The Social Organization of Masculinity and Hegemonic African Masculinities
Profile of Professor Raewyn Connell and the Field of Masculinity Studies
Professor Raewyn Connell is a prominent Australian feminist sociologist at the University of Sydney. She is widely recognized for her foundational role in co-founding the academic field of masculinity studies and for developing the influential concept of hegemonic masculinity. Rather than viewing masculinity as a fixed or purely biological trait, Connell’s work explores how it is socially organized and constructed within wider structures of power. This includes the influence of institutions such as the family, school systems, and the workplace, as well as the impact of cultural and historical contexts on gender expression.
The Conceptual Framework of Masculinity
Masculinity is not a coherent or isolated object; instead, it is an aspect of a larger social structure. To understand masculinity, one must account for this larger structure and how various masculinities are situated within it. This framework allows for the distinction between different types of masculinity and the identification of dynamics of change over time. In a class activity surrounding the concept of a “Real Man,” participants are encouraged to list specific traits and discuss the origins of these ideas, questioning whether such standards are achievable for all individuals. This highlights that masculinity is socially produced rather than being a biological constant.
Historical Development and the Definition of Masculinity
While all societies possess cultural accounts of gender, not every society has a concept of “masculinity.” The modern usage of the term is closely linked to the conception of individuality that emerged in Europe alongside the growth of colonialism and capitalist relations. A society that does not distinguish between men and women as polarized types does not typically possess a concept of masculinity. Prior to the century, women were often viewed as incomplete or inferior versions of a shared human character rather than a separate category. The modern conception accompanied the century bourgeois ideology of “separate spheres,” which relegated men to the public sphere and women to the home.
Four Key Approaches to Defining Masculinity
There are four primary social science approaches to defining masculinity, each with a different focus. The Essentialist approach views masculinity as being based on innate, natural traits tied to biology, such as hormones or genetics. It assumes natural differences mean “men are naturally aggressive or competitive.” The Positivist approach defines masculinity through observable and measurable behaviors, often using surveys and psychological testing to list traits like assertiveness, dominance, and independence. The Normative approach defines masculinity by social norms—what men “should” be—focusing on cultural standards like being a strong provider or remaining unemotional. Finally, the Semiotic approach views masculinity as a construction of symbols and meanings defined in opposition to femininity, where masculinity equals strength and rationality while femininity equals weakness and emotion.
Gender as a Structure of Social Practice
Gender is a method of ordering social practice within what is termed the “reproductive arena,” which refers to the everyday conduct of life. Crucially, gender is social practice that refers to bodies but is not reduced to or determined by biology. Gender is something people “do” through interactions, dress, speech, and roles. While society categorizes people based on physical bodies (male, female, or other) and builds expectations around those categories, the meanings attached to these bodies are socially created. A class activity illustrating this includes scenarios such as a male nurse being told his job is “for women,” a female CEO being labeled “bossy,” or a boy being discouraged from crying. These scenarios demonstrate how gender roles are enforced by social expectations rather than biology and raise questions about who benefits from these rigid structures.
Connell’s Three-fold Model of Gender Structure
To map the structure of gender, Connell proposes a three-fold model involving Power Relations, Production Relations, and Cathexis. Power Relations focus on the distribution of authority, maintaining male dominance and the subordination of women through leadership roles or gender-based violence. Production Relations involve the division of labor and economic roles, such as wage gaps and women performing unpaid domestic work. Cathexis, or emotional relations, involves the organization of desire, attachment, and norms around sexuality, shaping expectations about heterosexuality and acceptable emotional expression. Masculinity and femininity are the results of these ongoing processes of configuring practice across individual personalities, identities (culture/ideology), and institutions like the state or workplace.
Intersections with Race and Class
Gender structures intersect significantly with other social structures such as race and class. For instance, the masculinity of white men is constructed not only in relation to white women but also in relation to black men. There is a long history of white fears regarding black men’s violence in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Conversely, black men’s fears of white men’s terrorism are rooted in colonial history and the contemporary control of police, courts, and prisons by white men. Similarly, working-class masculinities cannot be understood without considering gender politics, such as the concept of the “family wage.” Understanding gender requires looking beyond it as an isolated category since it is a major component of the entire social structure.
The Hierarchy of Masculinities
Connell identifies four specific relations among masculinities: Hegemony, Subordination, Complicity, and Marginalization. Hegemonic Masculinity is the culturally idealized form that holds the most power and sets the standard for “real manhood,” often represented by wealthy, authoritative, heterosexual male leaders. Subordinate Masculinity includes forms that are actively devalued or oppressed, such as gay men marginalized in male-dominated spaces. Complicit Masculinity refers to men who do not fully embody the hegemonic ideal but still benefit from the patriarchal system without actively challenging it. Marginalized Masculinity describes those whose access to power is limited by race or class, such as working-class or racial minority men who are excluded from elite power structures.
