Hegemonic Masculinity, Emphasized Femininity, and the Male Gaze: Comprehensive Notes

Hegemonic Masculinity, Emphasized Femininity, and the Male Gaze

Hegemonic Masculinity

  • Definition: R.W. Connell defines hegemonic masculinity as constructed in relation to subordinated masculinities and women.
  • Mix of Strategies: Includes openness towards domesticity and violence, misogyny, and heterosexual attraction.
  • Heterosexuality and Marriage: Closely tied to heterosexuality and marriage.
  • Subordinated Masculinities: Homosexuality and dominance over young men are key types.

Emphasized Femininity

  • Definition: Complements hegemonic masculinity by accommodating the interests and needs of men.
  • Representations: Many media and advertising representations embody emphasized femininity.

Types of Masculinities

  • Dominant Masculinities:
    • Idealized and socially expected ways of being male.
    • Emphasizes competition, wealth, aggressiveness, and heterosexuality.
    • Examples: “real men” / “tunay na lalake”.
  • Complicit Masculinities:
    • Supports dominant masculinity without being dominant themselves.
    • Admires hegemonic masculinity.
    • Participates in dominant masculine norms hoping for rewards, but recognizes they won't primarily be in the dominant sphere.
  • Subordinate Masculinities:
    • Exhibits qualities opposite to hegemonic masculinity.
    • May exhibit physical weakness – ‘lampa’.
    • Shows emotions and may be effeminate.
  • Marginalized Masculinities:
    • Cannot fit into hegemonic masculinity due to characteristics like race, ethnicity, religion, or disability.
    • Still subscribes to norms of hegemonic masculinity such as physical strength and aggression.
    • Examples: Indigenous peoples in the Philippines, Asian men in the US.

Cycle of Hegemonic Masculinity

The cycle involves:

  1. Patriarchal Society
  2. Hegemonic Masculinity
  3. Social Reproduction of Patriarchy
  4. Power
  5. Inequality
  6. Social/Health Inequality
  7. Gendered Socialization

Visualized in Figure 1: Hegemonic Masculinity Cycle

Toxic Masculinity

  • Definition: Attitudes and behaviors stereotypically associated with men that negatively impact men and society.
  • Examples: Refusing to wear a mask, suppressing emotions (“boys don’t cry”).
  • Consequences: Can lead to violence against women.

Rethinking Hegemonic Masculinity (RW Connell and James W. Messerschmidt)

  • Contested Concept: Hegemonic masculinity is not fixed.
  • More Complex Model: Emphasizes women's agency.
  • Geography of Masculinities: Interplay among local, regional, and global levels.
  • Embodiment: Specific treatment in contexts of privilege and power.
  • Dynamics: Recognition of internal contradictions and movement toward gender democracy.

Migration and Remaking of Masculinity

  • House Husbands: Study of Ilocano families with migrant wives and stay-at-home husbands (Alicia Pingol’s "Remaking Masculinities").
  • Shifting Definitions: Less threat to manhood when husbands are caregivers due to family finances.
  • Being in Control: Underemployment compared to female OFWs.
  • Gaining Respect:
    • Self-control and earning respect from others (independent earnings, self-discipline, leadership, endurance of suffering).
    • Controlling/being feared by others (risk-taking, physical domination, and displays of ‘being macho’).
  • New Masculine Image: Managing wives’ remittances, remaining loyal, attending to children’s needs.
  • Economic Contribution: Men finding ways to contribute economically to the family income.
    • Example: Danilo ‘Tatay Danny’ Guce continued working even when his wife earned more.

“Package-Deal” of Successful Adult Filipino Masculinity

  • Exemplars of Masculinity:
    • Employment
    • Providership
    • Family-orientation
    • Community standing/respect (Rubio and Green 2009, Tremlet 2006, McKay, S., 2011)

Filipino Migrant Men and Gender Privilege

  • Self-identification: Filipino seafarers identify as “exemplars of masculinity” (Connell 2005).
  • Delivering the ‘Package Deal’: As workers, providers, husbands, fathers, and respected community members.
  • Competing Elements: Claims on other elements of masculinity beyond responsible manhood.
  • Provider Status: Manhood unquestioned as long as they are providers.
  • Examples: 'Girl at every port,’ sexual risks, being courageous, ‘one-day millionaires,’ good fatherhood.
  • Pandemic Impact: Questions about a new exemplar of masculinity due to job losses among OFWs.

