or New Agendas for Men ? |
EuroPROFEM - The European Men Profeminist Network http://www.europrofem.org
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32en_mas ... Masculinity
A Crisis in Masculinity or New Agendas for
Men ?
NEW AGENDAS FOR WOMEN, MACMILLAN, LONDON, 1999. INTRODUCTION Recent years have seen the naming of men as men.
Men have become the subject of growing political, academic and policy debates; in some
respects this is not new; there have been previous periods of debate on men, and
then, in a different sense, much of politics, research and policy has always been about
men, often overwhelmingly so. What is new, however, is that these debates are now more
explicit, more gendered, more varied and sometimes more critical. At their base is the
assumption that men, like women, are not just naturally like this or
just bound to be that way, but rather are the result of historical, political,
economic, social and cultural forces. One social change that is now in place is that men and
masculinities can at least be talked about as problematic. We can now ask such questions
as: What is a man? How do men maintain power? Is there a crisis of masculinity? Or is
there a crisis of men in a more fundamental way? Do we know what the future of men looks
like or should be? What policy and practice implications follow both in relation to men
and boys, and for men and boys? Importantly, there has also been a process of internal
critique and auto-critique (Hearn, 1994) within these discussions. For example, the idea
of crisis may well be overstating what is happening (Brittan, 1989), not least because for
many men life may continue very much the same as before. So what form do these changes take? In what ways do these
changes mean significant and substantial change in relations between men, women and
children? And what are their policy implications for government, policy-making and polity?
Indeed just as there are new agendas for women, are there new agendas for men? FEMINISM, NEW SEXUAL MOVEMENTS AND MEN Several influences have brought this renewed focus on men
and masculinities. First and foremost is impact on men of Second, and now Third (or
1000th?), Wave Feminisms. Questions have been asked of all aspects of men and mens
actions by feminists and feminisms. Different feminist initiatives have focused on
different aspects of men, and have suggested different analyses of men and different ways
forward for men. Feminism has also demonstrated many theoretical and practical lessons for
men, though most men seem to to be able to ignore or forget most of them. One is that the
understanding of gender relations, women and men has to involve attention to questions of
power. Another is that to transform gender relations, and specifically mens
continued dominance of much social life, means not only changes in what women do and what
women are but also that men will have to change too. This may be hard for many men to
hear, and even harder to act on. These are vital issues for politics, policy development
and personal practice. Other forces for change include the gay movements, queer
politics, other new sexual movements and the proliferation of sexual
discourses more generally. While it is difficult to generalise about the form and
direction of these critiques, they have often emphasised the desirability of (some) men to
each other, the more public recognition of men through same-sex desire, and the associated
or implied critique of heterosexual mens practices. However, the exact directions of
these new sexual movements remains diverse and difficult to predict. Mens responses to feminism have also been various.
Since the early Seventies there have been anti-sexist men and
pro-feminist men, to be followed in the Eighties by wild men and
mythopoetic men, and the media creation of new men. The Nineties
have brought newish man, new lads, mens
rightists (some now very confusingly called The Mens Movement, as opposed to
the anti-sexist and the mythopoetic ones), and now post new men too. In the US
there are extremely worrying moves to gender-conscious, more or less anti-feminist,
political organising by men, such as the Coalition of Free Men (mens rights), the
Million Man March (Nation of Islam), and the Promise Keepers (Christian) (Minkowicz,
1995). In different ways, other, often composite, groups of men have been more willing and
able to identify themselves as men, for example, as older men or black
gay men. THEORY AND ACADEMIA Something similar has happened in academia. In some senses
there are as many ways of studying men and masculinities as there are approaches to the
social sciences. They range from examinations of masculine psychology and
psychodynamics (Craib, 1987) to broad societal, structural and collective analyses of men
(Hearn, 1987); they have interrogated the operation of different masculinities
hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, marginalised, resistant (Carrigan at el., 1985;
Connell, 1995) and the interrelations of unities and differences between men (Hearn
and Collinson, 1994); they have included detailed ethnographic descriptions of particular
men or mens activity as well as investigations of the constructions of specific
masculinites in specific discourses (Edley and Wetherell, 1995). The International
Association for Studies on Men has been established as a research network for several
years and is currently co-ordinated from Norway. The study of men and masculinities, whether critical or
otherwise, is no longer considered so esoteric. It is now established, if rather
tentatively, for teaching and research. While it has examined boys and mens
lives in schools, families, management, the military and elsewhere, many aspects remain
unexplored. As research has progressed, it has become more complex, less concerned with
just one level of analysis, and more concerned to link together previously
separated fields and approaches. These kinds of critique of men also imply drastic
rewritings of academic disciplines themselves, and their frequently pre-scientific
ignoring of the fact that their science has been dominantly done by men, for
men, and even primarily about men (Morgan, 1981). The irony is that it is mens general social power
that may underwrite the choice of some boys and young men not to devote themselves to
