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Volume 3, Number 2 Hipatia Press www.hipatiapress.com h The Affront of the Aspiration Agenda: White Working-Class Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ in Neoliberal Times - Garth Stahl ………………………………………………………………………………………88 Typologies of Men’s Friendships: Constructing Masculinity through Them-Todd A. Migliaccio………………..…………………….…………......119 Articles We Teach Too: What are the Lived Experiences and Pedagogical Practices of Gay Men of Color Teachers- Cleveland Hayes ……………………….…...……………………………………………………….148 When man falls provider. Masculinity, unemployment and psychological distress in the family. A methodology for the search of affective normalization - Juan Antonio Rodriguez del Pino …………….………………….……………………………………………………173 Reviews Performing American Masculinities: The 21st-Century Man in Popular Culture – Sandra Girbés………………………………………………………191 Construcción de masculinidades igualitarias – Juan Carlos Peña………………………………………………………………………………194 Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com The Affront of the Aspiration Agenda: White Working-Class Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ in Neoliberal Times Garth Stahl 1 1) University of South Australia, Australia st Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Stahl, G (2014). The Affront of the Aspiration Agenda: White Working-Class Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ in Neoliberal Times. Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2), 88-118. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2014. 46 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2014. 46 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 88-118 The Affront of the Aspiration Agenda: White Working-Class Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ in Neoliberal Times Garth Stahl University of South Australia, Australia Abstract This article draws on accounts of white working-class boys (age 14-16) from South London in order to explore how they reconstitute their learner-identities within the ‘raising aspirations’ rhetoric. The current dominant neoliberal discourse in education, which prioritises a view of aspiration that is competitive, qualificationfocused, and economic, shapes the subjectivities of these young males though there exist nuanced strategies of resistance. In an era of high modernity where youth feel increasing risk, the identities of young people are subject to tremendous change where traditional class and gendered boundaries are being subverted, reimagined, and reconstituted. Focusing on academic engagement as an identity negotiation, this research critically considers where young men enact strategies to construct themselves as ‘having value’ in spaces of devaluing where they reconcile competing and contrasting conceptions of aspiration. Keywords: aspiration, reconstitution, habitus, identity work, Bourdieu, social class 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.46 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 88-118 El Agravio de la Aspiración: Narrativas de los Hombres Blancos de Clase Obrera sobre “Lo Ordinario” en Tiempos Neoliberales Garth Stahl University of South Australia, Australia Resumen Este artículo se basa en relatos de chicos blancos de clase obrera (14-16 años) del Sur de Londres con el objetivo de explorar cómo se reconstituyen sus aprendizajes-identidades dentro de la retórica 'elevando aspiraciones’. El actual discurso educativo neoliberal dominante, que da prioridad a una visión de la aspiración que sea competitiva, centrada en la cualificación y en la economía, da forma a las subjetividades de estos jóvenes varones, aunque existen estrategias matizadas de resistencia. En la era de la alta modernidad, donde los jóvenes sienten cada vez un mayor riesgo, las identidades de los jóvenes están sujetas a un cambio tremendo que implica una subversión a los límites de clase social y género, y a la vez se reimaginan y reconstituyen. Centrándonos en la participación académica como la negociación de identidad, esta investigación considera de forma crítica en qué espacios los jóvenes protagonizan estrategias para construirse a sí mismos como "sujetos de valor" en los espacios de devaluación en los que concilian la competencia con las diferentes concepciones sobre la aspiración. Palabras clave: aspiración, reconstitución, habitus, identitidad laboral, Bourdieu, clase social 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.46 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 90 T he study of the interconnectedness between masculinit(ies) and aspiration has drawn on a range of theoretical frameworks and constructs from hegemonic masculinity, intersectionality, subjectivity, and pluralities to the socio-psychological. However, as Howson (2014) notes, there exist many pitfalls when applying conventional theories of aspiration to masculine identity construction. The research serves as an attempt to move beyond narrow conceptions of aspiration (e.g. motivation, expectations, goal-orientation) to a social analysis using the tool of habitus which highlights the influence of social context, distinction, and negotiation. Working-class masculinities and femininities are often subject to the processes of inscription and classification which work in the interests of those with power (Skeggs, 2004, p.4); however, these inscriptions are not uni-directional and often involve constant negotiations. As long as the discourse of aspiration relies on the proxies of education and occupation, the young working-class boys in this study will always be defined as having low or modest aspirations when my participants have powerful identifications with a very specific concept of a ‘good life’ (cf. Stahl, 2012; 2015). First, the article explores the white working-class phenomenon in light of the ‘raising aspiration agenda’ which embodies an intense neoliberal ideology where ‘good qualifications are equated with a good job’. Second, through the use of Bourdieu’s (2002) habitus, I investigate how the aspiration agenda shapes (and re-shapes) the subjectivities of twenty-three white working-class boys in South London (ages 14-16), specifically in reference to a counter-habitus of egalitarianism evidenced in the boys’ attention to ‘loyalty to self’ as well as average-ness, ordinariness and ‘middling’ (never wanting to be the best or worst). Within the current pervasive neoliberal discourse, which prioritises a view of aspirations that is competitive, economic, and status-based, I argue the boys use strategies to reaffirm and traditionalize certain modes of masculinity and masculine identity. The White Working-Class Phenomenon It is widely documented that white working class boys continue to be the lowest attaining groups in the United Kingdom exam system (Strand, 2008; 91 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ 2014). Comparatively, this ethnic group remains less socially mobile compared to other ethnic minorities of similar class backgrounds (Platt, 2007; Demie & Lewis, 2010). Furthermore, policy makers have cited a “deeply embedded culture of low aspiration” (DfEs, 2004) as the primary cause of underachievement and of anti-social behaviour as witnessed in the August 2011 riots in London, Manchester, and Birmingham (Gove, 2011). Framed by extensive neoliberal policies and discourses, social mobility continues to be a high priority in the Coalition government, where Michael Gove aims to create schools that are “engines of social mobility providing every child with the knowledge, skills, and aspirations they need to fulfil their potential” (The Cabinet Office, 2011, p. 36). In fact, a recent White Paper entitled The Importance of Teaching (2010) asserts, “Good teachers instil an ethos where aspiration is the best reason for children to avoid harmful behaviour” (p. 29), equating aspiration as a simple antidote to complex problems. Within these policy documents, low achievement and anti-social behaviour is often considered a natural link to what is widely considered a lack of engagement with boys in schooling and also a ‘poverty of aspirations’ amongst working-class males. However, policies and reports focused on boys and schooling often ignore the complexities of masculinity, instead legitimising and reinforcing “essentialist understandings of gender…based on the presupposition that there are natural and normal behaviours, dispositions, and attitudes that are either male or female” (Mills, Martino, & Lingard, 2007, p. 15). Strand and Winston (2008) focused their quantitative study of different pupil groups’ educational aspirations and intended qualifications in the United Kingdom, ultimately finding “white British boys and girls displayed aspirations for less professional jobs” (p. 263). In this study, the white British did not necessarily have a negative attitude toward schooling, but instead tended to view education as insignificant for their vocational goals (Strand and Winston, 2008, p. 264). My research seeks to develop a nuanced view of white working-class male identity in order to understand some of the barriers commonly associated with white working-class culture in educational contexts, such as lack of aspiration, parental attitudes toward school, insufficient work ethic, and poor attendance (Evans, 2006; Demie & Lewis, 2010). Through my analysis, I explore how high levels of so-called ‘disaffection’ towards education in white working class communities MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 92 actually represent certain struggles to establish a ‘self of value’ within the confines of limited repertoires of social and cultural resources. My interest is in how white working-class boys make sense of the resounding aspiration rhetoric in their school contexts and how it shapes their subjectivities (Gillborn & Kirton, 2000; McLeod, 2000). Such identity negotiations around aspiration have the potential for tremendous psychic costs as working-class students contend with ‘finding’ or ‘losing’ their workingclass identities (Reay, 2001; 2005). Current Neoliberal Ideology and Aspiration Rhetoric In November 2010, Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove declared that he wanted the United Kingdom to become an “aspiration nation” (Richardson, 2010). Andy Burnham, Shadow Education Secretary at the time, reflected this desire at the other end of the political spectrum by addressing the Labour party conference with a plea for “aspiration, aspiration, aspiration” (Vasagar, 2011). Despite a plethora of policy rhetoric aimed at addressing inequality, the UK remains low in the international rankings of social mobility when compared to other advanced nations (Blanden and Machin 2007). The reasons for social stagnation are primarily economic. While the second half of the twentieth century saw a rise of middle-class employment culminating with a boom in the Thatcher years, since then the growth in middle-class occupations has stalled considerably. According to the TUC, in 2001 low-paid service sector work made up 42% of labour-market occupations while ‘high skill’ white-collar work made up less than 40%, and that percentage is set to fall in the wake of severe austerity measures in the public-sector (Blanchflower, 2012). The data from the Office for National Statistics (2012) shows there are limited opportunities for all those who aspire to professional and managerial jobs, so even if the boys in this study did pursue white collar employment, such an aspiration is in many ways thwarted before it even begins. However, the stagnant economic situation in the UK has not deterred politicians on both sides of the political divide from espousing an aspiration mantra which, of course, conceals the much larger issues at play. 93 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ In a time of robust neoliberalism influencing classroom discourses and how students are constructed as having ‘value’, it is imperative that we consider the entwined relationship between the aspiration agenda and how these young men construct their identities as learners (Stahl, 2012). This article intends to show how these ideologies, which have tremendous implications for pedagogy, structure students’ sense of aspiration and learner identities. The discourse of aspiration is a discourse of social change; the process of ‘aspiring’ (and performing aspirations) is a “relational, felt, embodied process, replete with classed desires and fantasies, defences and aversions, feelings of fear, shame and guilt, excitement and desire” (Allen, 2013b). Neoliberal ideologies of competition which reflect the dominant culture are pervasive within the discourse communities of schools where aspiration is rendered an “unequivocal good” (Allen, 2013a). In the United Kingdom, schools are increasingly expected to create a neoliberal subject, the “entrepreneur of self” who espouses the values of “self-reliance, autonomy and independence” in order to gain “self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth and self-advancement” (Davies & Bansel, 2007, p. 252). The current policy discourse surrounding aspiration indicates pupils are increasingly