in the gender order due to Connell’s understanding that the majority of men practice complicit masculinity. This gives the impression that there is a vanguard hegemonic masculinity enforcing the "patriarchal dividend", whilst other men do nothing and are content with their masculine projects (as informed by the authoritative hegemony). But this dynamic is contestable, the majority of men do not simply follow the hegemonic format, allowing wife-beaters, celebrities and military generals to organise the hegemony alone. Though certain men and women are excluded from hegemonic and complicit masculinity and though there certainly are masculine exemplars, it is necessary to be aware that exemplars exist in all masculine structures, that women are not wholly excluded from taking part in masculine ideology and that the majority of men cannot and do not sit comfortably reaping the patriarchal dividend. Therefore it is necessary to re-conceptualise the dynamic of a main hegemony and minority alternatives. This re-conceptualisation is in terms of multiple hierarchies defined by the struggle for status between men and some women which takes place constantly on an everyday level. Finally, "hierarchy" is a more accurate term than "hegemony" because it expresses the inequality which is found throughout the gender order. This is the inequality in power between men and men and men and women, expressing the fact that some people are more privileged or oppressed than others. The modern forms of inequality and hierarchy are very different to those of the past which could be more accurately described as hegemonic because they came from a coherent, seemingly singular source.

From patriarchy to fratriarchy

Foucault illustrates that the modern form of power takes the forms of discipline and bio-power, subtler more insidious techniques, compared with the pre-modern forms of power, which were overtly coercive unambiguous spectacles of force on behalf of a sovereign.(8) Though it requires more examination beyond the confines of this dissertation, it could be asserted that the earlier form of power men exerted known as patriarchy roughly corresponds to the pre-modern form of power, and the modern form of power roughly corresponds to the concept of fratriarchy, or "rule of the brothers". Harry Brod argues that this cultural, legal and philosophical shift from pre-modern power as patriarchy to modern power as fratriarchy took place during the 19th century with the consolidation of corporate capitalism and the development of a new form of social regulations, transforming personal obligations into legal duties.(9) This development would certainly account for Foucault’s claim that modern power is essential to the reinforcement of industrial capitalism.(10) "If economic exploitation separates the force and product of labour, let us say that disciplinary coercion establishes in the body the constricting link between an increased aptitude and an increased domination."(11) If this analysis is correct, then discipline and bio-power would account for the acceleration of the development of masculine identity within the centres of capitalism and the link between it and work, as discussed earlier. In this way, the rise of capitalism with the concomitant development in power provided a catalyst for masculinity as an ideology to gain further social influence, resulting in the change from patriarchy to fratriarchy.

This change in patriarchal power is symbolised and was further developed by the "death of God". The death of God is the secularisation of culture, the problem of grounding value,(12) the end of the reign of kings in the West (and their power over life), the end of the omnipotent Father in religion and the family and the end of meta-narratives. Furthermore, this deindividualisation of male power which characterises the shift from "rule of the father" to "rule of the brothers" corresponds to Foucault’s notion of power having no intentionality; it is instead, "a network of relations"(13) "not localised to specific institutions."(14) This must not be understood as a loss in male power, but a re-ordering of power amongst men collectively. Brod’s notion of fratriarchy thus characterises the way male power is now distributed, albeit unevenly and necessarily conflictingly, outside as well as within (though now to a lesser degree) the family, and throughout the social framework. In this way hierarchic masculinity goes beyond patriarchy in its influence. It is enmeshed in matrices of power relations and networks, which may be unintelligible, and proliferates as a component of the regime of truth. To better understand this notion of fratriarchy, the changes in the distribution of power, and its effects on masculinity, it is necessary to examine discipline in particular.

Practices of Power - discipline

It is within a confrontational and agoraphobic field of power that subjects are disciplined. Power is the method by which masculine hierarchies, and other social complexes, operate. "Power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organisation." Power is omnipresent because it comes from social activity, which is constant and global. These are the activities of individual people within and without institutions. Power in masculinist hierarchies is therefore not just "top-down" from a central institution or exemplar because power is always in constant flux, struggle and entanglement, expressed in social relations, which are always subject to change and unevenly spread. Thus, power permeates, structures and changes hierarchies. Foucault believes that because social relations are a form of power, nothing is outside of power, because no one is asocial. Therefore power is not an object, it cannot be acquired as such, and it is ineliminable. Power is not simply an institution, domination or repression, it is the unequal struggle between all people and all institutions who are striving toward their own disparate or united ends; "it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategically situation is a particular society".(15) This results in the multiplicity of masculine hierarchies.

