1. Introduction

The classic definition of masculinity is “the properties characteristic of the male sex” means typically to be potent and opposite to the ‘femininity’. India being a Conservative and Patriarchal society, the treatment of women & children is supposedly concern of everyone in the country. Inherently, we are fond of discussing nationalism, naxalism, fascism, capitalism, communalism, globalization, liberalization, language, regionalism, gender, caste, morality, culture etc. We must also discuss sexuality and its position vis-à-vis patriarchy.

Usually it is understood that we do not discuss issues about which either we know nothing or everything. Less knowledge demands serious discussion to increase the understanding. If we know everything, there is no problem as to why we should not be discussing an issue as important as ‘sexuality’. It is, perhaps, because we lack the courage to discuss it or do not have a suitable vocabulary to describe its nuances, sometimes, even as a part of discourse. There is no end of discourse because the civilization is an interminable entity and there has to be a continuous effort to use discursive analysis for the betterment of the peripheral sections of the society including the ‘queer’sexuals.

2. Defining Masculinity

Maleness and masculinity are not the same. There is a distinction between facts of biology and masculine identity. More than simply having a male body; one must in addition be a man. Being a man in the fullest sense is a matter of the will, a choice to live in a ‘masculine’ way.

Psychology and anthropology support the popular distinction between sex and gender. Sex is what the body is, that is, male or female. Gender is everything that is not limited to the body; it is a complex of behavior, mental qualities, and personality characteristics-everything we mean when we say that someone is masculine, a real man, a Mensch, or (more rarely), feminine, a real woman, a lady. Gender sometimes refers specifically to sexual behavior; that is, masculinity can mean the male desire for heterosexual intercourse, but it is not to be understood in that restricted sense. Gender means, in a distinction that is becoming widely accepted, the wide range of qualities and behavior (including the sexual) that make up the realities we call masculine and feminine.

Masculinity in three acts: Attempts at dominance through

(1) Force and humiliation,

(2) Words and argument, and

(3) Raw insults.

Masculinity is to be asserted and if need be to be preserved: this is the duty of every male who is living under the umbrella of the patriarchal system. Heterosexuality, division of labour based on sex, upbringing of children according to their ‘biological’ sexuality and not as per their ‘social’ sexuality; taking care of children, old, infirm, ills etc.- are some of the ‘salient’ features of this arrangement of social living. Maintaining racial, religious and caste practices, inheritance of property are imposed on the man.

3. Deconstructing Gender

 “When I was born, they looked at me and said: ‘What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy!’ And when you were born, they looked at you and said: “What a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl!'”

“What A Good Boy,” The Barenaked Ladies

Taking cue from the documentary ‘Deconstructing Gender’ by Dr. K.P. Jayasankar and Dr. Anjali Monteiro, we can understand the stereotypical representation of boys and girls. As the rhyme goes on:

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice and all that is nice…

This nursery rhyme is an example of the many modes in which our gendered identities are constructed, as society writes its cultural scripts of difference on our bodies. While sex is a biological ‘given’, gender is socially and culturally defined, enmeshed in relationships of power. However, culture is turned into nature and we are constantly made aware that it is ‘natural’ for men to behave in certain ways and women in other ways. Transgressions of these norms are ‘punished’, sometimes overtly and often covertly, pushing us to conform to given gender identities, in order to be socially acceptable.

Of course, these identities are not given and fixed; they are complex, changing and a site of struggle. The social discourse on gender often sees ‘tradition’ as oppressive of women, who are now liberated by the norms and values of ‘modernity’. However, this equation is somewhat simplistic, as it ignores the subtle ways in which modern society and its institutions, including the media, exercises power and control over our selves, often through making us internalise these modes of control. For example, notions of ‘beauty’ and ‘ideal body’ are ways through which we are mainstreamed into conforming to social norms.

4. Feminism and Masculinity

Is there any way out? It’s called feminism. It offers men a way to understand the nature of this toxic conception of who we are. Feminism is a gift to men, if we are smart enough to accept it. Excerpted from Robert Jensen’s book,Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.

