Connell's Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique

Author(s): Demetrakis Z. Demetriou

Source: Theory and Society , Jun., 2001, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jun., 2001), pp. 337-361
Published by: Springer

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/657965

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Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity: A critique

DEMETRAKIS Z. DEMETRIOU
University of Sydney

The originality of Connell's "social theory of gender" has

him as one of the leading theoreticians in the general area
relations and more particularly in the emerging field of the so
masculinity. His formulation of the concept of "hegemonic mas
represents the most influential and popular part of his w
been used in empirical research ranging from the areas of sexu
gay studies to that of criminology and prison sociology. Yet
numerous empirical researchers have made use of this conc
has been almost no attempt to evaluate its theoretical mer
article offers a detailed theoretical exposition as well as a
the concept of hegemonic masculinity. In the first part, I show
notion of hegemonic masculinity was developed in an attem
an account of what the sex role framework left largely un
that is, the questions of patriarchal power and social chan
suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing hegemonic m
that draws on Gramsci's concept of historic bloc and Bhabh
of hybridity. I argue that hegemonic masculinity is not a p
or heterosexual configuration of practice but it is a hybrid
unites practices from diverse masculinities in order to ensu
production of patriarchy. In the third and final part of th
undertake a brief case study in order to show the contribut
masculinities to the formation of the contemporary hegemo

From sex roles to hegemonic masculinity

Connell's critique of role theory was firstly developed in

entitled "The concept of role and what to do with it,"
published in 1979.2 Written at a time when Connell was stil
in class analysis,3 this article was directed not so much again

Theory and Society 30: 337-361, 2001.

? 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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338

theory itself but against role theory in general, which was seen as a
"theoretical ideology"4 that had been developed in the 1950s in order
to cope with the crisis of legitimation of Western capitalism. Role
theory performed this ideological function, in Connell's view, by leaving
the questions of power and change untheorized.5 In Connell's later
writings, sex role theory is attacked precisely because of its inability to
conceptualize power (and resistance to power) as an essential feature of
the relationships between genders and within genders; and also be-
cause of its subsequent failure to grasp change as a product of the
contradictions within gender relations themselves.6

Sex role theory's inability to grasp power is closely related, in Connell's

view, to its failure to theorize the relationship between structure and
agency and to its reliance on biological determinism. In sex role theory,
social structure is usually theorized via the concept of "expectations."
Thus social pressure is said to come from the occupants of counter-
positions who hold stereotyped role expectations and reward or punish
depending on the conformity of the role enactment. "But why," Con-
nell goes on to ask, "do the second parties apply the sanctions?"7 This
quickly comes down, as Connell notes, to a question of individual
will and thus structure dissolves into agency. The missing element of
structure, Connell concludes, is then supplied by the biological cate-
gory of sex and thus the theory collapses into an abstract account of
sex differences.8

By identifying the social structure with biological difference, sex role

theory reduces gender to two homogeneous and complementary cate-
gories and thus underplays social inequality and power.9 This neglect
of power is two-dimensional in that sex role theory fails to acknowl-
edge power relationships both between and within genders. As regards
power relationships between genders, sex role theory treats the "female
role" and the "male role" as equal and reciprocally dependent on each
other.10 There seem to be no power relationships here at all. "We do
not speak of 'race roles' or 'class roles,"' as Connell repeatedly notes,
"because the exercise of social power in these areas of social life is
more obvious to sociologists." 1 With sex role theory, however, the
underlying biological dichotomy conceals and legitimates the power
that men exercise over women. As a result, "the notion of an overall
social subordination of women ... is not a conception that can be
formulated in the language of role theory." 12

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339

Sex role theory is also incapable of grasping the complexities and

power relationships within genders. The problem begins, as Connell
notes, with sex role theory's conceptualization of the relationship be-
tween normative and standard behavior or, in other words, between
expected and actual role enactment.13 By granting primacy to norma-
tive over standard behavior, sex role theory "creates the impression
that the normative sex role is the majority case, and that departures
from it are socially marginal.... "14 It thus fails to acknowledge the
existence of a multiplicity of femininities and masculinities and in-
cludes whatever is inconsistent with the normative sex role in the
category of "deviance." In this way, male homosexuality and lesbian-
ism, for example, appear as the product of some personal eccentricity
or imperfect socialization and the power that is exercised over them is
tacitly concealed.15

By conceptualizing variations from the normative sex role simply in

terms of deviance, sex role theory is prevented from understanding the
element of resistance to power and this brings us to Connell's main
critique of the theory, namely that the sex role framework is incapable
of grasping change. This is not to say, as Connell repeatedly notes, that
sex role theory is not interested in, or aware of, change.16 Change has
always been a major topic in sex role literature, but the inability of the
theory to grasp power, resistance to power and ultimately contradic-
tion between and within genders prevents it from conceptualizing
change as internally generated within gender relations themselves. As
Connell vividly put it:

change is always something that happens to sex roles, that impinges on them.
It comes from outside, from society at large, as in discussions of how techno-
logical and economic changes demand a shift to a modern male role.... Sex
role theory has no way of grasping change as a dialectic arising within gender
relations themselves.'7

At this point, Connell's critique of sex role theory reaches its culmina-
tion.18 Yet Connell offers not simply an account of the problems of sex
role theory but also, and more importantly, a transcendence of them.
Connell's transcendence of these theoretical problems is deeply em-
bedded in his concept of hegemonic masculinity, which occupies a
central position in his "social theory of gender." With the formulation
of the notion of hegemonic masculinity, Connell grasps not only the
complex nature of femininities and masculinities, not merely the
power relationships between genders and within genders, but also the
possibility of internally generated change. The concept of hegemonic

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340

masculinity, in other words, embodies Connell's critique of sex role

theory while it is also a qualitative transcendence of it.

Connell's starting point is to recognize diversity in masculinities and

femininities. He begins by defining gender in terms of standard rather
than normative behavior, that is, as something that does not precede
but is constituted in human action. Gender, he says, is a "configuration
of practice" and the emphasis should be placed "on what people
actually do, not on what is expected or imagined." 19 In this sense,
gender is not a fixed set of social norms that are passively internalized
and enacted, but it is constantly produced and reproduced in social
practice. Anticipating, in a way, Butler's grasping of gender as per-
formatively constituted,20 he goes as far as to argue that the word
gender should be used as a verb.21 Moreover, since gender practice takes
place within different historico-cultural contexts and since it is also
performed by agents of different race, class, or generation, we need to
talk about masculinities/femininities, not masculinity/femininity.22

By replacing sex role theory's underlying biological basis with such a

radical social constructionism, Connell is now in a position to concep-
tualize what has usually been included in the category of "deviance" as
distinct forms of femininity and masculinity. But to understand gender
in its plurality, without acknowledging relations of domination and
subordination, risks, as Connell goes on to note, understanding gender
as "alternative lifestyles" and underplaying the power relations involved.
Such an account would be a "character typology," not a social theory
of gender.23 It is precisely here, in his attempt to grasp the power
relations involved, that Connell introduces the concept of hegemonic
masculinity.

