Troubling Masculinities: Changing Patterns of Violent Masculinities in a Society Emerging
from Political Conflict
Fidelma Ashe and Ken Harland
Men’s dominance of the political and military dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict
has meant that the story of the conflict has generally been a story about men. Ethno nationalist
antagonism reinforced men’s roles as protectors and defenders of ethno national
groups and shaped violent expressions of masculinities. Due to the primacy of
ethno-nationalist frameworks of analysis in research on the conflict, the relationships
between gender and men’s violence have been under-theorized. This article employs the
framework of Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities to examine these relationships
and also explores the changing patterns of men’s violence in Northern Ireland.
During the early years of second wave feminism the constitution of men’s gendered identities
remained concealed in gender analysis. The newly emerging and radical feminist
movements of the 1960s recognized that, historically, men had been the subjects of social
and political inquiry and many feminists at that time wanted to place women at the forefront
of analysis. Feminism’s core analytical focus on femininity resulted in the equation of gender
analysis with studies of women; men remained genderless, the norm and the standard
by which the identities of women were evaluated. However, by the 1980s gender studies
had started to examine men as a gendered category, giving rise to new directions in feminist
research that culminated in an explosion of academic interest in men and masculinities in
the 1990s. Since then, masculinity or masculinities, “that previously untraversed frontier”
in feminist analysis, has become “gold rush territory.”1
While in other geopolitical contexts it seemed like “everyman and his dog”2waswriting
about masculinities during this period, in Northern Ireland masculinities remain uncharted
territory in political analysis. The reasons for this lack of interest are paradoxically both
simple and complex, and we consider them in the early part of this article. The article then
engages in an exploration of the analytical and political value of addressing the category
of masculinities in political research on Northern Ireland. Turning the analytical lens to a
core concern of mainstream analysis it draws out the value of assessing the relationships
between masculinities and changing patterns of violence in the region since the onset of
the Troubles in 1969.
Masculinities and Mainstream Analysis
The global upsurge in academic discourses around masculinities from the 1980s was
generated by a range of social, cultural, and political changes that led to claims that
traditional forms of normative masculinities were being eroded by new social conditions.3
Social changes that weakened traditional models of gender identities fuelled interrogations
of masculinities in other geopolitical contexts and in Western Europe and North America
in particular.4 Even when feminists sent out “mixed messages” about the ability of men to
engage critically with their gender identities, social changes generated what was largely a
deconstruction of masculinities by male academics and writers.5
As the next section reveals, Northern Ireland was not immune to the effects of the social
changes that fuelled men’s engagement with masculinities elsewhere. However, the onset
of the Troubles reinforced traditional forms of masculinities and created conditions that
preserved men’s power in both public and private arenas; the fortification of men’s power
tended to marginalize feminism both culturally and politically.6 However, the dynamics of
the conflict, explored in more detail in later sections, do not explain fully why mainstream
analysis in the region has paid so little attention to studies of masculinities. Theoretical and
institutional frameworks have also played a role.7
In other contexts the increasing influence of post-structuralism from the 1970s created
affinities between mainstream political theory and feminism. The deconstruction of subjectivity,
the critique of traditional theories of power and the “cultural turn” were common
to both scholarly traditions. Referring to the North American context, Newton writes that
by the late 1980s “male authored ‘postmodern’ theories of knowledge, identity, and power
had brought male colleagues closer theoretically to their feminist colleagues.”8 Yet, despite
the institutional integration of critical gendered analysis into the academy and the growth
of explorations of masculinities, feminism remained on the borders of mainstream analysis
even in contexts such as Scandinavia and North America where it is more firmly established
both educationally and politically. Yet, in general, social and intellectual change combined
to increase feminism’s influence within the academy from the 1980s, which helped frame
gender as an integral aspect of discussions of democracy, identity, difference, and justice.9
The influence of contemporary political theory on formulations of human subjectivity
was a key theoretical development that supported the integration of gender identities
into more traditional areas of political analysis.10 The human subject has increasingly
been understood “as being constructed and continuously reconstructed out of a variety
of competing discourses.”11 Subsequently, identities become framed as products of narratives
and practices. This understanding of identities often draws on post-structuralism’s
re-conceptualizations of power as operating through multiple modalities such as ethnicity,
gender, class, and sexuality, thereby increasing the space for the integration of gender into
understandings of identities.12 Most scholarship in the region has not been influenced by
the “cultural turn” and ethnic blocs tend to be viewed as concrete political entities that limit
the space for gendered analysis to emerge.13 Analyses of the conflict have concentrated
on ethnicity for obvious reasons and have generally focused on the strategies and political
agendas of ethnic groups as opposed to ethno-gendered groups.
Additionally, the inequalities, antagonisms, and violence constituted through gendered
relationships have not been viewed as core concerns for political analysis by the mainstream.
In the context of Northern Ireland political research has coded a range of identities as core or
peripheral sites of analysis. Moreover, the institutional power-sharing framework reinforced
the marginal location of gender politics in the political realm. The peace Agreement14 in
1998 was framed around elite negotiations and bargaining that reinforced the continued
importance of the political standpoints, strategies, and struggles of ethno-nationalist communities.
