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Hegemonic Masculinity

Chapter · February 2007

DOI: 10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosh022.pub2

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HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY

Jeff Hearn, Sofia Aboim and Richard Howson

In G. Ritzer (ed.) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Reference Online, Second Edition.

Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2016.

http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_yr2016_chunk_g978140512

433114_ss1-22

Sofia Aboim

University of Lisbon, Portugal

Email: sofia.aboim@ics.ul.pt

Jeff Hearn

Örebro University, Sweden; Hanken School of Economics, Finland; University of Huddersfield,

UK

Email: hearn@hanken.fi, jeff.hearn@oru.se

Richard Howson

University of Wollongong, Australia

Email: rhowson@uow.edu.au
Abstract

The concept of hegemonic masculinity is examined in terms of its foundational definitions and

theoretical influences; the relevance for analysis of men, women and gender relations; theoretical

and empirical revisions and challenges; and transnational and contemporary changes; before

some brief end comments.

Foundational definitions and theoretical influences

The concept of hegemonic masculinity arises from critical studies on men (CSM). These studies

have in turn been informed by many different theoretical influences and traditions, including

patriarchy theory, marxism, socialist feminism, practice theory (of inter alia Sartre and

Bourdieu), and social constructionism. More specifically hegemonic masculinity and

masculinities theory more generally can be located in the conceptual ground between the critique

of sex role theory, and the critique of monolithic versions of patriarchy. The heuristic and

pedagogical strength of the concept is illustrated by the fact that it can be used with quite

different meanings, within different political, disciplinary and epistemological traditions. These

range from Gramscian Marxism and critique of categoricalism to pluralism, intersectionality,

body theory, structuration theory, psychodynamics, even discourse theory and poststructuralism.

The first substantial development and articulation of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ was based in a

discussion of boys’ and men’s bodies, framed within the patriarchal context. The paper, “Men’s

bodies”, was first published in 1979 and republished in Which Way Is Up? (Connell, 1983),
alongside two chapters on theories of patriarchy, and empirical research on boys and girls in

schools. The “Men’s bodies” paper considers the social construction of the body in boys’ and

adult men’s practices. In discussing “the physical sense of maleness”, sport is marked as “the

central experience of the school years for many boys” (1983: 18), emphasizing the practices and

experiences of taking and occupying space, holding the body tense, skill, size, power, force,

strength, physical development, and sexuality. In addressing the bodies of adult men, Connell

highlighted physicality within work, sexuality, and fatherhood: “the embedding of masculinity in

the body is very much a social process, full of tensions and contradiction; that even physical

masculinity is historical, rather than a biological fact. … constantly in process, constantly being

constituted in actions and relations, constantly implicated in historical change.” (p. 30).

The notion of hegemonic masculinity was further developed in the early 1980s, in the light of

gay activism and gay literature, and with the cooperation of Tim Carrigan and John Lee. This led

to a reformulation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity, articulating analyses of oppression

produced from both feminism and gay liberation (Carrigan et al., 1985). Accordingly they wrote:

What emerges from this line of argument [the heterosexual-homosexual ranking of

masculinity] is the very important concept of hegemonic masculinity, not as “the male

role”, but as a particular variety of masculinity to which others – among them young and

effeminate as well as homosexual men – are subordinated. It is particular groups of men,

not men in general, who are oppressed within patriarchal sexual relations, and whose

situations are related in different ways to the overall logic of the subordination of women

to men. A consideration of homosexuality thus provides the beginnings of a dynamic

 conception of masculinity as a structure of social relations. (p. 586) (emphasis in

original).

They continue, following Gramsci, that hegemony “… always refers to an historical situation, a

set of circumstances in which power is won and held. The construction of hegemony is not a

matter of pushing and pulling of ready-formed groupings but is partly a matter of the formation

of these groupings.” Interestingly, and somewhat neglecting of attention to these formations,

they continue “(t)o understand the different kinds of masculinity demands … an examination of

the practices in which hegemony is constituted and contested – in short, the political techniques

of the patriarchal social order.” (p. 594) (our emphases).