Why someone proclaims to be a feminist and others claims not to be? The answer lies in the grasping of the ‘universally acceptable’ definition of the very word ‘Feminism’. As we know the ideology is defined as a set of ideas partially and selectively chosen. This is the real issue when it is to come to terms with associating with any ideology-we consider feminism here. Everybody decides to choose the convenient option which suits his/her purpose. It is somewhat to do with the dominant and vocal version of feminism also.

The liberal and radical streams usually take differing positions and in turn one tries to supercede the other. In the process, radical voice gets louder and starts threatening the ‘patriarchal order’. The patriarchy then reacts and brings the liberal voice into its fore to counter radical current and uses it as safety valve. The position of a person believing in a genuine gender-oppression free society becomes that of ambivalence. 

Progressive movements have been able to establish ‘Feminism’ as a separate discourse and there are many institutions now involved in the studies of women’s position and their relation vis-à-vis Race, Religion, Caste etc.

Struggle within the feminist discourse brings the age-old question to our mind: Who would pay the price for existence in a multicultural society. Women are ‘the natural choice’ for accepting the responsibility. The myth that woman are the bearer of community’s culture, aggravates the problem and takes away the space as otherwise would have been available to them.

Women are as entitled to enjoy the benefits of privileges granted to a community in a multicultural society. If the privileges become restrictions for women, better to shed them altogether. One unjustness cannot be countered by another. Issues of women among Blacks (in White societies), Dalits (in ‘upper’ caste societies), and Minorities etc are to be considered wholesome as they have to fight the double injustice.

It is the duty of the authority doling out privileges to ensure that they must not be misused and there shall not be any discrimination against the women. There cannot be a good society which differentiates on any basis.

5. Man and Masculinity

Man should work and woman would take care of the household. Man toils outside for his love and woman has to sweat within the walls for the same love. If man does not earn, he is taunted and not considered as a strong man and definitely not an ideal one. Poor man spends his entire life oscillating between home and workplace. Man must live for father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter, state and nation, education and entertainment, science and literature. It is common sense for him to fight in war, be in army, doing hazardous and menial work, protect his culture from outside attack, save his women from others, physically assault women of others to affirm his imagined superiority, so on and so forth. The irony is that he feels pride and satisfaction in doing all these. He does not understand that it is not ‘normal’.

To quote Nancy Friday, “When women can get their emotional needs satisfied elsewhere, don’t they often forget about men? Take the familiar picture of a woman who has found such close-close togetherness with her children that father feels left out. How many men do you know who neglect their wives for their children?Men are trained to find their security in themselves. Women are their emotional outlet, their main source of love. If, as women believe, men are so lucky, so self sufficient, so free, dominant, and irresponsible, living in an option-filled man’s world, why do they give it all up for marriage? Men may resist, but in the end most do marry because they want women more than anything else; if responsibilities, mortgages, ulcers, child care, and monogamy are part of the package they must buy to get women, they’ll do it. The thesis of this book (Men in Love) is that men’s love of women is filled with rage. Observation shows that in the end love wins out over rage.” He (man) believes that it is his pious duty to keep his woman happy and work for the survival of his clan.

It is apt to explore the shades associated with the male psyche ingrained in the wider patricentric framework and always ready to die for the sake of ‘asserting masculinity’. I would like to say that ‘Patriarchy’ must be opposed for the reasons including as well as other than the ones provided by the feminist line of thoughts.

6. Totalizing of Sex and The Queersexuality

The totalizing of sex into two distinct ‘biologically’ categories viz. male and female leaves no space for the ‘socially’ constructed sexuality. With reference to Anne Fausto-Sterling in her essay ‘The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough’, it is desirable to have some space for other three sexes alongwith the two ‘natural’ sexes.

The patriarchy is so deeply entrenched in human psyche that it always doubts a person not having ‘declared heterosexuality’. Sexual preference is for the concerned individual to explore and decide. The totalizing of sex into two distinct ‘biologically’ categories viz. male and female leaves no space for the ‘social’, ‘political’ or otherwise constructed sexuality. The debate is not about what sexuality is, the question is how really we express it. It becomes more complex as the fear that- ‘the arbitrariness of sexual conduct will lead to the disorderliness in the human society’- compels patriarchy work overtime to get itself naturalized among its subjects.

