Talk:Hegemonic masculinity

Opening sentence

I don't know anything about this topic, so I won't attempt to correct it, but the opening sentence seems to be incomplete/does not make sense: "In gender studies, hegemonic masculinity is a concept popularized by sociologist R.W. Connell of proposed practices that dominant social position of men, and the subordinate social position of women." Shouldn't there be some kind of verb after "that"? As it stands it is not a proper English sentence. M3tro (talk) 04:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Examples

I think this article would benefit from some examples, for instance from the media. I think this is a generalized explanation of this term but it is not quite clear enough for all people. Examples would be a great addition. Mhoward058 (talk) 20:04, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

"Homoism"

Hi there, from previous "In gender studies, the theory of homoism, hegemonic masculinity refers..." I have removed "the theory of homoism". One may undo that in case there is something I completely misunderstood. But urbandictionary.com defines "homoism" as, "The practice of favoring gays or lesbians, especially in the workplace." "The act or behavior of acting like a homo." That is clearly not what "gender studies" mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spin 1970 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

Policy states that articles are to be written from a neutral point of view. This article seems to be making extraordinary claims, such as that "Hegemonic Masculinity" is [...] the most socially endorsed [masculinity]. Hegemonic masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of some men over others, and the subordination of women.[1]" At the very least, this dubious juxtaposition of claims needs to be attributed to proponents of this idea. Blackworm (talk) 03:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the POV tag I added, as I've edited the article in an attempt to have it conform to policy. Blackworm (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm also concerned with this sentence

"It represents a mechanism by which pro-feminist and pro-gay theorists can hold men and masculinity responsible for their problems.[2]"

I don't believe the point of Hegemonic Masculinity is to use it as a tool to place specific blame on anyone. I also don't see that article stating anything like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan.oconnor (talk • contribs) 15:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

"The theory has been criticized. Connell et al. state that its basic sources were 'feminist theories of patriarchy and the related debates over the role of men in transforming patriarchy,' and that 'hegemonic masculinities can be constructed that do not correspond closely to the lives of any actual men.'" I think Connell is the one who created the theory in the first place. It seems like she is not criticizing the theory here, but rather suggesting that masculine hegemonies are wrong and inaccurate. I did not want to change it, though, because I am not entirely sure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.184.63.225 (talk) 10:18, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The issue of empirically verified

This statement lacks sources and sounds too much like verificationism. Besides adding a citation, I suggest changing it to empirically supported. I have added a citation needed tag. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.230.87.104 (talk) 10:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions

I am part of a class at Rice that is improving Wikipedia articles generally focused on human capabilities and issues related to gender and development. I plan to spend the next few weeks revising and expanding this article. The first set of revisions I intend to make are organizational. Right now the lead section is larger than the entire rest of the article. There are also only two sections, History and Criticisms. I will restructure the lead section to be more succinct and redirect relevant materials into the history section that I will rename Origins. Instead of following that with Criticisms, I will include a new section titled Social Relations. This is relevant because currently the article only has one point of view, that of a white male. This disregards the fact that masculinities exist in many different forms such black masculinities, gay masculinities, transnational business masculinities, etc. By adding Social Relations and having different subsections under that, there will be a much more neutral point of view. This is also very important in explaining the concept of intersectionality which has garnered a great deal of attention in recent literature on hegemonic masculinity. Following Social Relations, I will put Criticisms and make this section more organized and detailed. After criticisms I will put a new section titled Implications which will discuss policy implications as well as social implications. R. W. Connell has written most of the work on hegemonic masculinities so I will rely on her readings heavily but I am actively searching for more sources that will balance the page better. I will also try to provide more examples so that the lay reader will be able to digest some of these highly theoretical concepts in an easier way. I also hope to include some illustrations to make the page more visually appealing. I would love any and all feedback. Any questions, concerns, or suggestions you have, please let me know. I look forward to working with you to make this exciting topic into a better page. NehemiahAnkoor (talk) 13:11, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

moved this comment from the top to its more appropriate place down here. -- [UseTheCommandLine ~/talk] #_ 19:16, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

NehemiahAnkoor,

I thought your revisions were well-titled, interesting, and made the article much more thorough. While I was reading, I noticed a few areas that you might be interested in expanding or editing if you have the time. In the "Origins" section, you discuss how white hegemonic masculinity has influenced black hegemonic masculinity, but there aren't too many details. I found this idea fascinating, and since you seem interested in focusing on different types of masculinity you could probably expand this section some more. Similarly, in the "Organizations" subsection, you briefly mention masculinity in the military but don't go into detail. In the "Ambiguity and overlap" subsection, you state that "It is familiar that many men who hold great social power do not embody an ideal masculinity". I found this line a bit confusing, as I was unsure what you meant by "great social power". To whom are you referring to and is there a source for this statement? As far as formatting issues go, I think you did a good job for the most part. In your edits, you start citing sources directly after the author's name (Hearn[16]). I'm not sure if this is standard for Wikipedia, but in other sections of the article it seems like citations are put at the end of the sentence. There are also a few typos in "Geography of masculinity" and "Underlying concepts of masculinity". I think you could also include a few more links throughout the article so the reader can find more information on related topics. Don't worry too much about the material being dense. This isn't a topic I have ever studied in depth, but I found the article to be compelling and easy to follow. I think you've done a great job! Good luck finishing up. CoeA (talk) 21:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback CoeA. I will definitely try expand upon the interrelations of different masculinities and provide examples of these processes. I can also expand upon hegemonic masculinity in the military too as there are lots of sources discussing that. I will definitely clarify the "great social power" statement and explain who it applies to as well

