CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1 Understanding masculinity
3.1.2 Sociological models
Sociological models focus on gender socialisation, with gender referring to the socio- cultural dimension of being female or male (Maccoby 1996). Theorists argue that human beings are not born with any pre-existing knowledge of, or orientation to, their world. The argument here is that we learn through socialisation those social mechanisms through which gender development occurs. This then implies that biological factors are not the only contributory factor to people’s gender identities and behaviours.
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Thus, understanding and theorising masculinities cannot be achieved simply by focusing on something innate, but needs to involve an examination of the context one is born into and that influences and informs who one becomes. "The method lies in taking a consistently relational approach to gender — not in abandoning the concepts of gender or masculinity" (Connell & Messerschmidt 2005: 837). Socialisation then becomes a process by means of which a child defined biologically as either male or female grows into a social individual through learning to adapt to his/her environment.
Typical examples of how gendered socialisation is introduced include:
1. Culture, such as in the ways in which the people around growing children express beliefs and perform roles that play a crucial role in shaping the person that the child will become. An example of this is how, if a boy sees that his father is abusive to his mother, he may also be abusive to his wife. This is not a deterministic fact, but is an underlying influence on men who become abusive.
The specifics of the roles and how the socialisation occurs may be different in each culture. For example, in traditional African cultures women are expected to play a domestic role by staying at home, cooking and bearing children. However, the specifics of that socialisation may differ from those of a White woman who, while perhaps also being a stay-at-home mother, has grown up within different discourses. While the idea of toys, culture, and how children are dressed from a young age emphasises that gender is something we are born with, it does not imply that gender is purely inborn. Gender is also the things we do and the things we perform (Butler 1990).
2. Dress code, such as how children are generally either dressed in blue or pink according to their sex (Pomerleau et al. 1990).
3. Toys, such as how children are given gender-specific toys to play with that prepare them for their roles in adulthood. Through popular toys such as tea sets, doll houses, and newborn-baby dolls, young girls learn that their major roles will be performed in the home, and that their duties will involve doing household chores and nurturing children. Soldiers, police cars and wrestling kits are examples of toys that encourage boys’ aggressive behaviour and that establish the masculine traits of being dominant and competitive from a young
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age. What may be common is a strong sense that men and women are different and must perform different roles (Pomerleau et al. 1990).
These theories of gender socialisation are not just limited to toys and dress, but are far more complex. Culture in itself is complex, and can only be considered in a simplistic way if one is working with a small, specific understanding of culture. In certain gender socialisation theories there is a belief that gender categories are taught and stereotypical gender roles are reinforced (Fouten 2006). At the same time, different forms of socialisation construct gender in different ways. In other words, different cultures have different ideas on how men and women are different, and the specifics of gender roles and the way socialisation occurs may be different in each culture.
Within the field of masculinity theory, the concept of hegemonic masculinity has been formulated. The theory of hegemonic masculinity focuses attention on the way that men may behave aggressively and exhibit traits that construct and reinforce patriarchy, but hegemonic masculinity is also grounded in the social conditions and psychosocial realities of men as individuals (Ratele 2008). Research into hegemonic masculinities continues to proliferate, and has been a way of talking and theorising about males across many socio-geographical contexts and disciplines.
This notion of hegemonic masculinity is a sociological concept that has been and still is largely used in Australia, Europe, North America and Africa. Originally the concept of hegemonic masculinity referred to those elements that promoted women’s social subordination to men (Ratele 2008). In other words, hegemonic masculinity was originally considered to involve a mesh of social practices that produce gender-based hierarchies. These include the violence necessary to endorse and maintain these hierarchies, which support unequal relations between women and men within a group (Connell 1995: 77; Connell & Messerschmidt 2005; Ratele 2008).
In essence, social processes constitute masculinity. Men construct their identities through complying with socially prescribed hegemonic masculine ideals (Connell 1995;
Connell & Messerschmidt 2005). The task of being a man involves taking on and negotiating hegemonic masculinity (Connell 1995; Connell & Messerschmidt 2005).
Connell’s formulation of hegemonic masculinity has a number of advantages. Firstly, it allows for diversity in that the study of masculine identities occurs in the plural rather
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than in the singular (Wetherell & Edley 1999). Secondly, it pays attention to issues of gender power. Thirdly, it draws attention to the fact that the formation of gendered identities is reliant on the relations between men as well as the relations between men and women (Wetherell & Edley 1999). Research has shown (Mac an Ghaill 1996;
Morrell 1998; Kimmel & Messner 2001) that men may construct masculine identities in relation to women, specifically those concerning the ownership and control of women.
Masculinity is construed as being powerful because its definition is based largely on how men seek to control women (Fouten 2006).
Within South Africa, there is a specific atmosphere that reinforces traditional gender roles. During the apartheid regime Black men were emasculated because the White males who enforced this regime held all the power in South Africa. This meant that Black men did not fit into their specified gender roles in society simply because their masculinity was stripped from them (Morrell 2001a; Xaba 2001; Ratele 2008). Black individuals were not allowed to vote, and were rarely given the opportunity to be educated above a certain level. This often left Black men without employment, which meant that they could not provide for their families. Towards the end of the apartheid era Black males started looking for ways to regain their power, leading to the increasing prevalence of acts of violence against the White government in the townships in South Africa (Beck 2000).
The migrant labour system also isolated Black men from their families by putting a significant physical distance between them, which led to them having to adapt to two distinctly different forms of masculine behaviour — one enacted in their family role, and the other in their urban employment context. This idea is depicted in Muvhango in the character of the sangoma. Mulimisi, in the rural area, is a trusted and respected sangoma, but when he goes to Johannesburg to assist his girlfriend with her career, he struggles to understand his place in a completely different social setting and feels somewhat out of place.
Sociological models assist in the understanding of constructions of masculinity and masculine roles in society. More recent models represent shifts from a fixed notion of masculinity to fluid notions of masculinities (Xaba 2001; Fouten 2006; Hunt 2008;
Ratele 2008). Fixed understandings of masculinity are associated with biological
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models, and to an extent with anthropological approaches, because they naturalise the establishment of cultural constructions and roles. The fluid models favoured in this study are those of the socio-cultural approach because they acknowledge the difference between biological sex and gender roles, and view gender as a socially situated, complex and dominant performance.
The final model utilised in masculinity studies is rooted in anthropological perspectives.