Rather than creating the conditions for a model of devolved government based
around heterogeneity and diversity that recognizes the political standpoints of a range of
marginalized groups including women, the Agreement reinforced the political power of
ethnic blocs.15
While feminists have continued to try to push issues such as the political underrepresentation
of women on to mainstream agendas and have highlighted the continuing
occlusion of gender in analysis, which has prompted some mainstream scholars to scrutinize
the political and communal positioning of women, studies of masculinities remain the
preserve of a small number of feminist theorists. For some mainstream theorists masculinities
are not relevant. Even against the background of the perceived “failures” of militarism
in the region, masculinities have remained outside of the boundaries of critical analysis. In
contrast, the end of the Vietnam War provoked intense reflection on American manhood.16
Masculinity did not cause the conflict, but as illustrated below it has been an integral
aspect of its contours.17 Twenty years on from the paramilitary cease-fires that opened space
for the development of processes of demilitarization, interrogations of the interactions
between particular constitutions of masculinities and the ethnic conflict have not been
sufficiently developed or integrated into the broader analysis of the conflict or conflict
transformational processes in the region. In the absence of thorough academic scrutiny,
masculinities have become framed through sensationalized journalistic accounts of the
hyper-masculinity of high profile paramilitaries such as Johnny Adair.18 Feminism provides
much more than a reductionist theory of patriarchy to analysts mapping the intersectionality
of identities in contexts of ethnic antagonism. We utilize the framework of Critical Studies
of Men and Masculinities to illustrate how masculinities were an element in “formations of
violence” during the conflict and conflict transformational periods.19 This framework views
identities as socially constituted, multi-faceted and open to reconstitution. Illuminating
masculinities as elements in the conflict, and identifying how certain models of masculinities
engender a range of power-effects frames masculinities as an important area of concern in
the analysis of Northern Ireland’s conflict and conflict transformational process.
Critical Studies of Masculinities
The framework of critical studies of men and masculinities (CSMM) was originally set
out by Jeff Hearn and David Morgan to provide a theoretical agenda to guide analytical
work across a range of studies of men.20 CSMM was designed to consolidate and extend
feminism’s critical focus onto the terrain of masculinities21 by theorizing masculinities as
historical, context dependent, shifting, and multi-faceted identities.22 From this perspective,
men’s gender identities, or their masculinities, are constituted through social discourses
and practices; they are not biologically determined.23 Subsequently, the constitution of
masculinities depends on the particular constructions of men’s gendered identities that
become dominant or normative within specific societies, groups, and contexts. Moreover,
reflecting the influence of the work of Raewyn Connell, CSMM understands masculinities
as intersectional identities shaped not only by gender but also by factors such as ethnicity,
social class, sexuality, age, and disability.24
The complexity of the cultural constitution of masculinities means that what constitutes
normative masculinities is constantly shifting and open to reconfiguration through social
change. Moreover, the intersectionality of masculinities results in relationships of power
and subordination between groups of men.25 Most of the critical literature in the area
recognizes that while men as a group benefit from the social organization of gender,
particular groups of men are located in socially subordinated positions due to, for example,
their ethnicity or social class.26 Subsequently, analysts have struggled to define the core
ideals of masculinities with some scholars suggesting that the category should be kept open
and undefined.27
Despite the slippery nature of the concept scholars have identified a range of features
that have tended to be associated with normative masculinities in contemporary Western
societies. Independence, autonomy, superiority, dominance over others, heterosexuality, and
aggression or violence are strongly identified with the achievement of normative models
of masculinities. Unsurprisingly, the issue of men’s violence has been of particular interest
to scholars working in the area of domestic violence,28 but scholars working in the areas of
nationalism and international relations have also engaged with the relationships between the
ideals of normative masculinities and men’s involvement in violent nationalist conflicts.29
These studies have illustrated how the ideals of normative manhood have served nationalist
struggles by forming part of the discursive narrative that, to borrow from Althusserian
terminology, “hails” or “calls” men to protect and fight for the nation.30 Nagel comments
that: “terms like honour, patriotism, cowardice, and duty are hard to distinguish as either
nationalist or masculinist, since they seem so thoroughly tied both to the nation and to
manliness.”31
While masculinities in contexts of nationalist conflict are constituted through these
broad ideological themes, the complexity of masculinities means that a localized analysis
of their constitution provides greater insight in to the relationships between masculinity and
political violence within particular geopolitical contexts. The following section exposes the
specific configurations of masculinities, class and nationalism that produced patterns of
violent behaviour by groups of men during the conflict in Northern Ireland. In a changing
political culture characterized by processes of de-militarization the narratives and practices
of violent masculinities will reconfigure, and we map these changes in later sections,
paying particular attention to young men. However, the framework of CSMM reminds
researchers that studies of men and masculinities can inadvertently occlude women and
wider networks of gender inequality from the analysis. The occlusion of women in analyses
of men reflects an approach that has become known as men’s studies; a framework that has
been heavily criticized for failing to place the analyses of masculinities within the broader
context of the historical relationships of gender.32 Such an approach would be particularly
regressive in the Northern Ireland context given that gender inequality and power have been
under-theorized. A critical analysis of masculinities directly informed by feminist concerns
can provide a point of engagement that opens a broader analysis of gender focusing on
the reproduction of gender inequities through the constitution of both masculinities and
femininities.
Moreover, as the analysis of the changing patterns of men’s violence in Northern Ireland
develops, it will become clear that certain models of masculinities have a range of negative
effects on men. However, these costs occur in broader networks of gender oppression and
the narratives that emerge around the costs of violent masculinities have implications for
wider discussions of gender inequality. Therefore, we pay close attention to the effects of
violent nationalist masculinities on women’s positioning in both the conflict and conflict
transformational period.
