I’ve been thinking a lot about masculinities lately. Especially: as I go deeper and deeper into the feminism rabbit hole, as my career winds itself around fighting gender inequities and the injustices that face women, and the entanglements of women’s and sex workers’ movements which seem to persist in existing on the defensive and counter to men’s violence (and maybe sometimes in opposition to masculinity in general). And, also: as I ponder my romantic, gender, and sexual entanglements with masculinities and try to parse WTF it all means.
There’s been a piece called Sexual Assault Prevention Tips (link goes to the Good Vibes blog, where I saw it most recently) that has been popping up a lot online in the past few weeks. The gist of it is that the number one tip for preventing assault is: don’t be a rapist.
The not so subtle subtext to this, and conversations about assault in general, is that men’s involvement is key if any of this shit is going to get solved. But what does that look like? Who are these dudes who are doing this work?
The frontier of gender, as I see it, is very much in deconstructing and radicalizing masculinities, it’s in really taking to heart the notion that “gender” doesn’t just mean women and trans-identified people. Granting, claiming and tearing apart freedom of expression and exploration within masculinities is what’s up. This is, of course, not to dismiss the bulk of the amazing work being done around gender.
And ofcourse ofcourse ofcourse there is a personal dimension to all this too. I can’t just question shit out in the world without taking it to heart (and staying up nights thinking about it). Warning: this is may get a bit jumbled.
Experimenting with my body and self inside masculinity has definitely been a part of my gender and sexuality coming of age, in which I had to answer the age-old question of attraction/fascination: do I want be this or fuck this? My answer, mostly, is that I want to fuck people who wear masculinities. But I also look fondly on my years of baby butchness, and I won’t rule out the possibility that my gender could swing back in that direction (is it even a pendulum swing? are these things so different?). The thing that’s taken me until very recently to get is that there is a big difference between compulsory gender and intentionalities around gender – ok, writing that out it seems obvious, and I have been connected to that as a reality for feminists and those who tangle with femininities. But for some reason (sexism alert?) I haven’t looked at masculinity in the same way.
My longterm relationships have all been with cis men with varying kinds of struggles with their relationship to masculinity. As I write that I realize that actually, struggles with societal expectations – whether gender or something else – are hallmarks of thinking people, the kind of people I surround myself with. So that little turn of phrase about in the first sentence of this paragraph is maybe a little unfair or overblown; this struggle should be inherent in the quest for identity. Anyway. In my early dating and sexual relationships as a teenager, I was keen on older dudes with toughguy aesthetics, guys who were ultimately abusive and kind of evil. Immediately following that and for the years until my most recent now-ex, the biodudes I fell for certainly had a lot of feminine attributes – their form of rejection of tough dude stereotypes, and my attraction to them was certainly couched in the not-so-conscious but very real assumption that femininity couldn’t hurt me. At the very least, I hoped that more feminine biomen wouldn’t hit me (they didn’t) and if they tried I could probably do some ass-kicking of my own. But like the women (cis and trans) I’ve been with over the years, they found other ways to be hurtful and sometimes even abusive. In this way, I mistaken ascribed symbiosis between dick and masculine presentation as physically/emotionally dangerous, and feminine presentation worn by any sex as safe. Sexism, assumptions about what power looks like, gender essentialism abound.
I’ve been staring at the cursor for a few minutes, thinking to myself: go go big stunning takeaway! Er, that’s not happening. I haven’t sorted all this out yet for my own personal self, but I feel like I’ve got a better picture of the political and intellectual agitating around masculinities. And that’s awesome; but also, it’s important to keep stirring the pot and bringing those thoughts home for myself and my own consideration, thinking about how this manifests in my own heart and mind. It’s all process. That’s fine and dandy.
And really – this personal dimension links in hard with a critical analysis of power. Which is something that I’ve been thinking about a whole hell of a lot over the past few months, especially as a result of my work in India. What does it mean to have power in the world? How can I build leadership and community support skills while recognizing and deconstructing power? How can I embed the deconstruction of power in my practice of being and doing my work? And what can I learn from the ways that masculine identities are managed and abused with respect to power?
