Understanding Masculinity

Author(s): Radhika Chopra, Chaitali Dasgupta and Mandeep K. Janeja

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , May 6-12, 2000, Vol. 35, No. 19 (May 6-12,
2000), pp. 1607-1609
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4409257

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 Understanding Masculinity
Among castes such as Bharvads, mar-
riages occur in cycles of five to seven
years; drought creates bachelors because
people refuse to give daughters to the
Bringing men into the scope of gender studies was an aim of a drought-prone village. Thus ecology and
recent workshop. The discussions rendered obsolete the myth of a marriage structures result in a complex
coexistence of homosexual and hetero-
unitary, homogenised masculinity which is only an opposite of sexual relations of safe and unsafe sexual
feminity. Such studies help involve men in women's empowerment. practices in the lives of Bharvad men.
Changes in landownership patterns also
RADmIKA C CHA, C TALI workshop 'Male Reproduction and Sexu-has implications for the notions of mas-
DASGUPTA, MANDEEP K JANEJA ality in South Asia', organised by the India culinity among men of various castes. The
Internmaonal Centre, New Delhi on March 18,loss of land by the Darbars limited their
T ehe question of understanding and 2000. Theworkshopsoughttobring togetheraccess to Vankarwomen and was viewed as
mapping masculinity has become scholars and professionals engaged in thea 'weakening' of their masculinity. Illus-
increasingly significant in gender emergent field of gender and masculinitytrating his argument through individual
studies. Three major developments have from different disciplinary paradigms andbiographies, Coutinho argued that mascu-
generated this interest. The primary thrust initiate and create an ongoing dialogue linity needs to be viewed simultaneously
has come from the particular historical between them. Fourpapers were presented, as part of personal narrative and located
conjunction of feminist studies with femi- and two documentary films screened. in wider structures of political economy.
nist politics introducing the theory of mar- Lester, Coutinho of the Health Policy In sharp contrast, Shaleen Rakesh who
ginal, 'subaltern genders' that produced Research Unit at the Institute of Economic coordinates the Men Who Have Sex with
gay and lesbian studies. This trajectory Growth presented a paper titled 'Ecology,Men (MSM) Project at the NAZ Founda-
broke with the assumption of masculinity Kinship, Caste and Sexuality: Towardtion, shifted the discussion from political
as a given structure of power, proposing Locating Masculinity in a Cultural Land-economy to the domains of pleasure and
'powerless masculinities' as crucial for scape'. Coutinho located masculinities andsexual behaviour. One of the central con-
understanding gendered worlds. risk behaviour without the filter of HIV/ cerns of his paper 'Cruising through
The second imperative has been the AIDS, arguing that the trajectory of epi-Masculinity' was to outline the ways men
discourse around HIV/AIDS. The ques- demiological studies has fixed the loca- think about sexual pleasure and sexual
tions that arose from the patterns of the tion of high risk sexual behaviour in a wayrelations. Most men make a distinction
spread of the disease among all-male groups that unproblematically telescopes mascu- between sexual pleasure on the one hand
prompted researchers to question their line sexuality and the occurrence of disease.and masculinity as a role, on the other. The
assumptions of heterosexuality as a coher- Drawing from his fieldwork, conducted interesting connection made through
ent orientation that defined and 'fixed' in a coastal multi-caste and multi-tribe Shaleen's paper was with feminist stud-
male sexuality. Men and men-in-groups village of western and southern Gujarat,ies, which have made a distinction be-
became the focus of an epidemiological through 1993-95, Coutinho looked at the tween reproduction and sexuality; Shaleen
gaze and while this produced a 'pathologi- gaps in anthropological knowledge of brought forward these issues to frame an
cal' understanding of masculinity, it was manhood, manliness, male identity, maleunderstanding of masculine sexuality as
nevertheless an extremely important step sexuality and male roles arguing that thesewell. For example, men talk of 'masti',
into new directions in gender research. are extremely fluid concepts with specific uneasily translated as sexual play/playful-
The third thrust can be located in the histories, locations in particular power ness, as having no deep repercussions on
relation between academics and activists. structures and distinctive cultural land- their lives. Masti is essentially constructed
While womens' studies 'uncovered' the scapes. Starting from an assumption of as recreational, not 'real' sex. However,
powerless situation of women, identifyingplural masculinities and using the framethe moment sex enters the domains of
them as the first 'subaltern gender', ac- of radical pluralism, he suggested certain reproduction it is equated with positions
tivists and policy-makers concerned withbreaks with assumed knowledge of mas- of penetration and being penetrated put-
issues of women's empowerment workedculinity. His first break was with HIV ting the whole issue of masculinity. as a
to redress this subaltemity (through micro-studies which have framed men as either subject position at stake. This is of par-
credit, or making reproductive health'gay' or 'straight'. Instead, he suggestedticular significance within MSM relations,
services accessible, for example). Config-that the gay/straight divide is fluid, both where the oppositional episteme of active
uring empowerment and redressing power-within communities and also within indi- and passive that structures relations be-
lessness have together bred a view thatvidual biographies. Secondly, and impor- tween genders are recreated within the gay
gender sensitive policy cannot exclude the tantly, he suggests that this fluidity cannot community. Within the politics of pene-
involvement of men from the strategies ofbe traced exclusively through discourses tration the 'giriya' or the active, penetra-
empowering women. How men's involve-of desire and pleasure but needs to be tive partner of the gay dyad is positioned
ment is to be encouraged requires a better related to issues of political economy. as more masculine than the 'koti' who is
understanding of how men view them-Thus conditions of drought, changes in feminised as the penetrated. However, the
selves, in relation with women and in forest ecology, and the loss of land have transgendered koti community is bisexual
relation with other men. implications for the construction of mas- and it is their sexual relations that reopen
Bringing men into the frame was oneculinity and the local histories and narra- the question of fluid sexualities raised in
of the major imperatives behind thetives of emasculation. Coutinho paper.