Male Privilege

  • Entitlement: Being male means being entitled to privileges.
  • Example: Extra-marital affair justification: ‘lalake ako’.
    1. Biologically males are promiscuous.
    2. Breadwinner, so has the right to do what he wants.
    3. Influence of male friends.
    4. Must search out women to avoid being perceived as ‘bakla’

Macho = Sexual Potency, Virility

  • Sexual Prowess: Frequency, number of sexual relations.
  • Multiple Partners: More ‘macho’ if one has more girlfriends (syota) and flings.
  • Infidelity: Seen as a natural expression of masculinity.
    • “Mahirap naman ang iisa lang ang klase ng ulam. Kailangan ka ring tumikim paminsan-minsan ng ibang putahe” (It is difficult to eat the same kind of viand everyday, you have to try other dishes sometimes).
  • Sexual Performance: ‘Magaling’ in reference to the ability to satisfy.
  • Active Sexuality: Man’s sexuality as active, using the term “gamit” in reference to sexual intercourse.
    • Example: “Ginamit ko ang misis ko” (I used my wife) vs. “Ginamit ako ng mister ko” (I was used by my husband).

Compliance

  • Central aspect: Compliance with subordination by accommodating men’s interests and desires.
    1. Emphasized femininity.
    2. Resistance or forms of non-compliance.
    3. Complex strategic combinations of compliance, resistance, and cooperation.
  • Maintenance: Preventing other models of femininity from gaining cultural articulation.
  • Discussion Question: Models of femininity not popularized by media.

Ideology in Action – Traditional Representations

  • Advertisements: Messages, values, and roles offered to women.

Condoning Violence Against Women

  • Advertising Portrayals: Increasingly sexualized, women wearing revealing clothes, simulating sex acts, being dominated, or portrayed as objects or animals.
  • Consequences: Women viewed as less capable and intelligent, men more tolerant of sexual harassment and violence.

Femininity in Media

  • Narrow Representations: Traditionally, domestic situations (housewives, mothers) or sexual objectification.
  • Patriarchy: How these stereotypes suited patriarchy.

Why?

  • Association: Media associating women with domestic roles.
  • Reflection vs. Shaping: Is the media reflecting or shaping society?
  • Norm Creation: Media creates the norm that women will take on domestic roles.

Sexual Objectification

  • Women as Sex: Common media representation.
  • Attraction: Made to look alluring and appealing.
  • Leading Representation: Defining women as sex objects.

Objectification (Martha Nussbaum)

  • Definition: Treating women as things to be manipulated and controlled, not as full people with dignity.
    • Denial of autonomy.
    • Denial of subjectivity.
    • Not taking people’s feelings into account.
    • Treating them as a mere instrument.
  • Male Fantasy: Woman is not shown respect as an end in herself but is treated as a mere instrument of male fantasy and male desire.

Male Gaze

  • Origin: Term first used by John Berger in “Ways of Seeing” (1972).
  • Analysis: Treatment of women as objects in advertising and nude paintings.

Male Gaze

  • Concept: Derives from the way cinema stimulates scopophilia (the pleasure of looking).
  • Triple Look (Laura Mulvey):
    1. Look of the camera.
    2. Look of the male character at the female character.
    3. Look of the spectator identifying with the main character.

The Male Gaze

  • Sexual Objects: Women presented as sexual objects for men.
  • Masculine Eye: Camera acts as the masculine eye, reflecting masculine desires.
  • Implied Viewer: Male viewer is usually implied in the construction of the image.
  • Internalization: Women learn to view themselves and other women through the ‘male gaze’ (false consciousness).

Further Analysis

  • Identification with the man staring at the woman.
  • The woman as a reflection, an image being perceived.

Male Gaze in Advertising

  • Reducing the female body to pieces targets the gaze to specific, sexually stimulating parts.
  • Inability to see the whole person, beyond a body part.

Narrow Representation

  • Advertising and Magazines: Young, slim, overwhelmingly white women conforming to a narrow stereotype of beauty.
  • Beauty Myth:

The Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf, 1991)

  • Beauty Ideal: Media presents a particular ‘beauty ideal’ encouraging women to treat their bodies as a project in constant need of improvement.
  • Exploitation: Diet industry and cosmetic surgery thrive on exploiting women’s anxieties and insecurities (false consciousness).
  • Susie Orbach: Accuses media of promoting an idea of perfection, creating anxieties in women (and increasingly men).

