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CIAO DATE: 3/99
Studying “Masculinities” in International Relations: Reinforcing or Challenging Patriarchy?
Homophobia, Masculinities, Gender and International Governance
Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Social Justice
School for Policy Studies
University of Bristol
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
“Is it true, Alice?
Is it true, that
“Anything We Love Can Be Saved”?
(extracted from poem by Donna Ladkin in positive emotional response to Alice Walker’s book; LADKIN, 1999)
Introduction
These are some of the larger questions which I want to address in this paper. However, I want to do this in a way which mobilises feminist “new paradigm” methods, and places the subjective “me” in the centre of my enquiry. In other words, in exploring this paper, I shall be trying to answer the question “Who am I?”, in order better to communicate with you. (LAIDLAW et al, 1995?)
When I presented my Minneapolis paper (Davies, 1998) to my class of Master’s students in International Policy, the member of the group who had most enthusiastically responded to the ideas of new paradigm action research, reflexivity and collaborative enquiry, asked me, rightly, and with some heat, why I did not put myself into the paper? When I recently shared the beginnings of this paper for Washington with a group of colleagues at the University of Bath who are key researchers, teachers and consultants working with the same methodological ideas, they also said to me, again quite rightly, “Where are you?”.
As this is also a question which I ask my Masters’ and Doctoral students with monotonous regularity, it was somewhat sobering to find that what I thought to be two dangerously personal pieces of writing were perceived to be devoid of “me”. I intend to right this now at the beginning of this draft.
Who Am I?
I am a fifty eight year old “white” person of the male sex, performing various kinds of masculinities, part “Scottish” and part “Welsh”, trained as an accountant and social anthropologist, who has researched and taught in the broad fields of international political economy, economic development, countering systems of exclusion, managing diversity, and international policy studies. I have run a Master’s course and supervised Doctoral researchers in International Policy for almost ten years. I work on oganisational change in politics, and peace transformation, mostly in Central Europe, and am developing my skills as a mentor.
Homophobia and Peace Processes
During that 10 years, and in consultancy work with men and women in conflict situations, I have been struck by the difficulty with which men approach changes in masculinity performance in the approach to peace rather than war. I have for long felt that this reluctance to change performances is underpinned by a feeling, and that this feeling is fear, and that the word “homophobia” captures that fear. It is an ambiguous word, it appears to mean the “fear of men”, although it is typically applied to the fear of male to male sex — or fear of “homosexuals” to be more precise. I also see it as meaning “fear of not being a man”, or at least “fear of not being a ‘real’ man” — and the word “real” is very important here. In the context of “Realist” ideas, the “real” embraces (as it were), or perhaps centres, the violent self-centred, territorially obsessed, defensive, male, often pathologically defined. In that sense “homophobia” is central to “Realist” international relations.
This “homophobia” is so basic to the whole field of international relations, peace and war studies, global governance, that it is “undiscussable”. Even among the most sophisticated discussants, it is suppressed, or it may slip “out” unawares. For example, in Minneapolis, Michael Shapiro, whose work I greatly admire, was making an extremely interesting deconstruction of the film “Father of the Bride” and analysing the character of the hairdresser who “rescues” (including by literally carrying him) the (US stereotypical) father, from the dilemmas of “globalisation”. This “hairdresser” was seen by Shapiro to be perhaps middle European or middle Eastern and therefore symbolic of “solutions” coming from outside dominant US practice. He mentioned that the actor seemed nevertheless to have a Greek accent. However, he actually said “Greek accident”. This was not in fact a random accident because the said character is portrayed as a rather stereotyped “gay”. The idea that the US might be saved in its world dilemma by changing masculinities, and changing male to male sexualities in particular therefore emerges, in my reading, from this rather interesting slip by a very sophisticated deconstructionist. (SHAPIRO, 1998)
I am much influenced in my thinking also by Mark Simpson’s brilliant book “Male Impersonators”, and his observation, in referring to “A Few Good Men” that;
“Both ‘Code Red’ and military homophobia depend for their continued existence upon remaining private military affairs, like wife beating; hidden mechanisms that manifest themselves only to their victims (this is the character of masculinity itself [Simpson uses the singular here — I would prefer to use “dominant military masculinity” or some such phrase] — it must remain unexamined if it is to keep its power)” (SIMPSON, 1994).