In Masculinities, Connell (1995) discusses hegemonic masculinity in more depth. This text

reaffirms the link with Gramsci’s analysis of economic class relations through the operation of

cultural dynamics, and notes that hegemonic masculinity is open to challenge and possible

change. Hegemonic masculinity is now defined as:

… the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to

the problem of legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the

dominant position of men and the subordination of women. (p. 77) (our emphasis)

Hegemonic masculinity, and men and women

Hegemonic masculinity then, is the masculinity that represents the practices and qualities that

legitimate the privileging of men and that result in the subordination of women. It is not a
singular and fixed form of masculinity that exists universally. Rather, it has different expressions

across time and within particular social, cultural and geographical contexts. Hegemonic

masculinity is a component concept within a theoretical model of multiple masculinities or

masculinities theory operating within the critical studies of men. Within masculinities theory the

internal hierarchical system evident with respect to masculinities shows a hegemonic form with

the criteria for construction of other masculinities, notably, complicit, subordinate and

marginalized masculinities, always premised on the relations that exist between them.

Hegemonic masculinity emerges and is sustained always in relation to these other masculinities

but equally to femininities. Therefore if hegemonic masculinity ensures the subordination of

women it relies on a relation with a particular form of femininity referred to as ‘emphasized

femininity’, whose compliance and accommodation of hegemonic masculinity’s hegemonic

principles (Howson, 2005, p. 23) positions it as the ideal femininity within a strong and well-

defined ideal relation. Thus, hegemonic masculinity can also be understood as part of a process

of gender hegemony.

Emphasized femininity, which is characterized by acceptance, can be a rather narrow concept, as

Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) acknowledge in their revaluation of the concept of

hegemonic masculinity. Considering the under-conceptualization of the diversity of femininities

and the empowerment of women, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005: 847) recognize that ‘better

ways of understanding gender hierarchy are required.’ It is not only men that are complex.

Women, too, can be seen as a ‘false category’, as claimed by poststructuralist feminists (Butler,

among others) and queer theory scholarship. The challenging question then, is to know how we

can fruitfully combine men’s power, whether given by the ideology of masculinity or other
institutional and material processes, as Hearn (2004) suggests, with the plurality of men and

masculinities as well as women and femininities.

Theoretical and empirical revisions and challenges

In 2005 Connell and Messerschmidt reviewed the concept of hegemonic masculinity. They noted

the many applications of the concept and developed, expanded and focused the proposed future

development of the concept. This re-evaluation suggests that what should be rejected includes

the continued use of psychological trait theory, and too simple a model of global gender

dominance. Several reformulations were presented, including more holistic understandings of

gender hierarchy; the importance of the geography/ies of masculinities; the return to the

emphasis on social embodiment; and the dynamics of masculinities, including contestation and

democratization.

More generally, there have been many critiques of hegemonic masculinity on conceptual,

empirical and theoretical grounds. These include: debates on the status of patriarchy; the

interpretation of hegemony, and the place of legitimacy, domination, consent, coercion and

violence; engagements with poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and queer theory (Hearn, 2004,

2012; Howson, 2005; Aboim, 2010), as well as detailed empirical researches (Wetherell and

Edley, 1999; Messerschmidt, 2010). Broader, comparative, global transnational studies also

complicate understandings of hegemonic masculinity/ies.

Transnational and contemporary changes

As Connell and Messerschmidt recognize (2005: 846–847), the model of global dominance is too

simple and ‘clearly inadequate to our understanding of relations among groups of men and forms

of masculinity and of women’s relation with dominant masculinities’. Recent developments

(Hearn et al, 2013; Hearn, 2015) in research in the field of CSM have demonstrated the close

linkages between men and masculinities and the multiple contemporary transnationalizations that

no longer conform to any universalist view of one single gender order. Transnationalization can

be understood as a concept but also more broadly as a theoretical perspective, that allows us to

render importance to the entanglements between different levels and scales of social life (local,

city, nation, international, transnational), thus avoiding the old trap of standardization and non-

critical assimilation of the Other.

Transnationalization must necessarily be operative in research on hegemonic masculinity

enabling the capture of the whole range of movements that are part of present day societies

across the globe. This involves recasting movements as encompassing flows of different types:

things, people, commodities, social movements, ideas and concepts, all of which are important to

the understanding of men, masculinities and the hegemony of both. Whether we analyze

migrations, organizations and management, social movements, international relations, and so

forth, from a transnational perspective, it is crucial to go beyond a mere description and fully

grasp the whole variety of processes (and, for instance, their consequences for men’s lives and

identities) that trigger and uphold transnational processes.