Masculinities and the Troubles
Understanding the dominant models of masculinities within particular societies is an important
starting point for engaging with masculinities and political violence. Prior to the period
of the Troubles, normative gender roles in Northern Ireland were generally reflective of
those in other industrialized Western societies.33 The dominant construction of masculinity
revolved around the core idea that developing a normative masculinity required the
achievement of the protector/provider role. Traditionally, the role of protector/provider
underpinned men’s dominance in both the workplace and the family.34 Conversely, normative
femininity was achieved through the roles of wife and mother.35
Middle-class men achieved the protector/provider role mainly through the professions
and business ventures. Up until the 1960s heavy industries such as shipbuilding, which
tended to be located in protestant working-class areas, provided a family wage and enabled
working-class protestant men to secure breadwinner status within the family. Catholic men
tended to be employed in the lower end of the job market. Catholics were employed predominantly
in unskilled and lower-paying jobs, such as clothing manufacture and textiles.36
The number of foreign multinational companies in Northern Ireland rose from 7 in 1958
to 27 in 1968 generating many new manufacturing jobs37 filled by both Protestant and
Catholic workers.38
From the 1970s, the Northern Ireland economy had begun to reflect more general
economic trends in industrialized societies, including a decline in the heavy engineering
industries that provided employment for working-class men. Declining heavy industries in
Northern Ireland were replaced by service industries and a large public sector. By the 1990s,
the combined effects of the neoliberalism and globalization had reshaped the social and
economic contours of most European and North American countries, including Northern
Ireland. The conflict shaped the effects of these broader economic trends. Political murders,
sectarian assassinations, car-bombings, petrol bombings, and the actions of paramilitary
groups created “a defender” mentality in the working-class communities that bore the
brunt of the violence and were also blighted by high levels of unemployment. Moreover,
the conflict created costs for companies operating in Northern Ireland and many shifted
production to other countries. However, the “peace dividend.” which was delivered mainly
in the form of European funds meant inward investment returned. For example, between
1995 and 1999 €400 million of European funding supported 13,000 projects in Northern
Ireland that focussed on job creation, social inclusion, urban and rural regeneration, and
cross-border co-operation.39 Economic investment in the region led to a period of sustained
economic growth and large-scale redevelopment40 including the £400 million Victoria
Square retail development in Belfast City Centre and more recently the Titanic Quarter
Scheme costing over £1 billion. However, the impact of broader economic restructuring on
working-class men’s ability to secure their traditional breadwinner role was reflected in the
new forms of employment created. Of the 52,320 jobs created during the “peace dividend
years, 1995-2000, more than half were part-time and generally low paid.”41
In other geographical contexts the decline of traditional male working-class jobs, the
impact of feminism and increased consumerism had generated interrogations of masculinities
and adaptations by some men to the new social conditions.42 Much of the literature in
the 1990s and 2000s suggested that masculinities in late capitalist societies were in a period
of crisis or transition, which at times resulted in erroneous claims by some commentators
that power was being redistributed from men to women.43 Moreover, ideas that the traditional
male role actually harmed men were popularized by academics, pressure groups and
the media during this period.44
The political conflict in Northern Ireland smothered these kinds of debates, and while
a few men’s groups did emerge in that context, they had little impact on gender politics. In
a society that was emerging from a conflict where a patchwork of mural representations of
hard men covered urban spaces,45 claims that contemporary feminism had rendered men
the “disposable sex” were unlikely to gain political momentum. Similarly, notions that
women’s social advances had given them legal advantages over men were less likely to
be taken seriously in a society that has no female high court judges.46 Also, as Stephen
Whitehead points out, one of the problems with crisis of masculinities discourses is that
the claim of crisis “speaks of masculinity in the singular; usually white heterosexual and
ethno-centric.”47 As indicated above, due to the political contours of the society men
involved in political research continued to focus both intellectually and in some cases
emotionally on ethnicity. However, as later sections illustrate, the issue of the costs of
men’s traditional identities as community defenders would emerge again during the period
of conflict transformation, but it would be cast within an ethno-nationalist framework of
analysis that contained it within the boundaries of the conflict and shrank the space for
dialogue around masculinities. In effect, the Troubles supported certain aspects of the
traditional models of masculinity. While the traditional provider/protector role was being
challenged and gendered roles in the workplace were undergoing significant changes,
the conflict operated to fortify aspects of men’s power in communal and formal political
arenas.48
Masculinities, Defense, and Violence
The political conflict reinforced dimensions of traditional models of masculinities at both
concrete and representational levels.During and after the Troubles, politics remained largely
the terrain of men.49 The figure of Ian Paisley most clearly expressed the ideals of ethno nationalist
masculinity during the conflict. Lysaght notes Paisley utilized a rhetoric which is
“highly attuned to the masculinity of defence.”50 The positioning of men as defenders at the
level of politics was reflected at the communal level in the ideal of men as defenders of the
community. Ghetto warfare in the spatially segregated, urban, working-class communities
characterized the Troubles. Men’s localized violence in “defense” of community spaces
reaffirmed their traditional roles in working-class areas. Women participated in all levels
of the conflict, but their activities were often hidden and tended to be overshadowed by
the spectacles of violence perpetrated by the “men of violence.” Throughout the conflict
women became framed as representing the vulnerability of the community that required
male protection from the “enemy.”51 When women transgressed traditional gender roles
and engaged directly in physical force violence, through involvement in the paramilitary
organizations that were overwhelmingly male and working-class, women’s involvement in
paramilitary activities was viewed differently to men’s.52 Female combatants were often
treated with suspicion or unease.53 Men’s involvement in violence was viewed as normative,
women’s was non-normative.54 Narratives of sexual difference preserved the gendered
naturalness of male violence vis-`a-vis their female counterparts.
The state security forces were also predominantly male, and in the case of the Ulster
Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary predominantly Protestant. Yet while
defense, militarism, and political violence were primarily male arenas, the construction of
militarized and violent masculinities shifted during the period of the conflict. Real men’s
bodies were the instruments for violence in the form of bombings and shootings. However,
the figure of the gunman was only one expression of violent masculinities. The spectacle of
the emaciated bodies of the hunger strikers exposed the fluidity of militarized masculinities
and demonstrated how the bodies of men and the ideals of masculinity, bravery, sacrifice
and stoicism could be deployed through the practices of suffering and martyrdom to expose
the cruelty and corruption of the enemy.55 Women were not permitted to join the hunger
strike as it was felt that the community would not be able to accept the death of a woman.56
The ultimate sacrifice for the nation was coded male in the very public political struggles
surrounding the hunger strike.