judged as having ‘bought in’ or ‘bought out’ depending on whether or not they accept the ‘socially mobile’ rhetoric prevalent within our current educational system. Ball and Olmedo (2012) argue: The apparatuses of neoliberalism are seductive, enthralling and overbearingly necessary. It is a ‘new’ moral system that subverts and reorients us to its truths and ends. It makes us responsible for our performance and for the performance of others. We are burdened with the responsibility to perform, and if we do not we are in danger of being seen as irresponsible. (p. 88) Existing within this new moral system, subjectivities are in a process of interpellation where competing and contrasting definitions are resisted, strategized, adopted, and subverted. Building on Foucault, the idea of subjectivity as a processes of becoming focuses on “what we do rather than on what we are, that is to say, the work of the care of the self” (Ball & Olmedo, 2012, p. 87). Reay (2001; 2009) has shown that in attempting to ‘upskill’ through entering higher education (and entering into a rigorous competition in order to do so), working class students face a struggle to MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 94 preserve their identity and make sense of feelings of inferiority and fear. Within the constant policy-driven attention to upward mobility, researchers have maintained a small but consistent spotlight on the ‘identity work’ surrounding the injuries of class (Reay, 2001; Wexler, 1992; Hattam & Smyth, 2003), highlighting the very real challenges for disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, within policies governed by neoliberal ideology (Raco, 2009), the ‘aspiration problem’ has become increasingly individualized, as aspiration itself is regarded as a personal character trait “where policy documents often associate low aspiration with other personal qualities such as inspiration, information, self-esteem and self-efficacy” (Spohrer, 2011, p. 58). There is very little doubt, as Wilkins (2011) articulates, that low attainment is “transposed or re-coded into a matter of personal sin (i.e. a private psychological propensity or ‘attitude’ particular to the individual), and, therefore attributes social disadvantage to a lack of principled self-help and self-responsibility” (p.4). Clearly, this has consequences when considering how masculine identities are formed in relation to education and the expectation of social mobility (Burke, 2010; Phoenix, 2004; Connell, 1998). According to the neoliberal perspective, “‘Underachieving’ boys appear to be unable—or worse, unwilling—to fit themselves into the meritocratic educational system which produces the achievement vital for the economic success of the individual concerned and of the nation” (Francis, 2006, p. 193). De-socializing and de-contextualizing educational achievement perpetuates the invisibility of larger structural inequalities. Harvey (2005) argues that current iterations of neoliberalism function as a political, economic and ideological system that gives considerable credence to the market as the best, most efficient platform for distributing public resources. This macro-level structural framework attributes greater consideration of individual duty than government responsibility (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000; Reay, David, & Ball, 2005). Within neoliberal discourses the self is not fixed but is rather constantly made and re-made as people, functioning as ‘entrepreneurs of the self’, must constantly construct themselves as having ‘value’ against risk and uncertainty. Neoliberal ideology privileges the reflexive modernisation thesis. Archer and Francis (2007) write that in the neoliberal reading “there are no foundational aspects of selfhood such as ‘race’ or gender that preclude an individual 95 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ from taking up the opportunities available to them – failure to do so simply reflects an individual lack of enterprise” (p.19). Therefore, within an education system governed by neoliberalism and the aspiration agenda, subjects are quickly defined according to their level of adaptation. In a time of high modernity, neoliberalism privileges both individual attainment and individuality. If individualization is understood to be a process of undoing traditional ways of life where networks and boundaries of class (Beck, 1992) and gender are being reimagined (Adkins, 1999, p. 122), and identity is increasingly ‘hybridized’, ‘multiracialized’, ‘pluralized’, and ‘entangled’, this research considers the identity work undertaken to reconstitute, reaffirm, and retraditionalize historically embedded modes of masculinity and masculine identity through policing acceptable boundaries (Stahl, 2015). As students are re-coded according to the neoliberal prerogative, we must make sense of the negotiations surrounding the acceptance and resistance of such codes. Within a risk pervasive world, the expectation of change and adaptation is always present where students enact practices and strategies when they confront this discourse. Habitus as a Tool to Explore Identity and Aspiration Bourdieu and Passeron’s (1992) seminal work offered a set of ‘thinking tools’ which have been used to untangle explanations of class, aspiration, status, and power in pedagogic contexts. Bourdieu (1984) describes habitus as “a structured body, a body which has incorporated the immanent structures of a world or of a particular sector of that world—a field—and which structures the perception of that world as well as action in that world” (p. 81). Habitus, as socialized subjectivity, allows for structure and agency as well as the individual and the collective, in which the significance of habitus is in relation to how it is constituted by the field (Grenfell, 2008, p.53-61). For Bourdieu, habitus also “contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful world, a world endowed with sense and value, in which it is worth investing one’s energy” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p.127). Working-class students do not aspire highly because, according to Bourdieu, they have internalized and reconciled themselves to the “limited opportunities that exist for those without much cultural capital” (Swartz, 1997, p. 197; cf. Connolly & Healy, 2004). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 96 Young working-class males in my research often come to see the aspiration toward academic success as a symbolically legitimated form which not only falls largely beyond their grasp but also beyond their desire (Stahl, 2012; 2015). The process of internalization of possibilities, I argue, is a process of resistance and acceptance, ever evolving. Through the use of habitus, I seek to draw attention to the identity work around detraditionalization and the reaffirmation of normative masculinity. As a set of durable and transposable dispositions, the habitus is not ‘set’ but evolving, as the field too is in constant flux. Being the product of history and experience, habitus: May be changed by history, that is by new experiences, education or training (which implies that aspects of what remains unconscious in habitus be made at least partially conscious and explicit). Dispositions are longlasting: they tend to perpetuate, to reproduce themselves, but they are not eternal. (Bourdieu, 2002, p. 29) Habitus is where one’s perceptions and conceptions are conditioned by the structures of the environment in which they are engendered; yet the habitus does not operate identically for all people and is deeply dependent on capitals and field.1 Habitus shows the “embodied dispositions” (Nash, 1990) that are “inculcated by everyday experiences within the family, the peer group, and the school” (Mills, 2008, p.80). Schools serve as a “productive locus” which gives rise to “certain patterns of thought” (Nash, 1990, p. 435). To show how a logic of practice is created and maintained for the white working-class boys in my study, the focus of the research is not only where the prerogatives of the school influence the boys, but also where the habitus of the boys serves as a counter-narrative to rebuff the neoliberal rhetoric. Having the capacity to unearth some of the underlying tensions between identity and the dominant culture around aspiration, I employ Bourdieu’s theoretical tool of habitus to allow for the interpretation of the specific and cultural practices that may produce certain ‘ways of being’ in classroom contexts to further my understanding of my participants’ conceptualisations of aspiration. In understanding my participants’ learner and social identities, the tool of habitus not only allows for agency and choice, but also recognizes that choices are limited, restricted by socio-economic 97 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ positioning and wider societal structures, and that habitus predisposes individuals towards certain ways of behaving. Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) assert that through the habitus of students, “the level of aspiration of individuals is essentially determined by the probability (judged intuitively by means of previous successes or failures) of achieving the desired goal” (p. 111). My research problematises the current policy where dis-identification with middle-class normative aspirations is largely interpreted as ‘disaffection’ and a deficient sense of social mobility. Through analysis of the subjectivities of these working-class boys, we are able to see how the neoliberal discourse shapes their learner identity and subsequently their aspirations. We need to understand both how these working-class young men articulate identities within a middle-class aspiration rhetoric permeating the school culture and also the strategies they enact to reaffirm a sense of value and police normative boundaries of acceptable modes of masculinity. Masculinities are deeply contextualized, coming to the forefront through social interaction where they are “actively produced, using the resources and strategies available in a given milieu” (Connell, 1998, p. 5). Through narratives of (dis)identification with the prerogatives of neoliberalism, these young men constitute themselves as having value in contexts where they are often devalued; often times the responses can be read as excluding themselves from what they are already excluded from (cf. Bourdieu & Passeron, 1992). Methodology The South London school-based ethnography was conducted with twentythree white working-class boys (ages 14-16) who were preparing for their GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education which completes compulsory education). In an effort to enforce discipline and motivate students, each school site espoused the neoliberal rhetoric where the attainment of good grades would lead to a successful middle-class job. Within schooling, failure to attain five GCSEs was consistently depicted by educators as a pathway to a lack of employment and ‘living on the dole’. The study involved semi-structured questioning and focus groups, as well as classroom and extracurricular observations, in three school sites in South London over nine months. The questions were composed thematically MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 98 around broad themes: life history, schooling experience, masculinity perceptions, social class experiences, power and aggression, and influences. It should be noted that aspiration was not initially a theme of the project but emerged as a key theme through discussions. The data discussed in this article are drawn from the interviews, and it was essential to the research that the meanings of aspiration were drawn from my participants, rather than imposed by the researcher. The use of semi-structured questioning ensured the same questions were covered with each student while maintaining flexibility and the opportunity for further probing. Through semi-structured interviews, I was able to explore vague or inadequate responses to certain questions (Renold, 2001). Identities and subjectivities do not simply reveal themselves in interviews; they need to be developed reflexively, and interviewers need to consider their positioning carefully in the interview process (McLeod, 2003). In their work on masculine identity, Wetherall and Edley (1999) argue, “When people speak, their talk reflects not only the local pragmatics of that particular conversational context, but also much broader or more global patterns in collective sense-making and understanding” (p. 338). Through the interviews the words of the boys reflect an interplay between workingclass masculinity, the neoliberal rhetoric and egalitarianism. Findings: An Egalitarian Counter-Habitus to Neoliberal Ideology The neoliberal ideology inherently carries with it a class-based expectation, as “to play their part in the neoliberal scenario, the newly responsibilized citizens must be unequivocally middle class” (Davies & Bansel, 2007, p. 252). The middle-class self is primarily upwardly mobile, economically comfortable, able to navigate different discourse communities through adopting new selves, has