ABSTRACT
In feminist critiques of the classics of political theory, the human "subject" is identified as a man, and more specifically as "public man." Behind "public man" there is a private world to which woman is consigned through omission, tradition, nature, and explicit theorization. In the "private" world we find sexuality, domestic labor, reproduction, and child care, a realm of allegedly prepolitical or supposedly nonpolitical practices, presumptions, and structures, such as "the family." Theorizations of men and masculinity have taken their cue from recent feminist theorizations of "differences" among women and have argued that any useful theorization of men must do the same. Thus the object of study is "masculinities" in the plural. The most striking ambiguity in "public man," as he appears in political theory, and as he is explicated in the feminist and "masculinities" critique, is that he is both male and degendered.
