Through the body we experience the social world, writes James W. Messerschmidt. Raoul Wieland asks what good an extreme self-awareness does for the male identity.
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James W. Messerschmidt, professor of sociology and chair of the criminology department at the University of Southern Maine has written a book: Gender, Heterosexuality, and Youth Violence — The Struggle for Recognition.
There exists a construct that is called ‘masculinity’. It is ethereal, an abstract, an intangible and in many ways also real, present and quite corporeal. The term holds opposites without contradiction. We can argue endlessly about what it is and what it is not, all while people are being affected in a very real physical/emotional way. Oxford Dictionaries defines masculinity: “Possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men”. Period. An example is given: “handsome, muscled, and driven, he’s a prime example of masculinity”. Period.
I am intellectually intrigued. This topic is interesting and challenging. It is also exceptionally personal, as personal goes. Masculinity, as something that is embodied, covers me like a second skin. I breathe it in and I breath it/express it out. Embodiment: “to be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to an idea, quality or feeling”. My body, similar to any other body, is a composition of physical material and parts that taken together and influenced by internal hormones, proteins and the magic of genes, give rise to a very particular form. My form. In a vacuum, that is all there is. Not so, however, in a social world. In a social world, the form and behavior of my body is absorbed as information, interpreted in a particular context and subsequently thrown back at me in the form of opinion or judgement. Indeed, it is only through the body that we experience the social world, writes Messerschmidt.
In a social world, the form and behavior of my body is absorbed as information, interpreted in a particular context and subsequently thrown back at me in the form of opinion or judgement. Indeed, it is only through the body that we experience the social world, writes Messerschmidt.
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The more we become aware of our social surroundings and what are deemed “appropriate” bodily appearances and behaviors, the more we become reflex-ively aware of our bodies. How we look, behave and appear to others gains in significance and we take note. This is especially true as we become aware of notions of sex, gender and sexuality and the role that our bodies play or are supposed to play in producing and transmitting intersubjective gendered and sexual meanings. In other words, in a social word, people read people as male, female, masculine, feminine, straight, gay, lesbian, etc. and what they read is our body — it’s appearance and behavior. Particular “appropriate“— as defined by the dominant culture — bodily appearances and behaviors identify us as this and not that: masculine and not feminine, male and not female, gay and not straight, etc.
“The meaningfulness of our social action is based on the reaction of others to our embodiment — whether or not it is judged accountable is highly important to our sense of self”. To be accountable to a norm is to live up to it. We can succeed or we can fail in our accountability, as judged by our peers. If we ‘fail’ we risk being read, labelled and subsequently treated as “gender, sex, sexuality, fill in the blank deviants”. Deviants from ‘to deviate’ from an expected path. Not normal. Abnormal. Other. Unknown. Not understood. A cognitive dissonance: holding two or more contradictory, perhaps irreconcilable beliefs, ideas, or values often leading to discomfort and stress. I may be read as male sex category through my appearance and yet in my sexuality and expression of gender I convey a feminine. Dissonance. If I am read as a particular sex (e.g. male) then people expect that my gender behavior/appearance (masculinity) corroborates this for them. Dissonance. What happens next? As Messerschmidt documents only too well, peers start to police our bodies and punish behavior and appearance that threatens with dissonance.
Messerschmidt writes: At school he received constant verbal bullying because of his physical size and shape (shorter and heavier than the other boys). Other children — especially the dominant popular boys – call him a ‘slob’, a ‘fat pig’, a ‘wimp’ and a ‘punk’…he would get bullied, mostly by the jocks, for the clothes she would wear and because she shaved the back of her head. Her clothes weren’t up to the fashion and they started to call her names ’cause she looked like a boy and acted like a boy’. They would stare at her and whisper stuff to each other. They would walk up to her and call her ‘dyke’ and then they would laugh. She was told to ‘stop acting like a guy’ because she ‘can’t do guy stuff’…she gained much weight and couldn’t do sports so they called her ‘the fat girl’ and the ‘fat-ass loser’ and they would not let her be their friends anymore. They would call her ‘slut’ they would call him ‘gay’. They, the cool guys and the hot chicks; the gender, sex, sexuality, fill in the blank “conformers”. He, she, the gender, sex, sexuality, fill in the blank “deviant”; judged, policed, bullied, abused, cast out. Shame, confusion, loneliness and plummeting self-esteem. An extreme self-awareness centered on the inadequacy of the social body and its failure to embody and fit in according to the norm.
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Identity is defined/constructed as much by what it or one is as by what it or one is not. The intersubjective reading of bodies as this or that means that some people define themselves as “conformers”, accountable and normal as compared to those that embody the contrary, the “deviants”. This or that, one or the other, black or white but never this and that, one and the other, black and white – you are a women so do not do man stuff so that you may continue to be read, as is good and well, as women and so that your gender – female/femininity – accords, as it good and well, with your sex! This leads to binaries, a here and a there and people are expected to fall into place accordingly.
We are in a box and the box outlines the edges of our permissible and seemingly possible identity. Step outside at your own peril of being policed, chased back and becoming extremely lost in new and unchartered territory.
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What it means to be a man or a women faces strict guidelines and borders. Tony Porter calls it the box. We are in a box and the box outlines the edges of our permissible and seemingly possible identity. Step outside at your own peril of being policed, chased back and becoming extremely lost in new and unchartered territory. Can a man/boy who shows his emotions and cries or who refuses to fight or control or seek power and who does not play sports be a man and not a whimp or gay? Can a women that shaves her head and competes in kickboxing and wears a suit be a women and not a women playing at being a man? Can a man that is nurturing… can a women that is successful… can a man that is attracted to men…can a women that is attracted to women… and the list goes on and on and on.
Masculinity, femininity, ‘man’, ‘women’ as social constructs are the result of years and years of absorbing, interpreting and judging, policing and the conforming/educating/healing, if possible, of “deviants”. To construct: to build or make by bringing together various elements. I think it is time for us to take it upon ourselves to question and dig into this construct: what are the elements, who puts them together, how were they put together, do they have to remain as they are and what are some of the many, often harmful, implications that ‘one and not any other’ construct has on our relationship to ourselves and the people we meet in our lives.
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Photo credit: MorkiRo/flickr