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Critical Discourse Studies

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Plural masculinities: the remaking of the self in private life

Magnus Nilsson
a a

Department of Social Studies, Karlstad University, Sweden

Available online: 21 Feb 2012

To cite this article: Magnus Nilsson (2012): Plural masculinities: the remaking of the self in private life, Critical Discourse Studies, 9:2, 191-193 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2012.660742

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Critical Discourse Studies Vol. 9, No. 2, May 2012, 191 193

BOOK REVIEW
Plural masculinities: the remaking of the self in private life, by Soa Aboim, Farnham/ Burlington, Ashgate, 2010, 196 pp., 49.50 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-7546-9984-2 During the previous century, the patriarchal structures of society in many parts of the world have become more and more eroded. At the end of the century, and to a large extent depending on the changes in forms of masculinity and the advances made by feminist critical research, more and more attention has been given to men and masculinities in research. In recent decades, mens studies have moved forward, both empirically and theoretically, and this progress owes much to feminist studies. Research on men and masculinities has also been done in reaction to a notion of a universalistic male way of being present in some feminist understandings of men and masculinity. The category man is equally reductive as the category woman, and the universality of the way that masculinity is performed is only present as a result of limited vision, a generalization of the particular. There is a plurality of positions that men occupy not only in relation to each other in any given society, but also in relation to women. Male power, in the different forms it takes, is accordingly distributed and exerted unevenly among men. In relation to this, studies on men and masculinities have worked to deconstruct the gure of the patriarchal male in a way that has established the need for more research and knowledge of masculinities in all its forms. That masculinity comes in a multiplicity of forms is the point of departure in Soa Aboims book Plural masculinities: The remaking of the self in private life (2010). She takes the changes in masculinities that have occurred during the twentieth century as her object of inquiry and the aim of the book is to offer the reader a contemporary portrait of the plural dynamics of complicit masculinities, which emphasizes the multiple, even contradictory, paths through which men are remaking their identities (p. 4). One way of understanding men and masculinities as plural is through using R.W. Connells (1995) theoretical framework of hegemonic masculinity. The theory of hegemonic masculinity is the most inuential theory in research on men and masculinities, and this is also the framework preferred by Aboim. The theory of hegemonic masculinity proposes that there is one form of masculinity which denes the territory of the plurality of forms of masculinities and femininities. Through this perspective, it is imperative to understand the constitution of hegemonic masculinity to understand mens structural domination over women, but also how some men and masculinities are subordinated and marginalized in relation to others. The largest group of men is not the ones who live in accordance with the ideals and agency of hegemonic masculinity but those whom Connell refers to as complicit men and complicit masculinities. The two remaining forms of masculinity in Connells model are the subordinate masculinities and marginalized masculinities. Subordinate masculinities are, for example, homosexual men and other men performing masculinity in ways antithetical to the hegemonic form. Marginalized masculinities are masculinities that are discriminated against based on, for example, race or class. Marginalized men can comply with hegemonic masculinity, but never attain the status attached to it. Complicit men are not the men who dene the hegemony, but uphold it through compliance and use of the symbols of hegemonic masculinity. And this is also the group that is in focus for the studies included in Aboims book Plural masculinities. The reason for this is that, according to Aboim, complicit men are very much part of upholding hegemony and as they are the largest group of men, it is important to understand in what ways and how they reproduce and challenge the hegemonic
ISSN 1740-5904 print/ISSN 1740-5912 online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2012.660742 http://www.tandfonline.com