The power relationships between genders and within genders in the

current Western gender order are centered, in Connell's view, on a
single structural fact: "the global dominance of men over women."24
The strategy through which this dominance is achieved is embodied in
what Connell calls hegemonic masculinity. Furthermore, "hegemonic
masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practice
which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the
legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee)
the dominant position of men and the subordination of women." 25 But
men do not constitute a homogeneous, internally coherent bloc. Par-
ticular masculinities are themselves subordinated by the hegemonic
practice and their situations are related in different ways to the overall

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341

logic of the subordination of women to men.26 In this way, hegemonic

masculinity, which is "always constructed in relation to various sub-
ordinate masculinities as well as in relation to women,"27 generates
dominance not only over women but also over subordinate masculin-
ities and thus links the relations within genders and between genders
together.28 Hegemonic masculinity is therefore understood as both
"hegemony over women" and "hegemony over subordinate masculin-
ities." I will call these two interconnected and arguably inseparable
functions of hegemonic masculinity external and internal hegemony
respectively.29

Hegemonic masculinity, understood as external hegemony, is con-

nected to the institutionalization of men's dominance over women.
This understanding of hegemonic masculinity derives from Connell's
acceptance of the essential feminist insight that the relations between
genders involve oppression and domination.30 This insight is further
explored and developed by Connell himself in terms of three differen
but inseparable structures of gender relations, distinguishing relation
of labor, power, and cathexis (emotional attachment).31 As regards
labor relations, men's position in patriarchal societies yields a series of
material advantages, such as higher incomes or easier access to educa-
tion, something that Connell calls "patriarchal dividend."32 In term
of power relations, men control the means of institutionalized power
such as the state or the army, while the structure of cathexis is charac-
terized by male superiority and violence rather than reciprocity an
intimacy. The three main institutions that correspond to these struc
tures of gender relations - namely the labor market, the state, and th
family - are examples of what Connell calls gender regimes. Within
this framework, hegemonic masculinity is understood as a configura
tion of practice but it is also seen as being institutionalized in large
scale gender regimes, that is, as a process that involves both social
structure and personal life.33

Hegemonic masculinity generates not only external but also interna

hegemony, that is, hegemony over other masculinities. In this second
sense of the term, hegemonic masculinity refers to a social ascendancy
of one group of men over others. In the current Western gender order,
as Connell notes, such ascendancy is best exemplified by the hegemony
of heterosexual over gay men. Gay men are subordinated to straigh
men not only in terms of social status and prestige but also by a serie
of material practices, which include political, cultural, economic, and
legal discrimination.34 Albeit to a lesser extent, effeminate masculinit

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342

is also subordinated to the hegemonic model, while others, such as

working class or black masculinities, are simply "marginalized." Thus,
while subordination refers to relations internal to the gender order, the
concept of marginalization describes the relationships between the
masculinities in dominant and subordinated classes or ethnic groups,
that is, the relations that result from the interplay of gender with other
structures, such as class and ethnicity. Finally, a large number of men
who do not act in the way prescribed by the hegemonic model but still
(passively) sustain it and thus realize the patriarchal dividend, are said
to "have" a form of masculinity that Connell calls "complicit."35

The concept of "complicit masculinity" plays a vital role in Connell's

theory because the hegemonic practice does not correspond to the
actual activities of the majority of men. Hegemonic masculinity is
rather a "cultural ideal" that is constantly promoted by the civil society
through the production of exemplary masculinities, such as media
images of Sylvester Stallone, which are consistent with the reproduc-
tion of patriarchy. And when the conditions for the reproduction of
patriarchy change, the exemplary masculinities will have to adapt
accordingly if the strategy is to be effective. Furthermore, this function
of civil society motivates many people to honor, desire, and support
the current hegemonic model, that is, to position themselves in a
relationship of complicity with it.36

Having shown, through the dual function of hegemonic masculinity,

the nature of power relations both between and within genders, Con-
nell is now in a position to grasp change as internally generated within
gender relations themselves. Where there is power, Connell seems to
say, echoing Foucault, there is also resistance to it. As regards the
relationships between genders or the function of external hegemony,
"a gender order that men dominate women," as Connell notes, "cannot
avoid constituting men as an interest group concerned with defense,
and women as an interest group concerned with change." 37 The emer-
gence of the women's liberation movement is a fair indication of this
contestation of external hegemony. Similarly, internal hegemony has
found its antithesis in the emergence of the gay liberation movement
since subordinate masculinities, as Connell reminds us, "are subordi-
nated rather than eliminated." 38 But aspects of hegemonic masculinity,
as Connell came to recognize in his most recent writings, are also
contested by a variety of class, ethnic, and other social movements,
such as the peace movement's resistance to violence, with diverse aims
and sometimes conflicting interests. A politics of alliances that unites

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forces ranging from women to peace activists, and that is based on

their overlapping interests, seems to be, as Connell concludes, the most
effective strategy for dismantling hegemonic masculinity.39

From hegemonic masculinity to masculine bloc

It has already been recognized that credit must be given to Connell for
revealing the existence of a multiplicity of masculinities and of the
power relationships among them.40 It seems to me, however, that
Connell's contribution to the study of gender relations is a more fun-
damental one. Connell's originality lies in the formulation of a single
theoretical principle that states that the relationships within genders are
centered on, and can be explained by, the relationships between genders.
In other words, the structural dominance of men over women provides
the essential foundation on which forms of masculinity and femininity
are differentiated and hierarchically ordered.41 Thus hegemonic mas-
culinity and emphasized femininity, for example, are said to be distinct
forms of gender practice and culturally exalted precisely because they
guarantee the reproduction of the relationships between genders. Pat-
riarchy is therefore not a simple question of men dominating women,
as some feminists have assumed, but it is a complex structure of gender
relations in which the interrelation between different forms of mascu-
linity and femininity plays a central role. Nevertheless, the global
dominance of men over women is still the primary focus of analysis,42
in that the relationships within genders are important not so much in
their own right but rather in terms of their effects on the reproduction
of the relationships between genders. The principle under question
could be therefore called the "feminist principle" in that it grants
explanatory priority to inter-gender over intra-gender relationships.