I will try to be more consistent with the formatting as to avoid distracting the reader. I will do another proofread after my final contributions to catch all the grammar and awkward wording too. I will definitely link to more articles. This was something I planned to do last edit but did not get to. I also plan to link my page within other pages about masculinity. Thanks again for the suggestions and reassurance. It was very helpful. NehemiahAnkoor (talk) 07:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments and Suggestions

NehemiahAnkoor, overall this is a great article! It is extremely thorough, exceptionally well-written, and very thought-provoking. Here are a few comments I have:

• You should include more links throughout the entry! There are many things you mention that could be linked to other articles that would help readers references unfamiliar information quickly, such as Antonio Gramsci, sociology, social inequality, patriarchy, psychoanalysis, etc.

• You have a typo in the "Underlying concept of masculinity" subsection under "Criticisms" when referring to Brod. You also have a capitalization error under "Adolescence" when you start a sentence with "gendered sexuality." You have a couple more in the "Education" subsection under applications.

• At times, your paragraphs appear as one big block of text. I think it would be useful to split some of them up into smaller paragraphs. Ex: "Early childhood" and the other paragraphs under "Life span development." Furthermore, while on the topic, you use lifespan as one word in the subsections but the title has two words. I would make that consistent.

• In the "Adolescence" section, you ask the question "What is left as a discussion in this section?" I don't know if I would include that. It sounds too personal and too much like you're arguing a paper.

• I know you are concerned with the readability of the article, as the topic of hegemonic masculinity is highly theoretical and the information dense. I am not necessarily a great judge, as I have studied Gramsci and hegemony previously and understand the framework well. I can imagine that someone who has never engaged with social theory before will find this a bit hard, but not unreasonably so. You do a great job of breaking down many of your points and explaining them as much as possible. Additionally, I don't think you should feel pressured to make this completely non-academic, as the topic itself is very academic.

• For the See Also section, only include links to articles that you don't link in your own article.

• Your reference list is incredibly long, not because of the number of sources used (though this is impressive) but because you used a full citation each time. There is a trick where you can create a name for a reference that you refer to later. So, instead of having each instance of a citation being a different number, there will be (a,b,c,d, etc.) listed by that citation in the reference list. It would clean up the list, making it easier to read and see your sources.

Well done! Twoods158 (talk) 03:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for detailed feedback Twoods158. I will definitely be adding more links. Like I was telling CoeA, I had planned to do this sooner but had not gotten to it yet. I also told him I planned to do a thorough proofread after I submit my final proofread to catch all typos and grammar mistakes.

I did not do the Life span development section. I do plan to clean it up though and your suggestions for doing so will be helpful. This section is the reason why the references list is so long. In my sources, I used the method you described using citation shortcuts. I will go back through the life span development section to make her citations more consistent with the overall page though. Thanks again for the feedback. It is incredibly helpful moving forward. NehemiahAnkoor (talk) 07:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

1-2 Sentence for Wikipedia Entry

“In western countries, people since their birth are taught to discriminate between the two genders, feminine and masculine” (The Prism of Gender, n.d., 3). I would like to give my view points on this statement as people in western culture prefer only two sexes, male and female. They do not give importance to people of other sexes and call them unnatural (The Prism of Gender, n.d.). Any deviation or variation in the gender difference is known as natural by people and different people have different opinions about the gender differences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sid20078 (talk • contribs) 22:29, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

men dominate in all societies and cultures, so one must look for trans-cultural explanations for their dominance.

Occam's razor says that we should seek fewer, less complex explanations for things when they are available. cultural explanations must look at each culture, whereas biological ones, and ones that are based on share human innate psychological causes are trans-cultural.

there's a simple explanation, too.

men are more aggressive than women. not all men, of course, but the vast majority of men are more aggressive than the vast majority of women.

and it's not just strength, that we have our stronger bodies to back up our greater aggressiveness.

we overwhelmingly dominate in games like poker and chess where aggressiveness often wins games, as is demonstrated by watching world class poker competitions or looking through a list of the world's top ranked chess players, where, I believe, there's only one woman in the top 100 players.

but feminists, including male feminists, have borrowed Voltaire's battle cry when it comes to such reasoning: "Crush the infamous thing!"

2601:6:5600:5AC:FD7A:8EA1:EE79:D1E1 (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC) Michael Christian

Not All Men

So most men support violence against women, even thougth all men I know, even the most perverted boys in high school know to respect women as a human being and not a sextual object. Ergo isn't the article sexist against men for villainizing their gender and also sexist against women for portraying them as always defenceless victims.--180.216.96.172 (talk) 12:12, 1 June 2016 (UTC)