Simpson then goes on to compare the film with a real life murder of a gay 22 year old sailor, Alan Schindler (synchronistic name!) who was mutilated beyond recognition after “terrible harassment” for his homosexuality”, and whose complaints were “ignored by superiors”. (SIMPSON, 1994)
Feminism and Sexuality
I consider myself to be a radical “feminist”, and am motivated in that project by my own personal background, which is that I am exploring my own meaning in the world, (FRANKL) in association with others, collectively. Frankl has been accused of being “spiritual” in the sense that he considers there to be a greater meaning than the sum of our puny individualistic ids and urges. However, together with authors such as Jaworski, I am willing to explore chaos patterns of meaning rather than be a subject of the random projects of the “warlords” of humanity. (JAWORSKI, 1997)
I consider myself to be “bisexual”, which is to say that I feel a strong link between my sexuality and strong feelings of love for both men and women. I also consider myself to be a campaigning “bisexual”, trying to break down the binary concepts of heterosexuality, and the mono-categories of “gay” and “lesbian”, and indeed the binary assumptions of the term “bisexual”.
The work of Haeberle and others has been very important for me in my exploration of these themes;
“The repeated and now probably final deconstruction of the categorical triad “Homosexuality-Bisexuality-Heterosexuality”; the disappearance of this concept and all concepts derived from it in the recent sex research literature; the current attempts to address the old questions differently and with a different vocabulary, must sooner or later have consequences for scientific and professional practice” (HAEBERLE & GINDORF, 1998)
It is a sobering thought that among the first targets for Nazi repression after they gained power in Germany was the archive and headquarters of the Institute of Sexology in Berlin, and also the home of Magnus Hirschfeld, a “homosexual” and the founder of the Institute. The international network of sexologists had previously held an international congress in the principle chamber of the Reichstag, demonstrating their power in relationship to the state in the turbulent period between war, revolution and repression. The threat to the dominating patriarchal state of this scientific movement to “deconstruct” gender identities is evidenced by the early destruction of the Institute, and the subsequent attempted destruction of those men who could be labelled with the term “homosexual”. January of this year marks the first occasion when “homosexuals” subjected to genocide by the Third Reich were “formally honoured” in the national commemoration service at Sachsenhausen of the liberation of Auschwitz. The German government has still not met the demands from gay groups for an apology. (THE GUARDIAN, 1999)
It is important to point out that I am not here buying into that International Relations literature which sees the “Third Reich” as “pathological” (MAYALL), but that I see Nazi Germany as a natural outcome of certain feelings of patriarchal “rightness” and “civilisation”, which are embedded in our process, but which are challenged in our process at every moment.
The title of this paper refers not only to the “homophobia” which is inherent in the creation of feared “others” in these binary polarisations, but also to my own internalised “homophobia”, and to the generalised “homophobia” which leads men and women to project onto others the fear of not performing gender stereotyped behaviour, and thus being different from the “man” or “woman” which they suspect their “culture” demands of them. There is no doubt that “homophobia” is the central feeling associated with the contemporary emergence of masculinities as performed by young boys, as they “separate from the mother’s world”. Phillips quotes David Panter, a psychologist who studied the transition between nursery and school, noted the relief of one father who commented that his son was, “getting better at fighting now” and that he was glad that the child was no longer interested in dolls because “if a boy plays with a Sindy doll you think he is growing up into a poof” (PHILLIPS, 1993)
I strongly agree with those who suggest the this phobia has been a powerful element in the construction of the identity of the patriarchal state and the Hobbesian hostility which has marked international relations in the past and still does in the present, and is still a powerful obstacle to the development of a world in which there exist many and diverse ways of performing gender cultures and relations.
Communism, Feminism and Masculinities
I am also interested in and committed to the ideas which were considered by Lenin to be an “infantile sickness”, those of the left communist tradition, without a capital “C”, which among other “infantile” ideas, believed that the “Party” should be subordinate to the will of the “working class”, a facilitator rather than a dictator, and that gender relations were a crucial domain for the realisation of the revolutionary process, rather than something which arrived (mysteriously) after the revolution was matured.