schooling and learning. In the past this may not have been a special problem for young men
because of the structure of the labour market; that is no longer the case in many
localities. More generally, with such difficulties around education and employment, as
well as father absence/distance, crime, violence and so on, young men have been
increasingly defined in recent years as a problem category (see Hearn, 1998). CULTURE, MEDIA, AND REPRESENTATION Contemporary namings of men have been accompanied by
greater interest in men in the global worlds of consumption, advertising, journalism, and
popular culture. New global technology have created the possibility of more powerful
images of men and women that can be transferred around the world. Imaging men is now a
matter of both fiercely reaffirming boring old Rambos and their like, in film, computer
games, and comics, and presenting ever more ambiguous homo-het, man-woman pictures of
men in both mainstream and alternative media. An increasingly important
feature of media is the portrayal of men in sport. At the present rate of change, there
are likely to be all manner of surprising associations to be drawn in the future in image
and text around the sign of men or masculinity as signs (Saco, 1992). The critical
examination of images can also be used as a powerful way of informing discussion of men in
political, educational and other practical settings. ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE If we compare women and men in the nineteenth century and
in the twentieth century, both major changes and major continuities are obvious. While
changes abound in law, work, citizenship, personal relations and so on, there has been a
widespread, stubborn persistence in mens dominance in politics, business,
finance, war, diplomacy, the state, policing, crime, violence generally, heterosexual
institutions and practices, science, technology, culture, media, and many other social
arenas. What is perhaps most interesting is that while mens general power as a (the)
dominant social category remains virtually unchanged and may even have become intensified
in some respects, mens power is constantly being challenged, fragmented, and even
transformed. Men are more than ever being affirmed as men; whilst at the same
time the experience of being a man is subject to questioning and acute fracturing (Hearn,
1992a). Mens situation, and particularly mens power, is a complex mixture of
change and no-change. Indeed the presence of change for men should not be confused with
any general assertion of a so-called crisis in masculinity. Specific changes, or potential changes, of individual men
and groups of men should be contextualised by social change more generally. The current
talk in the U.K may all be of boys underachievement but social contexts
and social changes that affect men are very much much wider. In the U.K. there has been
the End of Empire and mens sense of a certain place in the world (Tolson, 1977);
rapid transformations of capitalism and capitalist enterprises; and huge losses of
mens manufacturing jobs and growing service employment. Individual fathers
authority, no longer automatic, is in possible tension with the state. Separations,
divorces and remarriages have increased. There is now an growing recognition that ways of
being men are culturally and ethnically variable. All of these changes not just affect but
actively construct ordinary men in myriad ways. Furthermore, whatever change in men and
mens power occurs, or indeed is advocated, can affect all areas of social
life. These include: education, class, work, employment, race, sexuality, violence, the
family, childcare, the state, personal and private life, sport, care, health and illness,
age and ageing, birth and death, the body, and so on. To put this another way, all the
various changes addressed elsewhere in this book with regard to women can be re-read as
suggesting both social changes and possible policy changes in relation to men. Just as mens relationships to feminism is likely to
remain problematic (Hearn, 1992b), so change in men is likely to be problematic and uneven
(Walby, 1986, 1990). It is highly unlikely that a radically new sexual
contract (Pateman, 1988) or gender contract (Hirdmann, 1988, 1990) will
suddenly
arrive; rather we can expect a series of temporary settlements or
truces within a difficult long-term process, burdened by the weight and
oppressions of history. There is also the need to increasingly consider the
changing global context for mens lives and power. While for most men life remains
local in the way it is lived, the forces that affect it are certainly becoming more
transnational in character; globalisation is in place and becoming ever more developed.
This is a very complex and often contradictory picture. At its simplest it means that the
fate of men and women is increasingly in the hands of economic, social and cultural
processes that transcend the nation. These processes often involve racialisation,
sexualisation, and the reproduction of other massive inequalities between
North and South and between various cores and
peripheries (see, for example, Human Development Report, 1995). The
idea of the self-contained unit, be it the nation or indeed the individual
man, is breaking down (Hearn, 1996). In thinking about the future of men, there is, however, a
need for some gendered caution. Many of the grand narratives of the future
globalisation, environmental destruction, population growth, food and water
scarcity, information explosion, reproductive engineering, technological advance generally
typically remain presented as inevitable and strangely rather genderless, rather
than largely controlled by relatively small groups of men: the real men of the
world (Hearn, 1996), with their own brand of transnational business
masculinity (Connell, 1997). These global and international changes have major
implications for men and masculinities. The well-charted shift from private patriarchy to
public patriarchy (Walby, 1989, 1990; Hearn, 1992a) is itself being superseded by a
another shift, this time towards what might be conveniently called global patriarchy,
which is itself likely to be a diffuse and multi-centred social formation (Hearn, 1996).