Regardless of these shifts in the deployment of the male body during the Troubles,
with the exclusion of a few notable women, the story of conflict and political violence
in Northern Ireland has been a story about men, and it shaped patterns of male violence
and reinforced men’s power. The tactical advantages to controlling communities combined
with a policing vacuum produced a system of informal policing. Young men in
particular were often targeted for engaging in anti-social behavior.57 Rioting was often
harnessed to the national cause, while individualistic anti-social behavior was punished.
Young men’s socialization in local cultures that valorized men’s violence operated as a
resource for the wider ethnic community—a first line of defense especially at times of
deep communal conflict. Those young men whose anti-social tendencies and violence became
deployed for personal gain, for example for the thrills of joyriding, were violently
policed through informal justice and exiling.58 One outcome of the targeting of young men
was that young men in marginalized communities reported being concerned about their
personal safety on a daily basis and confused about issues surrounding law and order and
policing.59
However, the masculinities that have been constituted through the local conditions
generated by the conflict were difficult to discipline and even the paramilitaries could not
contain young men’s anti-social behavior within the boundaries of communal or nationalist
struggles as they challenged their control by defying the threat of punishment.60 While
young men were located in challenging contexts a number of cross-cutting identities and
contextual factors moderate the attraction of violence to specific groups of men, which
explains why many men did not engage in violent expressions of nationalist conflict in
Northern Ireland. Adult men and women worked on the ground to try to mediate the
effects of the social conditions on young people particularly in areas most affected by and
susceptible to conflict.
Masculinities and Violence in Changing Contexts
The paramilitary cease-fires in the 1990s and the 1998 Agreement generated new social
and political conditions in the region. From a gendered perspective, the post-conflict context
raised more than a set of issues about ethno-nationalist power-sharing; it also raised
issues about how a historical legacy of gendered inequality could be addressed. A political
environment dominated by men and characterized by physical force violence pushed
out the political claims of historically marginalized identities, including sexual, gendered,
and class identities. Feminists involved in the negotiations leading to the Agreement highlighted
not only gendered issues but also set out an agenda that highlighting the relevance
of issues of social exclusion and disadvantage in peace-building.61 Similarly, the political
representatives of Loyalism were also generating discussion about economic and social
issues.62 These agendas drew in the material conditions of young working-class men in
both communities, but they remained low priority in a culture dealing with the “realities”
of conflict transformation.
The 1998 Agreement and the St. Andrews Agreement in 2006 did set in motion
processes of de-militarization. Alongside the paramilitary cease-fires, the British Army
presence was reduced to “peacetime” levels. Processes of de-militarization suggested that
masculinities would also become de-militarized, which might open debate around men’s
participation in violence and generate new nonviolent identities for men. However, the discussions
of violent masculinities that followed both the 1998 and 2006 Agreements were
framed within an ethno-nationalist framework that lacked the conceptual tools to gender
the analysis of men’s violence or their violent pasts. Fanned by the threat of paramilitarism
that continued to “bubble under the surface” in many working-class communities, analytical
priority was given to mapping the reintegration needs of ex-combatant males. The
de-militarization of men was perceived as a key stumbling block in a society attempting
to move from political conflict towards peace. However, the legacy of militarized masculinities
and the social conditions that shaped those masculinities have not been addressed
sufficiently.
Violence, Masculinities, and Conflict Transformation
The demilitarization of former combatants was a dual process. Some men were reintegrated
into communities through taking up key positions in the community, and there has been
a leveraging of funds to ex-combatant men involved in community work. As community
work became more professional and salaried men moved on to the peace-building territory,
which was traditionally dominated by women, low-paid and undervalued. This shift has
been understood as representing a transition from violent masculinities to peace-building
masculinities. While these analyses have contributed to the mapping of the processes
of the de-militarization, de-mobilization, and reintegration of combatants, analyzing the
implications of that shift on women requires further attention.63
Other men experienced the costs of war in the form of drug addiction, hyper-vigilance,
and underemployment.64 Research has suggested that some of these men often returned
home to find that their authority within the household was challenged or rejected by the
women who had been left to keep families together in their absence.65 During the period
of conflict transformation these men became the focus for analyses of the costs of men’s
involvement in war. While the crisis of masculinity thesis had been formulated through
a general analysis of masculinities in other contexts, in Northern Ireland it was more
contained. In a sense, the costs of masculinities that were identified in studies of these men
reflected some of the costs that working-class women had been incurring both during and
after the conflict. A study of women’s health in a socioeconomically deprived area of Belfast
in 2000 found that mental health difficulties were self-reported by over half of the survey
group, ranging from severe stress (62 percent), depression (53 percent) to anxiety/worry
(24 percent).66 The study also revealed a high level of prescription drug dependency by
women.67
Other men continued to assume militarized roles perceiving the war as yet to be won.
The Irish Republican dissidents who rejected Sinn Fein’s political strategy are almost
exclusively male and recent data indicate that 14 percent of respondents in the Irish republican/
nationalist community have sympathy with the dissidents.68 It can be suggested that
some of this sympathy emerges less from the dissidents’ political standpoints, and more
from their dispensing of informal justice to young anti-social men perceived as damaging
communities. The dissidents have waged a war on two fronts. They have targeted the
security forces and also targeted young men who they label as anti-social in punishment
attacks. These attacks impact whole families and mothers in particular who experience the
trauma of sons being kneecapped for example.69 However, in the period since the signing
of the Agreement levels of militarism did drop, but some young working-class men’s
attraction to ghetto warfare has remained strong and has been fuelled by the dynamics of
ethno-nationalism, class, and gender.70
Contemporary Patterns of Men’s Violence
The post-conflict environment retained the effects of late capitalist societies in the form of
poverty, social marginalization, and under-employment, which has meant that poor, urban
communities reflected the same social conditions that mark poor urban communities in
many European countries.71Again, these types of social conditions impact both men and
women in multiple ways. Young women’s expectations remain low although they tend to
have higher educational achievement than their male counterparts.72 It is difficult to assess
whether this slight educational advantage translates into significant social gains in later
life given the wider social inequalities women experience.73 What can be suggested is that
young working-class women often achieve one of the indicators of normative femininity,
motherhood, but they do so often under conditions of social exclusion. Young men, in the
context of recession and communities that have undergone decades of conflict, find securing
normative forms of masculinities through the traditional anchors of employment difficult.
