Gender consists of men as well as women. In various attempts to understand gender, the concept of sex roles was introduced; and sometimes men and women were treated as simple categories. The most suitable approach is to treat gender as a system of social relations (Connell). According to Raewyn Connell “[m]asculinities are the patterns of social practice associated with the position of men in any society’s set of gender relations”. Moreover, differences in bodily forms is not a firm determining factor of gender patterns; one could rather see it as a reference point in gender practices. Throughout the last years, an accumulation of international research regarding masculinities has appeared. Crucial conclusions of this research contain the following findings:
there are multiple masculinities; there are hierarchies of masculinities, often defining a ‘hegemonic‘ pattern for a given society; masculinities are collective as well as individual; masculinities are
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Hegemonic masculinity usually consists of practices and attitudes which maintain heterosexual male domination over and the subordination of women (Weitzer and Kubrin 5). It represents a cultural idealized form of breadwinning and manhood and can be a personal as well as a collective undertaking. Moreover, hegemonic masculinity is “exclusive, anxiety-provoking, internally and hierarchically differentiated, brutal, and violent. It is pseudo-natural, tough, contradictory, crisis- prone, rich, and socially sustained” (Donaldson 645). Based on male dominance, it resembles “an economic and cultural force, and [is] dependent on social arrangements.” (645). Hegemonic masculinity, in particular, is an important analytical concept, because it can be used to analyse certain dominant behaviours towards women the male artists utilise throughout their