Any would-be crisis in masculinity needs to be considered within that context, and the
loss of both immediate, and even national, control and power that men may be experiencing. Having said that future change will probably be relatively
mundane for most men. Some of mens future is likely to follow existing trends; other
aspects are difficult to discern, unpredictable or unknown; much, short of global
catastrophe, will not change. Many men will probably still find ways of holding onto
various powers; of being violent, threatening, shouting, seeking to get their own way,
whilst leading rather circumscribed lives, working less total hours and getting paid more
than women, living less healthily, dying younger, and hanging out with other
men. Meanwhile, changes are inevitable. Much of the way men are will necessarily change,
in terms of specific conjunctions of age, body, class, culture, (dis)ability, dress,
ethnicity, kinship, language, nationality, race, religion, sexuality and other social
divisions that make someone a man, and some people men. Being a man is historically and
culturally contingent. WORK, EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT The central importance of work, still usually
meaning specifically paid work, for many men has been well established (for example,
Cockburn, 1984, 1991; Collinson and Hearn, 1996b). Work is a source of power and
resources, a central life interest, and a medium of identity, as well as being a source of
worry and concern. When men are unemployed or are inappropriately employed, extra problems
may follow for men, such as for mens health, and indeed for women too. Gender
segregation persists, and much of mens activity at work is homosocial: why do so
many (heterosexual) men seem to prefer men, and their cosy company? The recent transformation of work, through major
structural change in employment and unemployment, has been extremely significant for many
men. The twenty years from 1973 to 1993, the number of men in employment shrank from 13.1
million to 10.7 million. The shift in the sectoral makeup was even more dramatic: with
changes from 39.7% to 27.9% in manufacturing; from 12.4% to 17.9% in retail, wholesale,
consumption, catering and leisure; and from 5.4% to 11.9% in finance, insurance, estate
agency and business services. Womens employment is also changing with more women
joining the labour market; there are already more young women than young men in the 16-19
age range in employment. Particularly significant increases in womens employment,
especially part-time employment, have occurred in the financial sector and in community,
social and personal services (see Chapter XX; Dickens, 1995). Work changes for women also
necessarily impact on men. These structural changes mean that many men have
experienced personal change in their working lives. No longer is lifelong security of
employment guaranteed, not even for the relatively successful and well qualified;
so-called traditional working class-based masculinities, most obviously around
heavy manufacturing and mining, can no longer be easily sustained unchallenged (Dicks et
al., 1998, Waddington et al., 1998); meanwhile corporate reorganisation is commonplace;
post-Fordist flexibility demands flexibility of men. In the first 5 years of the Nineties
44 percent of the male workforce experienced unemployment at some point. And of course for
many men, especially young, less qualified men, the prospect of unemployment remains. This
is a particularly urgent problem in certain inner city localities and large city-edge
council estates, and for some young black men, especially in London and other
urban centres. Policies for work generation remain a particularly high priority for young,
working class and black men. Mens work and (un)employment also interact closely
with domestic and family life. Despite and perhaps because of the transformations in
mens work, men who are in employment tend to work longer hours than almost all other
men in the EU. The phenomenon of presentism is a serious problem in some sectors, and
difficult to resist for men whose jobs remain insecure. There are urgent needs for
government and employers to facilitate ways and means for men to reconcile (un)employed
life and family life in a much more positive way in employment and income support
policies, and in managerial practices. These include attention to more job-sharing,
voluntary reduced work time (whilst being full-time), flexible working hours,
term time working, working from home, and other approaches promoted by New Ways to Work
(1993, 1995) and similar initiatives. It also means men adjusting socially and
psychologically to not necessarily being the breadwinner. Indeed greater
equality in employment depends on greater equality in unpaid work in the home. There is
thus a need to consider how men can contribute to both overall levels of household income
and a more equal gendered division of labour both in and outside the home. While employment changes have transformed many mens
relation to work, men remain in control of most powerful organisations, whether state,
capitalist or third sector. This is especially so in terms of mens continued
domination of top management (Collinson and Hearn, 1996a) in capital and the state. Men in
management are important political actors; while management certainly can be a
facilitating process, managers may reproduce uncaring, sexually oppressive and even
violent and abusive actions, without much comeback. They also have the task of overseeing
and underwriting the behaviour of other men in their charge. Equal opportunities policies
can themselves be a way of both implementing greater equality and containing more radical
demands for change. It is in organisations that the public doing of gender is
predominantly done and re-done. Furthermore, organisations and their control are
fundamentally important, and becoming even more so, with the development of globalisation
through multi-nationals, transnational governmental institutions, worldwide media and
information networks, and so on. These are also vital in the changing mens
relationship to the personal and the private. Men in management have a special
responsibility to facilitate mens caring for others, as do men in government. FAMILIES, FATHERS AND CARE Although patriarchy has certainly changed in form over the
last century or more, especially through the growth of the state, mens power still
resides at least in part in the family and the institution of fatherhood (Hearn, 1987).
