Masculinity as project: some psychoanalytic reflections

Abstract

In this article the question of phallic masculinity is discussed from a subjective perspective, more specifically from a psychoanalytic perspective supplemented with phenomenological reflections. A vantage point for this discussion is the distinction between sex/being a male and gender/masculinity. The focus is on the boy's/man's striving for a phallic masculine identity – a striving that can be described in terms of a ‘project’. The term ‘project’ indicates that phallic masculinity is a striving for a possibility which is not yet realized, and it is argued, will never be realized, since it essentially entails a denial of our existential conditions such as our vulnerability, transience and dependence. From a psychogenetic point of view phallic masculinity is conceived of as a repudiation of the feminine/motherly containment. The phallic masculine project can be seen as a response to a humiliated narcissistic ego. In the final section, I will discuss the alienating consequences of masculinity as project by means of the concepts ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’. Among other things it is argued that the masculine project misses: (1) recognition of the potentiality of an emergent sense of subjectivity made possible by an intersubjective containing experience; (2) recognition of the potentiality of immanence as a source of unconditional joy; (3) recognition of a mutually rewarding, dialectical relationship between immanence and transcendence.

Keywords:

• phallic masculinity
• masculinity
• gender
• psychoanalysis
• phenomenology
• transcendence
• immanence
• phallocentrism

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Åke Lantz, Jakob Larsson, Ewa Raj, Svante Tham, as well as anonymous reviewers and editors of the journal for comments and suggestions that have helped me to improve the article.

Notes on contributor

Gunnar Karlsson is a professor at the Department of Education, Stockholm University. He is also a practicing psychoanalyst. He has, among other things, published Psychoanalysis in a New Light (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Notes

1. Thus, the psychoanalytic perspective is, properly speaking, not a first person perspective insofar as it focuses on the unconscious. Neither is it a third person objective perspective. In line with Laplanche's thinking, I think the unconscious should be denominated ‘the other thing’ (das Andere), that is to say, not ‘the other person’ (der Andere). ‘The other thing’ connotes thing-like ideas and has a reified character. The unconscious is by all means a ‘phenomenon of meaning’, but one which at the same time has been closed off to meaning (Laplanche, 1999, p. 107). However, much psychoanalytic thinking concerns obscure levels of consciousness which is why it also partakes of a first person perspective.

The relationship between phenomenology and psychoanalysis has been discussed and elaborated by many authors, for example, Bernet (2002, 2004), Heidegger (2001), Karlsson, (2010), Lohmar and Brudzinska (2012), Merleau-Ponty (1982–83), Mishara (1990), Pontalis (1982–83), Ricoeur (1970, 2012), Smith (2010). When it comes to discussing or combining phenomenological and psychoanalytic thinking on gender, see for example, de Beauvoir ([1949] 2011), Gatens (1996), Grosz (1994), Irigaray (1985, 1993), Owen (2012).

2. Hollway (2006, p. 36) regrets that the distinction between sex differences and gender differences ‘has been lost with the dominance of a social constructionist paradigm on identity that claims that all differences are socially produced and therefore gender differences’. I agree with Hollway's opinion, but the issue is tricky because there are also phenomenologists not influenced by social constructionism, who are nevertheless critical of the sex–gender distinction. And within psychoanalysis one can find that the terms sex and gender are used synonymously. A recent example of this from a leading psychoanalytic gender theorist is the following quote (Chodorow, 2012, p. 140): ‘I am calling the perspective under consideration the sexual difference perspective, though for me, it could equally be called the gender difference perspective.’

3. In a certain sense one can say that this is an occasion on which a meeting takes place between a psychoanalytic, motivational, explanatory intentionality and phenomenological, descriptive intentionality

4. An example of a quote from Fogel (2006, p. 1141) highlights phallic masculine traits in their opposition to femininity: ‘I characterize masculine by outwardness, feminine by inwardness; masculine by precise boundaries, shapes, entities, and definitions, feminine by ambiguity or fluidity of boundaries, shapes, entities, and definitions; masculine by penetration, feminine by receptivity and holding; masculine by deconstruction and cutting through, feminine by construction, creativity, and synthesis; masculine by differentiation and separateness, feminine by recognition, integration, and unification; masculine by representation, feminine by space, masculine by doing, feminine by being.’

5. A description of the sexual phallic ideal is given by Bernic Zilbergerald's image of a ‘large, powerful, untiring phallus attached to a cool controlled male, long on experience, confident, and knowledgeable enough to make women crazy with desire…’ (from Person, 2006, p. 1174).