Manuel Castells explains elsewhere that the impact of social movements, particularly of feminism, on gender relations triggered a powerful shock wave: the calling into question of heterosexuality as the norm. For lesbians, separation from men as the subjects of their oppression was the logical, if not inevitable, consequence of their view of male domination as the source of women’s plight. For gay men, the questioning of the traditional family, and the conflictive relationships between men and women, provided an opening to explore other forms of interpersonal relationships, including new forms of families, gay families. For all, sexual liberation, without institutional limits, became the new frontier of self-expression.

Further, the regulation of desire underlies social institutions, thus channeling transgression and organizing domination. There is an endless spiral between desire, repression, sublimation, transgression and punishment, accounting for much of human passion, accomplishment, and failure, when the epics of history are observed from the hidden side of experience. This coherent system of domination, which links the hallways of the state to the pulse of the libido through mothering, fathering, and the family, does have a weak link; the heterosexual assumption. If this assumption is challenged, the whole system crumbles down: the linkage between controlled sex and reproduction of the species is called into question; sisterhood, and then women’s revolt, become possible, undoing the gendered division of sexual labour that splits women; and male bonding threatens manhood, thus undermining the cultural coherence of men-dominated institutions.

Many gay men worship the power that oppresses them; I think too that all sexual relations in our society are about power over another or the submission to the power of another.

The problem with the ‘existence business’ is that it can never be tolerant to the ‘other’; because the moment it becomes liberal, it ceases to exist. Heterosexuality, in classical patriarchal mode of living, i guess, suffers from this very ‘queerphobia’ lest its own survival as something ‘natural’.

Though the fight against the discrimination and oppression of queersexuals is not exactly ‘identity politics’, it is wrongly understood as that and then follows the suppression by the ‘dominant and neutral’ class. It should rather be called ‘liberation politics’.

In specific Indian context, ‘alternate’ sexuality has never been the concern of the mainstream politics. The de-stigmatization of sexual behaviour, as argued, must be one among the ‘important’ issues for the politico-social establishment so that a person is not traumatized in the name of preserving ‘morality’ or ‘first-attacking poverty or caste or communalism’.

We feel content by doing efforts in bits and pieces. The attempt should be to create a truly equalitarian society in which all including “woman and man” can live happily thereafter. Discriminatory practice on any basis cannot be allowed to operate in a modern and progressive society; come what may!

7. Typecasting the Patriarchy

Even the patriarchy (what we know) is expressed in its typecasted version in almost every walk of life including films and literature. I would like to explore the nuances associated with the male psyche ingrained in the wider patricentric framework.

Now, let us move toward studying the movie “Roja” directed by Mani Ratnam in the wider context of anxiety of masculinity vis-à-vis the female desire.

In Roja, the hero Rishi Kumar takes the blame on himself so that Roja’s elder sister, a common girl, could get her desired groom. He is further kidnapped while desperately searching for Roja- his wife. Then, he almost died defending the honour of his (mother) nation. The minister finally buckles down to the appeal of his ‘daughter-like’ Roja and agrees to release a ‘dreaded criminal’ for a ‘husband’ and not for an engineer serving the army. The astrologer feels it is his divine duty to help Roja –a sister.

Masculinity fears from the very idea of not protecting the weaker sex, i.e., woman and labeled as effeminate or sissy. It seems that, it is natural duty of man to react, protect, love, patronize, act impulsively, and what not- may be very difficult for to understand.

8. Popular Magazines and the Idea of ‘Masculinity’

We often come across advertisements of treating ‘secret diseases’. These diseases are of or related to the sexuality and are mostly for men. One such example could be found in the movie ‘Mumbai Matinee’ where the hero (played by Rahul Bose) lands into trouble in the process of ‘gaining’ his potency, an assertion of his masculinity. Several such incidents come into light frequently. People fear talking about it and realize when it’s too late. Columns in newspapers and magazines are dedicated for advice on sexual matters.