Historically, fatherhood is both a means of possession of and care for young people, and
an arrangement between men. It has also been and still is a way for some men of living
with, being with, being violent to, sexually abusing, caring for and loving particular
young people (those that called your own), and a way of avoiding connection,
care and contact with other young people more generally. Even nice fathers can switch to
become nasty ones. Fatherhood has often involved getting something for nothing, an
assumption of rights and authority over others, principally women and children, rather
than responsibilties for them. The problems of both father absence and father distance are
now recognised more than ever (Williams, 1998). For some men, becoming fathers can and
obviously does involve major changes in responsibilities and more work. State intervention in the rights and responsibilities of
fatherhood - most obviously through the Child Support Agency and the Children Act of 1989,
but also more subtly through state control of reproductive technology, such as IVF
has increased. The last few years have also and paradoxically seen signs of a growth in
the rights of fathers, as well as in the assumption that such power and authority are
natural and normal. Even a glance through history and across
cultures will show this to be extremely problematic. These issues become more complicated
as mens relationships to families develops over time - how to be positive and
responsible to others in families, without asserting the power and authority of the
father. This is especially important in long-term relationships, whether with or without
marriage, and with the increasing number of men involved in separation, divorce and
reconstituted families of various kinds. The number of women petitioning for divorce has
doubled in the last twenty years. There is a clear need for a post-marriage
ethics for men. In addition there are long term changes in the number of men living alone. So a challenge for men is how is to respond to these
difficult questions - to love, care for and be friends with young people without drawing
on the power of the father. This may even involve working toward the abolition of that
power of fatherhood whilst recognising the reality of responsibilities in mens lives
(Hearn, 1983, 1984, 1987). Social and educational policies need to be directed towards
assisting those who are carers, and not the so-called rights of natural
fathers, just by virtue of biological fatherhood. Such policies should support
carers and encourage boys and men to participate much more fully in the activity of
caring. One primary way of doing this is for a massive increase in state funding of
support for child carers. Provision of publicly-funded child care in the U.K. remains
derisory; at present it is available for only two percent of children under three (Daycare
Trust, cited in Toynbee, 1998), one of the lowest rates in Europe. As such, this lack of
funding is a clear governmental underwriting of the dominant system of unpaid care,
largely by women. Questions of care and caring are central in how boys and
men change their practice in relation to others, both physically and emotionally. So often
mens avoidance of caring has been the defining feature of being men.
This is very much a structural question in terms of women doing more caring work,
both in private and in public. There have been some increases in mens active
participation in childcare and domestic work, but the baseline from which change is
beginning is low. In addition, specific changes of this kind need to be placed against
other changes for example, womens employment, domestic technology, and
womens leisure. Mens activity may be focused on particular tasks, such as
weekly shopping, or at particular periods, such as around childbirth. However, fathers
with young children are particularly likely to work long hours in employment (Fagan,
1996). This could be for a variety of reasons, including compensation for loss of
womens earnings, the contribution of extra working to help establish mens
careers, avoidance of childcare, and the reproduction of gender divisions in the family. There is some evidence of a tendency for men with more
education to do more housework, but again this broad trend should be treated with caution,
not least because of the impact of greedy occupations (see Moyes, 1995;
Lunneberg, 1997). There are also gradually growing numbers of lone fathers from
about 70,000 in 1970 to about 110,000 by 1990. On the other hand, the increase in
mens unemployment in the 1980s did not generally lead to increases in mens
work in the home, and may well have involved disproportionately negative effects for wives
and other women partners (for example, McKee and Bell, 1985, 1986). The 1996 British Social Attitudes Survey found that in 79%
of households women did the washing and ironing alone, and in 48% women looked after sick
family members alone while men never did so alone (Lunneberg, 1997). The Mintel 2000
Survey found only two percent of men did all the household tasks or shared them equally
(Mintel, 1994). Men with wives who are in employment may be changing, but only slowly. Men
with wives in full-time employment may in some cases take on more household work, but this
may more likely involve a shift in the tasks that they are doing rather than devoting more
time in total to housework (Anderson et al., 1994). Boys and men learn not to care for others, and
changing this is an important part of the project of socialisation, for example, in the
education of boys at home and in school. This should be a major policy development - in
nurseries and schools, by government and education authorities, and in higher education -
not as an afterthought or something left to the whims and wishes of individual teachers.
Like fatherhood and the family, caring is both a very personal issue and one built into
wider societal structures and political institutions. It is not solved by
increasing day care provision, vital as that is - the problem goes to the very structuring
of how men behave, feel, are. It is an area of life that can bring fundamental change in
mens experience of themselves; it can also bring about both direct antagonisms
(deciding who will stay in or look after someone who is ill) and direct improvements in
the quality of relationships. The question of caring also raises the challenge of how men
become and do more caring, without just taking over. A special challenge is how to encourage boys and young men
to become more used to the bodily care of others in a way that does not lead to further
dominance. This has to be attempted, yet with great care and caution - perhaps initially
by the encouragement of care in their own families and in schools by the teaching of
safety and first aid, and the care of pets and animals, and then moving on, under
supervision, to the care of babies, young children, older people, those with disabilities
elsewhere. Nurturing can be redefined as normal for boys, young men and men. More
specifically, it involves teaching to boys gentleness and non-erotic forms of touch.
However, throughout we need to be alive to the problems with this scenario, for example,
in terms of potential abuse. It is not enough to just leave the dominant forces to define
boys and men and then pick up the urgent need for positive initiatives that assist the
redefinition of boys and men towards care and nurture as central defining features
(Salisbury and Jackson, 1994). Educational policy and practice should be directed towards
teaching boys how to care; boys caring should be expected, valued and indeed
rewarded. EDUCATION In the last few years education has had a high profile in
public debates about boys and young men. In considering this it is important, however, to
remember that mens general domination of education persists. This is clear in the
occupation of headships and other senior staff positions in upper schools, in national and
local educational policy-making, and in the universities and academia. Meanwhile many
boys, particularly poor working class boys, are not achieving well at school. In 1994 43
percent of girls gained five or more GCSEs at grades A to C, compared with 34 percent of
boys (Pratt, 1996). More specifically, a recent report for the Equal Opportunities
Commission found that girls outperformed boys at GCSE in English, Modern Languages,
Technology, History, and Art; and at A level in Geography, Social Studies, art, Chemistry
and Biology (Arnot et al., 1996). Boys performance in schools is a complex issue. This
policy issue of boys (under)achievement can be understood in many different ways.