6. Stoller (1968, pp. 9–10) states that sex is restricted to a biological connotation referring to male and female although there are cases of individuals that cannot be categorized according to this binary division. Gender has a psychological and cultural connotation rather than a biological one. Stoller points out that ‘female’ and ‘male’ are used when it comes to sex, whereas ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are the proper terms for gender. Gender identity is defined as the person's knowledge and awareness of belonging to one of the sexes and not the other. In the course of the individual's development, gender identity gets more and more complicated, one does not only experience oneself as, for example, a man but a masculine man or a feminine man or a man who fantasizes of being a woman. Finally, the term gender role refers to the overt behavior that one displays in society. It is the role that one plays in the interaction with others in order to establish a position vis-à-vis other people with respect to the gender dimension. Stoller also made the distinction between ‘core gender identity’ and ‘gender identity’ that often is used in psychoanalytic thinking. The earliest identity is ‘core gender identity’ made up of the infant–parents relationship, the child's perception of its external genitalia and a biological force. The core gender identity, Stoller (1968) writes, ‘is fully established before the fully developed phallic stage’ (p. 30). The psychological and culturally determined gender identity goes on much longer, at least until the end of adolescence.

7. Merleau-Ponty's ideas about the lived body have been used in many different ways by phenomenologists and feminists. The legitimacy of applying the sex–gender distinction to Merleau-Ponty's lived body has also been discussed. For a somewhat different interpretation than Bigwood's, see for example Heinämaa (2003) who objects to the sex–gender distinction in favor of understanding the sexual identity as a stylistic unity. A sexual identity is a variation of a way of relating to the world, without making any differentiation in significance between corporeal properties, sexuality, cognition, action and so forth. ‘The development of a sexual identity…is not accounted for by the concepts of inheritance and properties, but by the concepts of imitation and mimicry, repetition and modification’ (Heninämaa, 2003, p. 68). And Gatens is influenced by both psychoanalysis and Merleau-Ponty's lived body in her conceptualization of the ‘imaginary body’. ‘Masculinity and femininity as forms of sex-appropriate behaviours are manifestations of a historically based, culturally shared phantasy about male and female bioligies, and as such sex and gender are not arbitrarily connected. The connection between the female and body and femininity is not arbitrary in the same way that the symptom is not arbitrarily related to its etiology’ (Gatens, 1996, p. 13).

8. A word of caution concerning how to understand my analysis epistemologically should be given: I do not claim to explain the relations of domination between males and females by my adoption of the subjective perspective in this article. In order to explain the oppression of women a broader frame of reference is needed, including among other things the economical and institutional structures in our society. In accordance with Young's (1990) point of view, I believe that one cannot reduce institutional structures to gender personality, a mistake that she thinks feminist psychoanalytic theorists have committed. Nevertheless, gender theory has a role to play in that it is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition in order to explain male domination, according to Young. In particular, it can shed light on the maintenance and reproduction of institutions of male domination (p. 47), and it ‘can be an enormous aid in consciousness-raising about contemporary masculinist ideologies by showing some of the sources of their misogyny’ (p. 57). Young offers a principal description of the relation between gender and societal institutional forms: ‘While gender differentiation is a phenomenon of individual psychology and experience, as well as of cultural categorization, male domination refers to structural relations of genders and institutional forms that determine those structures. Any complete account of male-dominated society requires an account of gender, but also requires an account of the causes and reproduction of structures not originating from gender psychology’ (p. 45).

9. The only recognized identification process with the mother for the boy is in connection with a homosexual object choice where the boy, at the demolition of the Oedipus complex, identifies with his mother instead of intensifying his identification with his father and thereby consolidates his masculine character (see e.g. Freud, 1923, p. 32).

10. Similar conclusions can be found in for example, Lonner (1980), Raphael (1988), Williams and Best (1990).

11. We recognize the idea that manhood is something to be achieved and not the result of a natural development in psychoanalytic theorizing (e.g., Chodorow, [1978] 1999). Furthermore, a certain resemblance is also noticeable with respect to de Beauvoir's ([1949] 2011) idea of masculinity as transcendence, even though for de Beauvoir it is the woman who ‘becomes’, whereas (masculine) transcendence does not contradict ‘his destiny as male.…He is not divided’ (p. 739).

12. Earlier on I referred to Bigwood's (1991) analysis of Merleau-Ponty's idea of the lived body in order to secure the distinction between sex and gender. In her feminist work Bigwood uses the example of her experience of being pregnant. The lived bodily experience used in my analysis on masculinity is thus the helpless body and how such an experience, in a masculine project, is absorbed by a human being equipped with a penis situated in a context with the primary caregiver being a female and a male as the third element in a formation surrounded by a patriarchal structure.

13. The expression ‘the motherly containing capacity’ should first of all be understood principally as the primary care giver rather than it having to be the biological mother.