For this purpose, let us analyze some magazines and the content they exhibit to the readers. I would like to present a comparative account of four magazines:

1. Debonair, March 2008 (English)
2. Satyakathayen, April 2008 (Hindi)
3. Saras Salil, April (I) 2008 (Hindi)
4. Apradh Lok Kathayen, Issue 21, Yr 2008 (Hindi)

 All the above magazines address different readers but the content remains the same with slight adjustments. Magazines (2) and (4) are almost same in content and treatment. Magazines (1) and (3) present same matter with the variation because of the change in the readership owing to the language difference.

There are sections exclusively dedicated to the solving of sexual problems of readers both men and women. They provide space for confessions, venting desires, datings etc to the readers and invite suggestions and questions in this regard.

Most of the questions belong to the genre of sexual intercourse and problems therein, extra-marital relations, masturbation, shape and size of sexual organs. There are solutions provided by Sexologists and Psychiatrists depending upon the question. Men, as usual fear their ‘manhood’ and women their ‘chastity’.

9. Female Masculinity vs Male Masculinity

The concept of having male bodyguard as they are considered to be the stronger sex is getting a snubbing from the idea of having female bodyguards and security personnel. Already there are women in other armed and unarmed forces; they are now venturing into the private security assignments. Though women are not allowed to be in infantry, they are very much part of the army.

The issue of woman boss is not very comfortable for many males. The problem is compounded when they encounter a female commanding officer in security forces. The case becomes tricky once again when there is a woman subordinate. Women officers’ suicide cases in army is alarming because in many cases it is alleged that the male superiors were harassing the women subordinated for various reasons, one being a female. There are better cases as well.

Judith Halberstam’s deftly separates of masculinity from the male body in her book ‘Female Masculinity’. If what we call “masculinity” is taken to be “a naturalized relation between maleness and power,” Halberstam argues, “then it makes little sense to examine men for the contours of that masculinity’s social construction.” We can learn more from other embodiments of masculinity, like those found in drag-king performances, in the sexual stance of the stone butch, and in female-to-male transgenderism.

10. Masculinity, Sexuality and Entertainment

Contextualizing masculinity and debate surrounding it, let us understand the popularization of the music videos in the wider discourse of sexuality. The entire business of ‘Music Video’ is some kind of middle-path (more appropriately vent) between the mainstream commercial cinemas and categorized pornographic movies. It is not considered good to watch porn films but if a less intense item is presented in a different format, no body objects. It would be trivial to leave the discussion to the music videos only. Hence, we would explore some other aspects also. 

The political economy of Female sexuality, its expression and packaging is very crucial to understand in order to appreciate the tendency working behind it. Men are supposedly more aggressive as far as their desires are concerned, they always like to fantasize about women and are ready to do whatever they could to make their fantasies true. Capitalizing on this premise, the politics is the urge of creating a market for a product which can easily enter the drawing room of common household and keep the ‘dissenters’ away from normal politics of the state and be a consumer in its purest form. The economics is to generate as much wealth as could be by exploiting this mindset of sexual men.

Sociologically speaking, the consumption of female sexuality is because of the male domination in patriarchal society. Woman gets no space to counter it and hence the male sexuality is not devoured in the same intensity. Had there been a system diametrically opposite to the existing societal structure, male sexuality would have been on sale.

Psychologically speaking, sex is the second strongest drive (after hunger) which sometimes may compel man to commit any act. According to Freud, sex is the root cause of all mental illness. To base our understanding of sex on this premise; it is imperative to recognize that the whole debate is not about what sexuality is, the issue is how really we express it. Music videos (not all) and other soft-porn movies follow this very principle of naturality of the sexual desires among common man.

Sexually speaking, the production of material containing sexual components is predominantly for the heterosexuals. Production is less for lesbians, bisexuals and homosexuals-in that order. As most of the production is again controlled by men (women only are showcased) as is the case with the consumers, the product variation is as per the obvious rules of demand and supply suited to the dominant sexuality (hetero-type).

