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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGE,
GENDER AND SEXUALITY
Alpha Masculinity
Hegemony in
Language and Discourse
Series Editors
Helen Sauntson
York St John University
York, UK
Allyson Jule
School of Education
Trinity Western University
Langley, BC, Canada
Language, Gender and Sexuality is a new series which highlights
the role of language in understanding issues, identities and relationships
in relation to genders and sexualities. The series will comprise innovative,
high quality research and provides a platform for the best contemporary
scholarship in the field of language, gender and sexuality. The series is
interdisciplinary but takes language as it central focus. Contributions
will be inclusive of both leading and emerging scholars in the field. The
series is international in its scope, authorship and readership and aims to
draw together theoretical and empirical work from a range of countries
and contexts.
Alpha Masculinity
Hegemony in Language and Discourse
Eric Louis Russell
Department of French & Italian
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
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For Gram & für Oma
Acknowledgements
This project would never have seen the light of day were it not for several
colleagues at UC Davis to whom I’m deeply grateful: Bob Bayley for his
wisdom in all matters linguistic and sociolinguistic; Margaret Crofoot for
leads on behaviorism and animalia; Grace Delmolino for informal chats
and input, especially to the last chapter; Beth Freeman for quick responses
and even quicker reassurances; Claire Goldstein for a willing ear and
more than a few moments of support; Margherita Heyer-Caput for
encouragement and exemplary collegiality; Vai Ramanathan for consis-
tent advice and a clear head in the midst of academic turbulence. Thanks
to others in the French & Italian Department, the Linguistics Department,
and the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies who make
this career challenging and rewarding.
Colleagues near and far deserve more than a passing word of apprecia-
tion for their time, advice, and inspiration. A heartfelt thanks to Giuseppe
Balirano, Rodrigo Borba, Mary Bucholtz, Scott Burnett, Holly Cashman,
Stina Ericsson, Kira Hall, Mie Hiramoto, Rick Kern, Brian King, Robert
Lawson, William Leap, Michelle Marzullo, Tommaso Milani, Eva
Nossem, David Peterson, Denis Provencher, Greta Vollmer, and anyone
else I have left out (with apologies for the omission). Conference audi-
ences have sharpened descriptions and analyses contained in this book,
including those at Lavender Languages & Linguistics in Providence and
vii
viii Acknowledgements
ix
x Contents
Index245
List of Figures
xiii
List of Tables
xv
1
Stumbling into Alpha
swath of tract homes and strip malls, the team returned to base. The
nefarious Beta had been taken down and his killing spree ended, leaving
the remaining Alphas free to go about their lives, doing Alpha things
without fear of homicidal Betas lurking in the shadows. In other words:
mission accomplished, gendered social order restored, and Alpha males—
not to mention the women who love them—victorious yet again.
I hadn’t stayed awake because the episode was particularly well written
or acted—it was none of these by my assessment—but because I was
intrigued by how matter of fact the Alpha and Beta categories were pro-
claimed, how taken for granted their scientific bases were manifested, and
how unflinchingly these hyper- and hypo-masculine identities were
asserted as facts backed up by psychology, sociology, and biology. As
heavily clichéd as it may be, this one episode neatly encapsulated an
intriguing—and particularly American—manifestation of gender perfor-
mances and stereotypes, along with congruous indices of sexual and
socio-economic normativity. It could not escape notice that each of the
Alpha-victims was a happily married, traditionally masculine presenting,
heterosexual man, whereas the Beta-perpetrator was unemployed, dishev-
eled, and impotent, a failed man whose wife sought another to conceive
a child. At the same time, there were ample symbols of other American
ideals of capitalism and neoliberal sovereignty, with Alphas living in large
McMansions situated in gated communities and the Beta driving a ragged
workman’s van. Nearly everyone was white, all spoke convergent forms of
American English, and there was not a non-heteronormative person
in sight.
Whiling away the hours in my cramped economy class seat, I began to
wonder if these characterizations and the cultural competence that
framed them reflect broader, more widely shared ideologies, or if this was
merely a particularly creative moment on the part of the series’ writers.
The assumption and assertion of Alpha and Beta in this instance suggest
a mythology operating within and across a culture backdrop, whether or
not all of its members agree with or appreciate it. Given that the series is
watched by millions and has never been considered even remotely avant-
garde, it may be inferred that its audience is expected to understand Alpha
and Beta, not to mention their content and veracity, are truths as unques-
tionable as gravity or the change of seasons. After all, this kind of
1 Stumbling into Alpha 5
— Pappi —?
— Ovatko ne kiinni?
Pastori nyökäytti jälleen päätään.
Pastori kuulosti.
Heidän vasemmalla puolellaan, verrattain lähellä, lauloi reipas
ääni:
— Terve, terve!
— No sittenhän sopii.
Aslak huusi jotakin koirille ja vihainen haukunta alkoi taas. Porot
lähtivät karkaamaan koirain ajamaa suuntaa ja Aslak renkineen
karahutti perään. Pastori kyytimiehineen lyöttäytyi samaan joukkoon,
— ja niin mentiin hyvää vauhtia.
VII.
— Niin… ja Tösselin.
— Niinpä taitaa…
— Onhan se.
Vanhus oli juomassa kahvia, kun hän palasi kotaan. Hän joi kolme
kuppia yhteen menoon ja heittäytyi sitten taas pitkälleen äskeiselle
paikalleen. Pikku-Jouni haki pataan lunta ja asetti lavanpuolikkaan
sulamaan.
‒ Tiesi jo.
— Satakunta.
— Siinäpä se juuri onkin, poika, siinäpä juuri, kun kaikki papit eivät
ole kristityitä.
Hän vastasi kysymykseen, josta oli seurauksena, että uusi tuli heti
perässä: