Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Hypermasculinity And Violence As A Social System, Thomas J. Scheff

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Current theories of conflict fail to develop an adequate model of the causation of violence. Greed for power is often invoked, but how greed itself develops is seldom considered. Particularly absent are models explaining the vast energy that propels violence and destruction. This essay will consider bases of greed and violence unleashed by alienation and repression of emotions. Since it appears that most men in our society are more alienated/repressed than most women, the idea of hypermasculinity is used to develop a theory of conflict. The combination of alienation with the repression of vulnerable emotions suggests a biosocial doomsday machine …

Masculinities, Femininities, And Fundamentalisms: Gender Confrontations And Collaborations In Global Conflict, Joane Nagel

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In this multimedia presentation, I combine images and text to argue that organized violence in the global system depends on shared gender cultures, networks, and transactions: Wars are violent confrontations AND collaborations among men and manhoods. Contemporary conflicts are very often depicted as "clashes of civilizations," but in many important respects they are collaborations of masculine cultures and systems of honor. Although organized violence involves men on opposing sides of ethnic or class or national boundaries, ironically, such violence depends on cooperation both among allies and among enemies. Men join forces with comrades as bands of brothers, as men in …

It'll Pass: Nypd: Blue's Sipowicz And Mundane Masculinity, Marc Ouellette

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The development of the character of Det. Andy Sipowicz, on the ABC drama, NYPD: Blue, effectively demonstrates that the obstinance of traditional forms of masculinity may ultimately be a key factor in their undoing. Rather than effecting a superficial change based on consumer choice, as concurrent characters do, Sipowicz undergoes a transformation of his social behavior. Sipowicz regularly behaves in a manner consistent with Robert Connell’s definition of “hegemonic masculinity”: he resorts to violence, he resists change and he resents women and minorities (131). His alcoholism and quick temper tend to hinder his ability to adapt. However, change has occurred …

Bad Ass Or Punk Ass?: The Contours Of Street Masculinity, Christopher W. Mullins, Robin M. Cardwell-Mullins

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In this article, we examine the utility of R.W. Connell’s conceptualization of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities through the examination of qualitative interviews with active criminal offenders in Saint Louis, Missouri. The article describes contours of “bad ass” masculinity, the hegemonic form, and “punk” masculinity, the primary subordinate form. After an examination of the nature of these masculinities, we discuss how these elements of the cognitive map of the streets are refractions of mainstream masculinities, exploring the convergences and divergences that emerged in the data. Finally, we point out how the work on masculinities is important to gender studies and feminist …

Introduction: Forum On Masculinities, Violences, Variations, And Visions, Phyllis Baker, Harry Brod

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Debate and dialogue within the humanities and social sciences concerning the concept of masculinity/masculinities has been widespread for two decades. We use this edition of a Universitas Forum as a way to present and discuss the intriguing theoretical complexity of the concept of masculinity/masculinities. This forum is organized into three sections, focusing respectively on its relationship with the issue of violence, variations in forms and processes, and visions for transformations.

The Enfleshment Of Masculinity(S): The Maintenance Of Hegemonic Masculinity, Brett N. Billman

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

With the proliferation of the term “masculinities” over the past two decades men’s subjective experiences have come to light in an attempt to destabilize the patriarchy. However, in this time it seems that hegemonic masculinity has in fact been attempting, quite successfully, to maintain itself through the proliferation of multiple patriarchies. Examination of the enfleshment of masculinity through the physicality of the masculine body presents us with a more articulated version of hegemonic masculinity. This more articulate view begins to highlight the politics of difference present in a discussion of Brokeback Mountain and the wide spread deployment and growth of …

Am I A Man Or A Feminist? Constructing Positive Male Feminist Thought, Cory Aragon

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Male Feminists find themselves in the weird position of opposing entrenched patriarchal gender hierarchies while effectively reinforcing them. The question arises, am I a man or a Feminist? This question is seated in a seemingly oppositional relationship between the culturally masculine, the culturally male, and the positive theory of Feminist thought.