The issue can be framed in terms of human capital, class inequality, equal opportunities
or social justice. Links can be drawn between the low educational attainment of some boys
and the low employment rates of some young men. There is also for some boys an antagonism
between educational attainment, even attentiveness, and the performance and achievement of
particular and valued masculinities. But most importantly, it should not be seen as a
problem of girls doing too well; rather as boys not doing well enough. As Madeleine Arnot,
one of the leading researchers in this field, has put it: We have a success story
here. This is an excellent sign of the work schools have done to improve girls
performance. So that they are now catching up (quoted in Judd, 1996, p.1). The way forward on this question is certainly not by way
of any kind of backlash against girls achievements. Nor, in the long run, are boys
likely to be encouraged to take education more seriously by trying to involve them through
resort to further officially sanctioned use of competitive and aggressive methods and
materials. Instead formal attention needs to be given to the very basis of how boys are
meant to be. Boys are considerably more likely to damage themselves through risk-taking
behaviour than are girls (see p. XXX). Just as the problem of normal manhood
remains a problem for many men, so does that of normal boyhood. Perhaps it is
in fact more accurate to speak of a crisis in boyhood than it is to assert a crisis in
masculinity. Schools and other educational arenas are major sites for the possible
reinforcement or challenge to dominant and subordinated ways of being boys. There thus a
need for thoroughgoing strategies on all aspects of gender relations in those institutions
that assist the fostering of less oppressive ways of being boys and thus men (Connell,
1996). There is great scope here for more focused boyswork, youthwork and
educational work with boys and young men, not only on educational questions, but also on
all the issues raised here. Such work needs to be undertaken within a pro-feminist
framework if it is not to merely reproduce some of the inequalities of past single-sex
education. The irony is that it is mens general social power
that may underwrite the choice of some boys and young men not to devote themselves to
schooling and learning. In the past this may not have been a special problem for young men
because of the structure of the labour market; that is no longer the case in many
localities. More generally, with such difficulties around education and employment, as
well as father absence/distance, crime, violence and so on, young men have been
increasingly defined in recent years as a problem category (see Hearn, 1998a). SEXUALITY Mens sexuality has often been neglected as a focus
for change, except as a reaction to the initiatives of the Right. Dominant forms of
normal male sexuality characterised as power, aggression,
penis-orientation, separation of sex from loving emotion, objectification, fetishism, and
supposed uncontrollability (Coveney at al., 1984) have been described
and critiqued as highly problematic. For some, perhaps most, men, the connection of
sexuality and violence is fundamental, as violence is eroticised, most obviously in
pornography. This is not the way mens sexuality is or has to be all the time. Sexuality may feel to be that which is the most personal,
the most ones own; yet it is also structural. For example,
heterosexuality is as much a social institution as marriage. Heterosexist culture and
homophobia continue to abound. Mens domination of sex and sexuality, and the
reduction of sex to intercourse, to ejaculation, to orgasm are still represented as
"just normal, arent they?" Heterosexual men may often be misogynist: the
object of love can be the object of hate. Gay men are not necessarily pro-feminist.
Homophobic men may inhabit homosocial pubs, clubs, organisations and workgroups - so what
exactly are these sexual loyalties between men? More broadly, it is important to emphasise that the
pressures on the construction of mens sexuality seem to be diverging more and more -
the forces of reaction, of the glorification of sexual violence, of Internet sex, of
anti-gay politics (most obviously around HIV/AIDS) are ever stronger - while at the same
time there is a gathering public confidence around sexual progressivism, queer politics,
lesbian and gay rights, outing (Reynolds, 1999), and even a small anti-sexist
politics of heterosexuality. There is of course a specific and urgent need for law reform,
to abolish discriminatory legislation against young gays (around age of consent), same-sex
sexuality more generally (Local Government Act 1988, Section 28), and older gays (around
pensions, tenure and property rights, and so on). Furthermore, anti-gay politics can damage both gay men and
heterosexual men. They can be physically dangerous and personally undermining for gay men.
Heterosexual men may come out or change to being gay; less obviously to some, there is the
gay part or gayness of heterosexual men. So heterosexual men need to support gay men,
partly for political principles of equality and justice, and partly for self-interest
(Hearn, 1992a). In all of this, there is a need to develop an important
educational debate and practice around sex and sexuality not least around what is
understood by sex and sexuality, and the practice of safe(r) sex. This has to affirm
different sexualities, work towards non-oppressive sexualities, support young gays, and
engage with the real dilemmas that young people face in their everyday lives. For young
men, this means promoting, in schools and elsewhere, intimate and sexual relationships
that are non-threatening, non-oppressive and responsible (Salisbury and Jackson, 1996).