Last but not least, thinking as a student of Media and Culture studies, the retailing of sexuality is basically popularizing the erstwhile not-so-good product among the new and affording consumers. The blurring of high and low culture i.e., ‘effacement of the difference between elite and popular culture and the mass media’ is one of the most important features of the postmodernism. This is clearly expressed in the class-universalization of the products such as music videos. Commodification of sex reinforces the business of sexuality. Perhaps it is needed to realign ‘exercising sex’ and ‘expressing sexuality’ in the changing contexts. We may even have to invent a new frame of reference to define the ‘sexuality’ itself.

11. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus

In Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (MMWV), when John Gray says that men value competence and mastery, why doesn’t he admit that nobody can attain great competence in a task without also having great relational skills? Politicians must be extremely relational to attain power. Scientists must network intensely with their colleagues to master their subject matter. Likewise, when Gray says that women value beauty and relationships, why doesn’t he also admit that it takes great competence and a sense of mastery to attain beauty and have good friendships and marriages?

12. The Masculinity and The Discourse

Sociologists realize they must study masculinity and femininity through the following filters:

• The Structure of Power
• The division of labor between females and males
• The social organization of sexuality and attraction

With topics like “the structure of power” and “the social organization of sexuality” is it any wonder that society clings to sex-role theory? The caveat is put forth by the Sociologist Robert W. Connell who notes: “The issues are explosive and the chances of getting wrong answers excellent.”

Social scientists could never provide any useful insights about gender unless they uncovered some threatening, but ultimately liberating, truths. Concerning the structure of power, it is not simply that “men dominate women”. Rather, most men and women at a given time in a particular culture will support a hegemonic masculinity. Simply put, hegemony is a sociological term describing the processes which keep dominant groups in power by ensuring that subordinate groups support or at least accept “the way things are”. Thus, hegemonic masculinity is the socially dominant form of masculinity in a particular culture within a given historical period.

13. The Masculinity and The ‘Alternate’ Discourse

Male nurses, elementary school teachers, librarians and social workers are put on a glass escalator. They get better pay, more promotional opportunities, and more respect because they are men. In articles about “role reversal” families, the breadwinner mother’s career aspirations are ignored while the father’s unpaid work is consistently praised. MMWV shows this same glass escalator attitude when it says that women should ask their husbands in a “non-threatening” way to do a chore and thank them after the husband decides to do it. Husbands are excused from thanking their wives whenever they do household chores and taking equal responsibility for housework and childcare.

If hegemonic masculinity undergirds the division of labor so completely, it’s only “natural” that in the social organization of sexuality, the man has the last word. I’m sure some are wondering about the phrase, “the social organization of sexuality”, for isn’t sex completely instinctive? Well, yes and no. Scientists have discovered that sexuality has both biological and sociological aspects and sometimes it is political too.

The alternate discourse is urgently needed for clarifying all doubts and conflicts.

14. Media and Representation of Masculinity and Femininity

Media critics and feminists alike have been examining the role of the media for quite long time in creating and reinforcing stereotypical representations of women and femininity. Only recently has the research been expanded to consider how the media also construct, inform and reinforce prevalent ideas about men and masculinity.

Topics such as media stereotypes, the prevalence of male characters in TV and film, and male authority in media news coverage are to be analyzed. We need to address the role that the media play in shaping attitudes about masculinity.

The issues around the media’s portrayal of women and girls—from effects on body image and self-identity to ramifications in sports and politics. It looks at the economic interests behind the objectification and eroticization of females by the media as well as efforts to counter negative stereotyping.

Gross and Gerbner argue that the commercial structure of the mass media limits the opportunity for representing diverse characters. Too often networks and film companies shy away from portraying gays and lesbians for fear of alienating or offending advertisers, investors, and audiences.

15. Masculinity and Man’s Psychological Distress

Many gay and bisexual men struggle with unique issues related to being both a man and a sexual minority person. The roles of both gender role conflict and internalized heterosexism (IH) in gay and bisexual men’s psychological distress after examination reveals that gender role conflict is both directly and indirectly (through IH) related to self-esteem, and self-esteem is directly and indirectly (through avoidant coping) related to psychological distress.