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Book review

ideology of male dominance. As previously stated, Aboim departs from a notion of masculinity as consisting of a multiplicity of forms. She also holds that change is not just taking one path, but that change is taking place in many, and sometimes also contradictory, ways, and through the study of complicit men, she is investigating this process. Other studies have also taken this as a point of departure, but few have focused on the ordinary, the complicit, men and the way that they are involved in the realm of the family life and its transformation through history. The complicit men that Aboim studies are heterosexual, they are fathers and partners, and it is above all the way they relate to women and family which is the object of inquiry, as this points to the changes in forms of masculinity. Aboim argues that the history of Western patriarchy is equivalent to the history of the modern family as it has been the locus for the reproduction of inequalities and consequently the exercise of male power. It is also in the changes in the family and ideals of family life during the nineteenth century where she sees the development and institution of the familialized man who should provide for and guide his family. According to Aboim, the emergence of the ideal of the familialized man has disempowered men in the family as the strict patriarch has faded away as a cultural ideal in favour of the ideal of the gender equal couple. Again, this has led to an increased pluralization of legitimate ways of acting like a man. Even though there is no doubt as to the importance of the family in the reproduction and challenge of male dominance, it is here, of course, possible to object to the privileging of the family in this process, as working life, politics as well as religion and other institutions has been equally important. The book is divided in two parts: one theoretical and the other empirical. Each part consists of three chapters. Chapter 1, From dualism to pluralism: The power of categories and the making of gender, sets out to connect the research on men and masculinities with feminist research and theorizations on gender. Here Aboim also presents an overview of the history and development of research on men and masculinities. In Chapter 2, Domination, hegemony and hybrid selves: Rethinking the plural dynamics of masculinity, Aboim engages with the virtues and difculties of understanding men and masculinity from the concept of hegemonic masculinity. This is also the chapter where she grounds her central theoretical arguments for the choice of empirical data for the study as well as the framework for analysis. In Chapter 3, Masculinities and private life: Power behind the scenes, it is feminist research on the private sphere and family life that is in focus for the author, as this functions as the context for the empirical chapters. Here, she argues that the tensions and hyrbridisms of contemporary masculinities can be traced to the historical development of the distinction between public and private, and the way it is connected to the emergence of the modern family. Chapter 4 starts the empirical part of the book. Under the title Labour and love: The gender division of labour and caring in a cross-national perspective, it provides a cross-national overview of the division of labour in heterosexual couples in 26 Western countries. In this chapter, Aboim looks at both the way that women and men relate to cultural ideals of gender and the way that chores and responsibilities are divided between men and women. Specically, Aboim looks at how men and women in the different countries, with their specic gender regimes, relate to and live according to the ideal of a dual-earner/dual-carer couple model and how this affects the male breadwinner model in this chapter. The remaining two empirical chapters depart from a qualitative study on men in Portugal from three different generations. In Chapter 5, called Inclusion, defamilialization, autonomy: The changing boundaries of masculinities within family life, Aboim looks at how Portuguese men relate to and react to the current changes in gender ideology towards gender equality. All the interviewed men are members of dual-earner couples. Here she nds three types of masculinities: the companion-based masculinities that are oriented towards equality, the defamilialized masculinities that is a form that is neither oriented to family responsibilities or a career. They are neither companions nor providers. The last type is called individualized forms of being a man in the family life and this

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form of masculinity is one that seeks to combine elements of both the public and the private and this involves nding strategies to recreate the self in a traditionally female sphere. In Chapter 6, Of pleasure and violence: Sex and sexuality in mens discourses, the focus is on the importance of (hetero)sexuality to the performance of masculinity and this is studied by looking at how members of three generations of men talk about relationships, women and sexuality. The book ends with a concluding chapter not numbered or described as a chapter where the author sums up the results of the empirical studies she has presented and relates them to the theories and previous research presented in the rst three chapters. The book is a rare example of a multi-method approach in the way it combines both quantitative and qualitative methods and relates the results of the empirical studies to complex theories of gender, cultural transformation and power. As mentioned, the book consists of two parts: one theoretical and the other empirical. In the theoretical part, Aboim discusses previous research and theorizations connected to gender inequality/equality and the way this relates to the family and the distinction public/private. However, this is not fully integrated in the empirical part of the book. Instead, it can be likened to a textbook on research on men and masculinities and how this relates to feminist research and theorizing. The second and empirical part of the book provides important insights into the plurality of forms of masculinity among complicit men, something that is usually only accredited to marginalized and subordinated men; the ones whose existence challenges the existing gender order. As a researcher on age and ageing, I found the chapter dealing with generational difference and change particularly interesting. This also leads me to the weak point of the book, the use of the theory of hegemonic masculinity as a guiding framework for the discussion of theory and analysis of the empirical data. One of the nodal points of the theory is that there is one set of norms of masculinity that has a hegemonic status in relation to other forms of masculinity and that this hegemony also serves to uphold mens structural dominance over women. In the nal chapter of the book, Aboim raises the question regarding the validity of the theoretical framework and especially the possibility of actually dubbing one form of masculinity hegemonic. This is a highly relevant question, not least since the plurality of masculinities she nds rather points to a struggle between ideals and forms of masculinity rather than the supremacy of one. One of the problems seems to rest in the need to constantly extend the list of traits contained by the hegemony as empirical research covers new areas of mens lives. In the end, it is impossible not to ask the question of how diverse a hegemonic formation can afford to be. Hegemony has, after all, to be a unity contained by the equivalence of the signiers. Therefore, I think it would have been more fruitful, both theoretically and empirically, if Aboim from the start had been more open to investigate whether a hegemonic masculinity actually exists or if it merely is a struggle of discourses taking place.

Reference
Connell, R.W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Magnus Nilsson Department of Social Studies Karlstad University Sweden Email: magnus.nilsson@kau.se # 2012, Magnus Nilsson