Masculinity as a Center, Centered Masculinity

Abstract

The postcolonial writings of Homi Bhabha (1994) provide an outsider's perspective on Western culture. From that perspective, this article examines white, heterosexual masculinity as one “canonical center” of this culture. I see masculinity currently stressed and in transition, both the masculine subjects themselves and the understanding of masculinity. I examine masculinity psychoanalytically as a paradoxical challenge to an individual man as he develops. I look clinically at the struggle of individual men to become “a real man” in the light of social relationships to others who traditionally were unrecognized as fully equal subjects. I also note how the implicit normative masculine in psychoanalytic theory organizes the analyst's clinical perceptions and countertransference, predisposing her to expect the traditional form of the masculine. A newly examined flexible position is encouraged.