In this paper, I attempt to provide a way of being both a man and a feminist. In the first section, I try to debunk the common notion of many Feminist separatist movements that the culturally male and masculine are destructive to the feminist cause. After showing that the …

Friendships, Romantic Relationships, And The Importance Of Self-Expansion, Mami Kashiwabara

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-expansion theory (Aron & Aron, 1986) posits that individuals enter and maintain relationships in order to expand their sense of self and suggests that expanding the sense of self is a basic human motivation. In this study, I examined whether the perceived opportunities for self-expansion within a relationship predicted feelings of closeness and passion for a partner, and unlike many previous studies, I explored the importance of self-expansion in friendships as well as romantic relationships. I also explored individual differences in the importance of self-expansion opportunities in predicting closeness and passion. The results suggest that opportunities for self-expansion may motivate …

Christina Rossetti, Sarah Grand, And The Expression Of Sexual Liminality In Nineteenth Century Literature, Jennifer Persinger Adams

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study defines sexual liminality as a transient, threshold moment in which textual characters explore not only their sexual desires, but also their gender identities. During the nineteenth century, social critics reveal that sexuality and gender play a vital role in laws, social practices, and family structure. Thus, when authors such as Christina Rossetti and Sarah Grand produce characters that embark upon introspective journeys of their sexualities against the background of social expectation, one clearly identifies the influence of life upon art. Rossetti’s Prince in The Prince’s Progress and Grand’s Angelica in The Heavenly Twins enter into the realm of …

The Fetish In/As Text: Retif De La Bretonne And The Development Of Modern Sexual Science And French Literary Studies, 1887-1934, Amy S. Wyngaard

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This essay examines the role of Rétif's writings in the development of the concept of erotic fetishism and in the formation of the French literary canon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Rétif explored foot and shoe fetishisms more than a century before the phenomena were medically recognized, anticipating the modern psychosexual use of the term fetishism and making important contributions to the invention of the theoretical concept. Rétif's works were accorded a privileged place in early pathologies of fetishism, which provoked a series of polemics among German and French medical doctors and literary scholars centered …

The Sexual Sinthome, Geneviève Morel, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Psychoanalysis possesses the means to think the difference of the sexes without relying on the phallus. Lacanian theory of the sinthome offers an alternative by articulating a new quadruplicity (R, S, I, and the sinthome), which allows us to think the relation between the sexes and the generations without necessarily referring to the Name-of-the-Father or the phallus as absolute norms. Thanks to this theory, we can avoid the moral and political prejudices that accompany the grand questions of society posed to us at the dawn of the 21st century: the treatment of “mental health,” the legislation of marriage, filiation, and …

Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity In Going To Meet The Man, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

"Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity in Going to Meet the Man" employs the conceit of “impossible” fatherhood to critique mutually reinforcing racist and heteronormative constructions of reproduction. It argues, first, that the white paternal fantasy of creating “pure” white sons is undermined by the homoerotic necessity of bring the phantasmatic black eunuch, castrated yet powerfully potent, into the procreative white bed. The “fact” of the “white” child produced in that marital bed, however, not only cloaks the failure of racial reproduction in the living proof of success but also occludes the male/male union that subtends the heteronormative fantasy of reproduction. …

Berkeley Women Economists, Public Policy, And Civic Sensibility, Mary Ann Dzuback

Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Faculty Research

Book chapter "Berkeley Women Economists, Public Policy, and Civic Sensibility," from Civic and Moral Learning in America, edited by Donald Warren and John Patrick, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

From its formative years to the present, advocates of various persuasions have written and spoken about the country's need for moral and civic education. Responding in part to challenges posed by B. Edward McClellan, this book offers research findings on the ideas, people, and contexts that have influenced the acquisition of moral and civic learning in the America.