ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a partial synthesis of contemporary views of gender and masculinity. I offer an integrative, developmentally based perspective on male gender identity in which I conceptualize the masculine and the male’s sense of his maleness in the light of mounting knowledge accumulated over the last half century. In deconstructing the masculine, the feminine, the mother, and the other in the male psyche, I examine the role of psychic bigenderality and the inherent tensions of gender fluidity. A key topic of the book—viewing male gender identity as a developmental trajectory rather than as inborn and static—is discussed and elaborated. The applicability of these ideas to psychoanalytic work with men who struggle with the intrinsic conflicts in their sense of maleness is illustrated by a detailed clinical vignette.