The feminist principle that underlies Connell's work has important

implications for his understanding of the relationship between the
external and the internal function of hegemonic masculinity. The form
of masculinity that is currently hegemonic, as we have already seen,
generates dominance not only over women but also over subordinate
masculinities. But what is the relationship between these two forms of
domination? Are they one and the same thing; are they complementary
to each other; or, is the one the result of the other? Granted the
importance that Connell attaches to the feminist principle, it seems that
hegemonic masculinity is first and foremost a strategy for the subordi-
nation of women. Indeed, as Connell himself noted, "it would hardly

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be an exaggeration to say that hegemonic masculinity is hegemonic

insofar as it embodies a successful strategy in relation to women."43
Internal hegemony or dominance over other masculinities, on the other
hand, seems to be a means for the achievement of external hegemony
rather than an end in itself. It is the global dominance of men over
women, as Connell noted, "that provides the main basis for relation-
ships among men that define a hegemonic form of masculinity." 44 This
implies that some masculinities are subordinated not because they lack
a particular transhistorical quality or because they are naturally inferior
to others but because the configuration of practice they embody is
inconsistent with the currently accepted strategy for the subordination
of women. Gay masculinities, for example, are subordinated to the
hegemonic model because their object of sexual desire undermines the
institution of heterosexuality, which is of primary importance for the
reproduction of patriarchy. A fundamental element of modern heg-
emonic masculinity, as Connell argues, is "that one sex (women) exists
as potential sexual object, while the other sex (men) is negated as a
sexual object."45 The subordination of gay masculinities is therefore a
part of the strategy for the reproduction of patriarchy through the
institution of heterosexuality. In this way, the feminist principle led
Connell to grant primacy to the external over the internal function of
hegemonic masculinity.

Although Gramsci never distinguished between the external and the

internal function of hegemony, this distinction was implicit in his
understanding of the dual nature of class domination. "[A] class is
dominant," Gramsci stated in the Prison Notebooks, "in two ways, i.e.
'leading' and 'dominant.' It leads the classes which are its allies, and
dominates those which are its enemies."46 This distinction is here
not identified with the distinction between hegemony and dictator-
ship47 but it refers to the different strategies adopted by a class in its
hegemonic struggle against social groups whose interests are radically
opposed to its own (e.g., proletariat vs. bourgeoisie) and against
groups whose interests could be reconciled to those of the class seeking
hegemony (e.g., proletariat vs. peasantry). The strategies that corre-
spond to these two situations, that is, domination and leadership
respectively, are said to be radically different from each other in that
the former is directed against "enemies," which must be dominated
"even by armed force," while the latter is directed against "kindred and
allied groups," which must be led.48 The objective of leadership is the
formation of a "historic bloc" that unites all the allied groups under the
umbrella of the group seeking hegemony by making their conception

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of the world homogeneous and consistent with the project of domina-

tion, a process that inevitably involves subordinating some of the
interests of the groups that are led. Furthermore, leadership and dom-
ination could be thought of as internal and external hegemony respec-
tively49 in that the former appears to be both a precondition and a
means to the latter but not an end in itself. It is "merely an aspect of the
function of domination." 50

Although it would be very simplistic to equate hegemony in the arena

of gender relations with class hegemony, there are some striking struc-
tural similarities in the two processes that cannot be ignored. Both
Gramsci and Connell implicitly differentiated between internal and
external hegemony (leadership/domination - hegemony over subordi-
nate masculinities/over women) and they granted primacy to the latter
while the former is seen as a means to external hegemony, not an end
in itself. Furthermore, in both theoretical accounts internal hegemony
refers to a strategic moment where the class/gender seeking hegemony
is unified and homogenized, usually at the expense of "kindred
groups," so it can assert itself externally to the group over which
hegemony is to be exercised. Where Gramsci and Connell parted
company is precisely in their understanding of this fundamental process
of internal hegemony. Whereas for Gramsci the process is essentially
a dialectical one that involves reciprocity and mutual interaction be-
tween the class that is leading and the groups that are led, Connell
understands the process in a more elitist way where subordinate and
marginalized masculinities have no effect on the construction of the
hegemonic model.

For Gramsci internal hegemony culminates in the formation of a

historic bloc, which is achieved through the leadership of the funda-
mental class. This does not mean, however, that the elements of the
"kindred groups" are totally subordinated or eliminated. In fact,
some of these elements, particularly those that are consistent with the
project of domination, are appropriated and they become essential
constitutive elements of the historic bloc. This process of appropriation
could be called "dialectical pragmatism" in that the fundamental class
is in constant, mutual dialectical interaction with the allied groups and
appropriates what appears pragmatically useful and constructive for
the project of domination at a particular historical moment. Pragmati-
cally useless or harmful elements, on the other hand, are subordinated
and eliminated because they have no historical value.51 The outcome of
this process is an amalgam of elements, an "equilibrium"52 that em-

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346

bodies the best possible strategy for external hegemony. It is a "historic

bloc" whose hybridity and historical specificity are reminiscent of
"common sense." 53

Connell seems to recognize, at least on a theoretical level, that different

forms of masculinity "are in constant interaction" 54 and that, further-
more, the formation of hegemonic masculinity may be influenced by
the existence of subordinate or marginalized models. He coins the very
useful term "authorization" to suggest that the hegemonic model may
authorize some elements of subordinated or marginalized masculin-
ities. "Thus, in the United States, particular black athletes may be
exemplars for hegemonic masculinity."55 Nevertheless, Connell has
not developed these points further. The outcome of the struggle for
internal hegemony is not a hybrid historic bloc, as in Gramsci's ac-
count, but a hegemonic masculinity that is clearly demarcated from
subordinated and marginalized ones. It is a form of masculinity that is
never "infected" by non-hegemonic elements, which are instead con-
fined "to ghettos, to privacy, to unconsciousness."66 Hegemonic mas-
culinity relates to non-hegemonic ones only by subordinating and
marginalizing them and thus their potential pragmatic value in the
construction of hegemony is underplayed while the project of internal
hegemony seems to become, in a way that is inconsistent with Con-
nell's formulation of the feminist principle, an end in itself.

Connell's theory's inability to understand the formative process of heg-

emonic masculinity as a reciprocal one, as a dialectic of appropriation/
marginalization, is best seen in his account of the historical emergence
of contemporary hegemonic masculinity. The origins of the masculin-
ity that is now globally dominant can be traced, in Connell's view, to
four main extra-gender factors that date from about 1450 to about
1650: the emergence of renaissance secular culture with its emphasis
on marital heterosexuality and individualism; the creation of gendered
overseas empires; the growth of commercial capitalism and the urban-
ization, individualism, and calculative rationality that accompanied it;
and finally the onset of large-scale European civil war that involved the
emergence of a strong centralized state and an increased emphasis on
military prowess and performance. These four historical developments
were constitutive of an emphatic, militaristic, individualist, and violent
configuration of practice, of the masculinity of the gentry.57 In the last
two hundred years, however, gentry masculinity has been displaced
"by more calculative, rational and regulated masculinities"58 while
these new hegemonic forms have more recently been challenged by the
rise of feminism and the gay liberation movement.59

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347

In Connell's historical narrative, non-hegemonic masculinities are ab-

sent from the formative process of hegemonic masculinity. The latter
appears as an essentially white, Western, rational, calculative, indi-
vidualist, violent, and heterosexual configuration of practice that is
never infected by non-hegemonic elements. It is systematically identi-
fied with such figures as Sylvester Stallone60 and such movements as
the pro-gun lobby61 or fascism.62 Non-hegemonic masculinities appear
only as possible alternatives, as counter-hegemonic forces that exist "in
tension with"63 the hegemonic model but they never penetrate it.
Hegemonic masculinity and non-hegemonic masculinities are thus
constructed as a dualism, as two distinct and clearly differentiated
configurations of practice. In this way, the project of internal hegem-
ony gets dissociated from external hegemony and from the feminist
principle and it becomes an end in itself. Non-hegemonic masculinities
are subordinated in their totality independently of their pragmatic
value in relation to the project of external hegemony. Hegemonic
masculinity is defined through its negation of subordinate elements
(black, non-Western, irrational, effeminate, or non-violent) rather than
by its ability to subordinate women. Connell's empirical and historical
account of hegemonic masculinity is thus substantially inconsistent
with his theoretical articulation of the concept.64