The strength of the industrial base thirty years ago in Northern Ireland almost guaranteed
young Protestant men employment or access to a trade through an apprenticeship.74 This
was a fundamental route through which young men gained status and recognition from
others of their manhood.75 The social conditions that young men experience can lead to the
development of what can be termed hyper-masculinities.
Raewyn Connell explains that adaptations by socially marginalized young men to
the ideals of masculinities can be marked by expressions of hyper-masculinity as young
men try to gain respect, independence, and power through developing physical toughness
rather than through building a career.76 In Northern Ireland these ideals are reflected in
the activities of a section of the older generation who lived through or participated in
the Troubles. While there has been some symbolic rebranding within communities, the
gunman is still commemorated by the murals.77 Some young men continue to look up to
the paramilitaries.78 During the 2005 loyalist riots one young man said “I know them all.
Even with their balaclavas on.”79
In inner city Belfast young men are bombarded with powerful images of what it means
to be a man and often their masculinities become constituted in hostile and dangerous
environments.80 In some urban areas the conflict produced the spatial “encirclement” of
residential areas inhabited by one ethno-nationalist community by residential areas populated
by the opposing group. This spatial ordering of communities entrenches sectarianism,
and encourages strong ideological and cultural ethno-nationalist identifications. It also reproduces
feelings of being under perpetual threat from the opposing group which in turn
reinforces the community’s need to defend itself from attacks by the other ethno-nationalist
group.81
These social conditions impact young men in multiple ways. A study by Harland
revealed that young men in inner city communities in Belfast remained pessimistic about
their futures, and he notes the lack of employment for these young men means that the
outcomes from school are more precarious and insecure than they were a generation ago,
which compounds the problem of educational underachievement.82 The context of austerity
will no doubt reinforce these negative perceptions. Moreover, Harland and McCready’s
2012 longitudinal study of adolescent males found that “consistently, the majority of boys
described their schools and homes as safe, and their own communities often as being
unsafe.”83 Sectarianism, ethnicity, geography, and alcohol were identified by the sample as
the most important factors in terms of their experience of violence. “There were examples
given of fighting at interface areas and stones being thrown at their school bus as they went
through certain areas.”84
Masculinities, Social Exclusion, and Ethnic Inclusion
Traditional class-based politics addressed the conditions underlying the creation of these
forms of hyper-masculinity, including poverty, educational under-achievement, and social
marginalization. In the absence of an agenda to tackle social inequality, working-class
communities lack a narrative to express their grievances. The decline of class politics
in England exposed a youth culture that lacked any stable political narrative to address
the increasingly impoverished conditions of the urban poor. James Treadwell et al. argue
that all that is left for these communities is to focus on consumerism.85 In relation to the
U.K. summer riots in 2011 they observe that in England “perpetually marginalised youth
populations have become moody and vaguely ‘pissed off’ without ever understanding why.”
Lacking a political narrative, the rioters took their frustrations to “the shops.”86
Northern Ireland has not been immune to the effects of neoliberalism and globalization
but the legacy of ethno-nationalist conflict creates particular dynamics in relation to how
these factors impact masculinities and patterns of protest, aggression, and violence.87 Despite
ongoing processes of conflict transformation, ethnic identifications and sectarianism
remain strong among the younger generation particularly in working-class communities,
and recent survey data suggests a hardening of ethnic identity.88 At an instrumental level,
violence, at times, has been proven to be a successful strategy in terms of securing community
demands. Men’s violence is also utilized to broadcast grievances to the wider
community and raise the spectre of widespread violence by men in defense of nationalist
spaces, culture, and aspirations. Young men’s violence and rioting is particularly useful for
communicating the breakdown of normal modes of life and the impending threat that the
de-stabilizing effects of localized violence will spread to the broader society.
However, there are key differences between the constitution of violent masculinities
in Northern Ireland and those studied in the English context. Those young men who
rioted in England in the summer of 2011 were discursively placed outside of the authentic
community.89 The dynamics of the loyalist riots provoked in late 2012 by restrictions being
placed on the flying of the Union flag on Belfast City Hall were different in terms of the
relationship between young male rioters and the broader community. When young men’s
protesting and rioting in Northern Ireland occurs in the service of nationalist grievances
they continue to be located within the authentic community through their ethno-nationalist
identifications. This relationship is complicated further by the fact that the Police Service
of Northern Ireland believed local paramilitaries orchestrated much of the rioting. Young
men’s violence articulates resentment towards unwanted changes that impact on the broader
community. This explains partly why there has been less emphasis on the relationship
between dysfunctional families and anti-social behavior and underachievement by young
men in mainstream political discourse in Northern Ireland.
However, responses to these expressions of violence are not immune from the discourses
of capitalism and consumerism. During the period of the loyalist flag protests
much of the journalistic analysis of the effects of the protests considered their impact on
business in the run up to Christmas. However, the young men who rioted were unlikely to
share in the jobs that were preserved or created in the city centre or to benefit from the
inward investment their protests might deter.90 As the protests progressed, the intra-dividing
class lines become clearer along the financial fault lines that divide the more affluent from
those dispossessed by neoliberal economics and the effects of decades of political violence.