The link between my contemporary interest in feminism and diverse sexuality and gender identities, and the ideas of left communism is the probability that “communism” was and is not only seen as a threat to “global capitalism”, but also to “global patriarchy”. The demands which early communist feminists made were not just a profound change in “class” relationships, but in the relationships between the sexes, which in turn demanded a sweeping change in the performance and practice of “masculinities” and “femininities”.
Those men who were close to women feminists in the communist movement at the beginning of this century found themselves on the receiving end of fear from within the movement about the directions which they believed revolution would take men. Two show trials in Russia took place after the abrogation of the Criminal Code of Russia, which effectively “freed” male to male sexually expressed love, and the introduction of the 1922 Code, which itself did not mention same sex behaviour atall. One involved a lesbian couple who imitated “spouse” and heterosexual identities; the other was of “a group of Baltic Fleet sailors who had rented a large apartment in which to receive their gay lovers and friends.” (KARLINSKY, 1997)
I am also aware that the potential for destruction of men who are deemed to be “degenerates” by homophobic regimes of all kinds is immense. Lenin’s regime and afterwards the Stalinist regime both persecuted “homosexuals”, and after the 1933 criminalization of male homosexuals mass arrests and disappearance took place on a huge scale. (KARLINSKY, 1997) The Third Reich systematised this process in its genocide of “homosexuals” (HAEBERLE, ), the war in ex-Yugoslavia was marked by particularly horrific attacks on men seen as “gay” or “feminine”, the basis of anti “Roma” prejudice and genocide is partly based perceptions of the “matriarchal” aspects of that society, and the present trials of vice-president Anwar and President Clinton also relate to homophobia directly or indirectly in the case of Clinton (DAVIES, 1998).
Homosexuality and Patriarchy
At one stage in writing this paper I started to suffer from a feeling that what I want to explore is not really very significant in the scale of things. Nevertheless, I really feel quite the opposite — that men’s masculinities and their sexual identities are in some way the missing link in the discussion of gender and global governance. My underlying thesis, following Irigaray, is that the sexual relationships between men are an integral element of patriarchy as of all other forms of governance (OSEEN, 1997), Calas and Smircich develop this conceptualisation;
“This.... homosexuality in the structures of society includes everybody. It is the male standard of knowledge.... which measures all members of the structure along a predefined agreement over what knowledge is..... leadership has come to be associated with the maintenance of orderly relations among men...... (based upon) the forms of seduction associated with homosocial domination and servitude”. (CALAS, & SMIRICICH, 1991)
However in patriarchy they are generally “undiscussable”, thus reinforcing their relationship to oppressive power. Their covert and overt link to the exercise of power in the contemporary system of fractured global governance forms a basic undiscussable assumption in our society. In certain realms where “deconstruction” is practised, including the realm of political satire their existence is signalled long enough for us to recognise their symbolic importance, before they submerge again.
The key for me, then, seems to be; how can this pattern of “homosexuality” be transformed from a performance of “dominance” and “submission” (“top” and “bottom” in current gay discourse) into a more equal and “flexible” performance — so that relationships between men, and thus between men and women, and presumably between women and women can become more equal, and women can find a place, rather than being excluded? The further key is how can this changed pattern be “outed” so that it can be rewarded in all the institutions and organisations of international relations and, more importantly perhaps, global governance?
Reinforcing or Changing Patriarchy? The Gender Traitor?
In the movement away from patriarchy, discussion of those sexual relationships’ linkage to masculinities and femininities, as performed by both men and women, is key to understanding the present and future forms of global governance. The possibility of identifying more progressive forms of masculinity performance is held out by this analysis; particularly those forms more associated with performance of tasks at present “feminised” under patriarchy.
If there is not a challenge to the reinforcement of patriarchy through gender performance, then the potential for the most radical performance of “masculinities” to be coopted by patriarchy is infinite.