14. Due to the limited space available many important aspects in the development of masculinity must be omitted. One such aspect is the role of the pre-Oedipal father, which here means specifically someone outside the infant–mother dyad. The father plays an important role in many ways, such as containing the infant–mother dyad, and establishing a triangulation in the sense that the infant–mother dyad is extended to make up a structure of three elements; infant – mother (primary caregiver) – father (someone outside the infant–mother dyad).

15. This repudiation of the feminine/motherly containment can, I believe, be connected to some traits that have been disclosed in academic research on masculinity, such as the fear of being controlled, and the fear of falling and thereby appearing as unmanly (see e.g. Ekenstam et al, 1998, 2001; Kimmel, 1996).

16. A pair of concepts much used in phenomenological literature, not least in de Beauvoir's ([1949] 2011) writings, but which do not appear in psychoanalytic literature, are immanence and transcendence. Transcendence that captures the male's way of being in the world is embodied in the penis ‘in a graspable way and it is a source of pride’ (p. 58). The lived sexual body, more precisely in this context the penis with its urinary function and possibility of erection, is given an existential significance of transcendence, which makes the male body privileged compared to the female one: ‘The advantage man enjoys and which manifests itself from childhood onwards is that his vocation as a human being in no way contradicts his destiny as a male. The fact that the phallus is assimilated with transcendence means that man's social and spiritual successes endow him with virile prestige’ (p. 739). This connection between penis/phallus and transcendence that de Beauvoir makes fits nicely in with my analysis of masculinity. I will in the final section of this article (‘Consequences of and a possible remedy for phallic masculinity’) return to the concept of transcendence in order to discuss some alienating and ominous implications of masculinity both with respect to the male himself and for his relationship to females and other males.

17. Apart from the personal and social consequences that the masculine project entails, one could also claim that it corresponds to an attitude and life style that constitutes a global threat. Our way of living and consuming in the Western world is creating enormous and frightening consequences for the entire planet that we inhabit. It is no exaggeration to say that the way we live, which to my mind bears distinct similarities with the masculine project, is to constantly expand. And when the consequences of this life style threaten our planet, our response is mainly a continued hope that we can solve the problems by even further development and by trying to take control of the situation by means of new technologies. It is not by chance that men are very interested in techniques and spend almost 10 times more time than women to the repair and maintenance of vehicles (Mellström, 1999, p. 8). The French psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu, whose work has focused on the importance of establishing a containing so-called ‘skin-ego’ in order to promote a sense of security and ego-feeling, has pointed out the necessity of setting limits and not least with respect to economic expansion (Anzieu, 1989, pp. 2–3).

18. Hollway (2006) discusses the capacity to care with its important beginning in the intimate relationship between maternal figures and infants, and she concludes that the capacity to care is essentially related to the experiencing of being cared for. Despite its importance this question cannot be addressed here to any significant degree.

19. Young (1997, pp. 155–156): ‘Beauvoir is right to link her account of women's oppression with domestic work, but not entirely for the reasons she has. A sexual division of labor that removes women from participation in society's most valued and creative activities, excludes women from access to power and resources, and confines women primarily to domestic work is indeed a source of oppression. Much of typically women's work, however, is at least as fundamentally world-making and meaning-giving as typically men's work…preservation is ambiguous; it can be conservative and reinterpretive, rigid and fluid.’

20. De Beauvoir refers to the Husserlian reduction in an unspecified way. Sometimes one distinguishes between reduction and epoché as well. There are many Husserlian reductions, one of which can be said to be the epoché.

21. Mother here in principle means the primary care giver.

22. My emphasis on the helpless beginning of life, and the importance of a containing intersubjective relationship for the infant with the mother, has been clearly spelled out and elaborated upon by the psychosocial view of masculinity (e.g. Hollway, 2006; Jefferson, 2002, 2013).

23. As a matter of fact, one can find a kind of bisexual idea connected to the question of creativity in Winnicott. The human being contains both on the one hand a pure female element, connected to being and to the mother and infant being merged, and on the other a pure male element that has to do with doing and presupposes separateness (Winnicott, 1971, p. 79ff).

24. This reminds us of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas' ideas about the self and enjoyment. According to him, the original dimension of life is enjoyment. To despair life can only be understood on the condition that life is originally enjoyment. Levinas writes ([1961] 1969, p. 112): ‘Life is love of life’ (emphasis in original). Everything that we are living from…food, drinks, ideas, sleep, spectacles, light and so on, are not to be conceived of as something instrumental (they are not tools) that satisfy needs; his point is that the act in itself, the doing, contains enjoyment. The basis of the self is enjoyment. ‘Enjoyment is…the very pulsation of the I’ (p. 113).