Steve Hall has engaged in an historical analysis that mapped what he calls the “pacification”
of masculinities in late capitalism.91 Hall argues that success in contemporary societies,
particularly success in the arena of employment, requires the sublimation of aggressive and
violent behavior.92 Cultures that generate male violence reinforce working-class men’s disadvantage
within late capitalist societies. According to Hall, violence creates subordination
and exclusion not dominance and power for groups of working-class men.93 Therefore, the
dynamics of patterns of men’s violence in Northern Ireland are complex, bound up with the
preservation of ethnic power while also exposing the effects of economic disempowerment
on working-class men. While the dynamics of men’s violence has been rarely addressed
through explorations of their masculinities, some research has engaged with young men at
localized levels through the institution of the school.
Changing Patterns of Violent Masculinities?
Many studies have shown that schools are instrumental in the formation of masculine
identities.94 Harland and McCready’s five-year longitudinal study in Northern Ireland with
378 adolescent boys in post-primary school found complex and changing patterns of masculinity
through the ways in which boys think about what it means to be a man. For
example, from the ages of 11–13, irrespective of school type, perceptions of normative
masculinity were relatively high across the whole sample with the majority of boys believing
that men, for example, should be dominant, aggressive, a good fighter, competitive,
powerful, heterosexual, and able to stand up for themselves. Violence and violence related
issues were considered to be a normal part of young male development and an acceptable
way to resolve issues. Those boys reporting highest levels of normative masculinity scored
lower in levels of academic motivation/preference and higher in levels of misbehavior. In
contrast, boys reporting lowest levels of normative masculinity scored higher in academic
motivation/preference and lower in levels of misbehavior.
For the majority of boys, however, their perceptions of normative masculinity became
much more complex as they progressed through adolescence. There was a move
away from stereotypical notions of masculinity to a more considered and less stereotypical
understanding of masculinity. Boys also became increasingly confused about the more
controversial, identity-challenging aspects of what it means to be a man in response to
questions such as “a man should hug another man,” “can have a boyfriend,” or “it’s ok
for a man to cry.”95 One aspect of masculine identity formation that remained consistent
for all boys across the five years was that it was important for a man to display
moral and ethical responsibility and provide for his family.96 These changing patterns
of masculinity during adolescence reveal complexities boys experience when attempting
to understand masculine identities that sit outside a traditional normative masculinities
framework.
Acknowledging a boy’s capacity to change and mature is a pivotal factor in understanding
adolescent behavior. This maturing aspect of adolescent male development and
complex mental processing can be easily overlooked. Schools and community intervention
cannot be tasked with remedying the long-term poverty and social marginalization
that create masculine identities and expressions of violent masculinities. Strengthening the
capacity of primary welfare agencies is an essential part of a broader program of social
policies aimed at addressing socioeconomic marginalization and poverty. However, because
boys are rarely taught about masculinity, or gender, they are often left to their own,
or other perhaps more sinister, influences to forge their masculine identities. This can mean
that certain boys and young men remain susceptible, or attracted to, violent masculinities,
either as victims or perpetrators. This is perhaps where interventions supporting boys to
question attitudes and behavior associated with normative or violent masculinities may be
most useful. Helping boys to understand and process changing patterns of masculinities is
an underdeveloped area of intervention that could be developed to support a range of social
institutions and adults working with adolescent boys.
Concluding Remarks
Despite critical studies of masculinities being an important and growing part of global
social inquiry, to date there has been a dearth of studies into masculinities in Northern
Ireland. In particular, despite over forty years of political conflict, the notion of violent
masculinities has not been considered an important variable in analysis of that conflict.
While we acknowledge that the constitution of masculinities did not produce the ongoing
ethno-nationalist antagonisms, this article presents evidence of the complexities within
changing patterns of violent masculinities that have particular relevance in understanding
men’s violence in conflict and conflict transformational contexts. We also suggest that
much more critical analysis is required to address the complexities and multiplicity of
masculinities in relation to the specific contours of the region. This article has attempted
to illustrate how particular constitutions of masculinities have impacted both men and
women in negative ways. An impetus to address violent masculinities within the context of
a feminist agenda remains a vital aspect of conflict transformation.
Notes
1. Judith Newton, “White Guys,” Feminist Studies 24(3) (1998), p. 576.
2. John Innes, The End of Masculinity (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998), p. 2.
3. See Fidelma Ashe, The New Politics of Masculinities (London and New York: Routledge,
2007).
4. SeeMichael Flood, “The Men’s Bibliography.” Available at http://mensbiblio.xyonline.net/
(accessed 24 September 2013).
5. Ashe, Politics of Masculinities, pp. 96–156.
6. Fidelma Ashe, “Gender and Ethno-nationalist Politics in Northern Ireland,” in Colin Coulter
and Michael Murray, eds., Northern Ireland after the Troubles (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2008), pp. 45–60.
7. See Marysia Zalewski, “Gender Ghosts in McGarry and O’Leary and Representations of
the Conflict in Northern Ireland,” Political Studies 53(1) (2005), pp. 201–221.
8. Newton, “White Guys,” p. 572.
9. For example, Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1990).
10. Newton, “White Guys,” p. 572.
11. Rodgers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond Identity,” Theory and Society 29(1)
(2000), pp. 1–47.
12. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge (London:
Penguin, 1990).
13. See Adrian Little, “Feminism and the Politics of Difference in Northern Ireland,” Journal
of Political Ideologies 7(2) (2002), pp. 163–177 as an example.
14. The 1998 Northern Ireland peace agreement is often referred to simply as the Agreement.
15. See Jonathan Tonge, The New Northern Irish Politics? (London: Palgrave MacMillan,
2004).
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Troubling Masculinities 759
16. See for an overview, Susan Faludi, Stiffed, The Betrayal of the American Man (Hammersmith:
HarperCollins, 1990).