Also: to neatly tie this in with an event I’m doing in NYC… this Friday, October 16 I’m going to be reading a short piece and participating in a panel discussion on Feminist Sex at Bluestockings bookstore. The event is at 7 pm, 172 Allen Street. The panel was put together by Shira Tarrant, who wrote a book called Men and Feminism and will be hosting/moderating/participating. I’ll also be on the panel with two folks I really admire, Sinclair Sexsmith and Abiola Abrams, so I bet it’ll be lively.
Other stuff you should be reading and checking out on the subject of masculinities:
- • The very awesome projects of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a South African organization that works with men to counter inequality and gender based violence.
- • Sinclair Sexsmith has a new monthly column at Carnal Nation called A Manifesto for Radical Masculinity. From the ending of the first installment: “Radical masculinity is a way to present, perform, play with, celebrate, and liberate masculinity, in thousands of multi-dimensional expressions. It is still being created, recreated, formed, and reformed, and I want to be a part of its ongoing evolution.”
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• There’s also a very very new blog called Critical Masculinities that I’m planning on keeping an eye on.
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• If you know students in grades 6-12 in New York City, NY; the Rio Grande Valley, TX; and Cleveland, OH – check out the Scenarios USA “What’s the REAL DEAL about Masculinity?” writing contest.
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• Though he doesn’t only write about masculinities, Danny of Sex, Art, and Politics is fascinating and critical in intriguing ways.
12:22 pm
Mebbe at this to the mix:
A couple of years ago I was listening to NPR and there was a fellow on flogging his book about Title 9. Most the most memorable thing he said was that aggression was neither good or bad; and then he gave some examples of pro-social, a-social and anti-social aggressive behavior.
His broad thesis was that Title 9 gave girls an opportunity to learn to channel their aggression (which is traditionally supressed/sublimated) in a pro-social manner; with the proviso that educators, and often the girls themselves are often caught off-guard by girls and young women being anti-socially aggressive.
His analysis resonated with me, and also gave me a better understanding of my relationship with my own agression, which like my sexuality, had (previously) felt somewhat under assault by the campus feminism of the 1980s.
Yeah, I know, privilage and all that. I don’t mean to dismiss it with a handwave. I get it, it’s real. Everyday is a new opportunity how much my view of the world and my place in it is – in large measure – a product of my place in the world.
But what I’m talking about this that I know, deep down in my gut, that the way that I desire women is not predatory. Deep down in my gut I know that penetration is not rape.
Similarly, I know that my enjoyment of sports, competition, risk and other “macho” activities does not make me fratboy dickhead (or whatever other machismo icon you wish like.) In fact, my aggression, my ease with conflict, is has been the well-spring that I’ve drawn on to fight for what I believe in.
That’s the crux of a lot of the confusion I see in men today; not knowing how to reckon with fact of their privilege without giving up their birthright to revel in the testosterone that pumps through their blood.
9:17 pm
It’s interesting you wrote about “biomen”. It got me thinking. I often, often wonder about how transmen deal with their masculinity, knowing what life is like as a woman, and wether, when they transition, they leave all that behind as “them not me”, and begin life anew as “one of the guys”.
I don’t believe in “masculinity”, other than what as a ciswoman I want to fuck. It’s just a list of physical things. Definitely not psychological. Mentally and emotionally I prefer men to be submissive, appreciative, in awe of my superior intelligence, education and abilities. It’s just a turn-on to know they know their place.
12:09 pm
Well, there goes my helpful comment… I was thinking of Sinclair’s article after I started, but you went ahead and linked it for me
To respond to Dominique a little, as a trans male* (but not necessarily “man”, genderwise) it’s definitely interesting to observe how other people’s perceptions of me and my gender/sexuality have changed with the change in my perceived sex. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is the loss of being visibly queer…
I’m really interested in critically looking at masculinities… I’m thrilled to see different people starting the conversation.