The secondary literature that employs the concept of hegemonic mas-

culinity tends to reproduce the dualism constructed by Connell.5
Hegemonic masculinity is presented as a "thoroughly heterosexual,"66
violent,67 or even criminal68 configuration of practice. It is always seen,
as Patricia Martin noted, as a "substantially negative"69 type that is
unified and coherent. Hegemonic masculinity is thus united by its ugli-
ness and negativity and by its opposition to femininity and subordinate
masculinities. Bird, for example, has argued that hegemonic masculin-
ity is maintained through male homosocial interactions whereby other
masculine practices are denied and "marginalized, if not suppressed
entirely." 70 Hegemonic masculinity is thus a closed and unified totality
that incorporates no otherness. Furthermore, when elements inconsis-
tent with this unified model are noticed, they are said to be "contra-
dictions" that undermine the coherence and dynamic of hegemonic
masculinity.71

In the remainder of this article, I want to rethink the concept of

hegemonic masculinity in the light of Gramsci's alternative under-
standing of the process of internal hegemony. I want to deconstruct
Connell's binarism between non-hegemonic masculinities and he-

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348

gemonic masculinity and conceptualize the latter as a hybrid bloc that

unites various and diverse practices in order to construct the best
possible strategy for the reproduction of patriarchy. That is, the con-
figuration of practice that guarantees the reproduction of patriarchy
need not necessarily be the one traditionally associated with white or
heterosexual masculinities. It is in fact a hybrid masculine bloc that
is made up of both straight and gay, both black and white elements
and practices. Masculine bloc, unlike hegemonic masculinity, implies a
non-reified and non-dualistic understanding of masculine power and
practice. The notion of a "historic bloc," as Stuart Hall noted, is not
identical to that of a pacified, homogeneous ruling class in that it
"entails a quite different conception of how social forces and move-
ments, in their diversity, can be articulated into a set of strategic alli-
ances." 72 Furthermore, whereas for Connell the existence of non-white
or non-heterosexual elements in hegemonic masculinity is a sign of
contradiction and weakness, for me it is precisely its internally diversi-
fied and hybrid nature that makes the hegemonic bloc dynamic and
flexible. It is its constant hybridization, its constant appropriation of
diverse elements from various masculinities that makes the hegemonic
bloc capable of reconfiguring itself and adapting to the specificities of
new historical conjunctures. The process through which a historic bloc
is formed is characterized, as Homi Bhabha noted, by "negotiation
rather than negation," 73 that is, by an attempt to articulate, appropriate,
and incorporate rather than negate, marginalize, and eliminate different
or even apparently oppositional elements. Furthermore, negotiation
generates a hybrid moment, a historically unprecedented combination
of elements, a "third space"74 that displaces the histories that consti-
tute it and sets up new, historically novel forms of power relationships.

The theoretical argument just outlined is consistent with the findings

of a corpus of recent research on masculinities. For example, the argu-
ment is implicit in David Sarvan's examination of the formation of
contemporary hegemonic masculinity in the United States.75 Basing
his study on an analysis of various cultural texts, Sarvan argues that a
new masculinity became hegemonic in the 1970s. He delineates the
"gradual ascendancy of [a] new, more feminized and blackened white
masculinity,"76 of a masculinity that offers "subjects positions that
have been marked historically as being both masculine and feminine,
white and black."77 Sarvan makes it clear that the ascendancy of this
hybrid masculinity "represents an attempt by white men to respond to
and regroup in the face of particular social and economic challenges,"
such as the "reemergence" of the feminist movement and the rise of the

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lesbian and gay rights movements.78 Hybridization is thus a strategy

for the reproduction of patriarchy. Similarly, Brian Donovan's analysis
of the masculinity of Promise Keepers shows the ways in which
hegemony is reproduced through hybridization.79 Donovan argues
the Promise Keepers have constructed a hybrid masculinity, a mascu-
linity that "combin[es] traits of both 'sensitive' and 'tough men.'"80
In doing so, they have produced "innovative forms of power that
potentially shore up male authority."81 In this way, Sarvan's and
Donovan's studies reinforce the argument developed out of Gramsci's
conceptualization of the process of internal hegemony: that the mas-
culinity that occupies the hegemonic position at a given historical
moment is a hybrid bloc that incorporates diverse and apparently
oppositional elements.

It must be stressed that Bhabha's notions of hybridity and negotiation

are central to the process through which a hegemonic bloc is formed.82
In an attempt to clarify this process and the dynamic it entails, I now
turn to an empirical case study and examine the ways in which some
elements of gay masculinities have become (through negotiation, appro-
priation, and translation) constitutive elements of modern hegemonic
masculinity.

Gay masculinities and the formation of hegemonic bloc: A case study

The emergence of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s

called patriarchy into question. Domestic violence, denial of women's
sexuality, and male aggression were no longer left unchallenged by
many women in the West. Patriarchy was in need of new legitimatory
strategies and many men were asked to renegotiate their positions in
patriarchal societies, their power, and their masculine identities.
Meanwhile, groups of men that had been largely excluded from the
hegemonic bloc had, by that time, become visible. Black diaspora and
the emergence of the gay liberation movement, for example, brought
black and gay masculinities from the margins to the center. The answer
to the legitimation crisis of patriarchy, as I argue in this part of the
article, involved the formation of a new masculine hegemonic bloc that
incorporated the elements produced by these "marginal" and "sub-
ordinate" masculinities that were functional to the reproduction of
patriarchy. In the discussion that follows, I concentrate on the impor-
tance of a set of gay elements and practices83 in the formation of the
contemporary masculine bloc.

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The process through which gay elements and practices get embedded in
a masculine bloc is closely associated to the question of gay visibility.
Gay culture can have an impact on the male population in its totality
and it can contribute to the project of patriarchal domination only if it
is visible. It has been widely documented that during the last three
decades there has been an unprecedented increase of homosexual
visibility in modern Western societies.84 Gay male images are present
in fundamental aspects of modern cultures, from mainstream movies85
and fashion86 to popular music87 and popular culture as a whole.88
This is not to say that gay visibility is a new historical phenomenon. As
Chauncey has shown in his history of gay male culture in New York,
gay men were highly visible figures there as early as the 1890s.89 Con-
trary to what he calls "the myth of invisibility," "gay men boldly
announced their presence by wearing red ties, bleached hair, and the
era's other insignia of homosexuality."90 Similarly, the "molly houses"
in early-eighteenth-century England produced their own distinctive
conventions, a highly developed and elaborated "system of symbol-
ization" by which "mollies" were able to identify each other. So visible
was this culture that, as the raids and trials of the time testify, "[i]ts
visibility was its bane."91 Yet, in late capitalist societies, gay visibility
has taken a new form. It is no longer the mere result of gay agency, of
the actions and visibility strategies of homosexuals themselves, but it is
now closely related to the logic and structures of late capitalism. As
Stuart Hall noted, the global expansion of late capitalism is based on
the development of identity-specific forms of marketing that can reflect
every difference and reach even the smallest and more marginal group
of individuals.92 Furthermore, the development of marketing strategies,
such as "gay window advertising," have brought about a new degree of
homosexual visibility.93 In this way, the increasing circulation of gay
images in popular culture during the two or three preceding decades
needs to be understood as an attempt to embrace the homosexual as a
consuming rather than as a social subject.94 It is a part of a strategy, in
other words, for the reproduction of capitalism, not for the liberation
of homosexuals.