a keen understanding of what counts within certain fields, and, consequently, is able to marshal resources to position themselves advantageously (The New London Group, 1996). In contrast, a working-class masculinity typically values anti-pretentious humour, solidarity, dignity, honour, loyalty and caring, and pride and commitment to employment (cf. Winlow, 2001; Skeggs, 2004). The findings represent a mediation between these to contradictory fields. Within the habitus, my participants developed a narrative centred on egalitarianism as defined by 99 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ ‘fitting in’, where everyone has an ‘equal say in the world’, and where ‘no one is better than anyone else’ or ‘above their station’ (Lawler, 1999; Reay, 2001; Archer & Leathwood, 2003; MacDonald, Shildrick, Webster, & Simpson, 2005). As a strategy of reconstitution, the data shows how white working-class boys embody an egalitarian habitus, alternative to the middle-class self, which has been mediated through their historic workingclass communal values (cf. Reay, 2003; 2009). As a disposition in the working-class habitus, egalitarianism, I argue, is a product of the creative and inventive capacity of the habitus, as habitus also has a structuring force (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Egalitarianism, as a strategy to address the tension between the competing fields of the aspirational culture of the school and the working-class communal values of the home, is how the boys create a sense of value and how they gain a sense of where to invest their energies as they adjust “virtualities, potentialities, eventualities” within their social space (Bourdieu & Passeron 1992, p. 135; cf Connolly & Healy, 2004). As a foundational aspect of their social and learner identities, egalitarianism contributes to the way in which they make sense of their own positionality within school contexts. Egalitarianism is, of course, a falsehood; it represents the boys’ efforts to contest/ignore/subvert inequalities in recognition and distribution, and it becomes a means of maximizing their capacity to negotiate potential failure. Egalitarianism also allows for an analysis of positional suffering where the affective dimensions of class (envy/deference, contempt/pity, shame/pride) are constructed and reconstructed in a milieu where the legitimization of an authentic working-class identity is either endangered or non-existent. As Sayer (2002) suggests, the working classes are caught in a bind that produces “acute inner turmoil as a result of the opposing pulls of both wanting to refuse the perceived external judgements and their criteria and wanting to measure up to them – both to reject respectability and to be respectable” (p.415). For working-class students in education, of whom the majority feel “powerlessness and educational worthlessness” (Reay, 2009, p.25), embracing ‘success’ grounded in middle-class aspiration requires challenging identity negotiations and re-appropriations, which means for many working class boys the losses would be greater than the gains (Reay, 2002). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 100 In comprehending the prevalence of egalitarianism within the data, it should be noted that in the UK, inequalities (class, gender, and ‘race’/ethnicity) are not disappearing but instead becoming increasingly obscured by a neoliberal and meritocratic rhetoric. As a result, young people often come to “see themselves as individuals in a meritocratic society, not as classed or gendered members of an unequal society” (Ball, Maguire, & Macrae 2000, p.4) which influences the processes through which they comprehend their sense of aspiration, their abilities, and their own positionality. It was not that the boys openly identified as workingclass, in fact they resisted class labels for the most part2, but instead egalitarianism functioned as a form of mediation. To be clear this process of negotiation occurs within pejorative and complex discursive practices surrounding blurred working-class/under-class representations and celebrity in the United Kingdom, the ‘rough and rude’ ‘chav scum’ (cf. Skeggs, 2004; Tyler, 2008; Allen & Mendick, 2012). The next two sections show how the egalitarianism functions and how the boys constitute themselves as subjects of ‘value’. Through these two data sets, I explore how social structures shape agents’ subjectivities and how the habitus of individuals “resist and succumb to inertial pressure of structural forces” (MacLeod 2009, p.139). Loyalty to Self: ‘I Don’t Try to Act like Something I’m not’ Integral to the identity formation of the working-class boys in this study was the consistent references, both through interviews and focus groups, to the participants’ discomfort in acting like something they were not. ‘Loyalty to self’, which was deeply engrained in the habitus, became a way of expressing the egalitarian narrative. Furthermore, ‘loyalty to self’ had strong inflections of authenticity as well as dignity, centred upon “high ethical standards of honour, loyalty and caring” (Skeggs, 2004, p. 88). As previously mentioned, these values are well-documented aspects of working-class communities (Charlesworth, 2000), specifically with white working-class women (Skeggs, 2004) and men (Winlow, 2001) in the north of England, and especially with youth cultures experiencing the impact of de-industrialization (Brann-Barrett, 2011). In my study, ‘being yourself’ was consistently valued; adopting what was perceived as a false identity 101 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ was consistently detested. In response to the question: ‘How do you want people to see you?’ the boys responded: Someone that can take a laugh, someone who’s not going to be annoying, not someone who thinks I’m something that I’m not. (Tommy, Year 11) Like how I am. I’m not like…how I act. I don’t try and copy anyone. Just be yourself. (Terry, Year 11) Just for what I am. I don’t try to act like something I’m not. (Tom, Year 11) Obviously I want people to like respect me for who I am. That’s what I want for people, that’s what I want from anyone. Respect me for who I am. (Charlie, Year 11) ‘Loyalty to self’ influences how the boys construct their learner identities. To perform an identity and embrace adaptation, which they perceived as inauthentic, was an affront their egalitarian habitus. While ‘loyalty to self’ was strong in the data, this is not necessarily the case with all working-class students. Identity shifts can be both manageable and tenuous. The dexterity of identity shifting with working-class youth, as a capital, has been noted in several studies regarding student engagement in the classroom, such as Prudence Carter’s work (2006) with ‘cultural straddlers’ and Wilkins’s (2011) small case study work on the codeswitching between learner identity and social identity among a group of primary school boys. Reay, Crozier, and Clayton (2009) assert that the high-achieving working-class students at an elite university “displayed the ability to successfully move across two very different fields with what are seen to be classically middle-class academic dispositions, a versatility that most had begun to develop in early schooling” (p.1105). The ability (or desire) for my participants to shift identity was not apparent in my observations and interviews; instead my participants actively employed strategies holding close to what they perceived to be an authentic self: I don’t want them to see me as a certain person, I just want them to see me as who I am. Just for who I am, innit. Like me trying to act like someone… like a personality. I’m my own person. I don’t follow no one, innit, I’m just by myself. (Alfie, Year 11) I just want people to see me for like me. If you get what I’m saying…I dunno like…I don’t want to be seen for something I’m not. (George, Year 10) MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 102 While the middle-class self may be adept at operationalizing capitals within fields and navigating different discourse communities, the working-class habitus observed in this study resists this fluidity and the adoption of identities they perceive as ‘fake’ or inauthentic. ‘Loyalty to self’ as a salient identity boundary also influences the ever-powerful peer groups where the boys gauge whether other boys are genuine and do not exhibit any ‘twofaced’ or ‘snake’ behaviour. When I asked Terry how he saw the boys whom he related to, he said, “People like me that ain’t showy and that. People that don’t mind and that they’ll do anything” (Terry, Year 11). Terry cites how he looks for individuals who “ain’t showy,” who he perceives as authentic and who remain ‘loyal to self’. With boys, the peer group often has a tremendous influence on their learner identity (Mac an Ghaill, 1994). The difficulties that arise in operating at the boundary of different fields suggest that, in order to be successful, my participants must continue to reduce their affiliation to ‘loyalty to self’ and accept the aspiration rhetoric of change embodied in an institutional habitus (Atkinson, 2011). The dialectical relationship between the institutional habitus of the school and the boys’ egalitarianism habitus is crucial to understanding how egalitarianism is formed (and continually reformed), and also the degree of dexterity working-class students are able to enact in order to maintain a certain subjectivity. In her research on white working-class boys, Ingram (2011) found the institutional habitus had the capacity to develop versatility within her participants, but versatility did not always foster reflexivity or the ability to shift effortlessly between fields (p. 300). In considering social and learner identities, and how individuals act in different fields, I asked Charlie and Ryan: “Do you want people outside of school to see you in a different way than in school?” Holding true to their perceived authentic self, the boys articulated: Charlie: No, I want them to all be the same way. I’m not two-faced. Me: Do you act different outside of school than you do inside of school? Ryan: Yea. Me: How so? Ryan: In school I’m much better behaved. Me: So you’d say you’re more yourself… Ryan: Outside, yea. (Charlie, Year 11, Ryan, Year 10) 103 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ The neoliberal ideology inherently carries with it an expectation to be middle class (Davies & Bansel, 2007, p. 252) with the ability to adopt new selves, dependent on context, in order to position oneself advantageously. The habitus, while generative, is also permeable to the neoliberal rhetoric, and Ryan wants to represent himself as what Carter (2006) calls a cultural straddler who is strategic, able to ‘play the game’, and embrace the cultural codes of both school and home community. While Ryan recognizes the need to be fluid and adopt better behaviour that is conducive to his learning, this is very much a representation, as many members of staff would have disagreed by citing how Ryan brings in laddish elements which are counterproductive to his learning and the learning of others (Francis, 1999). While the neoliberal ideology may contain an expectation to be middle class, an alignment with the middle class self often requires middle-class resources. In contrast, Charlie upholds his egalitarian ‘loyalty to self’ and wants to be seen as the ‘same way’ whatever the context. Even though it may not influence Charlie as much as some of the other boys in the study, his resistance to enacting a ‘good’ learner identity is usually relayed through expressions of frustration. Charlie does want, at least, to meet a minimum standard of educational success as he expressed in further interviews. For my participants it is not a simple resistance to a middle-class identity; it is both a resistance and anxiety around change, adaptation, and performativity. Average-ness, Ordinariness and ‘Middling’: ‘I Don’t Want to be the Best…Just Normal.’ The current dominant neoliberal discourse, which prioritises a view of aspirations that is competitive, economic, and status-based, shapes the subjectivities of these young males. For the boys in this study, egalitarianism in the habitus represents an internalization of objective structures, but it is simultaneously shaped by the external forces/structures of the school. Through the second data set which examines ‘averageness, ordinariness, and middling’, I will attempt to show how egalitarianism is also strengthened as a result of conflict and disjuncture between the school and the family/community. Within my analysis, there are echoes here of the MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 104 relationship between ‘emotional work,’ aspiration, and communal values as well as the guilt associated with moving beyond one’s place (Reay, 2003; 2009). While these working-class boys are clearly caught up in contemporary processes of individualization, “such processes are both ameliorated and framed by an overreaching sense of, and commitment to, collectivity and ‘the common good’” where the pursuit of education is framed by a strong sense of communitarian and a loyalty to one’s peer group as opposed to individualistic, entrepreneurial self-motivations (Reay, 2003, pp. 305-306). Power relationships are internalized in the habitus as categories of perceptions, and these processes of categorizing become essential to how the boys’ view themselves as learners. In the desire of working-class individuals to ‘fit in’ rather than ‘stand out’ (Skeggs, 2002), the boys’ egalitarianism shapes their student identities with education, pushing them to reaffirm their habitus and articulate a desire to be perceived as average and ordinary (Stahl, 2012). Neoliberalism as an ideology gives priority to the individual pursuing his/her self interests over considerations of the collective or common good. In response to the question, “Could you tell me about what type of student you consider yourself to be?” the boys rebuffed the neoliberal ‘best of the best’ rhetoric: Probably just an average student. Just fit in with the others. (Thomas, Year 11) Average. (Frankie, Year 11) I’m not bad. I’m not good. I’m not loud. I’m not quiet. [laughter] So it’s hard I don’t know what to put myself in. (George, Year 10) Charlie: Basically I just hang around with all the other average kids. We just go play football together, go sit down behind the library outside…sit there and talk. Me: What irritates you? Charlie: Like people like – they’ll be fine to your face but then they’ll go around your back and start chatting a load of crap. (Charlie, Year 11) …I just stay with average people, really. (Tom, Year 11) Bourdieu’s theory of human action stresses that dispositions are generated through not only the internalisation of structures, the institutions and social spheres within society, such as family, school, and media, but 105 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ also that of human agency. The boys’ habitus generates ways of viewing the world and how these can be shaped in reaction to new experiences of and within the world. Ordinariness, or average-ness, reveals another dimension of egalitarianism. As a counter-narrative to the neoliberal rhetoric, ordinariness and average-ness are arguably forms of resistance and ‘sense-making’ to the neoliberal achievement ideology. While an antiaspirant egalitarianism is vibrant in the data, the boys also internalize elements of the neoliberal achievement ideology espoused within the school environment, through statements such as “I don’t aim to be the number one, but I want to do my best” (Luke, Year 11). ‘Middling,’ never wanting to be considering the best or worst, becomes a process of mediation between the qualification-focused expectations of the school and the boys’ socioeconomic positioning. Influenced by neoliberalism, my participants engage in a constant practice of sense-making surrounding the achievement ideology to establish a tenuous a sense of value, “Just average really. Get my head down and do what needs to be done and I get out as soon as I can” (Tom, Year 11). As part of an internal process of making sense, my participants centre their ‘identity work’ around egalitarianism within their habitus and their desire to not be a part of the neoliberal rhetoric of ‘best’ and ‘worst’ but to instead achieve an ‘average’ level of education. Average-ness, as a strategic process by which the boys balance their working-class masculine identity with a prevailing neoliberal learner identity, is primarily class-based. While I have argued egalitarianism is a strategy to subvert neoliberal expectations of change in relation to aspiration and working-class identities, average-ness also overlaps with masculine identity construction and the hegemonic. Gender as a social practice (ie. performance, ‘process,’ or project) toward understanding one’s identity occurs individually and in relation to other’s identities (Connell, 2005; Renold, 2004). In Phoenix’s (2004) work on neoliberalism and masculinity, she found boys pursue a “middle position for themselves in which they could manage what they saw as the demands of masculinities, while still getting some schoolwork done” (p. 234), which suggests that the egalitarian discourse may not be exclusive to one’s class but also influenced by gendered subjectivities.3 When asked “Do you want to be the best student in your lesson?” the boys responded: MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 106 No, not really. (Thomas, Year 11) I don’t mind. It would be nice but if everyone’s doing good answers then it’s fine. (Tom, Year 11) I just want to sit there and learn. I don’t want to be the best…the best. Just normal. I just want to be the one who sits there and learns. And meets the…And meets the standard… (Connor, Year 10) I just try my best. (Alfie, Year 11) Archer and Yamashita’s (2003a; 2003b) study of working-class masculinities in higher education found men often internalized their educational ‘failure’ in a process of knowing their own limits, and my participants also had to contend with their own constraints. Most of my participants saw their aspirations as adequately fulfilled by a drive towards ‘middling,’ and this aligns with the work of Savage, Bangall, and Longhurst (2001) where, “What seemed to matter more for our respondents was being ordinary” (p. 887). According to Savage (2005) ‘middling’ could be a strategy to resist the dominance of cultural capital where by labelling themselves as “ordinary, people claimed to be just themselves, and not socially fixed people who are not ‘real’ individuals but rather social ciphers” where they are “devoid of social distinction” (p.889, p.938). The boys’ habitus, with a balance between individual agency and sensitivity to societal restraints, shapes how my participants construct their learner identity. In the words of the boys, we see how they negotiate a space for their emerging subjectivities within the neoliberal discourse: Yea, I do want to be someone that stands out but I don’t want to at the same time…I want to be standing out so people see me as a smart person, but I don’t want to be like someone who’s like…embarrassing… and that. (George, Year 10) Tom: Not necessarily the best, I just want to achieve. I just want to get as good as I can. If someone else is better than me, I’ll just try as best as I can. Me: So for you it’s more of like a personal thing? Tom: Yea, I wouldn’t want people to know I’m doing the best. Like teachers and that obviously. I wouldn’t want teachers to keep telling everyone I’m the best and rubbing it in their face. Like I’d keep it personal. (Tom, Year 11) 107 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ We must remember that practices are not simply the result of one’s habitus but rather of the relations between one’s habitus and one’s current circumstances and past circumstances (Grenfell, 2008, p.52). The theoretical tool of habitus places emphasis on the structuring forces of life experiences and conceptualizes dispositions as the internalisation of the schemes that these experiences produce. The tension between habitus and field is where identity is formed (Reay, 2010). The subjectivities of ‘ordinary’ or average shape the boys’ learner identities and, thus, the aspirations of the boys (Stahl, 2012; 2015), Me: Do you ever want to be the best student in your lessons? Ben: No. Me: That’s quite a firm ‘no’. Ben: Nah, I want to be in the middle. I want to be the same – not in a bad way and not in a good way. I don’t want to be the best student, I want to be in the middle…If you want to be the best boy, the best boy, then everyone would rely on you and stuff like that. And if you were the bottom boy no one would want to rely on you or anyfink [sic]. So if you’re the middle boy some people want to rely on you and some people won’t, so basically you’re in the middle. (Ben, Year 10) In gender theory, it has been argued that the “presence of a competitive performance-oriented culture generates anxiety, especially among boys whose gender identity needs to be based on achieving power, status and superiority” (Arnot, 2004, p. 35). In considering the theoretical construct of hegemonic masculinity, the boys do not orient themselves toward gaining status and superiority in the classroom, as to do so would conflict with their egalitarian habitus. Deeply contextual, the hegemonic is rendered through actions, behaviors, and discourses and remains a prominent force within identity construction as boys use the various strategies to preserve hegemonic masculinity and secure status (Connell, 2005; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Howson, 2014). However, the hegemonic masculine identity in this case study is one infused with traditional working-class values of non-dominance, grounded in ‘averageness’, and does not need to become empowered through education. My participants hegemonic is to resist the hegemonic commonly found in masculinity studies. Within his discussion of the peer group, Alfie holds to the disposition of MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 108 egalitarianism: “No one is dominant like… I think everyone is the same. Everyone has got their own opinion about people and no one listens and does what other people say” (Alfie, Year 10). While clearly some forms of masculinity embrace competitive, status-based neoliberalism (Connell, 1998), the data supports the argument that a working-class masculinity has the capacity to resist dispositions commonly ascribing to ‘everyone is the same.’ Discussion This research builds on a substantial body of work which argues that school ‘failure’ and ‘success’ is bound up with the process of students doing ‘identity work’ (Smyth, 2006; Wexler, 1992). In considering how neoliberal discourses shape and reshape identities, we see how an egalitarian habitus is enacted to navigate ‘ability’ and ‘authenticity’ when these identity markers have been confounded within neoliberal constraints. Considering how white working-class boys’ habitus is positioned within the field of the school and how field influences their learner identities, the data allows us to gain insights into the interworking of symbolic violence.4 The boys gradually internalize structures and constraints mediated through their working-class communal values; thus, in essence, reproducing their own subordination. The internalization of new experiences and schemes of perception can lead to the internalization of conflicting dispositions. The dialectical confrontation between habitus and field (other than the field of origin) results in a degree of accommodation where the habitus accepts the legitimacy of the new field’s structure and is in turn structured by it, thus enabling a modification in the habitus. The newly reconfigured habitus is arguably made up of conflicting elements; as the data shows the boys want to do well but they do not want to do too well. While the boys’ sense of egalitarianism is primarily concerned with their positioning within classroom contexts, it should be noted egalitarianism, where ‘no one is better than anyone else’ or ‘above their station’, has limitations when extended beyond a learner identity. Outside of school, these young men engaged in hierarchical boundary maintenance in othering subordinate males, ascribed to traditional gender roles, and were often homophobic. 109 Stahl – Male Narratives of ‘Ordinariness’ The neoliberal governance of educational policy results in schooling becoming entrenched in the ‘best of the best’ rhetoric of qualifications and competition which suits a middle-class self adept at understanding what counts while assembling and deploying resources in order to ensure one’s own success. The learning of skills and gaining qualifications, grounded in an aspirational discourse, is frequently equated with access to high status or high income. Recent educational research in this area has focused on neoliberal policies and how they have the potential to shape identity (Davies & Bansel, 2007; Wilkins, 2011). Francis (2006), citing Beck (1992), argues that, in post-industrial societies, our young males “can no longer expect ‘a job for life’, but must rather expect to ‘upskill’ and remake themselves for a succession of jobs in an insecure market-place” (p. 190). There remains an entwined relationship between neoliberal educational practices focused on the “four Cs – change, choice, chances and competition” which shape gendered and classed subjectivities as well as aspiration (Phoenix, 2004, p. 22). Essential to the formation of a specific subjectivity, both strategies of ‘loyalty to self’ and ‘averageness’ work in concert to reconstitute normative identity practices and reaffirm the egalitarian habitus. Conclusions The boys’ sense of egalitarianism, which enables the social world to be read and understood, remains a counter-habitus to the neoliberal performativity and their perception of academic success/failure. Egalitarianism allows them to construct themselves as ‘valuable’ within an educational environment where they often lack the capitals to succeed. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) argue people “know how to ‘read’ the future that fits them, which is made for them and for which they are made (by opposition to everything that the expression ‘this is not for the likes of us’ designates)” (p. 130). I have attempted to highlight the nuances of white working-class boys’ learner identities and so-called ‘underperformance’ where they are judged upon how they make sense of conceptions of change around a middle-class identity. As long as schooling continues to have a narrow view of what constitutes success, white working-class boys will have to endure “an intolerable burden of psychic reparative work if they are to avoid what MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 110 Bourdieu terms ‘the duality of the self’” (Reay, 2002, p. 222), where there exists a challenge surrounding a reconciliation of the contradictory life worlds. I would like to thank Derron Wallace for his valuable feedback on an earlier version of this article. Notes 1 It is essential to remember habitus is creative, inventive, and generative, but only within the limits of its structures; after all, the process is bounded and “the individual is always, whether he likes it or not, trapped – save to the extent that he becomes aware of it” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p.126). 2 The boys did not identify using class labels, yet it is difficult as a researcher not to make definite assertions. There is complexity here as some of the boys were confused by conventional labels such as ‘working class’ and ‘middle class’ yet, at the same time, were aware of slang such as ‘posh’ and ‘chav’. 3 Coles (2009), in his analysis of the role of masculinity within the habitus, argues that masculinity is an unconscious strategy where habitus enables masculinity to be transposable and adaptable, while allowing for individual differences between how men perform it. Phoenix (2004) has argued that masculinity is a process, or a strategy, that: “mitigates the tenets of neoliberalism” (p. 244). 4 In their analysis of symbolic violence, Connolly and Healy (2004) state: In essence it represents the ways in which people play a role in reproducing their own subordination through the gradual internalisation and acceptance of those ideas and structures that tend to subordinate them. 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Garth Stahl is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of South Australia Contact Address: Direct correspondence to Garth Stahl, School of Education, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, G2-24, 2471 Adelaida, Australia, email: [email protected] Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com Typologies of Men’s Friendships: Constructing Masculinity through Them Todd A. Migliaccio1 1) Sacramento State University, United States st Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Migliaccio, T.A (2014). Typologies of Men’s Friendships: Constructing Masculinity through Them. Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2),119147. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2014.47 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/MCS.2014. 47 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 119-147 Typologies of Men’s Friendships: Constructing Masculinity through Them Todd A. Migliaccio Sacramento State University, United States Abstract Male friendships are often identified as being instrumental, avoiding expressive intimacy within their friendships. Past research has focused too much on friendship being an outcome of being male or having masculine attitudes, limiting analysis of the social construction of friendships in relation to masculine performances. Focusing on the individual production of friendship limits consideration of the construction of different dyads within one social network. Open-ended interviews with twelve men about each of their close friendships focused analysis on the dyad and not the individual. From the study, it was found that men established four different typologies of friendships (non-active, closed active, open active, expressive). While each friendship dyad differed in form and intimacy, all were influenced by the social construction of masculinity in these men’s lives. Keywords: friendship, dyad, social network, masculine attitudes 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.47 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 119-147 Tipologías de Amistades Masculinas: Construyendo la Masculinidad a través de Ellas Todd A. Migliaccio Sacramento State University, Estados Unidos Resumen Las amistades masculinas a menudo se identifican como algo instrumental, y los hombres evitan establecer una intimidad expresiva dentro de sus amistades. Investigaciones anteriores se ha centrado demasiado en la amistad como un resultado del hecho de ser hombre o de tener actitudes masculinas, limitando de esta forma el análisis de la construcción social de las amistades en relación con la construcción masculina. En este caso nos centramos en la producción individual de los límites de la amistad considerando la construcción de diferentes parejas dentro de una red social. Se han realizado doce entrevistas abiertas con hombres sobre sus amigos íntimos centrando el análisis en las parejas y no en el individuo. A partir del estudio, se encontró que los hombres establecen cuatro tipologías diferentes de amistades: no activa, cerrada-activa, active-abierta, expresiva. Si bien cada parejaamistad diferie en la forma y en la intimidad que se establece, todas las tipologías están influenciadas por la construcción social de la masculinidad en la vida de estos hombres. Palabras clave: amistad, parejas, red social, actitudes masculinas 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.47 121 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships R esearchers have consistently concluded that friendships are different for men and women (Fehr, 1996; Messner, 1992; Swain 1989; Wheeler et al., 1989), with women developing more expressive relationships through the process of self-disclosure. In contrast, men’s same-sex friendships are found to be more instrumental, centering around shared interests and activities (Messner, 1992; Swain 1989). While focus in research has extended beyond discussions of male-female differences, the emphasis remains on how an individual’s characteristics lead to differences in intimacy with friends, such as how being more masculine results in less expressive friendships (Morman et al., 2013). While such research allows for the engagement of a more social dynamic of friendship, the discussion sustains a static dialogue about gender and resulting friendships. Focusing on the individual and how or why he produces friendships is limiting, assuming that friendships are outcomes. The focus should be on the social construction of friendship as a part of gender performance (Felmlee et al., 2012). Research on the relationship between gender and friendship should consider the interactions among friends (Thurnell-Read, 2012), in particular close friends, as another performance of masculinity and not a result of being a man (Migliaccio, 2009). Furthermore, focusing on friendship as an outcome limits the analysis of the existence of a diversity of friendships within one person’s network. This exploratory study analyzes the relationship between intimacy and masculinity within close friendships, with a focus on the dyad in an effort to better comprehend the social construction of masculinity through friendships and the diversity of friendships that can exist among men. Men’s Friendships In general, it is believed that men and women differ in friendship form, with women developing more expressive friendships and men more instrumental. Studies, however, have identified that women are just as likely to have instrumental relationships (Wright & Scanlon, 1993). Furthermore, men have been shown to engage in discussions similar to women (Wheeler et al., 1989), displaying expressive connections (ThurnellRead, 2012). While the general belief persists that males are not as intimate with same-sex friends as women, “critics argue that women’s friendships MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 122 appear to be more intimate only because intimacy has been conceptualized and measured in a female-biased way” (Fehr 1999, p.135) (Cancian 1986; Sherrod, 1989; Swain, 1989). While defined from a feminine standpoint, research has shown that men tend to idealize self-disclosure as one of the most important components of intimacy (Monsour, 1992). Masculinity and Intimacy While men idealize more expressive intimacy, they do not establish it in their friendships. Arguments have been made to link this directly to the patriarchal system in which Western society is couched, which limits a man’s ability to display feelings and emotions to others, including friends (Kimmel & Kaufman, 1994). This is largely based on the expectation that men are expected to avoid anything that is feminine (Fehr, 2004; Morman et al., 2013). The avoidance of femininity is the focal point of men in Western society (Doyle, 1995; Kimmel & Kaufman, 1994). The establishment of masculinity is not so much a performance to be accepted as male, but a performance to convince others that he is not female nor feminine, which would marginalize or emasculate him (Goffman 1967; Migliaccio, 2009). As Michael Kaufman (1998) stated, “masculinity requires a suppression of a whole range of human needs, aims, feelings and forms of expression” (1998, p.37). Similar expectations arise among men concerning the self-disclosure of intimate issues with male friends, for intimacy and self-disclosure are defined as being feminine (Cancian, 1986). This was confirmed in Felmlee’s study on cross-gender and same-sex friendships. She found that men are less accepting than women of a friend engaging in feminine behaviors when they interact (1999). A later study by Felmlee, et al (2012) found that men consistently have lower expectations of self-disclosure within their friendships. Furthermore, men are held to lower standards of expressive intimacy than are women in their friendships, even in cross-gender friendships. With such a strong societal link between expressive intimacy and femininity, a man would likely avoid such behaviors, such as selfdisclosure so as not to be emasculated in the eyes of others, regardless of his personal needs. In a study of married and single men, Reid and Fine (1992) found “men wanted to be more intimate with their male friends, but 123 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships feared a negative reaction if they attempted more intimate interaction” (in Fehr, 1999, p.139). It is the fear of being labeled as effeminate, weak, or, even worse, a woman that spurs a male to avoid intimacy, even though they would benefit from engaging in more feminine styles of intimacy (Reisman, 1990; Sanderson et al., 2005). This is not to assume that men do not share with other men. Men have been found to experience more expressive intimacy with friends; however, the sharing is shrouded in a more masculine context. Men engage in activities that allows for self-disclosure to occur (Kiesling, 2005). As Walker (2001) showed in her discussion of male phone conversations, “Although most men reported calling friends for instrumental reasons, many men reported that their telephone conversations were not limited to the reason for the call” (2001, p.229). Similarly, Thurnell-Read (2012) found that men can be emotive and expressive in a highly masculinized activity, such as a stag party (bachelor party). Beyond activities, men also utilized distinct methods of sharing intimate issues (Walker, 2001) to masculine interactions, such as humor (George, 1994). “Joking relationships provide men with an implicit form of expressing affection” (Swain 1989, p.83). Humor allows a man to discuss sensitive issues that might initially characterize a man as feminine. While useful to connect men, humor can also be utilized to mark boundaries for acceptable behaviors with the intention of marginalizing men who challenge the hegemonic standard (Collinson, 1992). These methods of sharing do not completely open the channels of communication between men; but, by situating men in comfortable, masculine contexts, the ability to self-disclose becomes more acceptable. Even when alternative methods are not employed, men will label emotive experiences as anything but intimate or expressive to avoid being affiliated with femininity (Evers, 2010). While research has moved beyond a notion that “being a male” impacts friendships, there persists a focus on the role orientation of a person influencing friendships, which maintains a notion of individual identity driving friendship (Bank & Hansford, 2000). More recent research has focused more on the socially determined expectations by analyzing masculine expectations. They have found that more masculine individuals are less inclined to engage in self-disclosure in friendships (Morman et al., 2013). While more socially prescribed, these studies persist in focusing on MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 124 the individual and not the social relationship that is created when friends interact. Focusing on the individual presents a static