“Academic postpositivists open up conceptual spaces for change, but without a clear commitment to dismantling the gender order, such spaces merely facilitate the further transformation of hegemonic masculinities to serve a new era of globalisation” (HOOPER, 1998)
At the Vienna conference, whilst thinking about the excellent presentation given by Birgit Weiss (WEISS, 1998) on travelling and the study of international relations; I began to formulate a concept which was also a form of travelling, and possibly as essential a concept for change in patriarchy as that of “conspiracy”, the idea of a “gender traitor”.
If there is to be change in the way genders are performed in global relationships, then there has to be a movement away from dominant forms, by men who will be seen as, and possibly characterised as “traitors”. If that movement away implies a questioning of accepted modes of heterosexist behaviour, then the traitorousness is compounded with homophobia, and if there is a spiritual element of the movement away, then there is the added charge of “heresy”. There is a powerful link here to the concepts of “Race Traitor” and “Class Traitor ”and of course to the concept of the traitor to the “state”.
In a recent conflict transformation workshop, “peer pressure; fear of being seen as traitor or national enemy” was identified as one of the main psychological blocks to negotiation by all sides.
Reform or Revolution? Kollontai’s Significance
This last is particularly so in relationship to “class” issues, where the political discourses of the secular class based counter-hegemonies take on the status of orthodoxies. The link with the thought and practice of Rosa Luxembourg and Alexandra Kollontai also became clear after two interventions by Mark Neufeld, at Minneapolis and Vienna, became central to the hidden texts in the ISA feminist and gender section. A quite heated debate broke out between “older” and “younger” members of the section about whether any “gains” in terms of gender relations could be made without a change in the global political economy of capitalism, faintly echoing the debates in Russia and Germany in the revolutionary period. Luxembourg, despite her acquaintance with Kollontai through the powerful figure of Clara Zetkin, never really acknowledged the intimate relationship between the concept of communism and the need to change gender relationships, both structurally, and in terms of the performance of gender roles. (FARNSWORTH, 1980) Kollontai on the other hand rejected Lenin’s idea that the women question was based upon the problem of “the kitchen”, domesticity as the source of women’s subordinate status, and emphasised that “emotional dependency” was the key factor; independence, particularly in work and relationships, was the key. (FARNSWORTH, 1980)
Kollontai chose as one of her male partners, Dybenko, considered by Lenin to be an “irresponsible young man”, arrested in connection with his opposition towards the movement towards peace with Germany (FARNSWORTH, 1980). He was rumoured even to be considering a coup against the government, using his “faithful sailors” to back his attempt. (FARNSWORTH, 1980) By 1921, when Kollontai was already a member of the Workers’ Opposition, Dybenko perhaps in order to demonstrate his heroic maleness, was the leader of that section of the Bolshevik Party which crushed the Kronstadt sailors’ and workers’ rebellion; “..... the (Tenth Congress was) periodically interrupted by glowing reports of the gory process of their battle with the sailors”. (PORTER, 1980) This symbolic massacre was seen by some, and I agree, as the symbolic defeat of the working classes’ role in the revolution, which ensured the collapse into “communism in one state” and the horrors of the Stalinist era. (FARNSWORTH, 1980) Kollontai was a member of the Worker’s Opposition which backed the Kronstadt revolt — and survived even that oppositionist position.
However, she forged a much more important, in the sense of long-lasting, relationship with Chicherin — the most prominent gay Bolshevik — who, like her, eventually became one of the key figures in the Diplomatic identity and action of the so-called “Soviet Union”. Chicherin and Kollontai then as key representatives of the “Soviet” state from the early days, through the development of “communism” in one country, and the Stalinist purges, and in Kollontai’s case through the Second World War and into the Cold War. What symbolically important people in the representation of this so-called “communist” state in its international relations! In the case of Chicherin, changing the performance of his masculinity to the extent that he accepted the regime’s idea of homosexuality as a “disease”, and sought for a “cure” before he succumbed to the purges. In the case of Kollontai, continuing to perform feminine leadership styles, claiming gains for women, and presenting the “acceptable” face of the regime in the world as a diplomat, actively involved in the beginnings of the new global governance regimes developed after San Francisco.