But the attempt to incorporate fragments of gay culture into the main-
stream is also a strategy for the legitimation and reproduction of
patriarchy. The "assimilation of gays into mainstream middle-class
culture," as Hennessy noted, "does not disrupt postmodern patriarchy
and its intersection with capitalism; indeed it is in some ways quite
integral to it."95 By making gay culture more visible, capitalism makes
it possible for many men to appropriate bits and pieces of this alter-

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native culture and produce new, hybrid configurations of gender prac-

tice that enable them to reproduce their dominance over women in
historically novel ways. Throughout this case study, I have deliberately
mixed media representation and concrete gender practices in the social
world precisely because I want to stress this interconnection between
gay visibility in commodity culture and appropriation of gay elements
and practices in the social world: the more visible gay culture is the
more likely it is to get (selectively) appropriated by the straight masses
in the "lifeworld." Gay visibility in commodity culture is thus a notion
that links the reproduction of patriarchy and the reproduction of
capitalism.

Before giving particular historical examples of the formation of the

contemporary hegemonic bloc, let me note that the process of appro-
priation implies re-articulation and translation. When a signifier or a
practice passes from one group to another, it never retains its previous
meaning or function. It is transformed, rearranged, adapted, and
translated into a new context. Blachford observed that when the gay
male sub-culture takes objects from the heterosexual male culture, it
transforms them into something new with a quite different meaning.96
Clothes usually associated with working-class masculinities, for exam-
ple, are given a more sexualized meaning in the gay world. They are
"worn differently in the gay sub-culture from the way they are worn by
'real men.' They are much tighter fitting, especially tailored to be as
erotic and sensual as possible" while they are also combined with some
kind of jewellery, such as chains on the neck, that are unlikely to be
found on heterosexual workers.97 To appropriate is therefore to trans-
late and re-contextualize, to produce something new that is "neither
the one nor the other," but it is a historically novel combination, a
"third space" that enables new strategies to emerge.98

The dominant man of the 1960s and even early 1970s was "sexless" and
"decent," because there was an overt disdain for male beauty and soft-
ness, "a taboo on tenderness" as Lynne Segal put it.99 Dressiness100
and sometimes even the use of aftershave lotion'1? were largely con-
fined to homosexuals. In analyzing the dominant masculine type of
that time, Nixon examined male representations in fashion photogra-
phy in terms of codes of casting, dress, posture, expression, lighting,
and setting.102 He concluded that there was "little fleshiness or sensu-
ality" in the models that appeared in the magazine Town, that the
design and the cut of the clothes worked to produce a desexualized,
narrow, and straight-lined body while the facial expression of the

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352

models was "reminiscent of modern day gangsters." These elements

were further strengthened by the codes of lighting and setting and they
functioned to produce a particular way in which the male reader looks
at the model, a particular "gendering of the look"103 that encouraged
identification with, rather than desire for, the model.

This form of hegemonic masculinity reflected male domination in an

overt way and the rise of the women's movement during the same time
forced men to resort to less overt ways of patriarchal domination.
"Feminism," as Rutherford put it, "didn't so much remove men's
powers and privileges as strip them of their legitimating stories." 104
Meanwhile, the expansion of late capitalism and the flourishing of
commodity culture during the 1960s and the 1970s gave rise to a
historically unprecedented degree of homosexual visibility. Far from
attempting to marginalize the elements produced by these gay mascu-
linities (as Connell would have us believe), many heterosexual men
welcomed most of them because they provided a masquerade behind
which women's subordination could be masked. Due to the fact that in
the 1960s gay masculinities were closer to dominant forms of feminin-
ity rather than to traditional masculinities (they were almost as effemi-
nate as the molly houses of the eighteenth century'05), a hegemonic
bloc could appropriate some of their elements in order to make the
gender division of patriarchy less visible and thus win women's con-
sent. Thus, the new hegemonic bloc that emerged after the early 1970s
was a "bricollage of masculinity" that drew from the gay subculture,106
a "straight queer" as David Kamp put it.'07

Sean Nixon compared his findings of the 1970s that I summarized

above with some more recent fashion photos taken from modern
men's magazines, particularly from The Face, Arena, and GQ. The
casting of the models (young with strong well-defined features), as
Nixon observed, produces a mixture of "boyish softness" and "asser-
tive masculinity" 108 while some elements of the clothing in the stylings
have a "strong intertextuality with gay masculinities." 109 These ele-
ments, along with the "strongly narcissistic absorption or self-contain-
ment of the models," 10 work to produce a "gendering of the look" that
draws on forms of looking "historically associated with gay men."111
What is important here is that these images, which represent a "loos-
ening of the binary opposition between gay and straight-identified
men,"112 have not been created from scratch but they reflect "shifts
in forms of masculinity culture outside the consumer institutions." 113
Indeed, as Richard Martin notes, since gay sensibility sells to both gay

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353

and straight men, "just about everyone dresses a little gay these
days." 114 Some commentators have gone as far as to report that drag
is no longer a taboo for heterosexual men.15 On the contrary, it has
been translated into a symbol of heterosexual manhood since, as one
of Chapman's interviewees confessed, "the kind of man who turns up
at a party as a woman is usually so confident of his masculinity that
he doesn't care what he looks like...." 116 By embracing drag, however,
the man in question is able to blur gender difference, to render the
patriarchal dividend invisible, "to circumvent feminist arguments, and
absent himself from masculinity and thus from any responsibility for
it."'117 As this somewhat unusual example shows, the appropriation
and translation of gay elements represents a self-conscious attempt to
create a hybrid masculinity for purely strategic purposes.