analysis of gender as a causal factor as opposed to an interactive component that exists within relationships and interactions. As Patrick and Beckenbach (2009) argue, “social construction must be taken into account when examining experiences of intimacy” (p. 55). In a sense, how men engage with their friends can be considered an aspect of the performance of masculinity (Felmlee et al., 2012). More important, “male friendship is an integral and defining ingredient” (Thurnell-Read 2012, p.250) in the production of masculinity. In a study of men in two gender designated occupations, it was concluded that men “do gender” through the means in which they interact with friends (Migliaccio, 2009). Still, even in this study, it focused on how individuals construct a singular type of friendship, even if it is in relation to other social factors, like occupation and masculinity, as opposed to analyzing different friendships and how each dyad is constructed. Interviewing men about their close friends focuses on the dyads, moving beyond past studies that have emphasized singular ideas of the construction of friendship (Thurnell-Read, 2012). Focus on the dyads allows for a broader analysis of friendship as a flexible experience that is influenced by the social construction of masculinity, but not driven by it. Through these interviews a better understanding of how friendships relate to and reflect the social construction of masculinity can be gained, as well as allow for the existence of a diversity of friendships within the network of each man. Simply, the construction of friendship as a reflection of masculinity can result in multiple forms of relationships. Methodology This exploratory study of male intimacy used non-probability sampling to locate a sample of twelve men. All of the men (see Table 1) were white, heterosexual, professional males who had received Bachelor’s degrees, with seven of the participants having received advanced degrees. While there were a higher number of married individuals in the sample, the overall experiences did not seem to reflect disparities between single and married men. There was also an extensive range in the ages of interviewees, from 28-65 years old. While the explanations expressed by the younger men tended to be shorter and less developed, the overall experiences and even 125 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships the number of close friends were generally similar, regardless of age. The period of time each had lived in their present living situation was also collected, assuming that it might impact the number of and closeness of friendships. Of the respondents, only one had been in the area less than eight years (Jack, 2 yrs). (There were three who had only recently moved to their present residence, but had grown up in the area and had returned often to visit) (Appendix A: years lived in area). Regardless, there did not appear to be any differentiation between any of the respondent’s comments (including Jack’s) about friendship in relation to their time having resided in an area. The focus for the sample was to interview men who epitomize the dominant standard within Western society, since that is the group from which the hegemonic masculine standard is more explicitly meant to reflect. This is not to assume that all of these men achieve or display it but rather that they are most likely accustomed to these judgments that derive from the hegemonic standard. Simply, to explore how this standard influences friendship construction, it is important to evaluate those men who most likely closely adhere to the standard. Table 1 Demographics of Respondents Name Ben Jerry Laurel Hardy Larry Mo Curley Butch Sundance Manny Karl Jack Occupation Insurance Salesman Teacher Multimedia Program Manager Professor Professor Computer Technician Entrepreneur Retired Health Practitioner Health Practitioner Computer Programmer Adjunct Professor Professor Age 28 35 38 55 58 56 48 65 60 58 45 32 Education B.A. M.A. B.S. Ph.D. Ph.D. B.S (two) B.S. Doctorate Doctorate B.S. M.A. Ph.D. Years lived in area 1(28) 3 (19) 8 31 35 24 28 19 29 36 2 (19) 2 Marital Status Married Married Single Separated Married Married Married Married Married Single Single Single Note: The number is the time having lived there most recently, while the one in parantheses is linked to length of time having had roots here, meaning they were raised in the place and have recently moved back. Each interview lasted between one and two hours, and was conducted in an open-ended format. Topics that were covered included general MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 126 definitions of friendship and intimacy, personal assumptions concerning differences between male and female friendships, and how masculinity relates to interactions among men. The primary focus of the interviews was on a description of each of the close friends of each respondent in an attempt to understand the distinct dyads and how masculinity was constructed through the relationships. No definition for “close friendship” was given to the respondents, asking them instead to identify who they saw as close friends and discussing those friendships specifically. Each interview followed the interests and ideas expressed by the interviewee, identifying what they found important in relation to friendship. Still, all of the major areas identified above were addressed in each interview as each respondent discussed every one of his close friendships. Finally, it should be noted that the analysis of the interviews is a study of the accounts of experiences with friends by the respondents, and not an analysis of the friendships themselves (Scott & Lyman, 1968; Weiss, 1994). The statements by these men, however, do reflect their own beliefs about their friendships, which impact their behaviors, both with their friends and society in general, including their social construction of masculinity both in the friendships, and even in their interactions with the interviewee as they described their friendships. Results While the men were asked to discuss their close friendships, no definition was given to them to determine this, nor were they asked to clarify what makes a close friend, as the focus was on who they perceived as close friends and the interactions among the friends. They were allowed to introduce a definition if they desired. While none gave an explicit definition, all of the men offered some notion of a definition to best determine which of their friends they should discuss, relying on key concepts, such as “trust,” “support” and “connection.” While most of the respondents identified groups of friends with whom they spend time, most were able to explicitly differentiate between those in the group who they saw as “friends” or “acquaintances” and those who they considered “close” friends. The distinction was that “close” friend connections extended beyond the present activity, as they “would spend time with them outside of the group” (Laurel) or who they “knew would be there for them if he 127 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships needed them” (Duncan & Owens, 2011). As Curley clarified, “I have a lot of friends, but most of those guys are just guys I do things with. We have a great time and I like them, but it is not the same. They are not the guys I think of when I want to do something. They are just guys who are there.” The distinction for these men between close friends and others was the persistent relationship and connection beyond the immediate moment. In their final determination of who their close friends are none of the men had more than six friends who they designated as “close”, often times perceiving of the friendship as one that would be “a lasting one” (Butch). Sundance sums it up in his determination of those he spends time with and those who are close friends: Some of the guys are great. And I like them a lot. They are fun to be around, but I don’t have the connection with them that I have with others, like Andy and Bill. We just get along beyond the immediate activities. It is not a conscious choice but when I think of doing something, those are the guys I contact. And I think that is how they feel too. Regardless, all of the guys seemed to have a sense of who their close friends were but could not give an explicit definition as to why they felt this. Intimacy While the focus of this study is on the development of close friendships among men and how that relates to the social construction of masculinity, to give context to the response and behaviors, it is important to first understand how these men perceive intimacy, and in general how they react to it. All twelve of the men relied upon a definition that was akin to a feminine understanding of intimacy. Curley expressed that “intimacy is when you want to be close to someone, share with them things that you would not tell anyone else.” Similarly, Larry claimed, “intimacy is sharing information with a person.” These examples display how these men equate intimacy with self-disclosure, which is more akin to feminine style of interaction (Cancian, 1986). Defining intimacy from a feminine standpoint has been found in other studies about men’s friendships (Monsour, 1992; Reid & Fine, 1992). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 128 While the men generally defined intimacy in a more expressive context, they generally avoided such forms of intimacy within their relationships. The need to avoid expressive intimacy within friendships is summed up best by Jack, who stated that he sanctions himself before sharing with his friends. “Men are much more reserved about their personal lives. Men are just not as intimate as women.” Again, relying upon a female definition of intimacy, he explained that he avoids this for fear of having his friends see him as different, more feminine. Jack further stated, “Sometimes it would be nice to share fears and feelings. But I would not want to make them [his friends] feel uncomfortable.” While all of the men shared a similar perspective, only Karl reflected on the differences between male and female intimacy in his explanation concerning the definition of intimacy. He did not discuss them in terms of a hierarchical structure, but rather as two different concepts. One was no more important than the other. As Karl stated, “I am not sure you can compare the two. They are just different. All of my friendships serve a purpose and are all important.” Still, he acknowledged part of the reason he does not institute more expressive intimacy with many of his friends as he does not want to make them feel uncomfortable. What Karl was also able to articulate was that not all of his friendships followed the same pattern, each offering him a different experience, and as a result, were dynamically distinct. While not as clearly stated as Karl, all of the men’s close friendships displayed a level of diversity, even though they were all influenced by masculine expectations. Simply, the men’s perceptions of masculinity influenced all of their friendships but did not produce the same types of close friendships. Friendship Typologies Initially it was difficult to categorize friendships, focusing on the individuals and how they formed their friends. The dyads of the respondents, however, could be categorized distinctly into three typologies (see Table 2 below). These findings do not assume that the men’s friendships that are linked with a typology are all exactly the same. Instead, they represent common characteristics that distinguish it from the other types of friendships. The discussion below, however, presents the existence of friendship dyads of these men and more important that their friendships 129 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships are not determinant of the specific individuals but rather an interaction among factors, in particular, masculinity that aid in the social construction of friendships. The different types of friendship are as follows: non-active, active, and expressive. Within the “active” category, there were two distinct friendship dyads, which can be classified as “closed” and “open,” While each category represents a dyadic relationship that has specific characteristics that differentiates it from the other categories, all are influenced by expectations and concerns surrounding masculinity and masculine performances. Non-Active These relationships can be identified by the limited contact the individual may have with each friend. The existence of disconnected but close friends has been noted in other studies (Thurnell-Read, 2012). As Table 2 displays, these types of friendships were common for these men. In fact, of the respondents, only one claimed to have only one friendship that might be listed under this category (Ben, who stated he only has two close friends overall), while all others had two to four friendships that fit within this typology. Ben’s limited number may be a result of only having been away from home on his own on one occasion, his Mormon mission, which is where he met his “non-active” friend. MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 130 Table 2 