ABSTRACT
Despite the complexity of the social and political changes that have occurred in the arena of gender relations in late capitalist societies, it is clear that men’s traditional identities and dominant social positions have become problematised. Profeminism can be viewed as an effect of that problematisation and as a set of discourses and practices involved in extending that problematisation in complex and politically engaged ways. Against a background of anti-feminist discourses about the victimisation of men and the feminist contamination of, particularly young men, profeminists have developed alternative narratives focused on rethinking men’s identities and men’s roles within the framework of emancipatory gender politics. The dual project of reinventing masculinities and challenging
structures of gender power means that profeminism offers new and often fresh insights into gender relationships, men’s subjectivities and the modes through which gender power is produced. Central to profeminist concerns has been the analysis of identity, power and oppositional politics at private and public levels. Like other forms of identity politics, profeminism attempts to produce oppositional strategies of resistance and knowledge across this conceptual and political terrain. More specifically it explores the fluidity of identity and its relationship to private and public forms of power. Profeminism seeks a politics that engenders changes in traditional formulations of identity and challenges the social anchors of traditional relationships across dominant and subordinate identities. However, as this analysis of profeminism has exposed, the conceptualisation of profeminism’s central concepts can lead to different forms of political practice and relationships with feminism. For example Seidler argues that giving space to the articulation of
men’s feelings and emotions in a culture that has defined masculinity as detached and unemotional is essential if men are to explore their
identities freely and reform them beyond traditional models that oppress women and alienate men from each other. While Seidler deconstructs the traditional model of emotionally detached masculinity as an effect of historical processes, his neglect of power means that he disconnects this exploration from broader gender relations. Noting the problematic aspects of this formulation of the place of
men’s experiences and emotions in profeminist discourses and practice does not mean that profeminist politics has to operate across a rationalist discourse that sidelines men’s emotional experiences or pain. As other writers discussed in this book have illustrated the concepts of experience and emotion can be discussed within the framework of broader networks of power. For example Hearn’s treatment of affective concepts exposes how experience and emotion are effects of power and how their articulation can engender oppositional practices and critical readings of men’s ‘authentic’ views of their biographies and identities. Identity however is a fluid and complex concept. As this study of
profeminism has illustrated, the conceptualisation of men’s identity has been an arena of great contention within profeminism. The concept of masculinity has become the main reference point for explorations of men’s identities and for formulations of narratives about changing men. While the concept may have been of great analytical use, it requires careful deployment and analytical clarity. If it has become a term that shifts attention from men’s actual practices and acts to reify gendered categories, as Hearn suggests, then there may be good reasons for attempting to re-theorise men’s identities beyond the term ‘masculinities’ to produce a more multi-conceptual framework for examining men’s subjectivities, bodies and practices. The concept of power will continue to be fundamental in the
development of this framework, as it is in profeminist theory and practice more generally. Several writers discussed in this book expose how individual identity does not revolve around an isolated self. Instead subjectivity is located within broader networks of power, which means that personal reinventions may have implications for others. Moreover acknowledging identities as blended and multifaceted raises issues about the reproduction of heterosexist gendered frameworks of sexual difference in some forms of profeminist discourses and practices. While a concentration on power differences between men and
women may mean that profeminism works within the confines of an illusionary categorical division between men and women, an alternative strategy that exclusively concentrates on exposing the plurality
of formulations of gender, sex and desire within and between the categories of men and women creates its own problems. Deconstructive strategies are important but gender politics seems to require an intervention in arenas where there are clear social, economic, legal and political inequities between pluralist communities of men and women. Connell, Hearn and Stoltenberg explore this arena and their analysis is important in terms of charting inequality and thinking through concrete responses to areas where gender relationships produce marked gendered inequalities. However the association of heterosexual, middle class, white men,
in particular, with power and the reproduction of gender inequality does not mean that explorations of men’s identities have to be focused only on the negative aspects of those identities or framed through analyses of men as constituting a ‘social problem’. Connell notes that the majority of men do not live out the hegemonic model of masculinities, their lives are more complex than hegemonic models can support. Recognising men’s diverse loyalties across genders, their practices of care for others and their concepts of familial and communal responsibilities helps expose the diverse range of practices that mark the category of men. Attention to these practices within the category of men does not mean side-stepping issues of power or accountability but it does paint a more complex picture of men’s identities in contemporary societies. This kind of focus does not entail moving towards a ‘male positive’
standpoint. Such a position suggests that men have some kind of authentic identity that requires positive validation. Similarly an ‘antimale’ perspective offers little in terms of conceptual clarity or theoretical usefulness. The one guiding idea in this book has been that men’s identities are not intrinsic, rather they are constituted through sets of diverse, changing and often contradictory practices that people socially categorised as men reproduce through their agency within contexts of power. As men’s identities do not exist prior to or beyond the social practices and historical forms of subjectivity that generate them, the adoption of ‘male positive’ or ‘anti-male’ standpoints makes little sense. It seems more appropriate to evaluate men’s agency within networks of power than to celebrate or refuse some concept of authentic shared identity among people identified by society as men. This exploration of profeminism has also illustrated how discourses
and practices revolving around welcoming personal change or engaging in public forms of resistance create a range of problematic effects. Tracing these effects seem central concerns for the profeminist
agenda. While no conceptual framework or political strategy can move beyond power relationships, the more disruptive forms of profeminism highlight power and engage with the connections between the public and the personal. More radical forms of profeminism operate at the intersection of these concepts. Overall this book has attempted to clarify the different formula-
tions of these concepts in profeminism. It has illustrated the way different theories of men, masculinities, power and resistance have led to the development of competing models of politics in profeminism. In terms of the models of politics that profeminism has developed Connell is correct to warn against the adoption of a vision of profeminist politics as a mass movement of men engaged in challenging gender inequities. Such a vision reflects the lure of the ideology of completion. In contemporary social contexts this vision frames profeminism as bound to failure. Given the advantages that men accrue from gender inequities it is unlikely profeminism will entice substantial numbers of men to fight for increases in gender equality. Profeminism’s challenges to social inequities and the regulatory ideals of gender as this book has illustrated can be developed through a more modest, provisional, fragmented, and, perhaps most importantly, critically reflective form of politics. Strands of profeminism have much to offer oppositional gender politics. For those men still confused about how to engage with feminist theory and practice, the more radical strands of profeminism offer reflective, critical and engaged models of politics for men who want to be involved in oppositional gender politics.