Male Gaze Examples

  • Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad (male gaze) vs. Birds of Prey (female gaze).

The Male Gaze in Film

  • Sexual Politics: Empowers men and objectifies women.
  • Positioning: Woman is visually positioned as an ‘object’ of heterosexual male desire.
  • Metaphorical Aspect: Women are meant to be seen, not heard; often serve as love interests or sacrificial lambs.
  • Literal Aspect: Framing of shots and sexualization of women.
  • Examples: Science fiction, fantasy, and superhero movies (e.g., X-Men: First Class).

Promotional Posters

  • Comparison: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) vs. Black Widow (2021).
  • Male Gaze Indicators: Winter Soldier poster shows an unrealistically tiny waist, inflated breasts, and exposed chest.
  • Female Gaze Indicators: Black Widow poster shows realistically proportioned figure, protective suit, and squared shoulders.

Critique

  • Not Universal: Male gaze is negotiated through whiteness.
  • Visual Taboos: Racial hierarchies create visual taboos.

Susan Bordo and Michel Foucault

  • Culturally-mediated Form: The body is a culturally-mediated form determined by racism, sexism, and predetermined social roles.
  • Masculine Spectatorship: The body as territory conquered by masculine spectatorship.
  • Coercive Power of the Gaze (Foucault): Determines self-regulatory compliance and submission to the power structure.
  • Self-Surveillance: Individuals interiorize the gaze, becoming their own overseers.

Are Men Also Becoming Fetishized?

  • Reversal: Movie, ‘The Piano’ (1993).
  • Lingering on protagonist's naked male body.
  • Sally Anne Doane: Male striptease and gigolo as aberrations.

Can There Be Female Gaze?

  • Representation: How many female directors and cinematographers are there?
  • Masculine Technology: Is the camera coded as a masculine technology?
  • Action: Does the woman in the film advance the action?
  • Role: Is she active rather than passive?
  • Ending: How does the film end – with marriage, mayhem, or motherhood?

Female Gaze

  • Frame of Mind (Ashley Connor): More emotional and respectful approach to subject material.
  • Characteristics: Free of slow pans, bikini armor, and love interests killed off for male protagonist development.
  • Emphasis: Empathy and intimacy; shows characters as real people.

Gender Inequality in Film

  • Statistics (2007-2012):
    • 30.8% of speaking characters are women.
    • 28.8% of women wore sexually revealing clothes (vs. 7.0% of men).
    • 26.2% of women actors get partially naked (vs. 9.4% of men).
    • 10.7% of movies featured a balanced cast.

Modern Representations: Moving Forward…

  • Evolving Femininity: Associated with stronger, more independent, and confident women.

Representations Developed

  • Less passive and have key roles.
  • Women characters now:
    • Have serious careers
    • Wear trousers
    • Smoke, drink, and swear
    • Downplay domestic roles
    • Hold roles/jobs traditionally associated with men

Subversion of the Stereotype

  • Alternative Representations: Media presents representations that challenge audience expectations.

Typical Action Film Roles

  • How do the typical roles link to patriarchal ideas about gender?

Action Hero(ine)

  • Change: Representations of women have changed considerably in action films and TV.

Convergence…

  • Psychofemme (Hilary Radner, 2000):
  • Feminine Masculinity: Convergence of femininity (retaining sex appeal) and masculinity (handling weapons, indifference to violence).
    • Kill Bill example.

Objectified Gaze vs Gaze of Agency in Art

  • (of “Judith Beheading Holofernes):
  • Artemisia Gentileschi’s version
  • Cristoforo Allori’s version
  • Massimo Stanzione

Post Feminism…?

  • Equality has been achieved and women are free to be what they like.

This doesn’t mean it’s all out with the old and in with the new!

  • Still find many older, more traditional representations of gender alongside some of the new.

Sexual subjectification?

  • Exclusions
  • What it renders invisible - diverse forms of terror experienced by women who objectify themselves

Terrors …

  • Not receiving admiring looks
  • Losing of one’s looks
  • Losing control over body weight
  • Fear of rape and violence by misogynous males

Are women pleasing themselves and freely choosing?

  • Or just a move from an external male judging gaze to a self-policing narcissistic gaze
  • Objectifying male gaze is internalized
  • Offers women the promise of power by becoming an object of desire

A word of caution!

  • This doesn’t mean it’s all out with the old and in with the new!
  • If you watch TV or film, you will still find many older, more traditional representations of gender alongside some of the new.