Typology of Male Friendship Dyads Names Non-Active Active Expressive Ben 1 1 0 Jerry 2 2 0 Laurel 2 3 0 Hardy 2 3 0 Larry 1 2 0 Mo 2 3 0 Curley 3 2 0 Butch 2 3 0 Sundance 3 3 0 Manny 2 2 1 Karl 2 3 1 Jack 1 3 0 Note: The ranking hierarchy stems is as follows: 0, 1, few, some, many All of the other respondents claimed to have developed multiple “nonactive” friendships while involved in extended activities away from their home of origin. While some linked it to college (both graduate and undergraduate), others connected it to military service. Past studies have noted a close, even empathetic relationship among men in the military (Migliaccio, 2008; Morgan, 1994). Similar claims can be made about college experience, as it is a time in the lives of men during which they develop identities, which are supported by friendships (Weisz &Wood, 2005). Close friendships established during developmental periods bear importance for these men. As Larry expressed, “It is great to have these friendships. They are a part of who I am. Or at least where I came from.” Most of the respondents referenced their history as a means for connection 131 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships with these friends, although that was not the sole defining characteristic of these friendships. All of the men identified that these friendships are distinct from other friendships formed at the same time. Most of the men could not explicitly articulate how they differed, but that they were different. As Jack expressed, “we just got along when we first met. But it was more than that because I got along with a lot of guys at school. But with Tom and Jim, it was different. And later, we just always kept in touch, which was easy to do.” The connection that persisted beyond the initial experience is what differentiated these friendships from others during that period of time. As Larry expressed, “While I had a lot of friends while at school, there were just some that it seemed natural to stay in touch with as I got older. They are just the ones I have always thought to call, not that we even talk all that often. I guess I will always see them as my good friends no matter what happens.” While none of the men could fully explain why the relationships persisted, none of the men felt it was surprising to have such friendships, and appreciated them. It was also clear that all of the men shared a belief that these friendships do not necessitate constant management to remain close, which was distinct from the other close friends they had at the present time. Manny summarizes the idea that contact and interaction does not impact these close friendships, “Some friendships don’t need constant attention. Mine have been solid since we first met. These friends will always be there for me and I for them.” Similarly, Hardy stated, “some friends you rarely see or hear from, and yet still feel intimate with them.” He went on to emphasize how even after years of absence from his life, contact with these friends never seemed strained or uncomfortable. “It is like you just saw them yesterday.” While an individual who has a non-active friendship may maintain the relationship through phone calls and/or e-mails, the majority of the men in this study reflected on how there was no need to consistently maintain the relationships. “They just are, without any work” (Sundance). Ben’s one non-active friendship shared similar qualities. When questioned as to why he still believes the relationship exists, he explained that it was a sort of “unspoken bond.” He attributed much of this to shared interests, specifically sports and church. While his explanation offers an example of Swain’s (1989) “intimacy in the doing,” it also references this recurring MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 132 idea that the men relayed: the idea that the relationship does not necessitate discussion or sharing, but that the closeness is simply understood. This is what sets these friendships apart from more traditional, instrumental friendships, as there is limited interaction, i.e. “doing,” and yet the closeness endures. While closeness persists among these friends, the men clarified that these friendships are different from women’s friendships. Jerry, in his assessment of his closest friend elaborated on why their relationship survives. He stated twice during the interview that the distance and limited contact (not spoken in over a year) does not affect the friendship. When questioned as to why he continues to feel close to his friend, he concluded, “I guess it has a lot to do with having a lot in common with one another.” He further explained, “Men don’t need constant interaction to maintain friendships.” While such a statement highlights a disparate intimacy for men, it is more Jerry’s designation of his relationship as being different from those of women’s that emphasizes his avoidance of linking his friendships to women’s experiences. This was a common theme among the men as they explained their continued connection sans regular interactions. As Hardy expressed “Men don’t need to regularly talk to be close.” The men consistently differentiated their “non-active” friendships from women’s friendships. “Women tend to need or even demand contact to maintain friendships. Men do not. We just have to know we can trust these guys, regardless if we talk to them,” as Jack shared. In an example comparing his wife’s experience, Laurel expressed: My wife would get annoyed when she had not heard from her friends in a while. I don’t think she could go for years as I have without talking to her closest friends and not feel the friendship was affected. That is how we are different from women’s friendships. This description, while not explicitly about a performance of masculinity it is a justification of the friendship through the differentiation between men’s and women’s friendships. Simply, these men project their friendships in a different form from women’s. Even more important, they perceived of the difference as a gain as it solidified the relationships over time. 133 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships Active The active group appears to be the most common friendship model of the three, as can be seen in Table 2 above. The dyads present in this group tended to be a more direct representation of Swain’s “intimacy in the doing.” These friendships emphasized activities as a primary focus in friendships. However, within the active group, there could be perceived differences between two types of friendships that can be classified as “closed” and “open” (see Table 3). For the Closed group, activities were the force that maintained the friendship, while within the Open group the activities appeared to be more of an avenue through which the relationships grew. Table 3 Active Dyads Names Ben Jerry Laurel Hardy Larry Mo Curley Butch Sundance Manny Karl Jack Closed X X X Open X X X X X X X X X X Closed Three men, who through their descriptions of their close friends, could be identified as having “closed active” dyads. They expressed that there was an emphasis upon the shared interests and activities with the friends. The friendships were contingent on common pursuits, but did not extend into connection through other means. For example, Ben relayed that his other MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 134 close friend (he only has two total) was a workout partner. He emphasized that his connection to this friend is directly linked to the activity. This example both displays the masculine form of intimacy, as well as highlights the primary characteristic of the closed group, which is the emphasis upon interests and activities in the maintenance of a friendship. As Ben stated concerning his development of friendships in general, “I am always looking for a friend who plays both soccer and basketball.” To him, without commonalties, he assumed a friendship would cease. Ben consistently shared in his comparison by gender and friendship that men’s friendships in general survive through common interests and that “women share feelings.” For Ben, there was no discussion of developing expressive intimacy through the shared activities. The relationship appeared to be explicitly instrumental, which is a key component of a “closed dyad.” In another example, Jerry talked about a regular trip he and several of his friends made to a baseball game. When asked if any of the four had ever attempted to discuss an intimate issue, he stated, “We discussed ideas and sports, not feelings. This was an extremely testosterone driven experience,” meaning an avoidance of feminine ideas was expected. Pressed to determine the possible reactions if an individual had attempted to share a personal issue, he claimed a joke would probably be made concerning it, and then nothing further would be stated. As discussed above, humor is a common tool to masculinize interactions. In this instance, the joke is less a signifier of sharing, and more an expression that inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. By making light of it, the others involved are informing the individual that further transgressions would result in similar, if not worse chastisements, which might affect the dynamics of the trip, as well as the friendships. These close friendships, while important to Jerry, are limited in disclosure. All three of these men distinguished these close friends from other friends and acquaintances based on connection and trust. For example, Jerry identified only two friends that could be categorized as active friends, but his group of friends who went to the baseball games comprised four to five at any given time. When asked about how he distinguishes between them, he shared that the two he sees as close friends are “guys he would look to in a time of need.” He acknowledged the others are “great” guys, but does not 135 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships really see them in that way, or really feel comfortable “relying on them” for important things. While the three men whose close friendships were closed had other types of friendships, these three respondents had the smallest number of active friendships. Furthermore, of the three, only one had an open active friendship (Hardy: one open and two closed). Even Hardy’s “open” friendship appeared to be limited in self-disclosure, although it definitely differed from Hardy’s other friendships, as he explained (discussed below). Even with the existence of this friend, Hardy, along with the other two expressed concerns about sharing with other men. As Jerry stated, “we don’t ever discuss intimate topics.” He further shared that men don’t share because that is what women do. In contrast, all three chose instead to rely predominantly on their wives for self-disclosure. As Ben stated, “I would first share with my wife, then maybe my family, but most likely not my friends. I don’t really like to share with anyone. I would prefer to figure it out by myself.” Ben’s impetus to “figure it out” reflects a common masculine behavior of being self-reliant (Harris, 1995; Migliaccio, 2001). But if a man is going to self-disclose, sharing with a spouse would be one way to avoid being emasculated by those around him, as it is acceptable to share with a female (Felmlee et al., 2012), and in particular, establish one’s spouse as the primary relationship (Gilmartin, 2007). The choices of these men to engage in predominantly instrumental friendships support the masculine expectations of feminine avoidance by men and ultimately being less expressive in their friendships (Felmlee et al., 2012). This discrepancy between the men who have closed active friendships and the other men does offer some credence to the focus of past studies that individuals, or the characteristics of individuals impact the form of friendships. These men tended to reflect on a more traditional notion of masculinity, explicitly distancing themselves from femininity. Still, even with the perceived differences between the men, the individuals and their friendships could not be categorized concretely. For example, all of the men in both groups had “non-active” friends that were similar in form and interaction style to all of the other “non-active” dyads of the men in the study, which differed from the “active” friendships. Furthermore, as with Hardy, he had both a closed and an open active friendship, limiting the claim that an individual’s characteristics alone construct friendships. MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 136 Open The “open active” friendships, while related to shared activities, differed from the “closed active” in that the intention and really the importance of the friendships (and often the reason for interacting) is a feeling of comfort, reliance and understanding of one another. The friendships were based upon an idea that extended beyond activities and interests. As Hardy explained in his distinction of his friends, “there are some, like the guys I work with that we just enjoy one another’s company. Then there are others, like Jeff, who we like to hang out together and do stuff but it is more than that. It is hard to explain but I feel more comfortable being around him, talking to him.” This, however, does not remove the use of activity from the relationship. In fact, all of the men in this group, when explaining their close relationships that were characterized as “open active” referred to activities in which they engaged with friends. As Mo explained: Every Sunday Aaron and I play golf. Sometimes we talk about our week, but other times you just don’t want to go over all of the bad things that have happened. And that we understand one another’s needs. When we want to talk. When we don’t want to talk. And even when we don’t want to talk, but need to. This offers another example of “intimacy in the doing,” as was also seen in the closed group; however, it is not the activity or similarities that are the focus of the relationship, but rather the activity offers a comfortable environment in which to engage with other men. This allows the men to interact in masculine activities while still attaining intimacy with friends. This can be noted when Sundance explained a weekly event in which he and a group of his close friends engaged: We would go to afternoon baseball games in San Francisco. Every week, the four of us would drive down, all the while eating food we were not supposed to eat, using language that was inappropriate in other situations. Just doing things guys are not allowed to do. It was very important to all four of us. Not just to get away, but because we could feel close to other guys in a relaxed setting. 