ABSTRACT
This chapter brings the theoretical work on hegemony presented in the previous chapters into sharper focus by showing the application of dominative hegemony to contemporary gender politics. The chapter is organised into three sections. The first, ‘Conceptualising gender multiplicity’, takes its point of departure as the bifurcation of knowledge about gender into sociobiological and social constructionist schools. From here, Connell’s practicebased approach to gender will be shown as located within the latter school but, more importantly, that from this location gender multiplicity and, therefore, the conceptualisation of masculinities and femininities is made possible. The second section, entitled ‘The masculinities schema: organizing gender in a dominative hegemony’, presents an examination and elaboration of gender multiplicity and focuses on the patterning and nature of the political system in Connell’s masculinities theory. In the final section, ‘The hegemonic principles of a masculine hegemony’, the key hegemonic principles imperative for hegemonic masculinity’s dominative project will be introduced.