Migration issues are centre-stage to the above-mentioned questions (Donaldson et al., 2009). The

debate generated around migration flows led many to formulate a rather critical view on

assimilation and the nation-state. Migrations, and men’s migrations, can hardly be linearly

conceived as the dislocation of people from one national context to another, where they will be

assimilated. Quite the opposite, deterritorialization of men must be connected to deeper

reflections on the politics of belonging, being and absence. The dislocation between men and the

ideals of masculinity must also be related to power and legitimacy, more specifically gender

power and hegemony. Likewise, processes of migration, or in more specific terms, that of

dislocation and circulation, apply also to ideas and concepts. Thus, the circulation of ideas and

concepts, and their consequences, must be carefully analyzed. The practices of men and the

meanings of masculinity are reshaped and in a permanent state of flow. Critical engagement with

hegemonic masculinity in the light of the transnational may avoid falling into the fallacy of

western-centric universalism.

End comment

Hegemonic masculinity, as a concept, has provided a space, even an ‘empty signifier’ (Howson,

2009) or a ‘fetish’ (Forsberg, 2010), for academic and political conversations around men,

masculinity and gender relations. It remains both very influential in both academic and policy

debate, yet open to much empirical and theoretical critique.

SEE ALSO: femininity, gender, hegemony, masculinity, patriarchy

References

Aboim, S. (2010) Plural Masculinities. Farnham: Ashgate.

Carrigan, T., Connell, R., and Lee, J. (1985) Towards a new sociology of masculinity. Theory

and Society, 14(5): 551-604.

Connell, R. (1979/1983) Men’s bodies. In Which Way Is Up?(pp. 17-32). Sydney: Allen &

Unwin.

Connell, R. (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity.

Connell, R. and Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005) Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept.

Gender & Society, 19(6): 829-59.

Donaldson, M., Hibbins, R., Howson, R. and Pease, B. (eds.) (2009) Migrant Men: Critical

Studies of Masculinities and the Migration Experience. New York: Routledge.

Forsberg, L. (2010) Masculinity studies as fetish and the need of a feminist imagination.

NORMA: Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies, 5(1):1-5.

Hearn, J. (2004). From hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men. Feminist Theory, 5(1):

49-72.

Hearn, J. (2012) A multi-faceted power analysis of men’s violence to known women: From

hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men. Sociological Review, 60(4): 589-610.

Hearn, J. (2015) Men of the World: Genders, Globalizations, Transnational Times. London:

Sage.
Hearn, J., Blagojević, M., and Harrison, K. (eds.) (2013) Rethinking Transnational Men: Beyond,

Between and Within Nations. New York: Routledge.

Howson, R. (2005) Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity. London: Routledge.

Howson, R. (2009) Deconstructing hegemonic masculinity. In Jeff Hearn (ed.), GEXcel Work in

Progress Report Volume V: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities (pp. 137-

147). Linköping and Örebro: Institute of Thematic Gender Studies.

Messerschmidt, J. W. (2010) Hegemonic Masculinities and Camouflaged Politics: Unmasking

the Bush Dynasty and Its War Against Iraq. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

Wetherell, M. and Edley, N. (1999) Negotiating hegemonic masculinity: imaginary positions and

psycho-discursive practices. Feminism & Psychology, 9(3): 335-356.

Further Reading

Beasley, C. (2008) Rethinking hegemonic masculinity in a globalizing world. Men and

Masculinities, 11(1): 86-103.

Demetriou, D. Z. (2001) Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: a critique. Theory and

Society, 30: 337-361.

Donaldson, M. (1993) What is hegemonic masculinity? Theory and Society, 22(5): 643-57.

Messerschmidt, J. W. (2012) Engendering gendered knowledge: assessing the academic

appropriation of hegemonic masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 15(1): 56-76.

 Moller, M. (2007) Exploiting patterns: a critique of hegemonic masculinity. Journal of Gender

Studies, 16(3): 263-276.

Schippers, M. (2007) The feminine other: masculinity, femininity, and gender hegemony. Theory

and Society, 36: 85-102.

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