The APA's Flaccid Masculinity

One thing in any case is certain: man is neither the oldest nor the most constant problem that has been posed for human knowledge... If those arrangements were to disappear as they appeared... then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea.

 Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge

The onslaught continues.

Like waves crashing on the edge of the sea.

Or perhaps more like the perpetual buzzing of insects.

Masculinity has been in the sights of radical feminist culture critics since the 1970's, and now their nonsense has seeped into the wider culture; being peddled as dogma by mainstream media outlets, scientific and technological organisations, as well as massive corporations. So much for the 'radical critique' - their heuristic has been fully adopted by the zeitgeist.

Having gorged themselves on the mistaken notion that masculinity is 'hegemonic' and socially constructed within their ivory tower, these self-anointed ushers of a new Era are regurgitating it into the public, and we're witnessing the fruits of their labour.

According to a recently published American Psychological Association (APA) document on the 'Guidelines for Psychological Practice for Men and Boys', masculinity is an ideology that forms and perpetuates a '...particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.'

The idea is that such masculinity then fosters attitudes that are aimed at the domination of women by men, and of men by superior men. It is inculcated in boys throughout their lives by societal pressures and interpersonal relationships, and unjustifiably constrains male behaviour into the narrow band of aforementioned tropes. This, in turn, leads to myriad mental, biological, and psychological health disparities.

There numerous issues, here, and below I will go through a few. Here are some following reasons for rejecting the APA's Guidelines. 

Circularity

The APA tumbled over the first hurdle when it adopted the concept of 'hegemonic masculinity' (HM) which begins by accepting as proven that which has yet to be investigated. This can be shown by using one of the APA's own examples: men delaying seeking medical care.

For instances wherein men delay seeking medical care, the Hegemon thinkers state that such delays are performed because visiting a doctor would (a) indicate weakness on the one hand, (b) constitute seeking help on the other, and these are no-no's when it comes to any attempt to embody the hegemonic male ideal.

From the APA, '[t]raditional masculinity ideology can be viewed as the dominant (referred to as "hegemonic") form of masculinity that strongly influences what members of a culture take to be normative.' Hegemonic Masculinity (HM) is defined, in part, as the eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and going to the doctor is an example of the appearance of weakness. So a hegemonically masculine man would be expected to delay going to the doctor, if at all. But, where does this eschewal of the appearance of weakness come from? It comes from men's preoccupations with hegemonic masculinity.

So, HM is offered as the explanation as to why men delay in seeking help, but also  it is suggested that such behaviour provides the evidence that men are attempting to align with the expectations of HM. Such an alignment becomes both the claimed explanation for the delay in consulting a doctor and the proposed outcome of the delay. 

Duplicity 

Throughout the APA's document, the authors make use of 'masculinities' insisting that 'the various conceptions of masculine gender roles associated with an intersection of multiple identities (e.g., rural, working-class, adult, White masculinities may take a different form than urban, teenage, Mexican American masculinities'. However this multiplicity of masculine identities seems to quickly coagulate into one hegemonic form since even though what 'counts' as masculine ebbs and flows over history and across cultures, there is a 'privileged' form that persists and predominates. The privileged form is associated with 'success, power and competition... restrictive emotionality... and restrictive affectionate behavior between men.'  Effectively, despite the gestures at the multiplicity of masculinity in particular, but gender more generally, what emerges from the discussion is a rather fixed and stable set of characteristics that are superficially augmented by socio-cultural inflections.

Hegemonic masculinity, it seems, is a way for the authors to speak substantively about masculinity, whilst preserving their fashionable reluctance (read: cowardice) to speak of gender identities as fixed or tied to sex. Unfortunately for the authors the use of HM does not allow them to perform the latter as the behaviours and characteristics they index with the term are very similar to the simplistic stereotypes that they'd caution us from using.

What we're left with an oscillation between two conflicting positions: (i) that masculinity is entirely contingent, and (ii) that there is one identifiable and dominant masculine identity. 

Arbitrariness & Bad Faith 

The use of the word 'constellation' is somewhat humourous since a constellation is 'a group of stars that forms an imaginary outline or pattern...' These arbitrary symbols are made up of stars that are nowhere near one another, and have no effect on anything on earth. So, how much of the APA's definition is imaginary, arbitrary, or real?

