ABSTRACT
Connell, like Hearn, is one of the leading authorities on men and masculinities research. Connell has never identified as a profeminist, and has positioned herself as a socialist before and after her public identification as a transgendered person. However in a number of influential texts, Connell developed and devised a broad theoretical framework for analysing masculinities that has had wide, interdisciplinary, theoretical appeal (1987; 1995; 2000). More specifically, this framework has been highly influential in profeminist studies of men and masculinities. Connell has also developed a particular model of profeminist activism at the personal and public level of politics. The influence of Connell’s Masculinities (1995), is testimony to her
impact on thinking about men as a gendered category. In this work Connell developed an approach to studying masculinity that appropriated Gramsci’s (1971) concept of hegemonic. Connell reworked Gramsci’s class analysis of hegemony to theorise relationships both between men and women and between men. Gramsci argued that the ruling class legitimise their dominance primarily through ideological persuasion rather than physical force. Achieving ideological hegemony, Gramsci argued, involves gaining ideological dominance through struggles with competing, counter-hegemonic groups. Gramsci, therefore, highlighted the centrality of ideological struggles and alliances in the process of building hegemony. By doing so he framed the arena of ideology as an important site in oppositional political struggles. Moreover he argued for a strategy of building counter-hegemonic blocs that challenge the legitimacy of the dominant
ideologies of capitalism. Connell (especially 1987; 1995; 2000) employed elements of Gramsci’s theory to develop a theory of masculinities. More specifically, Connell tries to identify the hegemonic ideals of masculinity and assesses the possibilities of constructing counter-hegemonic strategies of resistance to the dominant ideology of manhood. Drawing on Gramsci, one of Connell’s primary concerns has been
to explore how relationships of dominance and subordination are accepted between men and women and among men. Connell embedded this exploration in a theory of gendered power relations that charts inequities between men and women and between different masculinities within their historical contexts. One of Connell’s central theoretical claims is that certain ideals of masculinity become hegemonic and a range of other masculinities interact with this dominant model. Connell (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005) has revised the concept of hegemonic masculinity to take account of some weaknesses in the original formulation of the concept. She (see 2005) has also expanded her work to encompass new emerging issues in masculinities research. This chapter concentrates on Connell’s analysis of masculinities, her theorisation of private and public forms of power and the transformative forms of politics that emerge from Connell’s theorisations of gender, power and hegemonic masculinity. As Chapter 8 noted, Connell has been critical of perspectives on
masculinities that reduce the analyses of these identities to psychological processes thereby engendering therapeutic solutions to gender inequalities. Connell’s tracing of the connections between masculinities and power draws her closer to the analytical and political perspectives of Hearn and Stoltenberg. However Connell highlights areas of disagreement with Stoltenberg, and there are some conceptual differences in terms of Hearn and Connell’s analysis of masculinities. These differences and disagreements will be fleshed out later in the chapter. The chapter begins, however, by examining Connell’s theorisation of men’s identities. It then moves on to Connell’s analysis of macro and micro-levels of gender power and concludes by assessing the kind of political practices that Connell recommends for men engaged in oppositional gender politics.