But the appropriation of gay male elements is not restricted to fashion

photography or fashion itself. Recent analyses of male images in adver-
tising have demonstrated the existence of an explicit "gay imagery." 18
Almost all the commentators agree that the existence of gay elements
and styles in mainstream advertising works to sexualize, eroticize, or
fetishize the male body.1l9 Male representations in recent Levi 501120
and Calvin Klein121 advertisements, for example, have less to do with
machismo, strength, and virility than with the fracturing and eroticiza-
tion of the male body. In a similar way, popular music seems to blur the
distinction between gay and straight masculinities. Early Pop Music,
"which was riddled with homosexuality and the sensibility that we now
call camp," 122 encouraged the emergence of narcissistic and androgy-
nous masculinities. The male mods, as Savage notes, were not a sexual
subculture but they assumed what had been an exclusively homosexual
style. They were wearing more effeminate and more colorful clothes
while some of them used make-up and mascara.'23 More recently,
some rock stars have worn skirts on the stage,124 while others pretend
to be gay.125 Furthermore, this appropriation of gay elements blurs
sexual difference, enables some masculinities to appear less rigid and
thus conceals patriarchal domination. But this "gender flexibility," as
Hennessy rightly notes, "is pernicious because it casts the illusion that
patriarchy has disappeared."126

The presence of the gay element is even more noticeable in recent

popular movies, where male film stars, from Tom Cruise to Arnold
Schwarzenegger, are said to have been eroticized.127 Hulmlund, for
example, argues that Sylvester Stallone, whom Connell sees as an
exemplar of a pure heterosexual masculinity,128 has recently worn a

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new masquerade.129 In two of his recent films (Lock Up and Tango),

Stallone is no longer a loner, a Rocky or a Rambo who wins impossible
battles all by himself. He is now joined by another man, a figure that
Hulmlund calls the "Stallone clone":

By naming this second man the Stallone clone, I do not just mean he looks,
talks and acts like Stallone. In these films, Stallone and the clones are very
fond of each other, so for me, "clone" evokes the butch clone, the homosexual
who passes as heterosexual because he looks and acts "like a man." 130

Furthermore, the homoeroticism and the male bonding that these films
contain may appear to undermine traditional conceptions of mascu-
linity and power relationships. Yet Holmlund does not fail to recognize
that masquerades may conceal something. There is always the possibil-
ity that there is something masked behind Stallone's new masquerade
and that therefore the gay element may play a legitimatory function.
"The veil," as he notes with reference to Homi Bhabha, "conceals
bombs." 131

Similarly, Sarvan's analysis of the film Cruising suggests that there is a

strong relationship between the mainstreaming of gay culture and the
reproduction of patriarchy.132 Sarvan's main focus is the sadomaso-
chist (S/M) culture, which has become central to the production of gay
male identities since the 1970s. The film Cruising, as narrated by
Sarvan, is about the excursion of a heterosexual undercover cop, Steve
Burns (Al Pacino), into New York's gay S/M subculture in search of a
"homo killer." 133 Sarvan notes that, as the film progresses, Steve Burns
begins to appropriate elements from the gay S/M subculture and to
make them a part of his heterosexual life. For instance, "[w]hile having
sex with [his girlfriend] (which, tellingly, gets more violent) he involun-
tarily hears the dance music of the S/M clubs...."1 In doing so, the
"newly homosexualized"135 cop is able to reproduce his patriarchal
power over his girlfriend through hybridization. Transposed to the realm
of heterosexuality, male sadism and female masochism is a mechanism
of patriarchal reproduction in that it eroticizes male domination.

In short, hegemonic masculinity, the masculinity that is culturally

exalted and capable of reproducing patriarchy, is not constructed in
total opposition to gay masculinities. Rather, many elements of the
latter have become constitutive parts of a hybrid hegemonic bloc
whose heterogeneity is able to render the patriarchal dividend invisible
and legitimate patriarchal domination. Hybridization in the realm of

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representation and in concrete, everyday gender practices makes the

hegemonic bloc appear less oppressive and more egalitarian. For in-
stance, the appropriation of a series of signifiers from gay subcultures,
such as earrings for men and dressiness, makes the dominant form of
masculinity appear "softer" and less opposed to contemporary femi-
ninities (on the level of symbolization). Yet, as Donovan reminds us,
"softer forms of masculinity are not inherently emancipatory for women
and can, in fact, mask usurpation of women's rights."136 Moreover,
hybridization is a very effective strategy because it uses "the subversive,
messy form of camouflage" in order to produce something new and
unrecognizable and it "does not come like a pure avenging angel speak-
ing the truth of... pure oppositionality." 137

Concluding remarks

In this article, I have introduced the notion of "hegemonic masculine

bloc" in order to do away with Connell's dualism between hegemonic
masculinity and non-hegemonic masculinities. The notion of mascu-
line bloc, deriving from Gramsci's understanding of the process that I
called "internal hegemony," suggests that the form of masculinity that
is capable of reproducing patriarchy is in a constant process of nego-
tiation, translation, hybridization, and reconfiguration. This implies
more than a recognition that hegemonic masculinity is capable of
transforming itself in order to adapt to the specificities of new histor-
ical conjunctures. To say that the dominant form of masculinity is a
hybrid bloc that continually reconfigures itself through hybridization
is not simply to say that hegemony is "a historically mobile rela-
tion." 138 It is rather to stress that the hegemonic bloc changes in a very
deceptive and unrecognizable way. It changes through negotiation,
appropriation, and translation, through the transformation of what
appears counter-hegemonic and progressive into an instrument of
backwardness and patriarchal reproduction.

We are used to seeing masculine power as a closed, coherent, and unified

totality that embraces no otherness, no contradiction. This is an illu-
sion that must be done away with because it is precisely through its
hybrid and apparently contradictory content that hegemonic masculinity
reproduces itself. To understand hegemonic masculinity as hybridity is
therefore to avoid falling into the trap of believing that patriarchy has
disappeared simply because heterosexual men have worn earrings or
because Sylvester Stallone has worn a new masquerade.

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Acknowledgments

A Summer Research Scholarship from the Research School of Social

Sciences of the Australian National University aided in the completion
of this article. I am especially indebted to Lisa Adkins for supervising
this article and for her valuable comments on earlier drafts. I would
also like to thank Mike Donaldson and Richard Howson as well as the
Editors of Theory and Society for their critical comments on an earlier
draft.

Notes

1. Mike Donaldson, "What is Hegemonic Masculinity?" Theory and Society 22/4

(1993): 643-657, is a notable exception.
2. Robert W. Connell, "The Concept of 'Role' and What To Do With It," Australian
and New Zealand Journal of Sociology 15 (1979): 7-17; reprinted in Robert W.
Connell, Which Way Is Up? (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1983), 190-207.
3. The first edition of Connell's historical analysis of class struggle in Australia
appeared a year later. See Robert W. Connell and Terry H. Irving, Class Structure
in Australian History (Melbourne: Longman and Chesire, 1980).
4. Connell, Which Way is Up? 205.
5. Ibid., 204-206.
6. For Connell's critique of sex role theory, see Robert W. Connell, "Theorising
Gender," Sociology 19 (1985): 262-264; Tom Carrigan, Robert Connell, and John
Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity" in Michael Kaufman, editor,
Beyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power, and Change (Toronto:
Oxford University Press, 1987), 156-168; Robert W. Connell, Gender and Power:
Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1987), 47-54;
and Robert W. Connell, Masculinities (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995), 21-27.
7. Connell, "Theorising Gender," 263.
8. Connell, Gender and Power, 50.
9. Ibid., 50-52.
10. Ibid., 51.
11. Ibid., 50; Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity,"
167.

12. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 167.
13. Connell, Masculinities, 27; Connell, Gender and Power, 51-52.
14. Connell, Gender and Power, 52.
15. Ibid.; Connell, Masculinities, 25-27.
16. Connell, Masculinities, 27; Connell, Gender and Power, 53; Connell, "Theorising
Gender," 263.
17. Connell, Gender and Power, 53.
18. Although it is not within the scope of the present article to examine the validity of
Connell's critique of sex role theory, it must be noted that sex role theory can be,
and indeed has been, more flexible in regard to questions of power and change
than Connell assumes. This can be shown by citing only a single article. See Mary

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357

McIntosh, "The Homosexual Role," Social Problems 16 (1968): 182-192. McIntosh's

article shows that the sex role framework does not necessarily reduce homosexuality,
and for that matter any other form of behavior inconsistent with the normative
one, to deviance. On the contrary, the homosexual is here conceptualized as a
distinct gender role that is not only historically specific, but it is also subject to
power. Of course, such flexibility is not so common in sex role literature.
19. Robert W. Connell, "Politics of Changing Men," Arena 6 (1996): 56.
20. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), 24-25. She argues that
"gender is not a noun" but it is "always a doing."
21. Connell, Gender and Power, 140.
22. Ibid., 167-172.
23. Connell, Masculinities, 76.
24. Connell, Gender and Power, 183.
25. Connell, Masculinities, 77.
26. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 174.
27. Connell, Genderand Power, 183.
28. Although Connell does not pay so much attention to relationships among differ-
ent forms of femininity, he argues that they are also constructed in relation to
hegemonic masculinity. "Emphasized femininity" is organized as an adaptation to
it, while other forms of femininity are defined centrally by strategies of resistance.
Although emphasized femininity is more honored and culturally exalted, the con-
centration of power in the hands of men leaves limited scope for it to construct
institutionalized power relationships over other kinds of femininity. Power rela-
tionships among femininities are therefore less acute and noticeable than power
relationships between masculinities. Ibid., 186-188.
29. The words "internal" and "external" are used with reference to the category of
masculinity.
30. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 140.
31. For Connell's "three-fold model of the structure of gender relations," see Connell,
Gender and Power, 90-118; Connell, Masculinities, 73-76; and Robert W. Connell,
"New Directions in Gender Theory, Masculinity Research and Gender Politics,"
Ethnos 61 (1996): 161-162. In his most recent book, Connell identifies a forth
structure of gender relations, which he calls "the structure of symbolism." In doing
so, he stresses the fact that "gender subordination may be reproduced through ...
linguistic practices, such as addressing women by titles that define them through
their marital relationships to men." Yet, this fourth structure of gender relations is
not as developed and elaborated as the component structures of his "three-fold
model." See Robert W. Connell, The Men and The Boys (Sydney: Allen & Unwin,
2000), 26; and also 42-43; 150-155.
32. Connell, "New Directions in Gender Theory," 162. The term "patriarchal divi-
dend," however, is sometimes used to refer to the overall advantages (not simply to
the material ones) that men gain in patriarchal societies. In such cases, Connell
uses the term "material dividend" to refer to the more restricted meaning of
"patriarchal dividend." See, for example, Connell, Masculinities, 82.
33. Connell, "New Directions in Gender Theory," 163.
34. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 170-182.
35. Connell, Masculinities, 76-81.
36. Ibid., 79-80.
37. Ibid., 82.
38. Connell, Gender and Power, 184.

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39. Connell, "Politics of Changing Men," 68-70; Connell, Masculinities, 234-238.

40. See, for example, Deniz Kandiyoti, "The Paradoxes of Masculinity: Some
Thoughts on Segregated Societies," in Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne,
editors, Dislocating Masculinity. Comparative Ethnographies (London: Routledge,
1994), 198-199; and Harry Christian, The Making of Anti-Sexist Men (London:
Routledge, 1994), 7.
41. Connell, Gender and Power, 183-188.
42. Ibid., 183; Connell, Masculinities, 82.
43. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 180.
44. Connell, Gender and Power, 183.
45. Carrigan, Connell, and Lee, "Towards a New Sociology of Masculinity," 173.
46. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks (New York: International
Publishers, 1971), 57.
47. It is true that, within the general framework of his theory of "dual perspective,"
Gramsci often identified leadership with hegemony/civil society/consent, and
domination with dictatorship /political society/ force. Ibid., 12-13, 56, 106, 169-
170, 276. Here, however, I am concerned with a second, less famous but equally
important, meaning that Gramsci attached to the dialectical distinction leader-
ship/domination.
48. Ibid., 57.
49. The words "internal" and "external" are used with reference to the historic bloc.
50. Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 59.
51. Gramsci's analysis of the Italian Risorgimento in the third chapter of the Prison
Notebooks (52-120), and especially his account of the formation of a new class, led
by the Moderate Party, that involved "the gradual but continuous absorption... of
the active elements produced by allied groups," is an excellent exposition of this
dialectical process. Ibid., 58-59.
52. Ibid., 161.
53. Gramsci understands common sense as a "chaotic aggregate" of disparate and
fragmentary conceptions of the world, as being "strangely composite: it contains
Stone Age elements and principles of a more advanced science, prejudices from all
past phases of history at the local level and institutions of a future philosophy
which will be that of a human race united the world over." Ibid., 324; see also
419-425.
54. Connell, Masculinities, 198.
55. Ibid., 81.
56. Connell, Genderand Power, 186.
57. Robert W. Connell, "The big picture: Masculinities in recent world history,"
Theory and Society 22 (1993): 597-623; a somewhat more analytical version of
this article was published in Connell, Masculinities, 186-203.
58. Connell, "The big picture," 609.
59. Ibid., 613-618.
60. Connell, Gender and Power, 185.
61. Connell, Masculinities, 212-216; Connell, "Politics of Changing Men," 62.
62. Connell, Masculinities, 193.
63. Connell, "The big picture," 610.
64. The point that Connell uses the term hegemonic masculinity in an inconsistent
way has been already made by Patricia Y. Martin, "Why Can't a Man Be More
Like a Woman? Reflections on Connell's Masculinities," Gender and Society 12
(1998): 472-474. I want to make it clear, however, that this inconsistency is the

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product of a non-correspondence between his theoretical articulation and his

empirical investigation of hegemonic masculinity.
65. Connell has recently recognized that "the term [hegemonic masculinity] has come
to stand for a fixed character type, something like a Type A personality - and
almost always with negative connotations" and he takes "some responsibility" for
this tendency in the secondary literature. See Robert W. Connell, "Introduction:
Studying Australian Masculinities," Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies 3
(1998): 6; and Robert W Connell, "Reply" [to Judith Lorber and Patricia Martin]
Gender and Society 12 (1998): 475-476.
66. Stephen Tomsen, "'He had to be a poofter or something': Violence, male honor,
and heterosexual panic," Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies 3 (1998): 44-
57, esp. 48-49.
67. James Gillet and Philip White, "Male Bodybuilding and the Reassertion of
Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critical Feminist Perspective," Play and Culture 5
(1992): 358-369.
68. Joachim Kersten, "Crime and Masculinities in Australia, Germany and Japan,"
International Sociology 8 (1993): 461-478.
69. P. Martin, "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman?" 473.
70. Sharon Bird, "Welcome to the Men's Club: Homosociality and the Maintenance of
Hegemonic Masculinity," Gender and Society 10 (1996): 121.
71. Robert W. Connell, "An Iron Man: The Body and Some Contradictions of
Hegemonic Masculinity" in Michael Messner and Donald Sabo, editors, Sport,
Men and the Gender Order (Champaign: Human Kinetics Books, 1990), 83-95;
Donaldson, "What is Hegemonic Masculinity?" 646-647.
72. Stuart Hall, "Gramsci and Us," in Stuart Hall, editor, The Hard Road to Renew-
al: Thacherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988), 170, emphasis
added.

