The personal is political … just not always progressive: affective interruptions and their promise for CSMM

ABSTRACT

In critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), a well-established argument has been that white, heterosexual, middle-class men practice emotional repression as a means of maintaining social power. Whilst CSMM have often overlooked emotions, there is an increasing body of work which argues that men both have an active understanding of their emotional lives and that men’s emotional lives have significantly changed. Crucially, emotions are important for exploring how men’s practice connects to structure; what has been called ‘the problem of social embodiment’. However, recent perspectives on emotions and masculinities may over-emphasise the gender-progressive effects of men discussing emotions, tending to overlook how ‘semi-’ and ‘non-conscious’ forms of men’s embodiment shape far less progressive trends and even how discourses around ‘softening masculinity’ may support various forms of misogynstic behaviour. This article argues that critical feminist ‘turns to affect’ can help foreground the problem of social embodiment in CSMM in less deterministic ways, without neglecting intersectional questions of power. To illustrate potential uses for affect in CSMM, the article adopts Wetherell’s concepts of ‘affective practice’ in combination with Ahmed’s notion of ‘happy objects’ through an exploration of three key case studies: online masculinist rage; ‘nice guy’ discourse and nationalist politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• affective practice
• critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM)
• softening masculinity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sam de Boise is currently a postdoctoral researcher, in the School of Music, Theatre and Art at Örebro University, Sweden. His work has focused primarily on constructions of emotion in music in relation to Western masculinity, specifically around music use, distaste and affect. His current project at Örebro compares gender inequalities in relation to music engagement in the UK and Sweden. His interests also include feminist theory, music technology and neoliberalism.

ORCID

Sam de Boise http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9067-9496

Notes

1. See http://straightwhiteboystexting.org/; https://www.instagram.com/byefelipe/?hl=en; https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/nice-guys-of-okcupid; https://www.instagram.com/tindernightmares/?hl=en.

2. There are numerous ethical considerations surrounding the use of online comments which are surprisingly absent from articles discussing the phenomena (see Buchanan & Zimmer, 2016). However, whilst commenters and posters are not always aware that their comments may be made publicly available, the comments used here were already published in forums which are publicly accessible. Consent here should not be understood as just about the men who write the comments but also about the decision of the women who receive them to make them public. However, names and web-handles have been removed throughout.

3. Again, here, these comments are available in online public forums and informed consent from commenters here would have been almost impossible to obtain; though the Red Pill is a notorious Reddit site with a focus on vocal and active MRA suggesting that members are fully aware – perhaps even hopeful – that their anonymous comments may be spread.