Real issues of concern: Rape of little children is many times a result of perversion of mind which is due to the frustration in male psyche. The belief that drives such unfortunate incidents is: “Sex with immature girls improves the potency of male organ.” This kind of superstitions are propagated by cheap magazines and spread by words of mouth.

The Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity (SPSMM), Division 51 of the American Psychological Association has declared its mission as:

• Promoting the critical study of how gender shapes and constricts men’s lives.
• Committed to an enhancement of men’s capacity to experience their full human potential.
• Endeavouring to erode constraining definitions of masculinity which historically have inhibited men’s development, their capacity to form meaningful relationships, and have contributed to the oppression of other people.
• Acknowledging its historical debt to feminist-inspired scholarship on gender, and commits itself to the support of groups such as women, gays, lesbians and people of color that have been uniquely oppressed by the gender/class/race system.
• Contending vigorously that the empowerment of all persons beyond narrow and restrictive gender role definitions leads to the highest level of functioning in individual women and men, to the most healthy interactions between the genders, and to the richest relationships between them.

16. Meterosexual vs Macho

The concept of ‘meterosexual’ man though a recent one, is getting popular among urban elite male. This has been created by the cosmetics market and now reinforces the market as well. Man traditionally wanted to be ‘handsome’ but now they want to be ‘beautiful’. The boundary is gradually disappearing between the beauty salon for men and women. There are frequent salon-goers among both the sexes. There are gyms and other such facilities now available in the neighbourhoods and at an affordable price.

17. Cultural Materialism and Masculinity

Cultural materialism seeks to raise questions about cultural production, addressing the relations between dominant and subordinate cultures; the scope for dissidence; how far male dominance might be able to accommodate feminism and dissident sexualities; how culture is negotiated through institutions, including those which govern the definition and circulation of art and literature; how subcultural groups constitute themselves in and through culture. Cultural materialism is a kind of Marxism, and does not pretend to political neutrality. It looks for the transformation of an exploitative social order. Cultural materialists believe that historic forces and the power structures that they sustain determine the direction of our selfhood. 

18. Conclusion

It is very difficult to define something as critical as ‘Masculinity’ once defined it becomes frankensteinly thorny to defend that. It is left for the reader to deliberate on this very common yet quite complex issue of everybody’s everyday concern. Though the issues discussed above are relevant at all time and place, the significance in Indian context becomes more important in the sense the country is witnessing a massive surge in consumerism, break are visible from tradition and growing individualism.

Bibliography:

Thanks to everyone who inspired directly or indirectly in wirting this article only for academic interest and with no monetary motive.

1. “Men In Love” by Nancy Friday
2. “Power of Identity” by Manuel Castells
3. “Masculinity and Femininity: What does this mean?” by Anthony Esolen
4. Proposal of the Documentary ‘Deconstructing Gender’ (Working Title for Series of four student films) by Dr. K.P. Jayasankar and Dr. Anjali Monteiro.
5. “Masculinity-Femininity: Society’s Difference Dividend” by Kathleen Trigiani
6. “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity” by Robert Jensen
7. “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” (MMWV), by John Gray
8. “Still a Man’s World: Men Who Do Women’s Work” by Christine Williams
9. Media portrayals of Masculinity and Femininity available at Internet
10. What is masculinity? Essay on Internet
11. “The Roles of Gender Role Conflict and Internalized Heterosexism in Gay and Bisexual Men’s Psychological Distress: Testing Two Mediation Models” by Dawn M. Szymanski and Erika R. Carr (University of Tennessee
12. “Female Masculinity” by Judith Halberstam and Editorial Reviews
13. “When Woman is Boss” Interview with Nikola Tesla by John B.  Kennedy
14. “When the Boss is a Woman” (American Psychological Association, March 22, 2006
15. “Deconstructing Masculinity” by Sheryl Plant

16.    Article at http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/interv/kimmel.html

17.    Division 51 of the American Psychological Association (SPSMM)

18.    “The Quagmire of Masculinity” by Robert Jensen

19.    “From Masculinity to Anti-Masculinism” by Léo Thiers-Vidal

20.    “South Asian Masculinities” published by Kali for Women & Women Unlimited, New Delhi