Kollontai’s contribution to global thinking about sexual identity, sexual relations and masculinities and femininities was terribly important in the movement towards the period of revolutions. and then beyond. Their significance in the later years is perhaps a measure of how much the ideas of early practising feminists could be compromised and overlaid with repressive power and enforced or voluntary collusion.
Hyper-masculinity and Imperial Dominance
I have tried to link the idea of heterosexism and homophobia to changing gender practices and to the idea of “peaceful” men and women in my paper for Minneapolis. The concept of “hyper-masculinity” as practised by both men and women, and as a crucial reinforcement of patriarchy in its most combative style is set against the performance of “hyper-femininity” as, again, practised by both men and women, and linked to a passive desire for peace, again within patriarchy, and without challenge to it.
“Heterosexual” and “homosexual” fantasy and practice echo both these cultures, and indeed many are based on hyper performances of both styles, without challenging patriarchy — indeed they probably reinforce it.
It is also quite clear that historically and now, patriarchally based imperialisms have enjoyed fantasies and practice in which both the women and the men of the imperialised societies have been subject to hypermasculine erotic attacks on their passive bodies, including their genocide. A boy’s book series from 1914 offers the following “illuminating example of brevity, intelligence and picturesqueness”.
“One shack was run by a David and Jonathan cowboy twain named Bill and Froggy. Bill had to go away on one of those periodical jaunts... news from home....
Dear Bill “A fellers passin by, and I got a chanst to send you a letter..... There was a Indian here yesterday. He was a chief. I shot im. He’s dead. Spect to make sum more whisky termorrow.” Yours Froggy””. (TALBOT,1914)
This erotic attack has spanned mass rape of both sexes, through systematic torture to enforced paramour status and finally to the immense contemporary global sex industry.
There is increasing evidence that outside imperialistic and war situations, the day to day functioning of the patriarchal organisation is based on similar subjugations, and that bullying at work is a pervasive ritual based on homosociality and heterosociality linked to the legitmisation of abuse of power.
The spectacle of the public abuse of Clinton, against the background of his abuse of his own power in heterosexual terms, and the overt questioning of his gender identity and performance, and indeed that of his wife (links to Eleanor Roosevelt), as a symbol of US imperialism and hegemony is rich in confusing symbolism.
Masculinity as Defensible Space
Much of the work on “masculinities” has been directed at demonstrating the centrality of “masculinity” as a defensive and defendable “space”. Catherine Scott’s “A Generation of Sissies”, (SCOTT, 1998) delivered at the Minneapolis conference, convincingly portrays the recovery of US “masculinity” from the severe denting which it took during the Vietnam War — tracing this process through Carter’s Iran hostage crisis, Reagan’s Grenada “commie bashing” and Bushes’ Gulf — even suggesting that Generals Swarchkopf and Powell were “secure enough in their masculinity” to add caring and compassion to their performances of masculinity, Swarchkopf even being cast in the role of “Bear” — the fast growing new gay identity, cuddly but potentially dangerous.
All of this suggests that masculinities can still be defended within a challenged but “unbowed” patriarchy by becoming secure through macho performance, which allows “feminine” elements to be more clearly flagged and affirmed in the performance. This may, on reflection, may be what has happened to me. I have developed a “bear” like identity (not always consciously) as I have “matured”, which allows the caring peaceful side of my personality to emerge more forcefully.
Yet Weber talks of the Bush performance as “hysterical”, this word being adopted from patriarchal stereotyping of women to apply to the panic which powerful men feel when they sense the changing gender power relationships around them.