*I think the space after “trans” is important… it’s the difference between “trans” being an adjective (out of many), vs “transman” being an “other” category of being. I think “bio” as a prefix is problematic, too, but… meh, whole nother rant.
8:32 pm
I agree that addressing men and masculintiy, creating positive discussions around gender relations and power is critically important, and something of a frontier. Broadly speaking in my social and cultural comunities I see a huge lack of positive masculine identities, and certainly none that represent any form of hegemony. Feminist engagement with masculinities is important in broadening the range of normative masculine expressions, so hopefully we all keep talking about it.
8:28 am
It’s only new, but Spunk magazine, in Australia, had an incredible first issue on masculinites which I encourage all and sundry to work at getting their hands on: it looked at indigenous masculinities, trans masculinities, how to be masculine and feminist, how to take issue with the sexist ‘gaystream’ as well as the sexist mainstream. Less about answers, and more about thinking about how and why and when masculinity is done otherwise. Stunning, if you ask me (and I teach on this stuff, so I’ve thought about it a lot). Find more info at http://www.showusyourspunk.com
3:34 pm
Dacia,
I’m glad that you brought up the issue of masculinity. It seems that traditionally feminism does associate masculinity with negativity, and recently the conservatives are pushing their version of masculinity. Frankly, the conservatives with their whole “a man needs an assigned dominant societal gender role in order to feel like a man” sound weak. It sounds like they’re building being intimidated by women right into. I’d like to distance myself from that as much as possible.
I don’t really struggle with my masculinity. I totally revel in a mix of my masculinity and my machismo. I separate the two because one is a biological privilege where I get to be bigger, thicker, stronger,and more durable just due to my genetics and hormones. Compared to many women I have super powers. Of course, everyone knows that with great power comes great responsibility. Abuse of that power is all the more despicable.
Machismo is another thing that I revel in as a tool for dealing with things, but unless it’s fueled by testosterone, I don’t think that it’s inherently exclusive to males. My girlfriend has more machismo than many guys I know. Overall, some may define it differently, but I generally see it as the process of shunting things to “too tough to care.” You can use it for pain, injuries that don’t require medical attention, discomfort, inconvenience, and attempts to hurt one’s feelings. It only works on emotions so long as you’re not in a relationship in which you do intrinsically care, but for things like that and injuries that do require medical attention there’s always “no problem I’ll heal someday.” The point is that I see machismo as a way to put things in perspective and not sweat the small stuff in life. Oh yeah, and stuff shouldn’t be able to offend my sense of machismo, otherwise it’s not working right.
I think that I see my masculine identity as my privilege to stagger through life without worrying about getting hurt. I don’t need layers of protection, I don’t need a facade. I can take risks with myself and care about people, knowing that if I do manage to get hurt I can heal. If you can fully enjoy the good parts of life and not worry about some of the less pleasant parts I think that it makes life more enjoyable. What’s more you get to take people along on that ride. It’s like offering someone a hand when climbing down a steep hill or climbing up a rocky slope, you get to share what you have with others so long as you watch out for them.
I think that I’ve romanticized some masculine ideals of ruggedness and strength, but so long as the impact seems to be positive I think it’s pretty awesome. I don’t think that you should have to make a choice between rugged and nonthreatening. You should be able to have a big burly guy who you know won’t hurt you and respects you for the person that you are. That is if the tough and rugged thing is what you’re into.
Again, thanks for bringing this up.
6:03 pm
[...] to irregular Internet access. Today, I managed to catch up with some of my blogroll and saw that Audacia Ray recently posted some thoughts about masculinity, including excellent links to various new frontiers in the masculinity conversation. Looks like the [...]
7:21 pm
National Organization for Men Against Sexism
http://www.nomas.org/
“pro-feminist, gay affirmative, anti-racist, enhancing men’s lives”
XY Online
http://www.xyonline.net/
“men, masculinities and gender politics”
8:40 pm
Glad this is idea is getting out. Men are the solution – obviously, since they are the perpetrators. And it’s not anti-masculine to call them out on it. Just as women raised each other’s conciousnesses, so can men. They just have to say “It’s not right. It’s not funny. It’s not cool at all” to objectify women or take your anger and rage out on them, in person, in video games, in the media, etc.