Economic and Political Weekly May 6, 2000 1607

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 The other issue was the display of molestation, between genders; within the
one, elongated over time and not achieved
masculinity as a public performance to at once. A combination of bodily alter-
group however, the gesture is a way of
establish proof of being male. Gay men establishing each boy as being the same
ations and cultural markers tie up the boy/
downplay any visible markers of gay sexual son in various ways so that the set of as the other. The gesture crafts a different
orientation and adopt an 'armour of ex- practices that make up the masculine self sense of the body, a body experienced as
cess': styles of machismo and hyper- sexualised but also mocking the possible
are dispersed over time, space and cultural
masculine images created by the media, inscription. Learning masculinity is not a
attainment of that sexuality and therefore
are internalised by men and work to dis- linear process and goes through mutations incomplete. While these modes exist si-
guise shared intimacies between them. multaneously, they also craft themselves
that are cross-cut by elements of age, caste,
The conditions of gay existence in India gender and work relations through pro- against each other, so that masculinity is
working within enduring gender paradigms cesses where masculinity is constantly understood not only in oppositional rela-
enable men to live double sexual lives, learned, constructed and confirmed. tions of men vis-a-vis women, but as men
presenting the issue of bisexuality as a grey vis-a-vis other males.
While learning hard work is an idiom
area within the politics of male sexuality. in the hierarchic mode of 'producing' Two documentary films were screened,
followed by a discussion by Ravi
It is exactly this 'enabling' of dual sexu- maleness, the son, in contrast to his father,
alities, however, that also cause immense needs to assert his masculinity fiercely andVasudevan who commented on them and
anxiety and dissonance in the construc- the context of this assertion is the 'gang' 'opened' them toward larger issues of
tions of the masculine self. One of the mostin the street. The street is an open-ended representations of masculinity in popular
interesting aspects of the paper addressed space, exterior to both home and field, freecinema. The documentaries were Rahul
itself to 'men's talk' of sexual health and of supervisory authority, where boys are Roy's 'When Four Friends Meet...' and
affirmation of masculinity. Anatomy plays Farjad Nabi's film from Pakistan 'Yeh Hui
said to indulge in 'shaitani' ordevilry. This
a crucial role in defining and providing makes the street a highly gendered space, Na Mardon Vali Baat'. Both films are part
bodily proof to men of their masculinity. closed to women, making it a world that of the south Asian Masculinities film
The body thus became a double edged site is only partially known, oscillating be- project 'Let's Talk Men' funded by Save
creating both anxiety and affirmation of tween being veiled and visible. Chopra the Children(UK) and UNICEF.
masculine identity. contrasts this space and all-male fragmentRavi Vasudevan's paper 'Film Forms
Given the south Asian 'location' of the to the hierarchic one, tentatively suggest-and Masculinity' dwelt on questions of
workshop one of the most interesting ing this as the egalitarian mode, whose performativity, modes of representation
aspects of the paper was the way specific contours can be partially known through and the relation between performance and
aspects of an Indian sexuality were brought a language of gestures. Thus the gesture spectatorship. While he saw Farjad Nabi's
into play in the discussion around shameof grabbing the genitals, as one of a series film as an interesting tapestry of testi-
and guilt. Guilt was not the mirror in whichenacted between the boys within the gang, mony, installing and investigating the
gay men viewed their identities; instead while
it mimetically replicating the gesture relationship between gendered perspec-
is existing structures of shame and honour of molestation directed toward women,tives and social locations, he focused
that put gay mnen and gay identities in primarily on Roy's film because it pro-
also reverses it. The gesture is an inversion
'purdah'. of the power relations that exist through vided him a frame to discuss the way
Radhika Chopra's 'Knowing Men: An
Ethnographer's Dilemma' spoke of the
different modes of being and becoming
male. Drawing on her fieldwork in rural
Punjab, Chopra suggested that it was not JUST PUBLISHED
possiblh to speak of a male world; there
Chattopadhyay, B-Crime and Control in Early Colonial Bengal 1770-1860,20
are instead fragments through and within Pp. 215, Tables, ISBN 81-7074-227-7 Rs. 380.00
which the practices of being and becoming This book explores the interface between crime and control in early c
male are differently mapped and the pro- Bengal. Set in the context of a violent countryside in the twilight of Nawabi B
cess of 'knowing' these fragments is highly initially examines the compulsions behind the introduction of colonial police
gendered. region by Lord Cornwallis in 1793.
She chose to outline the contours of two Ray, Bharati (ed.)-Women and Politics: France, India and Russia. 2000, Pp
ISBN 81-7074-224-2 Rs. 350.00
such fragments - the hierarchic and the This volume is based on the papers p
egalitarian - within which the modes of February 1995, jointly sponsored by the
being male are differently articulated. The Women's Studies Research Centre, Univer
father-son relation is the paradigmatic form Studies, Jadavpur University.
that defines the hierarchic mode. How- Basu, S & Das, S (eds.)-Electoral Politi
ever, in agrarian Punjab it is also a 'real'
Figs., ISBN 81-7074-223-4 Rs. 400.00
This volume draws together studies by internationally
relation where it becomes incumbent upon
national, provincial and local elections in India, Pakistan, Ba
the father to teach his son to become a man
will hopefully contribute to the development of a comparati
with an idealised, hardened, labouringfor understanding contemporary South Asian politics
body. In the field, the son leams to sac- K P BAGCHI & COMPANY
rifice his body to 'mazdoori', labour, which 286, B. B. Ganguli Street, Calcutta : 700 012
in turn hardens and roughens this body. Telefax : 2369496; E-mail: kpbagch@hotmail.co
The pr,cess of becoming male is a fluid