“Lack and excess are the two complementary motifs of hysteria. Hysteria appears as the excessive miming of masculinity... that “stands in” for a lack of phallic power..... In the case of female hysteria, this lack of phallic power follows from an anatomical lack of a visible penis” (WEBER, 1998)
The Undiscussable and Change
Weber here makes the “undiscussability” evident. Change is happening. I can feel that change is happening, and that it is happening in such a way that men who would “naturally” under patriarchy consider the performance of masculinities to be self-evidently the performance of “warrior” roles, are turning to other more peaceful roles. That this is happening is leading to panic among those political men who still want to perform warrior roles, which Weber characterises as “hysteria”. We need in our process of international governance moving away from war, patriarchy and an oppressive capitalism, to surface these undiscussable processes and talk together about them, to bring the undiscussable into the open and to share its strengths and weaknesses. I have to contemplate whether in my work with conflicting warring groups, from countries where men are killing each other, and women and children, I connect with changing performances of masculinity and femininity in the groups, whilst facilitating the voicing of peacefulness by both men and women. I am aware that the men and women in the groups have cultural identities which include the fierce “blood feud” ritual, extreme hierarchical patriarchy, but also the espoused values of equality and the complexity of facilitated patterns of listening, respect, negotiation, between the different groupings of men and women in the context. My performance is inhibited in ways which surprise myself, by my own homophobia, which whilst, espousing surfacing the values of challenging gendered performances, colludes with silencing; of my own voice, as well as the participants’.
One young woman tells of the horror of having several members of her family killed. She seems pervaded by sadness and grief during the whole week. She says that her father wants her to see their deaths as “good” — they were martyrs for the state in his eyes. She doesn’t want to participate in this way of seeing, and feeling about, their violent and horrible deaths.
I feel the same, and I feel it deeply. I do not want to be forced to perform a “masculinity” which involves destructive win-lose competition and the “rituals” of war with their attendant humiliation and domination, and the denial of feelings which accompanies them.
This is a traitorous position. Tami Jacoby hints at this when she says “I no realise that the widespread subordination of gender issues was largely responsible for my frustrations, and my subsequent departure from the country” (JACOBY, 1998) She goes on to say that
“The Israeli women’s peace movement is also, but arguably, the most subversive of nationalism as an identifying reference. Its cross-national partnership with the Palestinian women’s movement is an example of this identification of women beyond the national” (JACOBY,1998)
I would like to say that the same potential is there for a men’s international peace movement which is based on a different performance of masculinities, and which would, anyway not be exclusively for men, but also for women who were interested to see men perform different masculinities, and to avoid women having to perform dominant “masculinities” in order to survive in patriarchal international, and local, society.
The Power of the Undiscussable; Denial of Homophobia
All politics, and international politics is no different, are held in a nesting and conflicting series of organisations, some of them relatively formal and long-lasting, others informal and ephemeral, such as peace negotiations. All human organisations have processes which are basic and at some deep level “undiscussable”. These processes are particularly deeply embedded where there has been a history of violence in the past. The Third Reich was aware of these processes. In 1941, Horst Eberhard Richter, who was responsible for “Determining hostility toward people and state: confiscation of financial assets; abrogation of citizenship” in the Reich Security Main Office, under Heydrich. issued the following observation;
“It is one of our most dangerous self-delusions that we, as adults, consider ourselves immune to inhumane actions, and this only because we are living on the whole under average social conditions and are not, for instance, being seduced to resort to massive destructive activities. It has been shown that under exceptional social conditions or even in connection with laboratory experiments, a majority of people of all social strata can be diverted from following such significant moral principles with which the persons concerned had always believed to identify. the extent to which human behaviour in the moral sphere can be influenced is so extreme that it is obviously no longer compatible with our general sense of self-worth and, for this reason, will commonly be flatly denied.” (RURUP, 1989)
These powerful processes of denial are in operation at all levels of the international process, and within the units which are identified as “states”, the “undiscussable” includes the relationship between performances of warring masculinities and the supportive femininities and alternative performances which indicate peaceful process and outcomes, and also a de-centring of the patriarchal performance. Homophobia is the cement which keeps the undiscussability in place.
