Plural Masculinities

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Plural masculinit ies: the remaking ofthe self in private lifeMagnus Nilsson

a

aDepartment of Social Studies, Karlstad University, Sweden

Available online: 21 Feb 2012

To cite this article: Magnus Nil sson (2012): Plural masculinit ies: the remaking of the self in private

life, Cri t ical Discourse Studies, 9:2, 191-193

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BOOK REVIEW

Plural masculinities: the remaking of the self in private life , by Sofia 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 masculi-nity. 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 accord-

ingly distributed and exerted unevenly among men. In relation to this, studies on men and mascu-

linities have worked to deconstruct the figure 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 Sofia Aboims

bookPlural 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 theaim of the book is to offer the reader a contemporary portrait of the plural dynamics of com-

plicit 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 influential 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 defines the territory of the plurality of forms of masculinities and femininities.

Through this perspective, it is imperative to understand the constitution of hegemonic masculi-

nity to understand mens structural domination over women, but also how some men and mas-

culinities 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 masculi-

nities. Subordinate masculinities are, for example, homosexual men and other men performing

masculinity in ways antithetical to the hegemonic form. Marginalized masculinities are mascu-

linities 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 define 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, complicitmen 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

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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 historyof Western patriarchy is equivalentto

the history of the modern family as it has been the locus for the reproduction of inequalities and con-

sequently 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 andinstitution 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 thereis no doubt as to the impor-tance of the family in the reproduction and challenge of male dominance, it is here, of course, poss-

ible 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 difficulties of understanding men and masculinity from the concept of hegemonicmasculinity. 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 over-

view 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. Specifically, Aboim looks

at how men and women in the different countries, with their specific gender regimes, relate to

and live according to the ideal of a dual-earner/dual-carer couple model and how this affectsthe 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 finds three types of masculinities: the companion-based mascu-

linities 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 provi-

ders. The last type is called individualized forms of being a man in the family life and this

192 Book review


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form of masculinity is one that seeks to combine elements of both the public and the private and

this involves finding 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 the-

ories and previous research presented in the first three chapters.

The book is a rare example of a multi-method approach in the way it combines both quan-

titative and qualitative methods and relates the results of the empirical studies to complex the-

ories 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 tothe family and the distinction public/private. However, this is not fully integrated in the empiri-cal 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 thebook 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 inter-

esting. This also leads me to the weak point of the book, the use of the theory of hegemonic mas-

culinity 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 final chapter of the book, Aboim raises

the question regarding the validity of the theoretical framework and especially the possibility ofactually dubbing one form of masculinity hegemonic. This is a highly relevant question, not least

since the plurality of masculinities she finds 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 hege-

monic formation can afford to be. Hegemony has, after all, to be a unity contained by the equiv-

alence of the signifiers. 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: [email protected]

# 2012, Magnus Nilsson

Book review 193

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Plural Masculinities