17. See Ashe, “Gender and Ethno-Nationalism.”
18. For critical readings see Debbie Ging, Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema (London:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), p. 100; Caroline Magennis, Sons of Ulster: Masculinities in the
Contemporary
Northern Irish Novel (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010). For analyses see Fidelma Ashe, “From
Paramilitaries to Peacemakers: The Gender Dynamics of Community-Based Restorative Justice in
Northern Ireland,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 11(2) (2009), pp. 298–314;
Lorraine Dowler, “Till Death Do Us Part: Masculinity, Friendship and Nationalism in Belfast, Northern
Ireland,” Environment and Planning D, Society and Space 19 (2001), pp. 53–71; Karen Lysaght,
“Dangerous Friends and Deadly Foes—Performances of Masculinity in a Divided Society,” Irish
Geography 35(1) (2002), pp. 51–62; Sara McDowell, “Commemorating Dead ‘Men’: Gendering
the Past and Present in Post-conflict Northern Ireland,” Gender, Place and Culture 15(4) (2008),
pp. 335–354; Linda Racioppi and Katherine O’Sullivan See, “‘This We Will Maintain’: Gender,
Ethno-Nationalism and the Politics of Unionism in Northern Ireland,” Nations and Nationalism 7(1)
(2001), pp. 93–112; Simona Sharoni, “Gendering Resistance within an Irish Republican Prisoner
Community: A Conversation with Laurence McKeown,” International Feminist Journal of Politics
2(1) (2000), pp. 104–123.
19. Alan Feldman, Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terrorism
in Northern Ireland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
20. Jeff Hearn and David Morgan, “The Critique of Men,” in Hearn and Morgan, eds., Men,
Masculinity and Social Theory (London: Hyman Unwin, 1990), pp. 206–214. See also Jeff Hearn,
“The Implications of Critical Studies on Men,” Nora 3 (1997), pp. 48–60; Jeff Hearn, “Theorizing
Men and Men’s Theorizing: Varieties of Discursive Practices in Men Theorizing of Men,” Theory
and Society 27 (1998), pp. 781–816.
21. See Hearn, “Critical Studies on Men”; Hearn, “Theorizing Men.”
22. See Ashe, Politics of Masculinities; R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1995); Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinities: Rethinking the Concept,”
Gender and Society 19(6) (2005), pp. 829–859; Michael Kimmel, Manhood in American: A Cultural
History (New York: Free Press, 1996).
23. See for example Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,
(London: Routledge, 1990); Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men
(London: Virago Press, 1997).
24. Connell, Masculinities, chapter 1.
25. Ibid.
26. See, for example, Gary T. Barker, Dying to be Men: Youth, Masculinity and Social Exclusion
(London and New York: Routledge, 2005); Connell, Masculinities; Steve Hall, “Daubing the
Drudges of Fury: Men, Violence and the Piety of the ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’ Thesis,” Theoretical
Criminology 6(1) (2002), pp. 35–61.
27. Alan Petterson, “Research on Men and Masculinities: Some Implications of Recent Theory
for Future Work,” Men and Masculinities 6(1) (2003), pp. 54–69.
28. For example, Jeff Hearn, The Violences of Men: How Men Talk About and How Agencies
Respond to Men’s Violence to Women (London: Sage Publications, 1998).
29. Joanne Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender, Sexuality and the Making of Nations”
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21 (2) (1998), pp. 242–269.
30. See alsoGeorge L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996).
31. Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism,” p. 252.
32. See Hearn and Morgan, “The Critique of Men,” pp. 206–208.
33. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
34. Mosse, The Image of Man.
35. See Martin MacAnGhaill, ed., Understanding Masculinities: Social Relations and Cultural
Arenas (Birmingham: Open University Press, 1996).
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760 F. Ashe and K. Harland
36. Bew, Gibbon, and Patterson, Social Classes (London: Serif, 2002).
37. Landon Hancock, “Northern Ireland: Troubles Brewing.” Available at http://cain.ulst.
ac.uk/othelem/landon.htm (accessed 28 May 2013).
38. Sabine Wichert, Northern Ireland since 1945 (Essex: Longman, 1991), p. 89.
39. The European Commission Office in Northern Ireland, “EU Structural Funds in Northern
Ireland” (Belfast: European Commission Office in Northern Ireland, 2004), p. 1.
40. Michael Smyth, “The Northern Ireland Labour Market 1977-2007: Then, Today and Tomorrow”
(Newtownabbey, University of Ulster). Available at http://www.lra.org.uk/smyth paper-2.pdf
(accessed 23 August 2013).
41. Socialist Party, “Good Friday Agreement.” Available at http://redlug.com/Documents/
TDNPPt4.htm (accessed 28 May 2013), p. 5.
42. See Michael Messner, The Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements (Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage, 1997).
43. Neil Lyndon, No More Sex Wars (London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1992).
44. Warren Farrell, The Myth of Male Power (New York: Random House, 1993).
45. McDowell, “Dead Men.”
46. See Dermot Feenan, “Women Judges: Gendering Judging, Justifying Diversity,” Journal of
Law and Society 35(4) (2008), pp. 490–519.
47. Stephen M. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), p. 55.
48. Ashe, “Gendering Ethno-Nationalism.”
49. Centre for the Advancement of Women into Politics, “NI Assembly Election 2011.” Available
at http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/election.html (accessed 10 July 2013).
50. Karen Lysaght, “Mobilising the Rhetoric of Defence: Exploring Working-Class Masculinities
in a Divided City,” in Betitina Van Hoven and Kathrin Horschelmann, eds., Spaces of Masculinities
(London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 115–127, at p. 119.
51. Spike V. Peterson, “Political Identities: Nationalism as Heterosexism,” International Feminist
Journal of Politics 1(1) (1999), pp. 34–65.
52. Lorraine Dowler, “‘And They Think I’m a Nice Old Lady’: Women and War in Belfast,
Northern Ireland,” Gender, Place and Culture 5(2) (1998), pp. 159–176.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Feldman, Formations of Violence, pp. 176–185; see also Padraig O’Malley, Biting at the
Grave, The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990).