During a recent conflict transformation workshop which I jointly facilitated, there was a stage where the participants were beginning to prepare for war. A particularly dominant masculine performer could be heard haranguing the group he was working in, in an increasingly heated way. The other groups in the room continued to work, but were aware of this escalating conflict. The protagonist had to be reminded by me more than once of the agreed “ground rules”, but found it very difficult to change his behaviour, the others in the group were almost silenced. When we returned to the large group, it was clear from body postures that the men who felt attacked by this hostile performance were very eager to “have a go”. I stopped this process, remarking that it was a most important dialogue, but that it was not safe to move to the ritual of conflict at this stage. A number of women then said that it was not fair to cut the process in this way. However, I insisted that we continued with the previously agreed task, which they performed with huge energy and creativity. The group eventually had the opportunity to enact the conflict in a structured and controlled way, giving equal voices to the women in the group. It was possible to feel the group relax when woman faced woman in the negotiating chairs. In subsequent feedback, it was only women who remarked that the cutting short of the “war” ritual in the group had been important, and that the avoidance of hurt was crucial for the process.
The men were equally happy about the outcome, but could not express their relief at not having to perform warring masculinity — perhaps because it would surface there and others’ homophobia.
Argyris and Schein share the idea of “espoused values” in organisations; Argyris contrasts this level of values with what he calls “values in use”, and Schein’s with the idea of “basic assumptions”. Despite the superficial performance of new forms of more “feminised” masculinities, as espoused values, the underlying assumptions in patriarchy are still that men who do not perform “correctly” are “sissies” — and that “sissies” are “homosexual”, and gender traitors.
Women have supported this process throughout the world, as evidenced by Enloe.
“To operate in the international arena, governments seek other government’ recognition of their sovereignty; but they also depend on ideas about masculinized dignity and feminized sacrifice to sustain that sense of autonomous nationhood” (ENLOE, 1989)
The reality of “masculinities” is much more complex than the term “sissy” and “real man” can suggest, and so complex that we cannot conceptualise the many ways in which men can perform masculinities. Nevertheless, a powerful system of oppression is built upon the tyranny of these types of words.
Simpson hints at the nature of the required investigation into masculinities alternative to the dominant mode when he refers to “narcissism”;
“Is it really so awful that men should love one another in a maternal fashion? Surely it is only in a deeply misogynistic culture that the (unconscious) attachment of an adult male to his mother should be regarded as so distasteful; Freud’s formula could only be insulting to gay men and place the “blame” for homosexuality on mothers if it is accepted that this kind of narcissism, the desire to re-enact in adult life the joy of ‘oneness’ with the mother, is something contemptible of itself....... I find this pattern of nurturing love between men in a world of violence and cut-throat competition strangely beautiful” (SIMPSON, 1994)
Concluding Remarks
The underlying basic assumption of homophobia is the all-present inhibitor which keeps the “espoused values” of; e.g. peace, appreciation of difference, sharing roles with women; from actually becoming anything other than a superficial performance.
Until the basic assumptions are challenged, there is no possibility, despite the fast changing role of women, that men will change and begin to perform the new masculinities required in the international fall of patriarchy.
In order to make these challenges, in a “learning organisation” setting, it is necessary to identify and surface the extent of the fear which hides the basic assumptions from our eyes, and our hearts; the fear which is the “phobia” part of homophobia is deep seated and hidden — but palpable. The measurement of fear (FULOP & RIFKIN, 1998) as an integral part of Argyris’ “defensive routines” is essential for the surfacing of the role of homophobia in a gendered international relations, and in order to change the gender relations of patriarchy, and the other systems of oppression, of “class”, “race”, “disability”, in short “difference” as a valid reason for oppression.
Dedic quotes John Hersey’s statement in “The Wall”, on the cover of his paper; “Can the Perpetrators Really Suffer from “Denial Syndrome”?”; (DEDIC, 1998)
“The fact that a man is a man is more important than the fact that he believes what he believes... And so, after all, we tell ourselves, man’s real quiddity is that he is a human being, not that he is a Zionist, a Communist, a Socialist, a Jew, a Pole or for that matter a Nazi.”
To this list of “nots” I would add “a Man”; the belief in the masculinities “typically” performed by “Men”.
Hersey goes on to say; “But any man who cannot recognize this basic maxim is an agent of Anti-Humanity, and his purpose, whether conscious or not, is the wiping out of mankind.” To which I would add “womankind” too.
To which I would add;
“Can we do it, Alice?
Is it true?
Is it true that
“Anything We Love Can be Saved?”” (LADKIN, 1999)
References
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