Gender Theory Flashcards
Idealised masculine identities
Most idealised masculine identities were elite, but attention to more corporeal aspects (features of the manly body) appealed across social ranks
Nation and progress
The idealised male body came to represent abstract notions such as the strength of nation and progress- symbolised ideologies underpinning empire and various political movements.
Aspirational
Manliness as an ideal and an aspiration- Tosh and idea of cultural representation of masculinity, rather than a description of actual life.
Begiato
Poised vs. power model
Upper vs. middle-class masculinities
Reification
Manly bodies were reified as symbols: these bodies, therefore, needed to by manipulated and made over to improve men and their masculine qualities.
Working class masculinity
Working class men adapted bodily symbols of masculinity, strength and skill to construct their own masculine identities
What are Tosh’s three foundations for masculine identity
1) Work
2) Home
3) Association
Importance of all male association
All male associations are integral to any notion of patriarchy beyond the household. They embody men’s privileged access to the public sphere, whilst simultaneously reinforcing women’s confinement to household and neighbourhood.
Late 18th -> early 19thc.
Notion of the polite gentleman lost its political purchase
Socially inclusive?
Manliness as socially inclusive, but had to be earned by mastering the circumstances of life and securing the respect of one’s peers.
It lay within the grasp of every man who practised self help with single minded discipline
Importance of work
Victorian manliness was closely identified with work- work ethic deeply inscribed in middle class masculinity.
Manliness and Femininity
Manliness claimed the active virtue of men, naturalising the privilege by dwelling on their female opposites [dependence, caprice, emotionality]
Charges of effeminacy were thus damaging.
Feminine other
Victorian manliness was premised on a powerful sense of the feminine other, with each sex being defined by negative stereotypes of the other.
Common culture
Manliness as setting up a common culture: stood for those qualities which were respected by men without regard to class -> language for commending fellows across the boundaries of class.
Deal with the multiple forms of masculinity in HOC
There are multiple forms of masculinity in the House of Commons- but from this diversity we can generalise a set of characteristics that make up the common sense of the governing classes.
The shared ideas about masculinity helped to define them as a class
Hegemonic masculinity
For the Victorian period, we find that the theory of hegemonic masculinity fails to acknolwedge the multiplicity of competing sets of gender norms that circulate pre mass culture
6 features of dominant normative masculinity
- Heterosexuality
- Sexual potency
- Home and head of the family
- energy
- strenuous public activity
- state of self-mastery
Male authority …
…in the household was an essential component of masculine identity
Why were politicians reluctant to accept changes to women’s rights?
didn’t accept that their own homes should be affected -? did not think that the critiques of male behaviour which justified changes to the law applied to them.
Political legitimacy…
rested on the governing male elite’s ability to confine charges of abuse and the effects of the acts to the poor.
What did child custody reform threaten?
seen to threaten the idea of the paterfamilias/paternal identity -> crucial aspects of male identity.
HoC and sexual behaviour
Male perceptions of parliamentary politics proceeded on the assumption that there was no element of sexual desire between men who sat in the House of Commons -> a problematic assumption [‘what about the gays’]
What underpinned the heteronormative masculine ideal in parliament?
the claim that parliamentary politics was based on rational, manly debate.
What was Parliament an arena for?
the construction and performance of manly identities.
What did 1867 do to the language of the enfranchisement debate
Brought in the idea of fitness.