Disciplining is a part of the socialisation process where the dominant forms of power/knowledge are imposed via different institutionalised methods with the aim of producing a certain kind of subject for certain purposes.(16) Foucault examined the methods of the asylum, the prison, the hospital, the school, the barracks and the forms of power/knowledge that validate them; psychiatry, criminal reform, medicine, pedagogy and militarism respectively. The practices of discipline here are, for example, drills and training, standardising actions, and controlling and supervising space. In a factory, this facilitates productivity, in a school, it imposes orderly behaviour, in a town, it reduces dangerous crowds and in a hospital, it reduces epidemics.(17)

Where men are concerned, a certain type of masculine character is produced not just according to the aims of the institution, but in line with general social expectations which are not institutional specific. For example, Brod argues that men are trained to deny feelings of intimacy, "and are encouraged further to see physical affection and intimacy primarily if not exclusively in sexual terms."(18) This encourages homophobia and heterosexism, ideologies which enforce the existence of "the Other".(19) These attitudes can be refined by certain institutions, but on the whole they are useful on a general level in supporting the gender order. That the production of certain types of subject are necessary to particular institutions and society as a whole is illustrated again by the connections between masculinity and capitalism. Competition is taught to be a moral good and is something men are expected to part-take in. Our "free-enterprise society depends upon the construction of a specific kind of male character structure which is receptive to the exigencies of competitive stress. Such a character structure is functional for the system."(20)

However, it is not just institutions that demand a particular form of masculinity, men and women on the everyday level demand it too. In this sense, masculinity is not just tied to institutional demands, it is ubiquitous on every social level. This is because degrees of power are exercised by all social agents who act reflexively. This exercise of power seems to be based on: the use of, legitimised discourse; access to, or ownership of resources; and empowering subjectivisation, via the practices of power and the self. Empowerment usually involves the internalisation of accepted and useful ideologies. Most men internalise masculinity because of its perceived benefits. The notion of subjectivisation is similar to Lynne Segal’s understanding that "the complexity of both psychic life and bodily investments are not homologous with polarizing gender discourses, or the social injunctions that render them intelligible."(21) Simply put, there is room for the subject to manoeuvre within the gender order as defined by social institutions. After all, this is what reflexivity involves. To what degree is explored below. Foucault understands these manoeuvrings as the third mode of the regime of truth, "practices of the self". Practices of the Self - subjectivisation

Disciplinary power subjectivises, it organises the temperament and mentality of individuals through bodily manipulation, examination and organisation. Foucault defines subjectivisation as "the process through which results the constitution of a subject, or more exactly, of a subjectivity which is obviously only one of the given possibilities of organising a consciousness of self."(22) This means that against or aside from disciplinary power, a variety of subjectivities are also possible as active self-formation. Understood in this way one is subjectivised by social intuitions via discipline and one is subjectivised in non-institutional ways also. A person is not just a passive, docile automaton under the practices of power.

Foucault defines the practices of the self as methods that "…permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality."(23) This is a particular mode of subjectivisation (or subjection) that involves more than just the practices of power. Foucault examined the practices of the Ancient Greeks and Early Christians to highlight the historical development of our current practices. He exposes our practices of the self as contingent, not necessary, fluid and transient, not concrete and eternal, thus challenging universalism. In using Foucault’s methods, we can illustrate how masculinity is also a practice of the self which seeks "happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality" as a man. Most importantly however, the masculine practice is one that seeks status also. It is necessary to understand status as the basic measure of men’s place in masculine hierarchies.

