Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Masculinities in global perspective: hegemony, contestation, and changing structures of power

  • Published:
Theory and Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The relation between hegemony and masculinity needs reassessment in the light of postcolonial critique. A fully historical understanding of hegemony is required. The violence of colonization set up a double movement, disrupting gender orders and launching new hegemonic projects. This dynamic can be traced in changing forms through the eras of decolonization, postcolonial development, and neoliberal globalization. Specific configurations of masculinity in the contemporary metropole-apparatus can be traced, together with their relations with local power. A gender order is emerging in transnational space and minimal conditions for hegemony within it can be defined. Counter-hegemonic projects among men have multiplied but have limited reach. Hegemony under construction, rather than achieved hegemony, is the key concept.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Achebe, C. (1958). Things fall apart. London: Heinemann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Al-e Ahmad, Jalal. 1982 [1962]. Weststruckness. Translated by John Green and Ahmad Alizadeh. Lexington KY: Mazda Publishers.

  • Alvarez, S. E. (1999). Advocating feminism: the Latin American feminist NGO ‘boom’. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1(2), 181–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amar, P. (2011). Middle East masculinity studies: Discourses of “men in crisis,” industries of gender in revolution. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 7(3), 36–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, J. (2008). Editorial: researching for life: paradigms and power. Feminist Africa, 11, 1–12.

  • Bennett, J. (2010). “Circles and circles”: notes on African feminist debates around gender and violence in the C21. Feminist Africa, 14, 21–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhambra, G. K. (2014). Connected Sociologies. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird, Susan, Ritilio Delgado, Larry Madrigal, John Bayron Ochoa and Walberto Tejeda. 2007. Constructing an alternative masculine identity: the experience of the Centro Bartolomé de Las Casas and Oxfam America in El Salvador. Gender and Development, vol. 15 no. 1, 111–121.

  • Blagojevic, M. (2013). Transnationalization and its absence: the Balkan semiperipheral perspective on masculinities. In J. Hearn, M. Blagojevic, & K. Harrison (Eds.), Rethinking Transnational Men: Beyond, Between and Within Nations (pp. 163–184). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulbeck, C. (1998). Re-orienting Western Feminisms: Women‘s Diversity in a Postcolonial World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carrigan, T., Connell, R., & Lee, J. (1985). Toward a new sociology of masculinity. Theory and Society, 14(5), 551–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chopra, R. (Ed.) (2002). . From Violence to Supportive Practice: Family, Gender and Masculinities in India. New Delhi: United Nations Development Fund for Women.

  • Chopra, R. (Ed.) (2007). Reframing Masculinities: Narrating the Supportive Practices of Men. New Delhi: Orient Longman Private.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collier, R. (2010). Men, Law and Gender: Essays on the ‘Man’ of Law. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (1983). The black box of habit on the wings of history: critical reflections on the theory of social reproduction, with suggestions on how to do it better. In R. Connell (Ed.), Which Way is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture. (pp. 140–161). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2007). Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2010a). Im Innern des gläsernen Turms: Die Konstruktion von Männlichkeiten im Finanzkapital. Feministische Studien, 28(1), 8–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, Raewyn. 2010b. Building the neoliberal world: managers as intellectuals in a peripheral economy. Critical Sociology, vol. 36 no. 6, 777–792.

  • Connell, R. (2014). Margin becoming centre: for a world-centred rethinking of masculinities. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(4), 217–231.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2015). Meeting at the edge of fear: theory on a world scale. Feminist Theory, 16(1), 49–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2016). 100 million Kalashnikovs: gendered power on a world scale. Debate Feminista, 51, 3–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R., & Dados, N. (2014). Where in the world does neoliberalism come from? The market agenda in southern perspective. Theory and Society, 43(2), 117–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept. Gender and Society, 19(6), 829–859.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz Sierra, S., ed. (2013). Vida, muerte y resistencia en Ciudad Juárez: Una aproximación desde la violencia, el género y la cultura. Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte; México D. F.: Juan Pablos Editor.

