Masculinity As Structured Action Paper

Masculinity as Structured Action Masculinity is not situated only in dynamic power relations; it can also be located in the actions that define social associations. For James Messerschmidt (2016), masculinity is found in those embodied sets of behaviors (or “accomplishments” [207]) that, as a “gender…ideal”, rely upon, and in turn inform, various masculine social structures. (209-210). As a practice it is reproductive, reliant upon pre-existing social structures for direction, values and aesthetics; and in the drawing upon then supports said structures through repetition, informing it through continual reiteration . In this way, “(g)ender grows out of social practices in specific settings and serves to inform such practices in reciprocal

Some participants locate themselves in NYC’s Meat Market District as (feminine or feminine-appearing) sex workers while others turn to drag balls or transgender-specific bars and clubs for their social interactions. Not all of Valentine’s informants identify as male-to-female transsexuals yet for those who do there is an absence of masculinizing social actions or relations with masculinizing social structures. For example, while some male-to-female informants, such as Cherry, still possess their birth genitalia (a possession which may be argued as engaging in a gender-specific ‘structured action) they reframe their understanding of their bodies to conform to a feminized/female comportment, so much so that, as one participant explains, “I identify as female. I mean, just because I have this penis doesn’t mean that I consider myself a man. I don’t even consider myself being born male, like I mean, I was just born with a penis, that’s the way I look at it. And I consider the penis a clitoris”