Despite how it may appear to a man pursuing masculinity, masculine identity is actually plastic and fluctuating because it is indelibly intertwined with changing social relations within a hierarchy and betweens hierarchies which are not rigid. A man never becomes a man, there is no finality and certainty about this. Men must build identity and status within the hierarchies they operate and keep building this identity by gaining status, typically in a vampiristic, competitive or coercive manner. Because personal power is often equated with physical dominance, violence is one method by which man assert themselves over other people.(24) A good example of how hierarchic masculinity operates is the phenomenon of male rape, which primarily takes place in prisons and juvenile penitentiaries. "By turning some men into ‘women’ these inmates use sexuality to dehumanise and degrade fellow inmates."(25) The extreme example of male rape illustrates two points. First of all it is indicative of the ideology of male supremacy that is core to the ideology of masculinity. This is indicated by violently forcing other men to be in the position of "the Other"; that is a woman or homosexual. These others are outside and subordinate to the dominant male heterosexual hierarchies, thus forcing another man into this lower category, forcing another man beneath him, illustrates the rapist’s power and gain. The second related point is that men must emasculate each other to some degree so as to gain status, to rise above, by knocking another down. This competitive vampirism need not be violent (though in an institution like the prison or army barracks it is more likely to be), it can take more subtle forms according to the institution the hierarchy is embedded in, like public humiliation, demonstrating how less cool or tough another male is, gloating over winning a game, intellectual browbeating, sexual conquest at the other man’s expense and so on. In this way, masculine identity is always subject to erosion or even destruction, it is constantly under attack and must be defended by reciprocating these attacks within the given hierarchic frameworks by gaining status by whatever means are acceptable. "Man" is an ideology which all men are striving to achieve and has to be competitively accomplished.(26)

However, the violence and competition inherent in masculine ideology ensures that failure can be catastrophic for a man and those around him. Men like Peter Sutcliffe, better known as "The Yorkshire Ripper", felt that he was not a "real man", and murdered women to prove that he was in fact a man.(27) The deeper misogyny and fear that permeates masculine ideology is exemplified by these failures, revealing the psychotic tendencies that define it.(28) The violence and competition that structures masculinity connects it further to the warist and capitalist state.

Status and popularity

It is necessary to emphasise again that there is not a singular hierarchic masculinist ideology. A person can subscribe to many forms of hierarchic masculinity on macro and micro levels, in an active or passive way; that is: they have a degree of choice. The kind of hierarchy that exists on the macro level may be what class or income bracket a man is in and how this is displayed (in his dress, where his home is located, the type of car he has etc.), how beautiful his partner is perceived to be, how handsome he is perceived to be, how well known he is and so on. This level is the wider social sphere and is largely impersonal. The kind of hierarchy that exists on the micro level is in the work place amongst colleagues, or within the family or amongst friends in various settings. What gives a man prestige on the macro level will also give him prestige on the micro level, but the micro level allows more room for manoeuvre and creativity because of the increased amount of personal interaction. In this way, force of personality, humour, savoir-faire, sexual charisma and so on, can all lend a man status that will be seen to a much lesser extent (if at all) in the wider social context as he walks down the street amongst a crowd, or in his details on a bureaucrat’s desk.

The study of popularity among young girls and boys by Adler, S. J. Kless and Adler exposes the status defined structure of masculinity and illustrates how it is socialised in very early life. Their insights and evidence regarding children can also be applied to adults. This is because children are taught their gender ideology almost immediately, and this ideology is subject to little change throughout life. Much of what will gain a child status will also gain an adult status. There are difference which will be explored, but otherwise there is a clear continuity. As status is the main measure of a man’s place in masculine hierarchy, it is necessary to discuss what constitutes status and how it is gained and lost. For the purposes of this analysis, status is something adults have in the wider social sphere (the macro level, like the registrar general or the bank) and popularity is measure of rank within smaller environments (the micro level, like the workplace or school). Both forms of rank can be employed to understand the dynamic of hierarchic masculinity.

Adler, Kless and Adler’s understanding of hierarchy is in terms of the arrangement of cliques in a descending scale of most popular to least popular. These cliques themselves are untidily stratified. There is an atmosphere of instability where there is always room for change up and down this scale. This is all "according to (the) perceptions of each other as relatively popular or unpopular" as guided by idealised models of masculinity and femininity which are "actively synthesize(d) from the larger culture".(29) The concept of popularity is defined operationally as those who are most liked by the majority of others, their influence and their leadership in determining group boundaries.(30)

There are a number of factors that will determine a male’s rank in hierarchies. These factors vary in importance according to hierarchy, and some, like insubordination discussed below, can lower status in certain masculine hierarchies. Athletic ability is a "major factor" in boys’ popularity, along with fighting as "a means of establishing social order."(31) The lionisation of physical strength into adult life is something that can be seen in popular media, especially in action films, advertising and sports. In relation to what is expected of the male body, the factor of physical strength can often make or break a man in terms of status and attainment of masculine ideals. This is an issue dealt with in the next chapter.

