Men are better than women!?!
• There are women’s roles
• There are men’s roles
An introduction to the social
construction of masculinity
Gender refers to culturally specific patterns of
behaviour,
•attached to the sexes
•culturally determined and highly variable
•sexism and racism are reproduced and legitimized
everyday through the process of collusion
(Bilton et al 1992)
We encourage what we permit (CFO Durham)
Learn from childhood
Psychology
– Boy child developed love for mother but when they
recognise they are not like the mother they break
away not only from their mother but from their
emotions – rationality
– Girls develop a love for mother and when they
recognise they are like them they continue this
emotional tie – irrational
– do not develop minds and bodies outside society this
occurs through interaction with our family, school,
friends, peers, media and the list goes on
Socialisation
Interactive process by which people learn some
of the values attitudes skills and knowledge
appropriate to their roles in society (Coser et.
al. 1991)
Girls are trained to be carers they have dolls, go
baby sitting - this is all seen as appropriate to
their role in society
Boys seen as rational trained to be tough and
this again prepares them for ‘their role’ in society
Women and Femininity
Not sex difference but a gender difference our
society defines characteristics appropriate to
gender
– Socialisation creates femininity as a caring passive
characteristics learnt so that our female children fit in.
– Female social role is nurturing so women learn to
nurture is it the chicken or the egg?
Question
– Do female students avoid large parts of this process?
– Is it in male students best interest to ‘accept’ equality?
Men and Masculinity
We accept views appropriate to gender ---people are rewarded by following traditional
roles.
Male jobs
Male roles
Male behaviour
Question
Does this provide soomething to protect?
And against who?
Policing genders
• Foucault – the gaze of society
• Mass-circulation women's magazines are shown as
disciplining women into feeling the need to diet to obtain
the new nymph like image of womanhood.
– women were "terrified of getting fat ";
• under eating - anorexia nervosa
• over-exercising,
• restricted clothing,
– The perfect nymph
• depilated body,
• a blemish-free, painted face
• Resculptured
Question
Does this apply to anyone you know?
Patriarchy Stockard and Johnson 1992
Male dominance does not mean that individual males in a society
consciously conspire to keep women subordinate.
Neither does it mean that women are helpless victims who have no
way to prevail against men.
Indeed, male dominances is hard to see unless one has become
sensitized to it.
The difficulty arises because male dominance is imbedded in our
language and ways of thought.
These built-in pre-suppositions can limit the potential of all people
and have personal costs for both males and females.
Question
What is the cost?
Hierarchal Relations
Kimmel “hegemonic masculinity is always constructed in relations to
various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women”
Hegemony exists when people believe something and it becomes
true in its consequences
Hegemonic relations only exist because they are believed to be true/exist
Hegemony then becomes true in its consequences
Not only a conscious but also an unconscious process
Much of this underpinned by sexual relationships
–men seek sex for intrinsic pleasure
–women seek sex as a route to something
Connell - hegemonic masculinity is key to the gender hierarchy
Question
What is hegemony?
Male Violence
It became necessary to help women understand that their own experience of male
violence was not just their individual bad luck or even their fault, but that there is an
objective social basis for this private violence by men against women and children.
This meant that they had to understand the sociological and historical dimensions of
male violence if they were to get out of the masochistic tendency to attribute the failure
of their marriage to their own failure as women (Mies 1993: 77)
The male ideology of rape (is a) conscious process of intimidation by which all men
keep all women in a state of fear (Brownmiller 1975: 14)
“Pornography functions to perpetuate male supremacy ….because it conditions, trains,
educates and inspires men to despise women, to use women, to hunt women”
(Dworkin in Seidler 1992: 86)
“Pornography intent is to humiliate, degrade and dehumanise the female body for the
purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure” (Brownmiller in Seidler 1992: 90)
“Political media published by men and for men to perpetuate male authority and female
submission” (Rowan in Seidler 1992: 85)
Question
Do you have a view on pornography?
• Make a list of points why we think that
gender is genetic- in our essence when we
are born-something that is natural
• Now challenge these views
Masculinity and Public Service
Question
Why do firefighters and police officers run
towards danger?
Can women perform the same role?
Norms, Values and Rules
Religion
Religion challenged the power of Kings
– Made power available to working class
– But ruled by religious leaders (men)
– Every believer is loved by God
– Men must treat their women as they
themselves want to be treated
Six structures to patriarchy
(Walby, 1990, p.20).
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The patriarchal mode of production
Patriarchal relations in paid work
Patriarchal relations in the state
Male violence
Patriarchal relations in sexuality
Patriarchal relations in cultural
institutions
Aristotle et al
ARISTOTLE
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Politics is the central activity. Men meet to discuss politics because they have rationality
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Women lack rationality and live on their emotions – they are the other
HOBBS 1588-1679
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1600 a time of absolute monarchies
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Church and state maintain absolute power together in a paternalistic manner
LOCKE 1632-1704
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In public sphere individuals are equals making contact with each other – rationality rules
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Women excluded to the private an area of secondary importance women denied a public voice
MILL
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Society governed by reasoning human beings
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Males dominate women because of a desire for power
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Main obstacle to power is marriage
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Men are depicted as having "the self-consciousness of conceptual thought and volition of the
objective final end", this empowers them with the will to philosophise and reason.
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The 'second sex' (women) are only able to relate to substantive facts "in the form of concrete
individuality and feeling" they do not have the ability to philosophise.
State Power
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Kings
Parliament
Laws
Policing
Rule of the father
Physical barriers taken down by legislation but
they women yet to fully overcome the common
sense notions that remain
– Glass walls and ceilings
– Work
Capital
• Feminist theory and in particular Walby (1990, p.20)
argues that patriarchy is a system of social
structures and customs, through which men
dominate, oppress and exploit women.
• Hartmann (1979,p.232) talks about patriarchy as a
set of social relations between men that are
hierarchal and create solidarity between them, which
in turn allows men to control women.
• Middleton, 1981, 1985) Patriarchy is not essentially
capitalist, because patriarchal relations existed
before capital