Mens and boys sexuality is as much a matter for public debate, policy
development and social change as is violence. A major challenge is how men to acknowledge
their sexuality, and even be proud of it, without being oppressively sexual or sexually
oppressive. What chance is there for real change in men without that? VIOLENCE AND CRIME As will already be apparent from the previous discussion,
it is not possible to make a strict separation between mens sexuality and mens
violence, in this society at least. A lot of what men do needs to be re-labelled as
violence. This would include, child abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, rioting,
crime, policing, soldiering, wars, football hooliganism, public disorder. It might seem
hard to talk about crime and violence without talking about men, and yet this has been
done quite successfully for a long time (see Cordery and Whitehead, 1992; Newburn and
Stanko, 1994; Collier, 1995). Crime and violence are very largely a problem for men, and
they are also resources to show certain masculinities to others (Messerschmidt, 1993).
Furthermore, debates on crime, violence and indeed punishment and imprisonment need to be
conducted carefully in relation to not just gender but also age, class, locality and
racialisation (Gilroy, 1987; Jefferson, 1991). Much of mens violence needs to be understood as
conscious, deliberate actions and as forms or examples of particular masculinities (Hearn,
1998b). Mens violence to women, children, young people, and each other needs, indeed
demands, not just patching up the problem, but the changing of men and normal
masculinity (Hearn, 1990). Examples here might include what is seen as the
normal behaviour of certain men and boys, as fathers, teachers, workmates,
school mates and so on, in reproducing ordinary, everyday violence to others and each
other. Mens violence is thus about both violence to women,
children and young people, and often less obviously, violence to the self - in
self-brutalisation and the denial and victory over the non-violent parts of
ourselves (Kaufman, 1987). Violence may bring power and dominance, but it may also bring
unhappiness and self-destruction. Men who are violent are generally not happy men (Maiuro
et al., 1988), even if they enjoy the violence.. This suggests the need for men to both recognise
mens own violence and potential violence, whilst opposing and stopping mens
violence - in war, armies, initiation ceremonies, bullying, unsafe working conditions,
personal relationships, and being on the street. Campaigns against such initiations, lack
of safety in workplaces, bullying and violence at work are all good ways of bringing
together men concerned to work against sexism, trade unions, and anti-racist and other
interested groups. These are thereby necessary concerns of equal opportunities policies
and responsibilities of managements. In reducing and opposing mens violence, a necessary
first thing to do is to make a national commitment against violence. This should be
an absolutely central plank of the policies of government and the political parties. The
recent Gulbenkian Foundation Commission Report (1995), Children and Violence made
as its first priority recommendation: Individuals, communities and government all
levels should adopt a Commitment to non-violence, of similar standing, to
existing commitments to equal opportunities. The Report continued: The
aims of the commitment are to work towards a society in which individuals, communities and
government share non-violent values and resolve conflict by non-violent means. Building
such a society involves in particular reducing and preventing violence involving children,
by developing: · understanding of the factors which interact to increase
the potential for violence involving children, and those which prevent children from
becoming violent · action to prevent violence involving children in all
services and work with families and children · consistent disavowal of all forms of inter-personal
violence - in particular by opinion-leaders (p. 18) Thus governmental and other policies and strategies should
take a clear position that opposes violence, should tell boys and men not to be violent,
should advocate policies that encourage men to behave in ways that facilitate womens
equality, and make it clear that the realisation of such changes depends partly on men in
politics and policy-making, and their own understanding of their gendered actions. So the
vision here is a world without mens violence, without men as we know them. There is increasing interest in policies that try to stop
mens violence directly, such as programmes for men who have been violent to known
women (Gondolf, 1985; Pence and Paymar, 1986; Adams, 1988; Caesar and Hamberger, 1989;
Edelson and Tolman, 1992; Lees and Lloyd, 1994). Such programmes remain controversial in
terms of underlying philosophy, methods of change and resource basis. In recent years
there has been a developing critique of approaches that are narrowly psychological or
focused on anger management, and instead a movement towards those based on power and
control model that is pro-feminist in orientation. The latter kinds of programmes
can be a significant and effective initiative, especially when linked to wider educational
and political change (Dobash et al., 1996). A crucial and current issue is whether such
programmes should become court-mandated and a responsibility of the probation service
rather than accessed on a voluntary basis. Any such development needs to carefully screen
out men who have no interest whatsoever in change and who may even use programme to learn
new forms of violence and control. Even more important, any innovations for men have to be
supplements to broaden major public policy changes - including, consistent police
prosecution policy and practice; inter-agency work for women experiencing violence;
improved housing provision for women; and full state support for Womens Aid and
other projects for women. Finally, discussion of violence would be incomplete
without a mention of sport, itself often a major public arena of legitimated violence,
often of a severe kind. Sport also remains a major point of influence in creating and
changing boys and young men, and thus men. It can also be a source of considerable anxiety
since it is still often a pre-eminent activity for establishing masculine identity. And
retirement from sport can bring further difficulties for men and others around
them. Sporting events and loyalties could be effective places to oppose mens
violence, perhaps through a modified version of the Zero Tolerance campaigns, just as they
have been to counter racism in professional football in the Kick Racism Out Of
Football campaign. HEALTH If there is one policy arena that has
attracted attention from a wide range of constituencies and interests in recent years, it
is that of mens health. The concern for mens health has been mobilized as if
it is a common, cross-generational concern - perhaps a kind of mythical consensus.
