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Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male

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Alpha Masculinity

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality ((PSLGS))

Abstract

This chapter provides a theoretical foundation to the book and overviews the Alpha label, notably its salience in North American Anglophone speech communities. Discussion then reverts to the broader field of gender and sexualities studies, focusing on questions of hegemony and power, while also addressing the similarities and differences of the Alpha male vis-à-vis other forms of dominant, exaggerated, or celebrated masculinity. Specific attention is given to scholarship challenging and expanding understandings of masculinities lived out in language and communication. It is shown that Alpha male ideologies and the linguistic and discursive performances of this are both similar and distinct from other uses of this label, including anti-feminist and overtly hostile forms of toxic masculinity that are widely documented in antecedent literature.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am grateful to Shawn Ho, a student in a graduate seminar, whose moment of inspiration provided this term. Calqued onto other uses of “divergence,” andro-divergence should be understood as any movement away from or position contrary to the most celebrated forms of masculinity in a particular context (viz. Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). This includes, of course, such categories as subordinated and marginalized masculinities, but also effemininities and anti-masculinities, the latter being understood as that which performatively realizes or embodies qualities that are antonymic to the celebrated, dominant, valued, and/or normative form of masculinity in such context (e.g. “queeny” gay men or “sensitive” straight men).

  2. 2.

    Following the practice of Solnit and others, I refuse to include his name, nor will I provide citation information for his manifesto: while I recognize that this individual may well be considered a victim in his own right, this is done in deference to his victims and in respect of our common sense of humanity.

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Russell, E.L. (2021). Masculinities, Language, and the Alpha Male. In: Alpha Masculinity. Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70470-4_2

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