Being cool is also an important measure of rank. Cool is something which regularly changes involving an person’s "self-presentation skills, their accessibility to expressive equipment and their impression management techniques". Though cool is influenced by macro factors like current fashion, it involves micro issues whereby groups agree on what cool is for them.(32) This involves a certain amount of reflexivity and synthesis of options presented to the group allowing for idiosyncratic notions of cool which still conform to some degree to the current fashions in the culture in which the hierarchy is found. So, for example, businessmen will have a different idea of cool to soldiers who in turn have a different idea of cool than beatniks.

Toughness, whereby a male is defiant of authority by challenging rules, is more important for children and youths than adults, but the importance of toughness can persist for men is certain hierarchies, especially among criminals or unskilled labourers. In other hierarchies, subtler measures are called for. In these hierarchies where toughness is important it "involves displays of physical prowess" as well as the self assertion and confidence that is valued in most masculine hierarchies. Compliance to authority is viewed as weak and womanly or homosexual.(33) Presumably, this is because authority is something men should actively exercise over others, not passively accept. The equation of women ("or effeminacy") with obedience in this way illustrates gender expectations quite blatantly.

Another important measure of status is how sophisticated a male is "in social and interpersonal skills". This savoir-fare is important in communicating, manipulating and forming relationships, thus enhancing ones popularity and status.(34) Other factors could be isolated, like perceived attraction, sexual success, economic status, race and intelligence. As noted, different hierarchies value different things, but the values Adler, Kless and Adler have isolated provide some of the most important and are amongst those that are internalised by children at an early age as they begin the struggle to achieve the ideal of masculinity as set forth by the pervading forms of power/knowledge within specific institutional settings like the school, and eventually the workplace. Adler, Kless and Adler write that the purpose of the internalisation of the masculine ethos for a male is to prove himself a man, primarily by expressing physicality in active participation, domination and success in sports and by achieving autonomy in aspiring to authority and distancing himself from feminine characteristics by assuming emotionally detached attitudes.(35)

People are not necessarily empowered by these involvements. Empowerment can be understood according to notions of active and passive involvement, which are similar to Connell’s notion of exemplar or complicit masculinity. The difference here is that men must struggle to attain or maintain status (respectively). A man can actively pursue his masculine goals by driving himself to the top, perhaps pursuing great fame or fortune, or a man can partake in the hierarchy by merely maintaining his position, or making small gains, on a work-a-day level, and ensuring he does not loose status, through support and validation. What is to be gained in this instance can be ambiguous, but it is primarily a matter of self interest. This is encouraged by the inherent psychological reward system which is the result of acquiring status, prestige or even fame within the hierarchy. Those low in the pecking order aspire to participate rather than be victims, it is unlikely that they will reject masculine hierarchy because they still unthinkingly accept its values and the consequences of its values due to its disciplinary influence. At least, they will pay lip service to these hierarchies, or elements of them, to prevent total social ostracisation.

This can be done because these hierarchies are not solid and monolithic wholes. Because of their multiplicity, there is room for the rejection of specific elements, and certain hierarchies all together (which is a necessity as a man cannot participate in all possible masculine hierarchies), that the low-order aspirant may devalue so as to psychologically validate and prepare himself in order to pursue some other goal perceived as more attainable, but no less important within the hierarchies he has chosen to operate. So for example, a man might reject status he could acquire from sporting activities because of lack of skill or physical strength and instead accept and strive towards building prestige within a hierarchy that values intelligence instead. At the same time this man may be involved in other hierarchies, say, those that seek kudos for sexual conquests. This hierarchy may inter-connect with the previous hierarchy, or it may be rejected depending on the social institutions it is connected too (for example, as to whether the intellectual hierarchy is located in a celibate Christian monastery or a typical western university). This illustrates that the criteria which defines a man’s status is often dependant upon the institution to which the masculine hierarchy is tied.