Mens health can be represented as an issue for all men, and indeed women
too. For different reasons, the question of mens health has attracted involvement
from government, employers, trade unions, pharmaceutical and medical industries, medical
professionals, and health educators and activists. Significantly, in the last few years
there have been a number of conferences bringing together such diverse groups; in some
cases these have been high status occasions with sponsorship from the financial and
industrial sectors. The concern with mens health can be appealing both to men
promoting a backlash against feminism and who are insistent on the disadvantages of being
male and to men who wish to develop a pro-feminist politics and change their relationship
to women and children (see, for example, HFA 2000 News, 1994; Bruckenwell et al,
1995; Bradford, 1995; also see Sabo and Gordon, 1995). In particular, discussions of
mens health should not be read as necessarily antagonistic to those on womens
health. The central issue that has attracted
concern is the fact that at every stage of the life of a boy or man, he is more likely to
die than a girl or woman of equivalent age. At different stages different hazards affect
boys and men, and different risks are taken by them - accidents as a child, suicide and
motor vehicles as young men, and the effects of diet, smoking, drinking and sexual habits
later in life. For example, in the 15-34 year old male age group, 21 per cent of deaths
are from road vehicle accidents, 20 per cent are from other causes of injury and
poisoning, and 17 per cent are from suicides (OPCS, 1992, quoted in Calman, 1993, p212).
Life expectancy for those born between 1985 and 1990 is 78.1 years for women, and 72.4
years for men. Throughout most of this century, there has been at least a five year
difference between men and women. The EU difference is slightly higher still at 7.1 years
(OHE Compendium of Health Statistics, 1992). One part of this discrepancy comes from
mens higher level of suicide, which stands at more than three times the rate of
womens suicide. Furthermore, over the last ten years there has been an 80 per cent
increase in suicide by males. Particular concern has been the increase in the suicide of
young men (Charlton et al, 1993; Befrienders International, 1995). These issues of the health, mortality and
suicide of young men are not peculiar to the UK, and indeed similar trends are attracting
attention in France and elsewhere in Europe (Jougla, 1994). Furthermore, the physical
health debate has recently been extended into the realm of mental health. For example, the
Royal College of Psychiatrists (1996) report publicised the relatively hidden
question of mens depression, and the lack of recognition of this problem both
amongst men, as evidenced in their low levels of help-seeking, and more generally in
medical and policy development. The Samaritans have reported an 80 per cent increase in
male suicide in the last ten years (Cohen, 1996). The problem of mens health has now
been recognised in the statements of the Chief Medical Officer, Kenneth Calman (1993, p6,
106): Although some diseases, such as
prostatism, are obviously unique to men, the main differences in mortality and morbidity
relate to variations in exposure to risk factors. Thus, there should be great potential
for improvement in health in many areas, for example CHD and accidents. Further work is
particularly needed on targeting health messages to men. Women seem to be more aware of
their own bodies and pay more attention to health messages. Health messages for men may be
more effectively transmitted through mothers or sisters, wives or girlfriends, but men
must now be brought up to be more aware of their own bodies and not be reluctant to seek
help ... . It is to be hoped that Regions and Districts will investigate ways to promote
the health of men over the next few years. Despite an apparent difference, if
not resistance, to health promotion messages among men it must be brought home to them
that many of the risk factors to their health - such as smoking, physical inactivity, poor
diet, excess alcohol consumption, unsafe sexual practices and risky behaviour likely to
lead to accidents - are preventable. Thus the scope for men to improve their health, and
to prolong active, healthy life, is considerable. Despite these kinds of observations, the
policy debate on mens health has not dwelt extensively on the social divisions
between men, by class, race, locality, sexuality and so on. These divisions are important,
for the state of mens health is subject to a range of social influences - some
associated with power and control, and some with attempts to extend (or appear to extend)
power and control by those with relatively less power and control but who are still
members of a powerful social category. Many men in relatively less powerful
social positions may survive, attempt to survive or fail to survive by passive coping, for
example, in depression, social withdrawal, watching television, drinking or whatever. Yet
active assertions of power, especially over women and children, and passive resistance can
go hand in hand. Real uncertainties remain on how some men may actively resist capitalist,
managerial and other mens oppressions without perpetuating practices that oppress
women: how to be tough on men who are oppressive to women and men, without at the same
time oppressing women. Similarly, improving mens health involves developing policies
and practices that support men without further oppressing women. For example, boys and men
frequent learning that it is socially desirable to ignore pain and avoid doctors (Briscoe,
1989) needs to be demystified and unlearnt. CONCLUSION: POLITICS AND PRACTICE Mens societal dominance continues; yet at the same
time certain groups of men are facing considerable change from previous social patterns
and arrangements - at home, work and elsewhere. Despite the extent of the changes and
challenges outlined, it is premature to talk of a widespread crisis of
masculinity. Individual men and certain groups of men may be facing, even
confronting, change, like it or not, and they may indeed be changing, but this has to be
put in the context of the stubborn stability of mens structural power. For
some
relatively less powerful groups of men, the combination of lack of educational success,
