Abstract
Over the last 20 years, a consensus has emerged that historical changes in the gender identity of elite men can be conceptualised best as a series of shifts between forms of ‘hegemonic masculinities’. These ‘hegemonic’ forms have included: ‘anxious, patriarchal, godly masculinity’ (mid-seventeenth century); ‘libertine’ or ‘foppish’ masculinity (the late seventeenth century); ‘polite’ or ‘civil’ masculinity (c. 1720–1780); ‘sincere’, ‘serious’ or ‘evangelical’ masculinity (emerging from c. 1790); with the final nineteenth-century displacement of landed gentility by ‘middle-class’ notions of masculinity based around an ideology of domesticity.1 R.W. Connell, who first advocated this approach, stressed that the cultural dominance of these norms dictated responses to them, generating subgroups who can be categorised as ‘complicit’, ‘subordinate’ or ‘marginal’ to the ‘hegemonic’ form.2 Connell also provided a schematic analysis of the evolution of hegemonic masculinities, by highlighting four developments in the last 500 years which have helped create the ‘modern gender order’.3
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Notes
See A. Shepard and K. Harvey, ‘What have historians done with masculinity: reflections on five centuries of British history, circa. 1500–1950’, Journal of British Studies 44 (1988), 274–80; later periods are summed up in J. Tosh, ‘Gentlemanly politeness and manly simplicity in Victorian England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 12 (2002), 455–72.
R.W. Connell, Gender and Power (London, 1987); idem, Masculinities (Cambridge, 1995).
On ‘modernisation’ ideas and theories see G. Walker, ‘Modernization’, in Walker (ed.), Writing Early Modern History (London, 2005), pp. 25–48.
J. Gregory, ‘Homo religiosus: masculinity and religion in the long eighteenth century’, in T. Hitchcock and M. Cohen (eds), English Masculinities, 1660–1800 (Harlow, 1999), p. 86.
Ibid.
Ibid., pp. 86–7.
Shepard and Harvey, ‘What have historians done with masculinity’, pp. 274–80; M. Francis, ‘The domestication of the male? recent research on nineteenth and twentieth century masculinity’, Historical Journal 45 (2002), 637–52; A. Milne-Smith, ‘A flight to domesticity? making a home in the gentlemen’s clubs of London 1880–1914’, Journal of British Studies 45 (2006), 796–818; W. Stafford, ‘Gentlemanly masculinities as represented by the Late Georgian Gentleman’s Magazine’, History 93 (2008), pp. 47–68; M. Collins, ‘The fall of the English gentleman: the national character in decline, c. 1918–1970’, Historical Research 75 (2002), 90–111; and J. Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London, 1996), pp. 15–19.
J. Tosh, ‘What should historians do with masculinity: reflections on nineteenth century Britain’, History Workshop Journal 38 (1994), 179–202.
Journal of British Studies 44 (2005), 274–362.
A. Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003), pp. 70–92; E. Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England. Honour, Sex and Marriage (Harlow, 1999), pp. 28–54.
P. Langford, ‘The progress of politeness’, in idem A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 59–122; L.E. Klein, ‘Politeness for plebes: consumption and social identity in early eighteenth-century England’, in A. Bermingham and J. Brewer (eds), The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (London and New York, 1995), pp. 362–82; L.E. Klein, ‘Coffeehouse civility, 1660–1714: an aspect of post-courtly culture in England’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 59:1 (1996), 30–51; A. Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1998); P. Burke, ‘A civil tongue: language and politeness in early modern Europe’, in P. Burke, B. Harrison and P. Slack (eds), Civil Histories: Essays in Honour of Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford, 2000), pp. 31–48; P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, Britain 1660–1800 (Harlow, 2001); H. Berry, ‘Rethinking politeness in eighteenth-century England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the significance of “flash talk”’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 11 (2001), 65–81; J. Gillingham, ‘From civilitas to civility: codes of manners in medieval and early modern England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 12 (2002), 267–91; N. Cooper, ‘Rank, manners and display: the gentlemanly house, 1500–1750’, ibid., 291–310; P. Langford, ‘The uses of eighteenth-century politeness’, ibid., 311–32; P. Carter, ‘Polite “persons”: character, biography and the gentleman’, ibid., 333–54; R.H. Sweet, ‘Topographies of politeness’, ibid., 355–74; H. Berry, ‘Polite consumption: shopping in eighteenth-century England’, ibid., 375–94; E. Foyster, ‘Creating a veil of silence? politeness and marital violence in the eighteenth-century household’, ibid., 395–416; A. Fletcher, ‘Courses in politeness: the upbringing and experiences of five teenage diarists, 1671–1860’, ibid., 417–30; L.E. Klein, ‘Politeness and the interpretation of the British eighteenth century’, Historical Journal 45:4 (2002), 869–98; D.M. Turner, Fashioning Adultery: Gender, Sex and Civility in England, 1660–1740 (Cambridge, 2002); M. Peltonen, The Duel in Early Modern England: Civility, Politeness and Honour (Cambridge, 2003); J. Jordan, ‘Herstory untold: the absence of women’s agency in constructing concepts of early modern manhood’, Cultural and Social History 4:4 (2007), 575–83.