The self

Men are able to make such choices and develop practices of the self to increase masculine status due to reflexive synthesis, as well as in simply accepting the "ready made" masculine ideology that men strive to achieve. Reflexive synthesis is an ability which helps to explain choice, but a conceptual framework through which we can understand the self or subjectivity of a person is necessary as a background to this ability. Reflexivity is the conscious response of the self to the social structure. Foucault’s notion of the self emphasises "that gender identities are fractured and shifting, because multiple discourse intersect in any individual life."(36) Like De Certeau’s understanding of the everyday self, Foucault also theorises that the self is "a locus in which an incoherent (and often contradictory) plurality of... relational determinations interact."(37) Foucault’s formulation of the self is non-essentialist, as the self is a complex of social influences, a notion that seems to be shared by Bernard Williams who, like Heller, theorises that a process of social construction constitutes the self.

For Williams and Foucault, this self requires no metaphysical underpinning.(38) Understood in this way, masculinity is neither a biological nor a metaphysical property. Williams helps to clarify this notion of the self in arguing that this understanding is not of a Kantian apriori self, a characterless moral self who existed before our socialisation and enculturation.(39) Because of this, the self can never be "properly understood and enacted" in the relations the self has with others in society.(40) Arguably, this endless discord is what causes existential angst in the individual, the psychic insecurity that results in the internalisation and reproduction of the ideology of gender, as understood by MacInnes.

In providing his existential theory of gender, MacInnes has recognised the irrationality and emotionality of human beings in their psychic insecurity and subsequent gender belief. The existential character of gender is given further credibility when one considers the at once determined and free nature of the human situation. Foucault’s post-structuralist theory of self points to the multiple identifications with other groups and the loyalties that result in inner conflict and the resulting dissembling that characterises existential understanding of social interaction. This daily existential obfuscation of oneself, the presentation of certain facades, images and characteristics to a group at the expense of other personality traits and beliefs is an integral part to how men interact within and between masculine hierarchies.

Foucault’s understanding of the self as a complex of social influences and identities is a conception of a non-unitary individual (or dividual), a challenge to the liberal humanist notion of the unified self tied to rights. Consequently, this is also a challenge to the associated patriarchal assertion of a "seamlessly unified self... gloriously autonomous, it banishes from itself all conflict, contradiction and ambiguity."(41) As a result, the self is understood as the major site of constant political struggle: "…if the individual is plastic and can be shaped, then the productive and creative force that the individual represents will be contended for."(42) The dividual is formed of various identities from this struggle, some are formed by various practices of power and some are self-formed, because "individuals are not unitary, single psychic structures."(43) A dividual maybe a doctor, a father, an anarchist, a homosexual, a schizophrenic, and a son with different attitudes, clothes, actions, social, political and personal responsibilities etc., in different situations at different times, who is at the same time and place all of these to some degree. This dividual is in this way an amalgam self subject to change and to different ideologies. There does seem some difficulty here as to how projects are possible without an individual to make effective judgements, and how the dividual is active in its separate roles. If a complex is active here, the concept of unity seems to be creeping back into Foucault’s account of selfhood. Such difficulties can only be raised as a note of caution here, but will be explored further below.

The self understood as non-unitary in this way is articulated by Deleuze. Subjectivity and its gender aspect is an interiorisation of practices of power from the outside, but one that does not involve determinism or total dependence. "The outside is not a fixed limit but a moving matter animated by peristaltic movements, folds and foldings that together make up an inside: they are not something other than the outside, but precisely the inside of the outside."(44) Though the subject does not create projects for her/himself into the world ex nihilo, meaning can be synthesised from the limited forms of power/knowledge that present themselves to the subject in the everyday world, thus expressing freedom.(45) Again, the questions "who or what does the synthesising?" can be raised here, and the problem of a hidden unity or infinitely regressing self become a possibility. To avoid these issues, we have to be clear that Foucault’s concept of self allows for a historical development of the self over time from birth. Tentatively, I would like to suggest that the younger a self is, the more subject s/he is to the practices of power which is why children are easily socialised into gender identities. The older a dividual becomes and the more s/he negotiates the "ready made" world, the more able s/he is able to utilise these imposed practices for her/himself as a self-practice and perhaps alter or reject his/her gender identity. Age however, would not be the key because "individuality is never complete but is always in a state of flux. This flux is the process of transcending particularity, the process of ‘synthesization’ into individuality."(46) If a person does not attempt to develop beyond the "ready-made" order as s/he grows, and instead defends their gender identity and the projects that come from this, they are not just defending themselves, but the whole system of gender ideology and the institutions that enforce it, the very basis of their own masculinity or femininity.(47) This is an expression of psychic insecurity, and because of the "ready-made", ahistorical quality of what is being defended, people tend never to see their gender as anything other than everyday, natural, normal and unassailable.

