ABSTRACT
In a recent exploration of the possible links between globalisation and masculinity(ies), Connell (1997) speculates about the changes in hegemonic masculinity. He refers in earlier work to the contest in the ruling classes of the capitalist world between professional/managerial and entrepreneurial/authoritarian masculinities (Connell 1985/6, 7) and in his later article to how, with the creation of global markets, corporations become multinational and take on the forms of masculinity that are hegemonic among their managers (Connell 1996, 60). The argument continues that the crucibles of new forms of hegemonic masculinity are the globalisation of finance, the deregulation of markets and the growth of corporate empires outside the control of any government (Connell 1996, 61). Such processes, he suggests, bring with them a hegemonic masculinity that is calculative, sensual and uprooted from kin and locality (Connell 1996, 61). Connell provides a number of rather tenuous examples from India, Java and Brazil to demonstrate how the spread of metropolitan culture and metropolitan institutions impacts on local gender orders, but he qualifies this with an argument that the outcome of globalisation is not necessarily that Western masculinities are cloned on the periphery (Connell 1996, 60). In a more recent work (Connell 2000) he suggests that transnational business masculinity is not completely homogeneous and refers to a Confucian variant, based in East Asia, and a secularised Christian variant, based in North America. The former has a stronger commitment to hierarchy and social consensus, while the latter shows more hedonism and individualism, and greater tolerance of social conflict (Connell 2000, 54).
