Transcript
http://jmm.sagepub.com/ Menand Masculinities http://jmm.sagepub.com/content/14/5/634.citationThe online version of this article can be found at:DOI: 10.1177/1097184X114077392011 14: 634 Men and Masculinities Mangesh Kulkarni Book Review: Debating Masculinity Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com can be found at: Men and Masculinities Additional services and information for http://jmm.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://jmm.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: What is This?- Dec 29, 2011Version of Record>> at Vienna University Library on January 3, 2012 jmm.sagepub.comDownloaded from Messner’s engaging writing style draws the reader into the fine details of what heobserves out on the youth sports playing fields of South Pasadena. It is an effortlesstask to picture the settings from which Messner’s own experiences as a volunteer and his observations as a sociologist emerged. All in all, this text provides a fine exampleof the insight that a well-executed ethnography can deliver.This book would be of interest to multiple audiences. Sociologists working in thefields of gender and sport are obvious candidates to have an interest in this text.Scholars with an interest in the relationship between class, family, and communitywill also be engaged. Further, the readability of this text also opens it up to a muchwider audience: from first-year sociology undergraduates with an emerging interestin gender studies, to current and aspiring youth sports coaches, to parents, organi-zers, officials, and volunteers of youth sports at all levels. Josep M. Armengol and Angels Carabi (eds.) Debating Masculinity Harriman, TN: Men’s Studies Press, 2009, 189 pp.ISBN: 978-1-931342-19-3. Reviewed by: Mangesh Kulkarni, Department of Politics and Public Administration , University of Pune, India. DOI: 10.1177/1097184X11407739 The academic study of men and masculinities has come a long way since itsemergence in the 1980s as a constructive response to feminism and women’s studies.The new-fangled discipline has already generated a sizeable scholarly corpus com- prising thematic studies as well as omnibus works. The handy volume edited byJosep Armengol and Angels Carabi is a valuable addition to the latter genre. Itincludes a foreword by Miles Groth of the Men’s Studies Press, an editorial prologue, six interviews with and three conference papers by leading scholars in thefield, the protocol of a seminar with Lynne Segal, and a bibliography. Though thevolume is an outcome of research projects hosted by the Spanish Woman’s Instituteat the University of Barcelona, its focus is on anglophone scholarship. Two promi-nent features of the book may be noted at the outset. For one, as Groth rightly pointsout, it succeeds in capturing the spontaneity and open-ended character of theconversations on which it is largely based. Besides, despite the diversity of themesand perspectives it presents, the book has a plain practical, political intent whichis spelt out by the editors in terms of ‘‘deuniversalizing and democratizing’’masculinity.The opening dialogue with the sociologist Michael Kimmel on the nature of masculinity studies sets the tone of the book. He projects a spatiotemporally pluralunderstanding of masculinity along the axes of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and 634 Men and Masculinities 14(5) at Vienna University Library on January 3, 2012 jmm.sagepub.comDownloaded from age. Outlining the contribution of various disciplines to the explication of this plurality, he goes on to emphasize the contradiction between men’s apparent entitle-ment to power and the sense of powerlessness they frequently experience. The con-tradiction and its attendant pathologies can be resolved only by radicallytransforming the patriarchal structures from which they stem, and by convincingmen of the long-term benefits they would reap through such a transformation. Theinterview also contains glimpses of Kimmel’s research on the history of Americanmasculinity with its recurrent themes of ‘‘self-control, exclusion, and escape,’’ hisanalysis of the differential impact of globalization on men belonging to varioussocial strata, as also his advocacy of a synergetic relationship among queer studies,women’sstudies and masculinity studies (MS),and of theneedtointegrate them intothe curricula of other relevant disciplines.The second chapter features an interview with David Gilmore—anthropologistand author of path-breaking works such as Manhood in the Making (1990) and Misogyny (2001). Gilmore underscores the cultural ubiquity of patriarchy whichdefines the ideal male as one who protects and provides for his dependents, hassexual potency, and exercises power. Male domination and machismo have a clear nexus with warfare; they are absent only in a few communities founded on a peace-able culture. The quest for masculine identity is goaded by a compulsion to beconstantly tested and proved in ways which often fuel misogyny. The subsequentinterview with the culture theorist Krin Gabbard tracks the continual reinforcementand occasional interrogation of hegemonic masculinity in popular American cinema.Gabbard deftly demonstrates the importance and art of analyzing gendered cinematic representations as they shape the self-understanding and behavior of men including leaders like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush who control thedestiny of nations. In a perceptive aside, he suggests that the greater social accep-tance of gay men had led to the outflanking of male homophobia by a malenarcissism conducive to consumer capitalism.The discussion on cinema is aptly followed by David Leverenz’s article whichlooks at men in fiction. Leverenz—literary theorist and author of the landmark work Manhood and the American Renaissance (1989)—gives an account of his evolvingideas concerning the subject with admirable self-reflexivity. The focus of the articleis on competition among men which undergirds the dynamics of hegemonic mascu-linity. The fear of being humiliated by other men and the yearning to gain their respect are the twin imperatives that drive the competition. This power game victi-mizes women and blocks men’s access to intimacy. Played out collectively on alarger canvas, it often results in war. Literature provides a window on the construc-tion of competitive manhood and indicates possibilities of deconstructing it. In thesubsequent interview, Carolyn Dinshaw—best-known for her sterling contributionto queer studies—grapples with a wide range of politically fraught metatheoreticalconundrums that