56. Begona Aretxaga, “Dirty Protest,” Ethos 23(2) (1995), pp. 123–148.
57. Kieran McEvoy and Harry Mika, “Punishment, Policing and Praxis: Restorative Justice
and Non-Violent Alternatives to Paramilitary Punishments in Northern Ireland,” Policing and Society
11(3–4) (2001), pp. 359–382.
58. Ibid.
59. Ken Harland, “Violent Youth Culture in Northern Ireland: Young Men, Violence and the
Challenges of Peacebuilding,” Youth & Society 43 (June) (2011), pp. 422–430.
60. Kate Fearon and Monica McWilliams, eds., The Story of the Northern Ireland Women’s
Coalition (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1999).
61. Ibid.
62. Lyndsey Harris, A Strategic Analysis of Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland (Ph.D.
Diss.: University of Ulster, 2008).
63. Ashe, “From Paramilitaries to Peacemakers.”
64. For example, Adrian Grounds and Ruth Jamieson, “No Sense of an Ending: Researching
the Experience of Imprisonment and Release Amongst Republican Ex-Prisoners,” Theoretical
Criminology 7 (2003), pp. 347–362.
65. Lorraine Dowler and Peter Shirlow, “‘Wee Women No More’: Female Partners of Republican
Political Prisoners in Belfast,” Environment and Planning A, 42(2) (2010), pp. 384–399.
66. Anne Lazenbatt, Una Lynch, and Eileen O’Neill, “Revealing the Hidden ‘Troubles’ in
Northern Ireland: The Role of Participatory Rapid Appraisal,” Health Education Research 16(5)
(2001), pp. 567–578.
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Troubling Masculinities 761
67. Ibid.
68. Jonathan Tonge, “No-One Likes Us: We Don’t Care,” Political Quarterly 83(2) (2012),
pp. 219–226.
69. Derry Journal Online, “I Hope He Listens Now: Mum Ordered to Bring Son to be Shot.”
Available at http://www.derryjournal.com/news/i-hope-he-listens-now-mum-ordered-to-bringsontobe-shot-1-3789831 (accessed 10 July 2013).
70. On sexuality see Marian Duggan, “Theorising Homophobic Hate Crime in Northern Ireland,”
papers from the British Criminology Conference, 8 (2008), pp. 33–49. Available at http://shura.
shu.ac.uk/6014/4/Duggan
theorising
homophobic.pdfhttp://shura.shu.ac.uk/6014/4/Duggan
theorising
homophobic.pdf (accessed 27 August 2013). Duggan also discusses evidence of more liberal
attitudes to sexuality by young people in Northern Ireland.
71. Goretti Horgan, “The Making of an Outsider: Growing Up in Poverty in Northern Ireland,”
Youth & Society 43(2) (2011), pp.453– 467.
72. Ken Harland and Sam McCready, “Taking Boys Seriously: A Longitudinal Study of AdolescentMale
School-Life Experiences” (2012). Available at http://www.dojni.gov.uk/index/statisticsresearch/
stats-research-publications/ad-hoc-research-reports/taking-boys-seriously-a-longitudinalstudyof-adolescent-male-school-life-experiences-in-northern-ireland-final.pdf (accessed 22 July
2013).
73. Office of the First and Deputy First Minister, “Gender Equality Statistics 2011 Update.”
Available at http://www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk/gender equality strategy statistics 2011 update.pdf
(accessed
10 July 2013).
74. Ken Harland and Susan Morgan “Work with Young Men in Northern Ireland—An Advocacy
Approach,” Youth and Policy: Journal of Critical Analysis 81(2003).
75. Ken Harland, Karen Beattie, and SamMcCready, Young Men and the Squeeze of Masculinity
(Ulster: University of Ulster Centre for Young Men’s Studies, 2005).
76. Connell, Masculinities.
77. McDowell, “Dead Men.”
78. Harland, “Violent Youth Culture.”
79. Stephen Howe, “Mad Dogs and Ulstermen: the Crisis of Loyalism: Part One.” Available
at http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-protest/loyalism 2876.jsp (accessed 10 July
2013).
80. Ken Harland, Young Men Talking: Voices from Belfast (Ulster: University of Ulster Centre
for Young Men’s Studies, 1997).
81. See Peter Shirlow, “Belfast: The ‘Post-Conflict City,”’ Space and Polity 10(2) (2006),
pp. 99–107.
82. Ken Harland, Men and Masculinity: An Ethnographic Study into the Construction of Masculine
Identities in Inner City Belfast (Ph.D. Diss.: University of Ulster, 2000).
83. Harland and McCready “Taking Boys Seriously,” p. 65.
84. Ibid., p. 66.
85. James Treadwell, Daniel Briggs, Simon Winlow, and Steve Hall, “Shopocalyse Now: Consumer
Culture and the English riots of 2011,” British Journal of Criminology 53 (2013), pp. 1–17,
at p. 3. See also Fidelma Ashe, “‘All about Eve’: Mothers, Masculinities and the 2011 UK Riots,”
Political Studies EarlyView. Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)14679248/earlyview (accessed 27 August 2013)
86. Ibid., p. 3.
87. Ibid.
88. Northern Ireland Young People’s Life and Times Survey, 2012. Available at
http://www.ark.ac.uk/ylt/2012/Identity/ (accessed 22 July 2013).
89. Ibid.
90. For further explorations of class and economic regeneration in the city see Peter Shirlow
and Brendan Murtagh, Belfast: Segregation Violence and the City (London: Pluto Press, 2006).
91. Steve Hall, “Daubing the Drudges.”
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
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94. Carolyn Jackson, Lads and Ladettes in School (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2006);
Martin Mac An Ghaill, The Making of Men: Masculinities, Sexualities and Schooling (Buckingham:
Open University Press, 1994); Carrie Paechter, Being Boys, Being Girls: Learning Masculinities and
Femininities (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2007).
95. Harland and McCready “Taking Boys Seriously,” pp. 51–53.
96. Ibid., p. 52.
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