  • Das, A., & Singh, S. K. (2014). Changing men: challenging stereotypes. Reflections on working with men on gender issues in India. IDS Bulletin, 45(1), 69–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, R. (2003). Creating corporate warriors: the ‘salaryman’ and masculinity in Japan. In K. Louie & M. Low (Eds.), Asian Masculinities (pp. 118–134). London: RoutledgeCurzon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donaldson, M. (1991) Time of Our Lives: Labour and Love in the Working Class. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

  • Dowsett, G. W. (2003). HIV/AIDS and homophobia: Subtle hatreds, severe consequences and the question of origins. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 5(2), 121–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elias, J. (2008). Hegemonic masculinities, the multinational corporation, and the developmental state: constructing gender in “progressive” firms. Men and Masculinities, 10(4), 405–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Epstein, D., Morrell, R., Moletsane, R., & Unterhalter, E. (2004). Gender and HIV/AIDS in Africa south of the Sahara: interventions, activism, identities. Transformation, 54, 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ford, M., & Lyons, L. (Eds.) (2012). Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghoussoub, M. (2000). Chewing gum, insatiable women and foreign enemies: Male fears and the Arab media. In M. Ghoussoub & E. Sinclair-Webb (Eds.), Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Middle East (pp. 227–235). London: Saqi Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Go, Julian. 2012. For a postcolonial sociology. Theory and Society, published online 29 October 2012 at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11186-012-9184-6#page-2

  • Guha, R. (1989). Dominance without hegemony and its historiography. Subaltern Studies, 6, 210–309.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haque, Md. Mozammel. 2012. Men, masculinities and social change: exploring Khmer masculinities and their implications for domestic violence. PhD thesis, University of Sydney.

  • Haque, Md. Mozammel. 2013. Hope for gender equality? A pattern of post-conflict transition in masculinity. Gender, Technology and Development, vol. 17 no. 1, 55–77.

  • Hoang, K. K. (2014). Vietnam rising dragon: contesting dominant western masculinities in Ho Chi Minh City’s global sex industry. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 27, 259–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hountondji, Paulin J. 1997. Introduction: Recentring Africa. Pp. 1–39 in Paulin J. Hountondji, ed., Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails. Dakar, CODESRIA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howson, R. (2006). Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huerta Rojas, F. (2006). La deportivización del cuerpo: globalización de las identitdades genéricas masculinas.  n Gloria Careaga and Salvador Cruz Sierra, ed., Debates sobre masculinidades: poder, desarrollo, políticas públicas y ciudadanía (211–233) México D. F.: UNAM.

  • Hunter, M. (2004). Masculinities, multiple-sexual-partners, and AIDS: the making and unmaking of Isoka in KwaZulu-Natal. Transformation, 54, 123–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ITO, K. (1993). Otokorashisa-n-yukue [Directions for Masculinities: Cultural Sociology of Manliness]. Tokyo: Shinyo-sha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jewkes, R., Morrell, R., Hearn, J., Lundqvist, E., Blackbeard, D., Lindegger, G., Quayle, M., Sikweyiya, Y., & Gottzén, L. (2015). Hegemonic masculinity: combining theory and practice in gender interventions. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 17(sup2), 96–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jolly, M. (2008). Moving masculinities: Memories and bodies across Oceania. The Contemporary Pacific, 20(1), 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kiddle, Margaret. 1992 [1950]. Caroline Chisholm. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

  • Lang, James, Alan Greig and Raewyn Connell, in collaboration with the Division for the Advancement of Women. 2008. The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality. “Women 2000 and Beyond” series. New York, United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women/ Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Electronic version at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/w2000.html.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laurie, N. (2005). Establishing development orthodoxy: negotiating masculinities in the water sector. Development and Change, 36(3), 527–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lazreg, M. (1990). Gender and politics in Algeria: unraveling the religious paradigm. Signs, 15(4), 755–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levin, P. (2001). Gendering the market: temporality, work, and gender on a national futures exchange. Work and Occupations, 28, 112–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, L. (2004). Caribbean masculinity at the Fin de Siècle. In R. E. Reddock (Ed.), Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses (pp. 244–266). Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lugones, M. (2007). Heterosexism and the colonial/modern gender system. Hypatia, 22(1), 186–219.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mama, A. (1997). Sheroes and villains: Conceptualizing colonial and contemporary violence against women in Africa. In M. J. Alexander & C. T. Mohanty (Eds.), Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. (pp. 46–62). New York: Routledge..