1608 Economic and Political Weekly May 6, 2000

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masculinity inhabits different spaces and real to the register of the consciously sions highlighted the disparate concerns
how these spaces come to be represented configured elements, realist 'types' who that centre around issues of masculinity
in cinematic styles. 'stand for' the masculine. The all-male and sought to draw some links between
Vasudevan made a distinction between group then becomes an 'ensemble' within the diverse terrains covered by the papers.
the intimist mode and the public orbits which of masculinity is dispersed and Some questions addressed themselves to
expressing individual male identity in hierarchised through roles or characters the spaces/arenas of the performance of
documentary film, placing Roy's film in like the 'jock' or the 'sensitive' boy and
masculinity questioning their primarily
the former and Anand Patwardhan's 'Ram so on. Here it is the female voices who 'public' nature. In this regard, the space
ke Nam' and 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost'stand for the moral realm, and nudge fo thethe women, and therefore the role of
in the latter. It is the register of the every-male subject to rethink himself. critical female figures, like the mother, in
day that is the terrain for the intimist mode, Vasudevan then shifted to a discussion shaping masculinity were brought forward.
while it is the large, public, political event of entertainment cinema in which the In contrast, the way a boy is 'shaped' into
that informs the latter. Crucially the everyday is scaled up and the hero put
a man by other men - whether located in
movement of gendered identity in Roy's together from different elements of this the family or in fraternal worlds of friend-
film is between the four individual narra- ship or work spaces need closer attention.
everyday. The spectator is invited to make
tives punctuated by moments of the all- an empathetic or symbolic identification A pivotal set of questions focused around
male 'friendship' group. Masculine iden- with these hyperheroes. Vasudevan looked 'idealised' masculinity of hegemonic and
tity is represented as a slide between the at three contemporary actors - Govinda, folk idioms and 'ideal' male bodies par-
individual tellings and the group's reflec- Amir Khan and Kamal Hasan - who pose ticularly vis-a-vis those that are in the
tions through memorialising shared expe- alternative and non-coherent masculine process of 'becoming' male. How do we
riences of power and powerlessness, of the identities. Govinda for example is not a
view these incomplete masculinities and
uncertainties of everyday existence in the straightforward hero and reorganises how do we then map and theorise their
face of police brutality or unemployment. masculine tropes inviting the audience positions
to within male worlds? The process
The question of defining the masculine mock a regulation masculinity. of 'proving' masculinity was taken up with
self is not a single construction even within Amir Khan, the exemplar of a middlereference to both heterosexual and homo-
the film. The film-makers' minimal pres- class male icon, on the other hand, moves
sexual masculinity. How, forexample, does
ence through a 'discrete' voice that inter- toward a transformation of masculine the process of becoming male get inscribed
venes in this re-telling of the everyday identity through his own transformation in as
the absence of bodily rituals of convert-
occurrence marks a pause, a break from a performer/actor. His movement froming hischild to man? While this inscription
the assumed and accepted tropes of mas- screen persona in 'Hum Hain Rahi Pyar has a much clearer history within the