This notion of the self echoes Heidegger’s concept of "throwness", which in turn was elaborated by Merleau-Ponty. In his Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty tackles the Sartrean problem of original choice and foundationlessness, which Foucault had seemed in danger of here. "While ‘I can no longer pretend… to chose myself continually from… nothing at all,’ I do possess the power of ‘general refusal’ and the power to ‘begin something else.’ "(48) Though we cannot simply choose a gender identity or cast off the straitjacket of gender ideology, we can perform certain actions to break partially with present conditions that are exposed as intolerable and oppressive through this power of refusal. It is in this sense that the individual male is caught within the hierarchy of masculinity. When concluding this examination, suggestions as to how masculinity might be transgressed will be discussed.

Unfortunately, there are difficulties with Foucault’s account of the self that require further deliberation. Adler, Adler and Fontana exposed the problem when they wrote: "both positivism and critical sociology were seen as overly deterministic in their portrayal of the individual in society. The actor was depicted as either a tabula rasa, internalising the norms and values of society out of a desire for group membership, or as homo economicus, developing social, political, and ideological characteristics as a result of his/her class membership."(49) The non-unitary self as articulated by Foucault and Deleuze leaves open the problem that the human self is entirely social, without natural influence.

MacInnes writes that this total socialisation of the self would result in an absolute totalitarianism, where the values and expectations of society would be internalised completely, the private would actually be entirely public, we would have not choice but to operate within a monolithic structure.(50) But on the contrary, MacInnes asserts that "the self is something that can never be perfectly socialised, that in part lies beyond the public...". MacInnes argues that this "part" is the unconscious.(51) He claims that the problem of over-socialisation is supported by the politics of identity which claims the "right" to "express" or "discover" one’s "authentic" identity. Social progress and authenticity are supposedly achieved by "the reflexive reconstruction of the self along the right lines."(52) The politics of identity involves the idea that we can transcend the limits of our sexual genesis, "the fact that we are born of particular parents" and become whoever we wish to, our identities matching "what public ideologies suggest they should comprise".(53) But because there is a "part" of the self which is not socially constructed, the notion of authenticity makes no sense. This limit is recognised by Williams when he notes we cannot "realise a harmonious identity that involved no real loss".(54) Thus, the notion of an authentic identity is just "a fantasy of a pure self beyond any social constraint... demanding the right to realise itself... a fantasy of final, total psychic security...".(55)

This fantasy is a result of the "part" of the self MacInnes identifies, the "unconscious" which goes untouched by the social. This untouchable core is due to the fact that human lives are always open to a number of possibilities, but by what degree is the decree of society. Humans have evolved as very flexible animals, and this flexibility has resulted in the existential anxieties over choice, passion, failure, death. These existential problems are generalisable throughout the species and it is this angst which provides the untouchable core of the self. Any society, no matter how egalitarian, will never provide a solution to this angst. This anxiety is also the principle that unifies Foucault’s dividual.

Using Foucault’s analysis, the simple notion that men are a homogenous group that have power over women is further demythologised because "the disciplinary regime separates, divides, hierarchises and examines, as it simultaneously characterises the individual and orders them within a ‘multiplicity’ which both individualises and homogenises at the same time…"(56) In this light we can understand hierarchy as a construct where "both ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are interpolated within a particular relationship of power... both genders are embedded or organised within particular relationships of power."(57) This requires a holistic approach to gender and women must be part of the analysis. Their role as "Other" is explored in chapter five. Before this however, it is necessary to understand how the body is affected by the disciplinary processes discussed above. The body is an important site of examination because it is the primary material of discipline.