I thought it would be a simple thing, and raised this point with my women-studies enlightened boyfriend. Of course he agrees, but getting men to talk about hate, objectification and violence against women makes him very uncomfortable. He did NOT understand at all. I’m still working on it with him.
12:20 am
I agree that masculinity as presently socially constructed has serious problems – not to mention it can be a very constraining straitjacket for men to fit into.
With that said, I think it would be really useful to have this conversation in plain ordinary English, instead of obscure and obtuse gender studies academic jargon.
I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent and well read person but, quite frankly, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of about half of this article – I wish bablefish translated Gender Studiesese into English, cause I could have used it!
If you want to get ordinary men – including the 70% of American men who are NOT college graduates – to abandon the rigidity of traditional masculinity, it would help if you could have that conversation with them in plain ordinary English!
9:42 am
Please check out theorizingmasculinity.blogspot.com — it’s a collective class blog from Theories of Masculinity students enrolled at the University of Central Florida (I’m one of ‘em). We also use a lot of Shira Tarrant’s texts (mainly her edited Men Speak Out, which is one of a very few of its kind).
I plan to pass your blog along to the other students as well.
10:54 am
It’s a good post overall, nicely exploring the concepts of masculinity and especially how people wrongfully assume femininity is somehow safer to be around.
And I really have to say that I like that statement about how struggling with the expectations of society is a necessity. I really feel like that is true. At the very least people should self analyze and figure out what feels comfortable, where the expectations are coming from and if it fits them truly and then what to do about it.
That said, I’ve only got one issue.
There’s a lot of othering and cissexist (as well as a little bit of binarist) language in here (mostly unrelated to your point regarding masculinity, just in the peripheral zones.) When you list off gender as men, women, and trans folk, you erase the trans folk who are women and the ones who are men and third gender them (which is degendering and misgendered. It’s also othering). You also mildly erase nonbinaries (people who id as no gender or as a mixture and possess gender dysphoria).
The best way to do list offs is women and men (cis or trans) and nonbinaries. In the case of your sentence, it would be best put as “women (cis or trans), trans guys and nonbinaries” since you were mostly describing cissexual (if not also cisgendered) men.
Also, the word bio man, bio woman is fairly othering as well. The whole reason why the word cis was devised was to replace words like “normal”, “real”, “bio”, “natal”, “genetic” and etcetera, all words that imply that trans folk are somehow less their gender in the society we live in currently (whether that was the speaker’s intent or not).
Cissexual is someone who is in no way transitioning and doesn’t want to, so this would replace the word bio woman up there. Cisgendered is someone with no misalignment between body and mind, so this allows one to make the distinction between someone who has remained in their birth set up but still doesn’t ID as so and so and someone who has both remained and ID’s with their body too.
That’s all on that front from me.
11:26 am
@recursiveparadox – This: **The best way to do list offs is women and men (cis or trans) and nonbinaries. In the case of your sentence, it would be best put as “women (cis or trans), trans guys and nonbinaries”** is SUPER helpful. Thank you.
However, I also want to give a nod to Gregory A. Butler’s comment a few above yours. I think language is a really significant tool in deconstructing and reconstructing gender, but his point is well-taken. For instance, my students at Rutgers get really lost with any discussion using the prefix cis- Obviously learning is a process, but how do we make this process accessible and inviting to those who sincerely want to engage but might find the nuances of you comment to be kind of frightening?
12:08 pm
It’s not actually that tough or frightening, Audacia Ray.
Don’t use “women” in a way that implicitly excludes trans women. Ditto for “men” with trans men. That’s what RP means about third-gendering, this idea that there’s “women” here and *then* there’s trans people over here and never the twain shall meet.
And that trans people are not “biologically” their sex, something implied by the biowoman term – that’s cissexism 101 (as though biology were this fixed thing assigned at birth that is never in any way variable).