    Google Scholar 

  • Mbeki, M. (2009). Architects of Poverty: Why African Capitalism needs Changing. Johannesburg: Picador Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mbembe, A. (2001). On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2010). Capital culture revisited: Sex, testosterone and the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(3), 652–658.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mernissi, Fatima. 1985 [1975]. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Revised edn. London: Saqi Books.

  • Messerschmidt, J. W. (2010). Hegemonic Masculinities and Camouflaged Politics: Unmasking the Bush Dynasty and its War Against Iraq. Boulder: Paradigm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meuser, Michael, ed. 2010. Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 2010, vol. 21 issue 3: special issue on hegemonic masculinity.

  • Meyer, M., & Struthers, H. (Eds.) (2012). [Un]covering Men: Rewriting Masculinity and Health in South Africa. Auckland Park: Fanele.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mies, M. (1986). Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. London: Zed.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moodie, T. Dunbar, with Vivienne Ndatshe. 1994. Going for Gold: Men, Mines and Migration. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

  • Morrell, R. (2001). From Boys to Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal 1880–1920. Pretoria: University of South Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrell, R., & Swart, S. (2005). Men in the Third World: Postcolonial perspectives on masculinity. In M. S. Kimmel, J. Hearn, & R. Connell (Eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities. (pp. 90–113). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mudimbe, V. Y. (1994). The Idea of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mulholland, Kate. 1996. Entrepreneurialism, masculinities and the self-made man. Pp. 123–149 in David L. Collinson and Jeff Hearn, ed., Men as Managers, Managers as Men. London: Sage.

  • Myrttinen, H. (2012). Violence, masculinities and patriarchy in post-conflict Timor-Leste. In M. Ford & L. Lyons (Eds.), Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia (pp. 103–120). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nandy, A. (1983). The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olavarría, José, ed., 2009. Masculinidades y globalización: Trabajo y vida privada, familias y sexualidades. Santiago, Red de Masculinidiad/es Chile, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and CEDEM.

  • Ortega, D., & Maria, L. (2012). Looking beyond violent militarized masculinities: guerrilla gender regimes in Latin America. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 14(4), 489–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pascoe, C. J., & Tristan, B. (2016). Introduction: Exploring Masculinities: History, Reproduction, Hegemony, and Dislocation. In C. J. Pacoe & T. Bridges (Eds.), Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change (pp. 1–34). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peteet, J. (1994). Male gender and rituals of resistance in the Palestinian intifada: a cultural politics of violence. American Ethnologist, 21(1), 31–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, J. (1987). A Man’s Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male—a History. Auckland: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poster, W. R. (2013). Subversions of techno-masculinity: Indian ICT professionals in the global economy. In J. Hearn, M. Blagojevic, & K. Harrison (Eds.), Rethinking Transnational Men: Beyond, Between and Within Nations (pp. 113–133). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America.  International Sociology, 15(2), 215–232.

  • Ratele, K. (2013). Masculinities without tradition. Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 40(1), 133–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ratele, K. (2014). Currents against gender transformation of South African men: relocating marginality to the centre of research and theory of masculinities. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(1), 30–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, K. (2007). Gender, Crime and Empire: Convicts, Settlers and the State in Early Colonial Australia. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberson, J. E., & Suzuki, N. (Eds.) (2003). Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roper, M. (1994). Masculinity and the British organization man since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosa, Marcelo C. 2014. Theories of the south: limits and perspectives of an emergent movement in social sciences. Current Sociology, published online 24 February 2014, doi: 10.1177/0011392114522171.

  • Saffioti, Heleieth I. B. 1978 [1969]. Women in Class Society [A mulher na sociedade de classes]. New York: Monthly Review Press.