  • (1) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p37
  • (2) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p164-165
  • (3) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p215
  • (4) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p114
  • (5) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p214-215
  • (6) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p77-81
  • (7) Connell, J. W. - Masculinities, p80
  • (8) The public torture of poor Damiens is one of Foucault’s striking examples of pre-modern power in Discipline and Punish. Foucault discusses the change from pre-modern power of death to the modern power of production in The History of Sexuality Vol. I p139
  • (9) Brod, H. - "Pornography and the Alienation of Male Sexuality" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p132-133
  • (10) Foucault, M. – The History of Sexuality Vol. I , p140-141
  • (11) Foucault, M. – Discipline and Punish, p138
  • (12) Brod, H. - "Pornography and the Alienation of Male Sexuality" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p132-133
  • (13) Foucault, M. – Discipline and Punish, p26
  • (14) Foucault, M. – The History of Sexuality Vol. I , p95
  • (15) Foucault, M. – The History of Sexuality Vol. I , p92-95
  • (16) Foucault, M. – Discipline and Punish, p137-8
  • (17) Rabinow, P. – The Foucault Reader, p17
  • (18) Brod, H. - "Pornography and the Alienation of Male Sexuality" in Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p128
  • (19) See Chapter 5
  • (20) Brittan, A. - Masculinity and Power, p98. Horrocks details the psychological effects of the demands of capitalism for "functional and efficient" men in Chapter 7 of Masculinity in Crisis.
  • (21) Segal, L. - Why Feminism? p69
  • (22) Foucault, M. – Foucault Live p472
  • (23) Foucault, M. – The Development of Technologies of the Self in Technologies of the Self p18. My italics.
  • (24) Sim, J. - "Men in Prison", in Newburn, T. and Stanko, E. (eds.) Just Boys Doing Business? , p102
  • (25) Sim, J. - "Men in Prison", in Newburn, T. and Stanko, E. (eds.) Just Boys Doing Business? , p107
  • (26) Brittan, A. - Masculinity and Power, p36. Also see Horrocks, R. - Masculinity in Crisis and Jefferson, T. - "Theorising Masculine Subjectivity" in Newburn, T. and Stanko, E. (eds.) Just Boys Doing Business? , p13
  • (27) Horrocks, R. - Masculinity in Crisis, p125-128
  • (28) Horrocks, R. - Masculinity in Crisis, p115
  • (29) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p170
  • (30) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p172
  • (31) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p172
  • (32) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p173
  • (33) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p173-4 Such belligerence is detailed by Messerschmidt, J. W. - "Schooling, masculinities and youth crime by white boys" in Newburn, T. and Stanko, E. (eds.) Just Boys Doing Business?
  • (34) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p174
  • (35) Adler, P. A., Kless, S. J., and Adler, P. - "Socialisation to gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls" in Sociology of Education (1992, Vol. 65 - July), p183
  • (36) Connell, R. W. - Masculinities, p72 37
  • (37) de Certeau, M. - The Practice of Everyday Life, p xi
  • (38) Kroker offers a fascinating Freudian/Marcusian essence in which the self is based, though not in a transcendent realm. This essential self is the unsocialised baby, universal and timeless in its similarity to all humans in that stage of life, in which all types of subjectivisation will take place. See Critical Assesments:2 p109-121
  • (39) Williams, B. – Shame and Necessity p159
  • (40) Williams, B. – Shame and Necessity p162
  • (41) Brittan, A. - Masculinity and Power, p145 quoting Toril Moi
  • (42) Ransom, J. S. – op cit. p168
  • (43) Ransom, J. S. – ibid. p49
  • (44) Deleuze, G. – Foucault p96
  • (45) Barker, P. – Michel Foucault – An Introduction, p70-74. Here Barker discusses Foucault’s denial of personal creativity (along with a human nature) because it is disciplines that create possibilities and negate others according to a dividuals resistance to it. In this way, creativity comes from the outside. "There is no value or conceptualisation that is outside this non-subjective process of knowledge production."
  • (46) Heller, A. - Everyday Life, p15
  • (47) Heller, A. - Everyday Life, p14
  • (48) Cooper, D. – Existentialism p155
  • (49) See Alder, P. A. and Alder, P. and Fontana, A - "Everyday Life Sociology" in Annual Review of Sociology Vol. 13, p218
  • (50) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, Chapter 8
  • (51) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p148
  • (52) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p135
  • (53) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p140
  • (54) Williams, B – Shame and Necessity p162
  • (55) MacInnes, J. - The End of Masculinity, p146 author’s emphasis
  • (56) Barker, P. – Michel Foucault – An Introduction, p57
  • (57) Seidler, V. J. - "Men Feminism and Power", Men, Masculinity and Social Theory ed. by Hearn, J. and Morgan, D. p223
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