RETHINKING ‘TRADITIONAL MASCULINITY’ AS CONSTRUCTED, MULTIPLE, AND ≠ HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY

ABSTRACT

The concept ‘traditional masculinity’ appears frequently in research on gender from multiple, diverse contexts. Yet there sometimes appears to be a surprising lack of critical engagement with the concept in such work. Its meaning is at times taken for granted, yet the diversity of ways and contexts in which it is deployed demonstrates the importance of interrogating it. The term ‘traditional masculinity’ carries many meanings, some of which are incompatible with both a social constructionist framework of masculinity as well as a critical perspective on tradition. In this article, grounding our thinking in a rereading of some of the critical literature on tradition, we critique some of the usage of ‘traditional masculinity’, and make suggestions for thinking with and about ‘traditional masculinity’ in ways that are more congruent with critical understandings of both ‘tradition’ and ‘masculinity’. The article makes three main contentions: 1) ‘traditional masculinity’ is socially constructed, 2) there are multiple ‘traditional masculinities’, and 3) ‘traditional masculinity’ should not be uncritically equated with hegemonic masculinity. It cautions that, by failing to acknowledge some of the term's ideological functions, scholars within critical gender studies risk reproducing such meanings in ways that are incongruent with a critical perspective on masculinity and may also reflect some of the very discourses on masculinity they are seeking to challenge.

Keywords:

• masculinity
• traditional masculinity
• hegemonic masculinity
• social constructionism
• tradition-modernity binary

Additional information

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

BRITTANY EVERITT-PENHALE is working on her Master's in Clinical Psychology and Community Counselling at Stellenbosch University. She previously worked as a researcher on the Masculinity, Tradition and Social Change Programme at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences at Unisa and the Violence, Injury & Peace Research Unit at SAMRC/Unisa. She completed her Master's in Psychological Research from the University of Cape Town in 2013, where her dissertation focused on male students’ talk on rape in South Africa. Her research interests include masculinity and femininity, violence, feminist perspectives, heterosex, and sexual violence.

KOPANO RATELE is Professor in the Institute for Social and Health Sciences at the University of South Africa (Unisa) and Researcher at the South African Medical Research Council-Unisa's Violence, Injury & Peace Research Unit. He is past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa and chairperson of the board of Sonke Gender Justice. He writes on boys, men and masculinity.