Once you’ve got that inclusive language down, then use “cis” to distinguish between trans and cis people *only when relevant*.
For example: “cis people may marry in the State of Kansas, trans people may not legally marry anyone.”
2:13 pm
Expanding on what Emily said it really is fairly simple to educate mid post on the basics.
Often what I do is include a small primer in any post in which it’s relevant (along with links to the more comprehensive 101 or what I call “For The Uninformed” posts on my blog). This primer can be a few sentences long and all it has to do is introduce the concept of cis and trans, as well as bring up the idea that not everyone fits into man or woman.
And then you’re free to write in that terminology without issue.
The way I presented my suggestion is also fairly effective at allowing meanings to be inferred. For instance the sentence, “Today we’re discussing sex activity hypocrisies in society and women (cis or trans).” very clearly denotes that cis and trans are categories of woman. And the non inclusive or shows fairly clearly that they are opposites of some kind. Provided the person in question is at least mildly versed in fairly 101 critical thinking (this wasn’t sarcastic either, some schools seriously don’t go over crit thinking, it’s awful) they can conclude from their knowledge of what trans is to determine that cis is not trans and that we’re discussing women who are both trans and not trans.
For those that don’t have a background in that kind of classwork or for whatever other reason would have a hard time pulling the meaning, the primers are excellent for getting them on board. I often put the primer right before I start using the word (with the link to the 101/for the uninformed post connected to it) so that it’s fresh in their minds when they see it.
I especially like this method because it teaches sneakily. So suddenly, they’ve learned something, whether they wanted to or not. It’s also perfectly viable in person. I often segue into things with cis or trans in it by describing what cis means first in person as well. A just in case method.
And like Emily said, once you’ve got the primer established and the context established (because our society will assume cis women only when they hear women unless you establish proper context) you can pretty much just default back to saying the word woman, and cis and trans women will be included in it for your readers.
3:51 pm
I encourage you to also check out masc mag at http://www.mascmag.com/
7:37 pm
You linked to an article containing tips on how to reduce the incidence of sexual assault. On that same theme, does anyone know how often men accused of sexual assault are actually convicted? It’s actually quite a low number, depending on the country where you live. I found the following study on the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. It surveyed 8 countries around the world which kept track of various crimes, but I dug up the rates of conviction for rape and sexual assault and posted them here.
Why do you think that rape conviction rates are so low?
“Cross-National Studies in Crime and Justice” (Sept. 2004)
Authors: David Farrington, Patrick Langan, Michael Tonry
Bureau of Justice Statistics (United States Federal Department of Justice)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cnscj.pdf
Jurisdictions surveyed were:
1. England (and Wales)
2. Scotland
3. United States
4. Australia
5. Canada
6. Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. Switzerland
They chose the above countries because of the extensive amount of reliable crime data available there at either the federal or provincial level.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
CONVICTION RATES FOR RAPE:
England/Wales:
Conviction rate: <3%
Source: p. 30, figure 4e
Scotland:
Conviction rate: 2%
Source: p. 226, figure 3e
USA:
Conviction rate: 15%
Source: p. 73, figure 5e
Australia:
Conviction rate: 7%
Source: p. 111, figure 5e
Canada:
Conviction rate: 13%
Source: p. 157, figure 3e
Netherlands:
Conviction rate: 5%
Source: p. 190, figure 3e
Sweden:
Conviction rate: <2%
Source: p. 259, appendix table 3
Switzerland:
Conviction rate: 3%
Source: p. 277, figure 4e
2:42 am
I lovelovelove when feminists explore masulinities, and loved reading about some of your exploration. As others have done, might I recommend to you (and anybody reading comments) that they check out the videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MensStoryProject. This project (which–full disclosure–I was a part of) was created as a safe space for men of various flavors to talk about masculinities. These are true, personal stories being told, with a wide swath of experiences being brought into the light (and the swath gets wider as the project continued).
J
5:23 pm
[...] women who were raped – did they deserve it? I believe the best way to prevent rape is to teach men not be rapists, yet this is rarely included in discussion about women’s [...]