  • Shefer, T., Ratele, K., Strebel, A., Shabalala, N., & Buikema, R. (Eds.) (2007). From boys to men: social constructions of men in contemporary society. Lansdowne, South Africa: UCT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sideris, T. (2005). “You have to change and you don’t know how!”: Contesting what it means to be a man in rural area of South Africa. In G. Reid & L. Walker (Eds.), Men Behaving Differently (pp. 111–137). Cape Town: Double Storey Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silberschmidt, M. (2004). Men, male sexuality and HIV/AIDS: Reflections from studies in rural and urban East Africa. Transformation, 54, 42–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair-Webb, E. (2000). Our Bülent is now a commando’: military service and manhood in Turkey. In M. Ghoussoub & E. Sinclair-Webb (Eds.), Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Middle East. (pp. 65–92). London: Saqi Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinha, M. (1995). Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stauffer, R. H. (2004). Kahana: How the Land was Lost. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suttner, R. (2005). Masculinities in the African National Congress-led liberation movement: the underground period. Kleio, 37, 71–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taga, F., Higashino, M., Sasaki, M., & Yohei, M. (2011). Changing Lives of Salarymen. Mineruvashobo: Kyoto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tienari, J., Søderberg, A.-M., Holgersson, C., & Vaara, E. (2005). Gender and national identity constructions in the cross-border merger context. Gender, Work and Organization, 12(3), 217–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tinsman, Heidi. 2000. Reviving feminist materialism: gender and neoliberalism in Pinochet’s Chile. Signs, vol. 26 no. 1, 145–188.

  • Townshend, C. (2005). Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion. London: Allen Lane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Karen Gottschang with Phan Thanh Hao. 1998. Even the Women Must Fight: Memories of War from North Vietnam. New York: Wiley.

  • United Nations. (2013). Why Do Men Use Violence and How Can We Stop It? Quantitative Findings from the UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence. Bangkok: UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV.

  • Vieira de Jesus, D. S. (2011). Bravos novos mundos: uma leitura pós-colonialista sobre masculinidades ocidentais. Estudos Feministas, 19 (1), 125–139.

  • Viveros, V. M. (2001). Contemporary Latin American perspectives on masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 3(3), 237–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wajcman, J. (1999). Managing like a Man: Women and Men in Corporate Management. Cambridge: Polity and Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, W. L. (1986). The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xaba, T. (2001). Masculinity and its malcontents: The confrontation between ‘struggle masculinity’ and ‘post-struggle masculinity’ (1990–1997). In R. Morrell (Ed.), Changing Men in Southern Africa (pp. 105–124). Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yan, H. (2008). New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development and Women Workers in China. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Zhan, Junfeng. 2015. Xing Bie Zhi Lu: Rui Wen Kang Nai Er De Nan Xing Qi Zhi Li Lun Tan Suo [The Road of Gender: An Exploration of Raewyn Connell’s Theories of Masculinity]. Guangxi Normal University Press.

  • Zingoni, E. L. (1998). Masculinidades y violencia desde un programa de acción en México. In T. Valdés & J. Olavarría (Eds.), Masculinidades y equidad de género en América Latina (pp. 130–136). Santiago: FLACSO/UNFPA.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This article is the complete statement of an argument I have been developing over a number of years, most recently presented in keynote addresses to the conferences “Les masculinités au prisme de l’hégémonie,” École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, 13 June 2013, and “Emerging ideas in masculinity research—Masculinity studies in the North,” Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities, Reykjavik, 4 June 2014. Those addresses have been published as “Hégémonie, masculinité, colonialité,” Genre, sexualité & société, no. 13, Spring 2015, article 3429, and “Margin becoming centre: for a world-centred rethinking of masculinities,” NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 2014, vol. 9 no. 4, 217-231. I am grateful to the colleagues who took part in the conferences and gave feedback on the material. Part of this research was funded by a Discovery grant from the Australian Research Council. I am deeply grateful to the people with whom I have worked on these ideas over the years, especially the late Tim Carrigan and John Lee, my co-authors on the 1985 paper; Norm Radican, Robert Morrell, James Messerschmidt, Taga Futoshi, and José Olavarría. Teresa Valdés, Radhika Chopra, Mara Viveros, and Kylie Benton-Connell gave key insights and support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Raewyn Connell

Authors
  1. Raewyn Connell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raewyn Connell.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Connell, R. Masculinities in global perspective: hegemony, contestation, and changing structures of power. Theor Soc 45, 303–318 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-016-9275-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-016-9275-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation