Historical masculinities as intersectional problem
1Gender, race and class used to be seen as separate categories for members of the dominant and repressed groups, until scholars started to understand that the intersection of these issues, in combination with age, sexuality, abilities and others, are integral to the position a member of society may hold. These intersections are referred to as the “race-class-gender matrix, the intersectional paradigm, interlocking systems of oppression, multiple axes of inequality, the intersection and intersectionality.”(Berger and Guidroz, 2009, 1) Because of its “[...] critical stance toward knowledge in the traditional disciplines, its interdisciplinary approach, and its orientation toward social change and social betterment, women’s studies has been most open to self-critique for its exclusion of multiply oppressed groups such as women of color, working-class women, and lesbians.” (Weber 2004, 121)
2Intersectional work on masculinities in general is actually rare, a fact that may have its cause in the history of the concept intersectionality itself. It originated in the context of discussions between white middle class liberal feminists and African American women who reproached the white liberals color blindness and their lack of concern for questions of class. Kimberlé Crenshaw, founder of Critical Race Studies (Crenshaw 1995), was interested in the relationship of race and law. She not only coined the term “intersectionality”, but wrote two ground-breaking articles that investigated the law’s inability to make visible black women’s experience of discrimination, which was a problem of intersectionality. (Crenshaw 1988, 1991) Nira Yuval-Davis and others started to investigate the interrelationship of ethnic and gender divisions in the early 1980s. (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1983). Intersectionality became a concept that allowed for the understanding of gender differences as mediated and transformed by other categories of repression such as class and race. So far, the intersectional approach has not yet been applied on masculinities in historical studies. If gender is a relational category, it is only logical to assume, that this lacuna has to be filled. Intersectionality as an approach that attempts engage with historically specific forms of power and domination does not lend itself easily to the analysis of masculinities, because men have been perceived as being the Other in possession of power and privilege. It may be argued however that masculinity is no fixed and uniform concept. If one applies the concept of hegemonic respective non-hegemonic masculinities in accordance with Connell (Connell 1995, 2005), it may be scholarly useful and politically functional to apply the intersectional approach to the study of masculinities as well, especially since masculinities can be found outside of traditional male roles and bodies (Stoller 1997, Halberstam 1998). If masculinity is a contested terrain that produces exclusions, hierarchies and stratifications within itself, if there is indeed something like hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinity, if in other word one has to speak about the striations within the masculine space, it may be justified to speak of the application of intersectionality within the history of masculinities, even if this seems to contradict older feminist contentions and initial usages of the concept.
3Multiple masculinities, among them hegemonic masculinity, a concept founded by Raewyn Connell (Connell 1995, 2000, 2005, 2006) has been criticized by various authors since the time of its inception (Petersen 1998, Demetriou 2001) but is still upheld as valid, albeit in a modified form. The concept of hegemony was derived from Antonio Gramsci’s analysis of class relations and “[...] refers to the cultural dynamic by which a group claims and sustains a leading position in social life.” (Connell 2005, 77) “Hegemonic masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees [...] the dominant position of men and the subordination of women.” (77) It has to be mentioned that hegemonic masculinity “[...] embodies a ‘currently accepted’ strategy. When conditions for the defence of patriarchy change, the bases for the dominance of a particular masculinity are eroded. New groups may challenge old solutions and construct a new hegemony.” (77) It follows that if not all men participate in hegemonic masculinity simultaneously that there has to be some kind of relation between the hegemonic men and those that are seen as non-hegemonic. These relations can have the form of subordination, complicity and marginalization. It also follows that the concept of hegemonic masculinity is inherently intersectional, since the “interplay of gender with other structures such as class and race creates further relationships between masculinities.” (80) The common tie that binds all men in one camp, despite their different masculinities, is the dividend that they receive from maintaining women in subordinated position, independent of their individual motives and inclinations. The term dividend refers to a material gain, but not exclusively. Next to the differences in income and wealth distribution, access to positions of power and influence are only one part of the dividend that is paid to men. Patriarchy is also sustained by violence and indeed it is obvious that men receive a masculinist dividend for upholding the unequal distribution of wealth, income and power through violence both directed against women but also directed against other men in order to draw boundaries and to make exclusions, but also in the struggle for an assertion of a hitherto non-hegemonic form of masculinity. (83).
