ABSTRACT
We are witnessing a considerable growth in academic interest in the politics of masculinity. However, much of the emerging literature on masculinity fails to explore the relationship between racism, ethnocentrism and sexual politics (Carby 1982; Feminist Review 1984; Barrett and Mclntosh 1985; Ware 1990). One of the features of the new literature is that it is positioned in a culture that gives priority to individual solutions. In particular, the articulation between racism and masculinity is obscured by the ethnocentric nature of self-centred sexual politics.1 Mercer and Julien comment:
the questions raised by race, ethnicity and cultural difference cut across the complacencies of a personalized politics that remains in the prison-house of sexuality and the culture of narcissism. How white feminists and antisexist men take on these issues is up to them; the point is that race can no longer be ignored or erased from their political agendas.