Ibid., pp. 313–314.
See K. Harvey, ‘The history of masculinity, circa 1650–1800’, Journal of British Studies 44 (2005), 296–311. For conduct literature and concerns about effeminacy, see M. Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1996); P. Carter, ‘Men about town: representations of foppery and masculinity in early eighteenth-century urban society’, in H. Baker and E. Chalus (eds), Gender in Eighteenth-Century England. Roles, Representations and Responsibilities (London, 1997), pp. 31–57; Carter, Polite Society, pp. 124–62; E. Brinks, Gothic Masculinity: Effeminacy and the Supernatural in English and German Romanticism (London, 2003); T.A. King, The Gendering of Men, 1600–1750 (Madison, 2004); M.S. Dawson, Gentility and the Comic Theatre of Late Stuart London (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 145–204; J.M. Kelly, ‘Riots, revelries, and rumor: libertinism and masculine association in enlightenment London’, Journal of British Studies 45:4 (2006), 796–818. For advice literature on politeness, see V. Nunning, ‘From “honour” to “honest”: the invention of the (superiority of the) middling ranks in eighteenth-century England’, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 2 (1995), 19–41; Carter, Polite Society, pp. 15–87; essays by Carter, Fletcher, Foyster and Langford in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 12 (2002); D. Kuchta, The Three-Piece Suit and Modern Masculinity. England, 1550–1850 (Berkeley, 2002); R.B. Shoemaker, ‘Taming the duel: masculinity, honour and ritual violence in London, 1660–1800’, Historical Journal 45:3 (2002), 525–45; M. Cohen, ‘“Manners” make the man: politeness, chivalry and the construction of masculinity, 1750–1830’, Journal of British Studies 44 (2005), 312–30. For masculinity and sexualities, see R. Trumbach, ‘Sex, gender, and sexual identity in modern culture: male sodomy and female prostitution in enlightenment London’, Journal of the History of Sexuality 2 (1991), 186–203; R. Trumbach, Sex and the Gender Revolution. Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London (Chicago, 1998); G.E. Haggerty, Men in Love. Masculinity and Sexuality in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1999); T. Hitchcock and M. Cohen (eds), English Masculinities, 1660–1800 (Harlow, 1999); Turner, Fashioning Adultery; K. Harvey, ‘The substance of gender difference: change and persistence in eighteenth-century representations of the body’, Gender and History 14:2 (2002), 202–23; K. O’Donnell and M. O’Rourke (eds), Love, Sex, Intimacy and Friendship between Men, 1550–1800 (Basingstoke, 2003).
A. Vickery, ‘Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of English women’s history’, Historical Journal 36 (1993), 383–414; see also M. McCormack (ed.), Public Men: Masculinity and Politics in Modern Britain (Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 13–32.
Judith M. Bennett, ‘History that stands still: women’s work in the European past’, Feminist Studies 14 (1988), 269–83.
J.A. Allen, ‘Men interminably in crisis? Historians on masculinity, sexual boundaries and manhood’, Radical History Review 82 (2002), 193.
J. Tosh, ‘Gentlemanly politeness and manly simplicity in Victorian England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12, 6th ser. (2002), 455–72.
P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge, 1990), p. 59, quoted in the best brief introduction to Bourdieu’s conception of habitus, R. Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu (Oxford, 2002), pp. 74–84. Bourdieu’s relatively static conception of gender-power has been criticised by recent feminist writers. See L. Adkins and B. Skeggs (eds), Feminism after Bourdieu (Oxford, 2005).
F. Inglis, Clifford Geertz: Culture, Custom and Ethics (Oxford, 2000), p. 119.
M. McCormack and M. Roberts, ‘Conclusion: chronologies in the history of British political masculinities, c. 1700–2000’, in McCormack (ed.), Public Men, pp. 187–202.
On ‘modernisation’ ideas and theories in history, see G. Walker, ‘Modernization’, in idem (ed.), Writing Early Modern History (London, 2005), pp. 25–48.