4Despite the existence of a considerable body of research on the history of masculinities it is evident that masculinity has hitherto not been discussed as an intersectional problem. It was Pierre Bourdieu who pointed at the fact that masculinities are constructed in a series of competitions that men play with each other (Bourdieu 2001). The goal of these games is the accumulation of symbolic capital in the forms of “[...] fertility strategies, matrimonial strategies, educational strategies, economic strategies, inheritance strategies, all oriented towards the transmission of inherited powers and privileges”. (48) It was also Pierre Bourdieu who pointed at the fact that constructions of masculinity can be „postural“ since they presuppose not only speech acts but also poses, positions within space, body postures and gestures. (74) Bourdieu also warned to equate the existence of hegemonic masculinities with harmony within the group of hegemonic men, since the idea of masculinity is one of the last resorts of the dominated classes (Adkins and Skeggs 2004, 131). Masculinity has also been studies in the relation with the production of knowledge and truth in the sense of technologies of power. I would like to restrict my following remarks therefore to three subjects: Studies on the history of masculinities, masculinities in the context of race and class (intersectionality) and “doing gender” as everyday practice.
4Historical research pertaining to masculinities has been a field that has yielded relatively rich results in the last 20 years, especially in the United States. Here, in contrast to Germany, we find comprehensive histories of masculinities (Kimmel 2005, Kimmel 2006, Kimmel, Hearn and Connell 2005). In German speaking countries historians tend to shy away from a field that is perceived as being closely linked to gender history. The American advances in the filed of masculinity history can partly be explained by the overwhelming success of feminist discourses since the late 1960s which have made visible masculinist counter discourse, resulting in male organizations like the Promise Keepers (Heath 2003, Newton 2005) and events like the Million Men March (Hagan 1992, Boyd 1995, Bartkowski 2004). Since masculinity is always already a contested field, which must be constantly defined, redefined, patrolled and defended against intruders and imposters, in order to maintain the illusion of a fixed and biologically permanent masculinity, masculinity seems to be in the state of crisis. The masculinist discourse attempts to push back the cultural and institutional gains of feminism since the foundation of NOW. This could be perceived as a “back-lash”, but it is more likely part of the constant necessity to define masculinity, which evades precise definitions and suffers from relentless historical erosion by the forces of social and cultural change. Since the 1990s there exist a number of groundbreaking studies on historical masculinities, even if one disregards the numerous media studies, especially on film and masculinities. What I discuss here is situated in the field of “history proper” and disregards both the medial representations of masculinities and masculinities as part of literary criticism.
5Given the lag and the lack of research on masculinities by historians in Germany (Schissler 1992), it may seem ironic that the first impulse of a historical study of masculinities came from a German cultural historian. Klaus Theweleit submitted a two-volume study on the members of the right-wing militias (Freikorps) in 1977, expounding the genesis of the Nazi system within a male cult of misogyny. This massive study was translated into English rather late, and failed to contribute to the emerging field in the US and Great Britain also because of its heavy reliance on Freudian theory (Theweleit 1977, Theweleit 1987). Since then, German historians have been busy claiming the field for themselves, but their number is confined to a few historians who are firmly grounded in the post-structuralist cohort. (Finzsch and Hampf 2001, Finzsch 2003, Martschukat and Stieglitz 2005, Martschukat and Stieglitz 2007, Martschukat and Stieglitz 2008). Among the ground-breaking studies one could also count Elizabeth Pleck’s book, since she discusses the emergence of social politics in the context of domestic violence from the 18th century to the present (Pleck 1987). Dating from the late 1980s, Critical Men’s Studies developed as a sub-discipline of sociology, but has been able to influence historiography to some extent. Cynthia Cockburn was among the scholars who has widened traditional women’s history to intersectional gender studies by including men in her research (Cockburn 1983, Cockburn 1985, Cockburn 1998). With the development of gay and lesbian studies Critical Masculinity Studies emerged in the attempt to study alternative conceptions of masculinity. These have to be seen in stark contrast to Masculinist Studies, which are based on a biologist gender essentialism thus refusing the necessity of historization (Dawkins 1976, Bly 1990, Greenstein 1994).