An in-depth and comprehensive summary of the 2nd reading in theme 2 (semester 1)
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THEME 2: CARRIE PAECHTER
RETHINKIG THE POSSIBILITIES FOR HEGEMOINIC FEMININITY:
EXPLORING A GRAMSCIAN FRAMEWORK:
Hegemonic = ruling or dominant in a political or social context.
One Possible Alternative: Heterosexuality-Based Co-Construction:
Schippers suggests that we can replace the hegemonic masculinity/emphasized
femininity pair with a conception of co-construction of hegemonic forms.
She proposes that ‘heterosexual desire, as a defining feature for both women and
men, is what binds the masculine and feminine in a binary, hierarchal relationship.’
In western societies naturalization of male sexual dominance allows us, to reconceive of
hegemonic masculinity, along with the relational concept of hegemonic femininity.
She elaborates Connells definition:
o Hegemonic masculinity: the qualities defined as manly that establish and
legitimate a hierarchal and complementary relationship to femininity and that,
by doing so, guarantee the dominant position of men and the subordination of
women.
o Hegemonic femininity: consists of the characteristics defined as womanly that
establish and legitimate a hierarchal and complementary relationship to
hegemonic masculinity and that, by doing so, guarantee the dominant position
of men and the subordination of women.
There are several difficulties with this approach:
First: There are some clear problems with the foundation of gender in sexual desire.
Second: The assumption that all humans have sexual desire is problematic because
many people are asexual.
, Question: if the ‘possession of erotic desire for the feminine object is constructed
as masculine and being the object of masculine desire is feminine’ does that mean
that asexual people, can only be feminine?
Schippers slips in her discussion between seeing hegemonic masculinity and femininity
as, on the one hand, monolithic and unitary, and on the other hand, locally defined. It is
problematic.
A further difficulty with Schippers’ conceptualization is that she falls into the same trap
and Connell in treating non-hegemonic forms of m and f as always and necessarily
problematic positions, rather than just different.
Schippers having setup hegemonic m and f as complementary, she characterizes non-
hegemonic forms differently for men and women.
These forms essentialize masculinity and femininity as tied to male and female bodies …
we want to avoid this.
Schippers also argues that because masculinity is always superior to femininity, there
can be NO possibility of subordinate masculinity. What were characterized by Connell as
subordinate masculinities, she argues are simply hegemonic femininity embodied or
enacted by men.
Because for Schippers, gender hegemony is legitimated by preserving the hierarchy
between masculinity and femininity. Consequently, no masculine characteristics can be
regarded as subordinate, because masculinity itself can never be subordinate.
Thus, when people with male bodies show characteristics that are not hegemonic
masculinity (e.g. desire for men, liking feminine clothes) they then will be treated as
feminine and thus inferior and stigmatized.
HOWEVER, When those with female bodies perform or embody the characteristics of
hegemonic masculinity, such as aggression, sexual inaccessibility, sexual desire for other
women… this is considered to be NOT masculinity because presumably female bodies
cannot be masculine.
Thus, treated as pariah femininity ‘contaminating to the relationship between
masculinity and femininity’ as refusing to conform to the complementary relation of
male dominance and female subordination.
This idea is extended and developed by Budgeon:
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