R.W. Connell, ‘An iron man: the body and some contradictions of hegemonic masculinity’, in M. Messner and D. Sabo (eds), Sport, Men and the Gender Order (Champaign, IL, 1990), p. 83.
R.W. Connell and J.W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept’, Gender and Society 19:6 (2005), 829–59.
F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (London, 1972–1973), II, 892, 1239–44.
L. Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford, 1996), pp. 59–111; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, pp. 152–85. We agree with Shepard that, although greater emphasis was given consistently to sexual purity in evaluations of female reputation, it was also a component of male ‘honesty’. See also L.A. Pollock, ‘Honor, gender and reconciliation in elite culture, 1570–1700’, Journal of British Studies 46 (2007), 3–29.
L. Colley, Britons. Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven and London, 1992), pp. 147–94.
E. Griffiths (ed.), ‘William Windham’s Green Book 1673–1688’, Norfolk Record Society LXVI (2002), 4–10; R.W. Ketton-Cremer, The Early Life and Diaries of William Windham (London, 1927), pp. 28–55.
E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley and D. W. Hayton (eds), The House of Commons 1690–1715: The History of Parliament V (Cambridge, 2002), p. 889.
Norfolk R. O. William Windham, Geneva to Ashe Windham, 9 April 1738 WKC 7/45/5; Ibid., 21 April 1738, WKC 7/45/8; W. Windham, An Account of the Glacieres or Ice Alps in Savoy… (London, 1744).
R. Sedgwick (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1715–1754 (London, 1970), II, p. 558; Norfolk R. O. WKC 7/46/18 Letter from Thomas Dampier, 19 April 1741.
S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago and London, 1994), p. 84.
DRO 1148M Add 14 Series I/186, Arthur Acland to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 28 January 1880. Acland was referring to two works by the Unitarian James Martineau: J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life: Discourses (London, 1847) and Hours of Thought on Sacred Things: A Volume of Sermons (London, 1876). He also refers to T.H. Green’s famous lay sermons at Oxford, which were eventually published after Green’s death in 1883; A. Toynbee (ed.), The Witness of God and Faith: Two Lay Sermons (London, 1883).
Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Bart, had been a Tory, but joined the new Liberal Party in 1857. He disagreed with Gladstone’s policy of Home Rule, but, out of loyalty to Gladstone, had refused to join the Conservative Party with the other Liberal Unionists. The Aclands were, previous to this, famous Tories, having taken the Royalist side during the Civil Wars and serving as Tory MPs in various south-west constituencies practically throughout the period of this paper. See R.G. Thorme (ed.), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790–1820, III (London, 1986), pp. 18–20.
R. Jenkins, Social Identity (London, 2004), p. 123.
F. Barth, ‘Boundaries and connections’, in A.P. Cohen (ed.), Signifying Identities: Anthropological Perspectives on Boundaries and Contested Values (London, 2000), pp. 17–36.
See J.P. Cooper, ‘Ideas of gentility’, in G.E. Aylmer and J.S. Morrill (eds), Land, Men and Beliefs; Studies in Early Modern History (London, 1983), pp. 43–77; P.J. Corfield, ‘The rivals: landed and other gentlemen’, in N. Harte and R. Quinault (eds), Land and Society in Britain, 1700–1914: Essays in Honour of F. M. L. Thompson (Manchester, 1996), pp. 1–33; Shapin, Social History of Truth, pp. 42–125; A. Bryson, ‘The rhetoric of status: gesture, demeanour and the image of the gentleman in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England’, in L. Gent and N. Llewellyn (eds), Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c. 1540–1660 (London, 1990), p. 136; Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility; Gillingham, ‘From civilitas to civility’, pp. 267–90; P.C. Maddern, ‘Gentility’, in R.L. Radulescu and A. Truelove (eds), Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England (Manchester, 2005), pp. 18–34; H.R. French, ‘“Ingenious and learned gentlemen”: social perceptions and self-fashioning among Parish elites in Essex, 1680–1740’, Social History 25:1 (2000), 44–66; H. Berry, ‘Sense and singularity: the social experiences of John Marsh and Thomas Stutterd in Late-Georgian England’, in H.R. French and J. Barry (eds), Identity and Agency in England 1500–1800 (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 178–99.
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French, H., Rothery, M. (2011). Hegemonic Masculinities? Assessing Change and Processes of Change in Elite Masculinity, 1700–1900. In: Arnold, J.H., Brady, S. (eds) What is Masculinity?. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307254_8
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