Gender Theory

Question 1

Idealised masculine identities

Answer 1

Most idealised masculine identities were elite, but attention to more corporeal aspects (features of the manly body) appealed across social ranks

Question 2

Nation and progress

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Aspirational

Answer 3

Manliness as an ideal and an aspiration- Tosh and idea of cultural representation of masculinity, rather than a description of actual life.

Question 4

Begiato

Answer 4

Poised vs. power model

Upper vs. middle-class masculinities

Question 5

Reification

Answer 5

Manly bodies were reified as symbols: these bodies, therefore, needed to by manipulated and made over to improve men and their masculine qualities.

Question 6

Working class masculinity

Answer 6

Working class men adapted bodily symbols of masculinity, strength and skill to construct their own masculine identities

Question 7

What are Tosh’s three foundations for masculine identity

Answer 7

1) Work
2) Home
3) Association

Question 8

Importance of all male association

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Late 18th -> early 19thc.

Answer 9

Notion of the polite gentleman lost its political purchase

Question 10

Socially inclusive?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Importance of work

Answer 11

Victorian manliness was closely identified with work- work ethic deeply inscribed in middle class masculinity.

Question 12

Manliness and Femininity

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Feminine other

Answer 13

Victorian manliness was premised on a powerful sense of the feminine other, with each sex being defined by negative stereotypes of the other.

Question 14

Common culture

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Deal with the multiple forms of masculinity in HOC

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Hegemonic masculinity

Answer 16

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

Question 17

6 features of dominant normative masculinity

Answer 17

• Heterosexuality
• Sexual potency
• Home and head of the family
• energy
• strenuous public activity
• state of self-mastery

Question 18

Male authority …

Answer 18

…in the household was an essential component of masculine identity

Question 19

Why were politicians reluctant to accept changes to women’s rights?

Answer 19

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.

Question 20

Political legitimacy…

Answer 20

rested on the governing male elite’s ability to confine charges of abuse and the effects of the acts to the poor.

Question 21

What did child custody reform threaten?

Answer 21

seen to threaten the idea of the paterfamilias/paternal identity -> crucial aspects of male identity.

Question 22

HoC and sexual behaviour

Answer 22

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’]

Question 23

What underpinned the heteronormative masculine ideal in parliament?

Answer 23

the claim that parliamentary politics was based on rational, manly debate.

Question 24

What was Parliament an arena for?

Answer 24

the construction and performance of manly identities.

Question 25

What did 1867 do to the language of the enfranchisement debate

Answer 25

Brought in the idea of fitness.