have (at times productively) complicated our understanding of sexuality and gender. Perhaps the most radical proposal she moots is that ‘‘the veryconcepts of gender and sexuality are racialized . . . [o]ur idea of separating out Book Reviews 635 at Vienna University Library on January 3, 2012 jmm.sagepub.comDownloaded from sexuality and abstracting it in the way we do might be a specifically White, Western preoccupation’’ (75–76).The interrelationship between race, sexuality, and masculinity forms the focus of the interview with the culture theorist David Eng who has published extensively onthe subject from the standpoint of psychoanalysis, feminism, queer studies, and racial studies. Eng argues that a critical investigation of the triad can lead to a coun-terhegemonic interrogation of the White, heteronormative, middle-class socialorder. In the course of the discussion, he offers many insights into the stereotypingof Asian Americans and their efforts to resist it through literature and cinema. In thesubsequent article, Linda Jones—a specialist in Arab and Islamic studies—tracks theshifting codes of masculinity in Islamicate societies from the medieval period to the present by drawing on an impressive variety of sources. She describes the cardinalvirtues of generosity, courage, and patience, which were central to the traditionalArabian ideal of masculine conduct. The Islamic model altered but did not eradicatethem. Thus the last two virtues were enlisted in the service of holy war. In themodern period, the perceived emasculation caused by Western and Israeli imperial-ism has given rise to discourses of Islamic hypermasculinity, triggering a renewed commitment to jihad .The biological basis of masculinity remains a controversial question. It lies atthe heart of the interview with Patricia Adair Gowaty—distinguished ecologist and editor of Feminism and Evolutionary Biology (1997). Gowaty bemoans the evolu-tionary psychologists’ tendency to reinforce gender stereotypes that seek to natura-lize male aggressiveness and promiscuity. She argues that available scientificevidence does not support such essentialist contentions. In fact, the findings of behavioral ecologists who have used feminist ideas as a source of testable hypoth-eses suggest that male or female behavior and inclinations are better described bya continuum. While Gowaty thinks it unlikely that there is a gene for masculinityor femininity, she rejects the claim that ‘‘maleness’’ and ‘‘femaleness’’ are entirelysocial rather than natural categories. She holds that social organization is shaped bya dialectical interaction between the sexes and that variation among females is akey to understanding this organization. To her, biology can boost gender equity by proving the power of females in the evolutionary process, by revealing the srcinsof gender prejudice, and by facilitating resistance to gender oppression.In her article on ‘‘Men after Feminism,’’ and the subsequent interview, LynneSegal—psychologist and author of the pioneering book Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (1990)—critically engages with the altering popular and academic perceptions of men’s lives. Underscoring the inherent precariousnessof normative manhood, Segal deflates the current hype about the crisis of masculi-nity. She argues that the soi-disant crisis is less due to the supposed success of feminist interventions and more on account of the hardship induced by globaleconomic restructuring. While the brunt of such changes is borne by men who arealready vulnerable owing to their subaltern social location, hegemonic masculinitycontinues to hold sway and has been aggravated in the aftermath of renewed 636 Men and Masculinities 14(5) at Vienna University Library on January 3, 2012 jmm.sagepub.comDownloaded from worldwide militarization. Since forms of men’s mobilization like the mythopoeticmovement and the promise keepers are oblivious to these realities and seek to recup-erate patriarchal masculinity, they take on the aspect of a backlash.To Segal, the emergence of MS and of self-reflexive men is a positive develop-ment, but there is also a danger that it may lead to the sidelining of women’sconcerns and to men having the last word on gender issues. An academic trend that particularly worries her is the poststructuralist penchant for celebrating nonhetero-normative gender performance and pluralism at the cost of the srcinal feministemphasis on redressing the substantive asymmetry between the sexes. The latter project can be pursued effectively only by transforming the old gender order througha significant modification of ‘‘the diverse structures that maintain gender hierarchy,from language and discursive frameworks to the organization of the family, corpo-rate capital and the labor market [as well as] political institutions’’ (149). While Debating Masculinity does not address itself adequately to each of these issues, itsucceeds in cutting a substantial swathe through them. Along with its intellectualrigor and transparent commitment to the feminist cause, this makes the book a valu-able contribution to the transformation Segal envisages. Companion volumes witha larger disciplinary, thematic, and geographical compass would be most welcome. K. E. Silverman From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006. 320 pp.$69. http://www.barnesandnoble.com (accessed August 22, 2009) Reviewed by: Nachum Turetzky, LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York (CUNY)DOI: 10.1177/1097184X09349727 My parents told me that after my brit milah (circumcision of the covenant), I bled for a few hours. Once in the hospital, I was stabilized and quickly released. The doctorstold my parents that when I arrived, I was near death. This event, of which I have norecollection whatsoever, intrigued me ever since I had heard the story. Silverman’s book demystifies much of the meaning and context of circumcision by delivering acomprehensive and intricate account of this Jewish practice. As the title of the book promises, Silverman takes thereader through a history ofcircumcision, fromthe bib-lical tales and myths, through ages of rabbinical interpretations, up to the period when medical circumcision became popular in many Western countries, and into the present controversy in America, where circumcision lost its medical value and remains the subject of theological and humanistic debate. The author’s main aimsare to demonstrate the ubiquitous ambivalence and the unresolved gender tensions Book Reviews 637 at Vienna University Library on January 3, 2012 jmm.sagepub.comDownloaded from