This constellation could have been otherwise. It certainly could have been less bloated by moralism. We could have: Duty, Honour, Courage, Strength, Competence, and Industriousness instead of Anti-femininity, Achievement, Eschewal of the appearance of Weakness, Adventure, Risk, and Violence. This is a difference that makes a difference since the former stresses the productive, whereas the latter stresses the prohibitive. Even though 'achievement', 'adventure', and 'risk' are not, in-and-of themselves bad according to most folks, and 'violence' and 'emotional control' are also appropriate in cases, these characteristics are seen as being employed at the expense of something else - at the expense of one's physical and/or emotional health.

The APA also describes masculinity as a 'set of descriptive, prescriptive, and proscriptive of cognitions about boys and men [sic]', but it never tells us what elements are descriptive, prescriptive, and/or proscriptive. Is 'Violence' descriptive or prescriptive? Likewise with the 'Eschewal of the appearance of Weakness'. This sloppiness enables the APA to move goal-posts and be rather sloppy in its categorisations of masculine traits and their subsequent 'treatment'.

There is a tendency for hegemonic masculinity to be associated solely with negative characteristics that depict men as unemotional, self-reliant, aggressive, and dispassionate which are seen as causes of criminal behavior. Given this tendency, all the objectionable things done by men such as: assault, rape, environmental degradation, cut-throat business behaviour, hell, let's throw in dick pics, cat-calling, mansplaining, manspreading, using Axe body spray, et cetera - can be lumped into the bag of  'hegemonic masculinity'. And the more extreme this image becomes, the less accurately it portrays the majority of men.

One can look at men with good will or bad will. Given the emphasis on the negative aspects of masculinity as a system of dominance rather than as a code of conduct focused on developing and improving that which is regarded as appropriate and valuable for men to be, the APA and their ilk appear to be engaging in the latter. If one chooses to look at men with bad will, then one chooses to hate men. 

Ambiguity 

If hegemonic masculinity (HM) is the constellation of anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence, and it is also 'the dominant form of masculinity that strongly influences what members of a culture take to be normative', then how are we to assess forms of masculinity that are culturally dominant, and yet lack some characteristic or other of HM?

If:

1) HM is the constellation of anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence, and;

2) HM is the dominant form of masculinity that strongly influences what members of a culture take to be normative, then;

3) HM influences members of its culture to take anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence as normative.

Given this, how is one to identify a hegemonically masculine man? Is it the well-dressed aristocratic lawmaker or is the rough-around-the-edges dock worker who bare-knuckle boxes to make ends meet? Say a man is his family's breadwinner, his wife stays at home to look after the kids, he is a rock-climber for a hobby, and his career is that of a pediatrician: how masculine is he according to HM?

Is a man who is complicit in HM more or less masculine than one who resists HM?

I think these are bothersome questions for the HM idea because its theorists have taken effects and made them causes - but since their argument is circular anyway, they can just play around with it until it makes them feel better. 

Impotence 

Lastly, hegemonic masculinity is impotent in its attempts to explain the behaviours of individual men.

Related to the previous concern, though HM is what men are socialised into, '... [for] some men, this dominant ideology of masculinity has inherent conflicts', and that 'dominant masculinity is generally unattainable for most men'. This focus on the unachievable leads to the neglect of what men actually are doing, and how they 'navigate' and 'negotiate' the world around them.

The disconnect between the theory and practice illustrates the abstract nature of the intellectual pursuit. Theorists are imposing their constructions of masculinity on their male subjects, rather than attempting to understand them. At best, HM is a new theoretical framework for feminist-minded theorists to talk about men.

It is stated by '[the] endorsement of sexist male roles is related to men’s fear of intimacy and discomfort with physical affection with other men'. Intimacy is seen as feminine, and HM is anti-feminine. But is this really the case?

Male bonding surely exists but it takes on forms different from female bonding. Men bond through sports, the gym, barbershops, being in bands, playing video games, as well as hunting and fishing trips, to name a few. These are cases wherein masculinity finds its expression of intimacy, and yet HM theorists fail to recognise this. In fact, some HM theorists argue that such expressions of intimacy are 'simulated' since these practices are not really about intimacy but rather about 'control', 'dominance' and 'achievement'. After all, intimacy is feminine, and masculinity is anti-feminine. The very essentialism they purport to reject is operating in full force.

This is but another attempt by the elite to impose their manners on the masses. It's about re-educating, reshaping, and reforming conduct that they, at worst, disdain or, at best, don't understand.

Don't believe me? Well the APA argues that, 'awareness of privilege and the harmful impacts of beliefs and behaviors that maintain patriarchal power have been shown to reduce sexist attitudes in men... and have been linked to participation in social justice activities.'

                   Convenient.