73. Homi K. Bhabha, "The Commitment to Theory," New Formations 5 (1988): 11.
74. Homi K. Bhabha, "The Third Space," in Jonathan Rutherford, editor, Identity,
Community, Culture, Difference (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), 221.
75. David Sarvan, Taking It Like A Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Con-
temporary American Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
76. Ibid., 37.
77. Ibid., 9.
78. Ibid., 4.
79. Brian Donovan, "Political consequences of private authority: Promise Keepers
and the transformation of hegemonic masculinity," Theory and Society 27 (1998):
817-843.
80. Ibid., 826.
81. Ibid., 820.
82. As far as I know, the only studies that attempt to conceptualize masculinities in
terms of Bhabha's notion of hybridity are Alan Sinfield, "Diaspora and hybridity:
Queer identities and the ethnicity model," Textual Practice 10 (1996): 271-293; and
Eduardo Archetti, Masculinities (Oxford: Berg, 1999).
83. This is not to suggest that some practices or elements are intrinsically gay while
others not. By gay elements and practices, I simply mean the ones that are usually
associated with, and have been developed by, gay male communities, such as camp
or drag.
84. For an overview of the literature, see Rosemary Hennessy, "Queer visibility in
commodity culture," in Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman, editors, Social

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360

Postmodernism: Beyond Identity Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1995), 142-183.
85. Robin Wood, "Raging Bull: The Homosexual Subtext in Film," in Kaufman,
Beyond Patriarchy, 266-276.
86. Richard Martin, "The Gay Factor in Fashion," Esquire Gentleman (13 July 1993):
135-140; Hennessy, "Queer visibility in commodity culture," 168-170.
87. Wayne Studer, Rock on the Wild Side: Gay Male Images in Popular Music of the
Rock Era (San Francisco: Leyland, 1994); Jon Savage, "Tainted Love: The influence
of male homosexuality and sexual divergence on pop music and culture since the
war," in Alan Tolminson, editor, Consumption, Identity, and Style: Marketing,
Meanings, and the Packaging of Pleasure (London: Routledge, 1990), 153-171.
88. David Kamp, "The Straight Queer," Gentleman's Quarterly 63 (July 1993): 94-99;
Savage, "Tainted Love."
89. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the
Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
90. Ibid., 3.
91. Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London: Gay Men's Press,
1988), 92.
92. Stuart Hall, "The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity," in Anthony
King, editor, Culture, Globalization and the World System (London: Macmillan,
1991), 30.
93. Danae Clark, "Commodity Lesbianism," in Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale,
and David Halperin, editors, Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (New York: Rout-
ledge, 1993), 188.
94. Ibid., 195; see also Savage, "Tainted Love," 168; Hennessy, "Queer visibility in
commodity culture," 143-144, 172-176; Kamp, "The Straight Queer," 96-97.
95. Hennessy, "Queer visibility in commodity culture," 170.
96. Gregg Blachford, "Male dominance and the gay world," in Kenneth Plummer,
editor, The Making of the Modern Homosexual (London: Hutchinson, 1981), 200-
202.

97. Ibid., 200.

98. Bhabha, "The Third Space," 211.
99. Lynne Segal, "Look Back in Anger: Men in the Fifties," in Rowena Chapman and
Jonathan Rutherford, editors, Male Order. Unwrapping Masculinity (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), 87.
100. Savage, "Tainted Love," 156.
101. Blachford, "Male dominance and the gay world," 252.
102. Sean Nixon, Hard Looks. Masculinities, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consump-
tion (London: UCL Press, 1996), 170-179.
103. Ibid., 177.
104. Jonathan Rutherford, Men's Silences. Predicaments of Masculinity (London:
Routledge, 1992), 3.
105. See Blachford, "Male dominance and the gay world," 188-202.
106. Frank Mort, "Boy's Own? Masculinity, Style and Popular Culture," in Chapman
and Rutherford, Male Order, 203-205.
107. Kamp, "The Straight Queer."
108. Sean Nixon, "Exhibiting Masculinity," in Stuart Hall, editor, Representation:
Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: The Open University,
1997), 305.
109. Ibid., 308.

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361

110. Ibid., 307.

111. Nixon, Hard Looks, 201.
112. Ibid., 202.
113. Ibid., 197.
114. Martin, "The Gay Factor in Fashion," 140.
115. Hennessy, "Queer visibility in commodity culture," 169; Sinfield, "Diaspora and
hybridity," 279-280.
116. Rowena Chapman, "The Great Pretender: Variations on the New Man Theme,"
in Chapman and Rutherford, Male Order, 240.
117. Ibid., 243.
118. Kenneth Mackinnon, Uneasy Pleasures: The Male as Erotic Object (London:
Cyngus Arts, 1997), 107.
119. Jonathan Rutherford, "Who's that man?" in Chapman and Rutherford, Male
Order, 32, 59; Mark Simpson, Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity
(London: Cassell, 1994), 94-130; Nixon, "Exhibiting Masculinity," 293-295.
120. Mort, "Boy's Own?" 199-202.
121. Mackinnon, Uneasy Pleasures, 99-111.
122. Savage,"Tainted Love," 158.
123. Ibid., 160-161.
124. Hennessy, "Queer visibility in commodity culture," 169.
125. Simpson, Male Impersonators, 204-210; Kamp, "The Straight Queer," 96.
126. Hennessy, "Queer visibility in commodity culture," 172.
127. Simpson, Male Impersonators, 212-215; Mackinnon, Uneasy Pleasures, 79-92.
128. Connell, Gender and Power, 184-185.
129. Chris Holmlund, "Masculinity as Multiple Masquerade: The 'mature' Stallone and
the Stallone clone," in Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, editors, Screening the
Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993),
213-229.

130. Ibid., 214-215.

131. Ibid., 218.
132. Sarvan, Taking It Like A Man, 213-239.
133. Ibid., 214.
134. Ibid.; 215.
135. Ibid.

136. Donovan, "Political consequences of private authority," 837.

137. Bhabha, "The Commitment to Theory," 11.
138. Connell, Masculinities, 77.

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