Essay On Hegemonic Masculinity

The concept of hegemonic masculinity, which was developed by the Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell in the 1990s, has undergone fundamental transformations during the last decades. When the word was coined, it was used to refer to the specific type of masculinity that subordinated other masculinities and femininities. In other words, “hegemonic masculinity was understood as the pattern of practice (i.e., things done, not just a set of role expectations or an identity) that allowed men’s dominance over women to continue” (Connell 832). Hegemonic masculinity was supposed to provide men with models of masculine conduct and guidelines so that they could behave properly and therefore be admired by nonhegemonic men and women. Hegemonic masculinity, consequently, was very oppressive, since men were subjected to

The problem, therefore, was that hegemonic masculinity did not define all men but just a minority. It limited the male figure to a very specific type of man, and excluded all the other existing patterns of masculinity. Obviously, hegemonic masculinity obliterated not only nonhegemonic masculinities but also femininities. This means that the very concept of hegemonic masculinity was defined by analyzing only masculine attributes and practices instead of comparing them to feminine traits and attitudes. Since the notion of hegemonic masculinity was so restrictive and failed to describe real men, it became necessary to redefine it, so that it could “recognize the agency of subordinated groups as much as the power of dominant groups and the mutual conditioning of gender dynamics and other social dynamics” (Connell 848). Connell played a fundamental role in the reformulation of the concept. She made four major contributions to the initial definition of hegemonic