Historical Dynamics, Violence, and Crisis Tendencies
Recognizing masculinity and femininity as historical products places them within the world of social agency. Gender relations are subject to transformation through movements like women’s suffrage or the homophile movement. However, because gender is a structure of inequality involving the massive dispossession of resources, it is often maintained through violence. There are two primary patterns: violence used by privileged groups to sustain dominance (harassment, rape, murder) and gender politics among men, such as military violence, gang violence, or violence against gay men. When these structures are disrupted, masculine “crisis tendencies” can lead to efforts to restore dominance, sometimes manifesting as “paramilitary culture” or fascism.
Deep Critique of Definitional Approaches
The Essentialist approach, exemplified by sociobiologist Lionel Tiger, suggests that “true maleness” is elicited by “hard and heavy phenomena” like bonding, aggression, and warfare—sensory experiences involving loud noise, danger, and high-adrenaline environments. This approach is criticized because the choice of what constitutes the “essence” of masculinity is arbitrary. The Positivist approach, relying on M/F scales in psychology, assumes a neutrality that does not exist, as the criteria are built on common-sense gender typologies. It fails because it cannot account for “masculine” women or “feminine” men. The Normative approach suffers because it offers a standard that hardly any men actually meet. The Semiotic approach treats masculinity as the “unmarked term” or default human standard, making femininity the variation or the “other.”
Hegemonic African Masculinities and the Role of Homophobia
Professor Kopano Ratele from the University of Stellenbosch focuses on critical masculinity studies and African psychological studies. He explores how the fear of homosexuality, and the fear of being seen as homosexual, troubles hegemonic African men. Ratele argues that public conflict over homosexuality in Africa often serves as a distraction from two deeper issues: the inherent weakness and instability of dominant African masculinity and the failures of male political leaders regarding social and economic development. In this context, the “homosexual” is defined as everything a “real African man” is not.
Homophobia and Psychopolitics
George Weinberg introduced the term “homophobia” in to describe an irrational fear and hatred of homosexuals. While it describes psychological processes, it is also connected to structural realities and heteronormativity. Fighting homophobia requires both legal changes and shifts in individual emotions. Ratele utilizes bell hooks’ concept of “psychopolitics,” which examines how political systems and psychology shape each other. Political and cultural systems promote the idea that real men are dominant and tough, which can lead to feelings of shame or inadequacy in individuals who do not fit these roles, thereby reinforcing the political system through emotional control.
Challenges and Incoherence in African Masculinity
Hegemonic masculinity in Africa is an “ideal” version involving authority, emotional restraint, physical toughness, and the breadwinner role, rather than what most men actually are. Ratele argues that single, stable forms of hegemonic masculinity are impossible to sustain within the context of “hegemonic capitalist patriarchal whiteness.” For black youth, advancing requires navigating racist, patriarchal, and homophobic structures that they are urged to support but which simultaneously cause their own subjugation. Anti-Western and anti-homosexual rhetoric is used by governments as a political strategy to redirect public anger away from economic crises and structural problems caused by institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Vertical Homophobia: A Case Study of Malawi
Vertical homophobia refers to homophobia originating from institutions of power. In , Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, a gay/trans couple in Malawi, were arrested after engaging in a civil marriage ceremony. They were subjected to forced medical and psychological examinations and mocked in court. Under the colonial-era Penal Code of , they were sentenced to the maximum of years of hard labor. Although the Malawian Constitution promises protection from discrimination, this was not applied to sexual orientation. Due to global pressure, President Mutharika eventually pardoned them on “humanitarian grounds,” though the case served as a distraction from the ruling group’s developmental failures.
Horizontal Homophobia: A Case Study of South Africa
Horizontal homophobia exists in daily interactions and personal attitudes. In February , Zoliswa Nkonyana, a -year-old, was murdered by a group of approximately young men (aged to ) outside a shebeen. The trial lasted six years and included postponements before four men were sentenced to years in prison in . The magistrate, Raadiyah Wathen, noted the small-framed Nkonyana posed no physical threat; rather, she was a psychosocial threat to the men’s gender identities and a form of hegemonic masculinity threatened by female homosexuality. Despite South Africa’s Constitution explicitly outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation, this case proves that laws alone cannot stop violence without a change in deep-seated social conditioning.
The Discourse of Natural African Heterosexuality
The insistence that African identity is naturally heterosexual reveals an underlying insecurity. If heterosexuality were truly the natural order, it would not require constant defense, enforcement, or the use of homophobia and violence as tools of stabilization. The author suggests that when a society must constantly prove and defend its heterosexuality, that heterosexuality is just as much a social construction as any other identity, and therefore the claim that homosexuality is “un-African” is logically flawed. African men often exist in a state of subjective subordination, where their masculinity is a tenuous status that must be continuously performed.