Introduction: Masculinity and Politik

Abstract

The historical study of masculinity and politics in Europe remains underdeveloped partly as a result of a narrow, state-centred definition of politics. Both in contemporary cultures in which the political sphere is taken for granted and in pre-modern societies where the state was not the only political player, a focus on state institutions gives a monotonous picture of their self-evident masculinity before the twentieth century and of their continuing domination by men in the present day. This handbook aims to improve our understanding of the relationship between masculinity and political culture through a series of studies which examine the consequences of the ideal and the norm that ‘political’ power should be male, from the Roman republic to the present day.