Men and Masculinity Flashcards
1
Q
What are three approaches manhood has been looked at?
A
- Focuses on cultural codes that informed how men should be men as they lived their lives in different periods
- Looking at masculinity as detached from male bodies
- Raising questions about the emotional lives of make historical actors and how cultural constructs of masculinity have been lived
2
Q
How does Rose see the study of men and masculinity as significant in the contribution of gender history?
A
- It brought about the study of history writing that didn’t just focus on men within political, economic and social activities. Instead focused on them as gendered beings.
- Only women were understood to be embodied
3
Q
What did Michael Kimmel say about people in power?
A
- He emphasised those in power or elevated in social positions are invisible to themselves as specifically constituted groups.
- They see themselves as normal and unmarked universal though they are relative to social standing
4
Q
Why does Rose say historians look at maleness and norms of masculinity?
A
- To understand how it influences both men and women’s lives
- They aim to expose activities of men as men to analyse whether how the diverse meanings of masculinity etc have been implicated in a variety of kinds of regimes
5
Q
How was the term masculinity used differently in the 19th century to the 20th century?
A
- 19th century American English the term masculine was used to differentiate between things pertaining to men verses women e.g. masculine clothing vs feminine
- 20th century, masculinity came into use and would later have specific different meaning to how manhood had been understood earlier
6
Q
How have scholars looked at social construction in terms of masculinity?
A
- They look at how social construction and experience of being a male have influenced men’s identities and their activities and hoe it has differed across cultured, groups and time
- They insist there is never one way to be a man so say masculinities rather than masculinity
7
Q
What does Rose think suggests that masculinity is an unstable formation?
A
- The changing is the meaning of manliness
- The traits that men are supposed to exhibit at a single point
- The fact that there may be alternative versions of ideal manhood that coexist
8
Q
What does John Tosh argue about Manliness?
A
- That manliness in the 19th century was only secondarily about relations with women
- Instead manliness was about the inner character of a man and the kind of behaviour which displayed this character in the world at large
9
Q
What did Tosh say about the Victorian Male?
A
- Looks at 1830-next century
- His central theme is that domesticity became crucial to the middle class male life.
- That males became engages in the tending of home and engage with rearing children, representing a shift from patriarchal homestead of 16/17th century England
- Home became idealised
- He argues that the Victorian men split between home and work, there was a shift not abandoning work but including domesticity too
- Domesticity and traditional notion of masculinity didn’t always fit together. Marriage involved companionship on shared value, interests and love.
- 1860-70s saw debates on the appropriateness of men’s domesticity, especially with the rise of feminism threatening men’s power
- End of 19th century was a growth in all-male associations and domesticated masculinity came under attack
- He had the idea of Flight from Domesticity - both the family histories and public discourses about marriage he examined showed that showed that ‘the contradictions which had always been inherent in masculine domesticity had by the end of the century come into the open’
10
Q
What did Mark Francis say about Tosh’s work on masculinity?
A
- Male response to domesticity was always complex through 19th and 20th century
- Men had constantly been travelling back and forward across domesticity, even if only in their imagination. They’d been attracted by marriage and father hood but also homosocial camaraderie
- He also says that people being appalled at loss of life which had cause re-domestication of masculinity was wrong. Men continued to travel back and forward
11
Q
What did Mark Francis use RAF pilot and members of the bomb crew letters to show?
A
- He used these first person accounts during ww2 to show that domestic worlds for men were of significance, especially with their families living close to airbases
- Also shows the significance of love and anticipated marriage for men as looked forward to a post-war future
12
Q
What is lots of work on masculine gender focused on and how is it changing?
A
- Lots focuses on the codes or ideals of masculinity, political discourses and cultural prescriptions
- Recently this has been challenged by historians concerned with men’s subjectivities e.g. Michael Roper
12
Q
What does Michael Roper do with letters in WW1?
A
- He analysis letter by regimental officers to their mothers and focuses on the psychological states as they veered between the mother centred existence of their early years and precepts of manliness associated with school and the military
14
Q
What does Michael Roper argue letters written to and from mothers during ww1 shows?
A
- They provide evidence of the emotional consequences of trench warfare and the significance of family relationships to men on the battlefield
15
Q
How did Sociologist Connell influence historians?
A
- Influenced them to use the term ‘hegemonic’ to refer to dominant cultural constructions - the normative dominant code of masculine attributes
- Also got them to question how men were viewed: hegemonic as natural and permanent