culine aggression. It is through this inter- Ke' and 'Rakh', to 'Rangila' address male
discourse of the feminine, the 'reproduc-
vention that the group 'opens' and searches aggression by mobilising the plebeian tion' of masculinity, particularly in India,
for terms through which gender, power figures, distanced from his earlier screen remains an uncharted terrain.
and the self are potentially re-configured. persona as a middle class icon. This loop- Gay-ness presents a critical reflection on
Interestingly, the spaces of these intimate ing out into machismo is significantthe forconstitution of masculinity/masculini-
reflections of the world of experience are the return of Amir Khan who 'comes back' ties and questions directed themselves to
neither home nor work spaces, but a third in films like 'Sarfarosh' having mobilised the way gay orientations question and re-
other space which seems to be the 'home' machismo in the interest of the nation. open the politics of penetration and the
of masculinity, recalling Chopra's argu- Masculinity's journey is represented both constitution of an ethics for the masculine.
ment of the space of the street as exterior by the heroes that Amir plays and by the The neat divisions between heterosexual
to home and field, a archetypically the shifts he makes as an actor moving be- and homosexual orientations that seem to
space of male camaraderie. tween 'safe' and 'dangerous' categories be
of intrinsic to the HIV/AIDS studies were
By contrast, Patwardhan's construction maleness. clearly interrogated both in the presenta-
reinstates masculinity as inhabiting only tions and the discussions that followed.
Finally, Kamal Hasan's 'Hindustani' and
the space of the public and the political, 'Hey Ram' the hero is split between the The papers and the discussions collec-
submerging the individual within the moral larger-than life father, and the 'tout'tively rendered one myth obsolete - the
political event, denying the entry of any son. Despite his obvious corruptions vis- myth of a unitary, homogenised masculin-
subjective questioning, a mode and a a-vis his father's equally obvious morality,ity which can be seen only as an opposi-
formation the intimist documentary at- the son is a liminal, ambivalent figure who,tional category to its feminine counterpart
tempts to break. inhabiting the everyday world of deals,or only be seen through the lens of vio-
Masculinity is a dominant trope in 'fic- corruptions, and strategies of survival,lence. While male aggression was an issue
tion' films which centre primarily on male presents a dilemma of identification withtaken up in all the papers, it was quite clear
protagonists from whose point of view the a man who must and does deal with issues that it needed to be juxtaposed against the
social world is represented. In art and in the real world. The film might be readuncertainties of 'reproducing' masculinity
popular cinema, the performance of the as masculinities project to take on the through gendered cultural tropes that are
'masculine' moves away from the intimate world with its imperfections and corrup- themselves paradoxical and often ambigu-
group (in front of whom masculinity is tions and it is exactly this engagement thatous. The cross-dialogue between the dif-
performed and proved as happens in Roy's invites an empathetic identification with ferent disciplinary locations established
documentary) and oriented toward the an ambivalent, dark but nevertheless bur-the urgent need to begin mapping the
spectator. The strategies of deploying mas- dened male character. contours of masculinity and expand the
culinity then move from the register of the The discussions that followed the ses- orientation of gender studies. I3

Economic and Political Weekly May 6, 2000 1609

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