reduction in traditional jobs, avoidance of womens work, and their own
more damaging actions (to both themselves and others) may indeed constitute a material
crisis for them and others around them. But this generally may not (yet) match closely
with an ideological crisis in how men are assumed to be. The contradictions between the
material and the ideological state of men and masculinities may be growing but are not yet
at crisis point for most men, and certainly not for men in general. All of the issues that I have discussed here are important
for what it means to be a man in this society. They have, however, all often
remain neglected in what is generally defined as politics. Transforming what
is understood by politics is part of transforming men. All of these issues are also both
profoundly structural and intensely personal. Each can also prompt great depths of
negativity - feelings of hopelessness, terribleness, desperation - as well as being arenas
of possible positive change and hope. Each is a way of unifying men as a class,
with different interests to women and dividing men from each other - old from
young, heterosexual from gay, healthy from unwell, and so on. Each is a way of oppressing
women, children and young people, and a way of relating to other men. And each represents
an avenue for men opposing oppression, supporting feminist initiatives, and changing men. Policies and practices are needed that address these
issues in all policy arenas; they need to name men and the persistence of mens
powers, without stereotyping men. In doing this, there are dangers that an increased focus
on men may divert attention from women and womens agendas by arguing that men should
have even more resources for solving these problems. So vigilance is necessary in this
respect. However, it is useful to bear in mind that a critical focus on men is not in
mens general interest, just as it is not in the interests of other dominant groups
to focus critically on them. This will involve debate, clear policy statements,
publications and other materials, education and teaching, professional interventions,
pro-feminist menswork and boyswork, and research. It is time that
government had a strategy on changing men away from power and oppression as part of
its strategy for women and gender justice. In particular a distinction needs to be drawn
between support between and for men that encourages domination and support between and for
men that diminishes domination. The latter kind on initiatives are necessary not only in
the state but throughout all areas of social life society, in business, community, media,
religion, sport and other public and indeed private forums. Finally, one further likely and paradoxical implication of
the naming of men is that the deconstruction of men may be opened up more fully. Changing
future agendas for women involves changing men; changing men involves deconstructing men
and reducing mens power; and, in the longer term still, this may even involve the
abolition of men as such a ubiquitously important social category. Is it time
at last for men to change, and both to develop and be subject to new agendas? Adams, David (1988) Treatment models of men who
batter: a profeminist analysis in Kersti Yllö and Michelle Bograd (eds.) Feminist
Perspectives on Wife Abuse, Newbury Park, Ca. and London: Sage. Jeff Hearn has been involved in mens groups and
anti-sexist activities and in researching and writing on men since 1978. His publications
include Sex at Work (with Wendy Parkin), The Gender of
Oppression, Men in the Public Eye and The Violences of Men, and he has
co-edited The Sexuality of Organization, Taking Child Abuse Seriously, Men,
Masculinities and Social Theory, Violence and Gender Relations, Men as
Managers, Managers as Men, Consuming Cultures, Transforming Politics and Children, Child Abuse and Child Protection. He is Professorial Research Fellow in
the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, University of Manchester, based in the School
of Social Policy, and Donner Visiting Professor in Sociology with particular reference to
Gender Research, Ĺbo Akademi University, Finland. Jeff Hearn Hearn did his MA - specialised
and Thesis in Organisational Sociology - at the Department of Management
Studies of the University of Leeds. He received a PhD on Social Theory,
Social Planning and Theories of Patriarchy at the University of Bradford
1986. His first published book was in 1983, a materialist analysis of men's
relations to children, followed by the book, “'Sex' at 'Work'”, authored
with Wendy Parkin, in 1987, on the power and paradox of 'organisation
sexuality', and then “The Gender of Oppression”, a neo-marxist,
pro-feminist critique of contemporary patriarchy in the same year. Hearn has been Lecturer,
Senior-Lectorer, Research Fellow, Visiting Professor, Professor and the like
at universities in Bradford, Manchester, Sunderland, Ĺbo, Oslo and
elsewhere. He is currently teaching as a professor at the "Swedish
School of Economics and Business Administration" in Helsinki. Jeff Hearn is a member of the
British Sociological Association, since 2005 member of the Conference and
Events Committee of BSA. He is co-editor * Men and Masculinities, Sage,
London, ISSN 1097-184X associate editor of: * Gender, Work and Organization,
Blackwell, Oxford. (1994-), ISSN 0968-6673 and member of the editorial board
of several other important journals of social science, e.g.: * Leadership, Sage, London, ISSN
1742-7150 * Sexualities: Studies in Culture
and Society, Sage, London, ISSN 1363-4607 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hearn During and after the time of his
studies Jeff Hearn has been an active member of the profeminist men’s
movement. With David Morgan, Colin Creighton, Chris Middleton, Ray Thomas
and Clive Pearson, he initiated some ground rules for the study of men and
masculinity, published as ‘Changing men's sexist practice in sociology’,
Network, No 25, January 1983. Following work in the Men and Masculinity
Research/Study Group at Bradford, the principles were developed and
published in Achilles'
Heel in 1987, and 3 years later Hearn and Morgan appended a sixth in the
book "Men, Masculinities and Social Theory". CROME - Critical Research On Men
In Europe, a comparative studies of the situation of men in Europe. |
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