137 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships While the activity was similar to the one that Jerry experienced with his friends, but the dynamics differed, as did the intention for hanging out. As with Jerry, it was about doing “guy things,” while, through Sundance’s explanation, it was about feeling closer to the other guys. The activity becomes the avenue to experience that. In another example, Laurel described an incident directly following his break up with his girlfriend. He and a close friend had gone out to bars, but never discussed the issue. He expressed the positive feeling he felt about going out with a friend without having him “bug me by asking about it. He knew all about it, and what was needed. So we went out and got drunk.” Similarly, Butch, who had recently retired, and whose best friend was several years younger than he, offered a description that conveyed what was important in his friendship. His friend lived several hours away from him, so he would drive down to have lunch with him during the day and often play a round of golf. He relayed that while his friend appeared to enjoy golf more than he did, he always looked forward to those days. As Butch stated, “I can just relax around him.” All of these examples display how activity and shared interests are important but not the driving force in the relationship (unlike in “closed dyads”). Instead, it is the positive feeling that exists between the individuals that forms the intimate connection. Messner (1992) calls this “covert intimacy.” It is interesting to note that these men did not discuss friendships that appeared more “closed” as being close friends, except for Hardy, who, overall focused on avoiding more expressive forms of intimacy with his friends but still developed it, to some degree, within one of his friendships, or at least moved beyond the overemphasis on activity within the friendship. The potential is as Hardy further develops this friendship, he may also alter his definition of what a close friendship entails. Regardless, the activity in an open active friendship is part of the masculine performance as it is an acceptable (i.e. masculine) arena in which to interact with same-sex male friends, which allots for the existence of more feminine dynamics within the friendships (Migliaccio, 2009). Jack, in his reflections concerning his close friendships, offered a comparative explanation: “Males engage in activities, while women share thoughts. I am not sure I would call it intimacy; but, it is a feeling of closeness.” Jack was articulating that through the shared activities, the intimacy with his MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 138 friends differed from women’s intimacy. This denial of the term intimacy to reflect the closeness men experience can be linked to the expectation that intimacy is a feminine concept. And, as discussed above, males avoid any idea or behavior that would equate them with being female. As Butch stated, “men don’t like the term intimacy.” While the intimacy may differ from more expressive forms, it was more about the men’s perceptions that the intimacy they were experiencing was distinct from the intimacy among female friends and not that it was explicitly different. When Larry was divorcing his first wife, he explained that he was able to share about this experience quite easily with one of his closest friends. When questioned further about the manner in which he shared this information, he responded, “We had gone out to lunch and I just kind of mentioned it at some point.” He continued, explaining that he did not specifically ask his friend out to share this with him. They just happened to be out for lunch, to catch up, and so he revealed it at that time. When asked why he had waited until this opportunity rather than share as soon as he had realized it was occurring, he relayed that he just did not want to create an awkward situation. As he stated, “We don’t need all of that touchy feely crap.” In this situation, the same information was shared but what made it, for Larry, more masculine was the context of the interaction. They were out for lunch, an activity, and he “mentioned” it during the meal. Men are allotted greater flexibility in their feminine behaviors if masculinity has been previously established through different means, such as an activity (Migliaccio, 2008; Thorne, 1993). For Larry, what changed it from being “touchy-feely” was why they were interacting, not what was specifically discussed. The social context of the interaction determines the level of sharing, which includes with whom the person is sharing the information. Karl described a health scare. Karl was one of the men who has a friendship that is labeled as an “expressive” friendship (discussed below), but he stated that he avoided discussing it in any detail with many of his friends. Karl offered an example of an instance when he did share his health concerns with one of his close friends (not the “expressive” friend). He was carpooling with a friend. They were talking about getting physicals when he decided that this was an acceptable time to share his experience. He briefly stated that he had recently been in for some medical tests, which had been negative. His 139 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships friend responded by stating “Well, that is good. At least it wasn’t anything serious.” Karl expressed that he felt by his response, his friend did not want any deeper discussion beyond this, so the discussion did not extend beyond this. As he stated: It is not that I don’t value our friendship. I like being with him and talking to him. And I know he would always be there for me if I ever needed anything. But, in a situation like that, I think any further discussion would have made him feel uncomfortable. In this context, the situation was not deemed suitable for in depth disclosure. The context of the situation for Karl determined the level of sharing (and/or potentially the person with whom he was sharing). While context is extremely important, so is the form of the disclosure. Mo explained that there had been a time in his life that he thought he had heart disease. Only after going through tests and learning that it was not a serious problem did he inform a friend about it. As he explained, “I kind of made a joke out of it,” which then became a running joke between the two of them. As long as the issue is couched in the context of humor, it is acceptable to discuss the issue without fear of crossing the gender-boundary (George, 1994). This is different from the other example of how humor is utilized. For the “closed” dyad it was about limiting the disclosure, while in this context, it was an avenue through which sharing could proceed without challenging masculinity. Both individuals involved can engage the issue without fear of being emasculated. Mo furthered explained that he did not want to pursue it any deeper because he felt it had been addressed and he was good with it. Overall, the “open active” friendships differed from “closed active” in that the activities in which the friends interacted allowed for more in depth sharing to occur. The masculine context, however, was important in mitigating any potential negative reaction of over feminizing the interaction through self-disclosure. Expressive The use of the term “expressive” identified relationships that two of the men established with friends that are based, at least partially on sharing and self-disclosure. In other words, the dyads that this group displays reflect MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 140 characteristics that might be defined as “feminine” intimacy. It appears less connected to the activity-based intimacy the other groups displayed. This includes the “non-active” friendships, which have the potential for being more expressive, but their connection seems to persist through a lack of contact, and none of the men identified self-disclosure as a part of the friendships. As Table 2 above shows, only two individuals, Karl and Manny, described such a friendship (each only had one). Manny described his friendship with Jon: “We just like to get together and talk. Share what is going on in our lives. I always look forward to our conversations.” As can be noted, these friendships reflected different dynamics as those described in the other typologies. As Karl stated, “With Dave I don’t feel judged. I can express fears, feelings and concerns about specific incidences.” While these men did have these relationships, which they found fulfilling and important, the formation of them differed. For Manny, when asked, he initially was not positive how it came to be, but he did relay that the openness of his friend allowed for it. As Manny stated, “Jon is not a typical guy. Yeah, he likes sports and is married to a beautiful woman, but he is pretty open to most things. He is a stay-at-home dad and he is fine with it. In fact, he enjoys it and would not have it any other way. But it is not just about that. He just is open and accepting. I think that may have allowed me to feel comfortable talking to him.” In this context, Manny was “allowed” to develop the “expressive” friendship because Jon did not appear as limited by social expectations, in particular, masculinity. Still, even in Manny’s description of who Jon is, he seems to want to make sure it is clear Jon still fits within the heteronormative definition of being a man (e.g., “likes sports,” married to a beautiful woman”), as though to limit any questions others (including the interviewer) may have about their relationship. Karl, however, talked about how Dave and he formed their relationship at a time when he was really sick. Dave would drive up to hang out with him for a couple of days, and to take care of him (Karl explained at least one person had to be readily available in case he needed assistance). Karl explained that at one point he told Dave he did not need to drive up here to do this as much as he was, to which he said Dave replied, “’You are my best friend. I love you. I will always be there for you, no matter what you need.’” Since then, he and Dave have “been able to talk about most 141 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships anything, completely different from my other friendships,” although much of the interactions and conversations continue to focus on shared activities (e.g., they place fantasy football together). Their relationship seemed to be formed less by the characteristics of the individuals, like in Manny’s friendship with Jon (as Karl described, Dave is a very conservative and traditional individual. Karl, while being more liberal politically, is also fairly traditional about gender expectations) and more by the seriousness of the health risk (Karl had cancer at the time). Regardless of the reason, both Karl and Manny appear to have formed “expressive” friendships that they find extremely fulfilling. While able to openly express one self and share fears with these friends, these men did identify that the self-disclosure is not to the same degree as the sharing experienced between women. Karl explained, “the focus of the relationship cannot always be on sharing feelings. I would not want to make my friend feel awkward by doing that. And sometimes it is nice just to do things and enjoy one another’s company, and not worry about sharing all of the time.” As this statement shows, it is the awareness of the possible impact this may have upon the relationship that limits the amount of sharing. Regardless that Karl feels comfortable sharing with his friend, norms must be maintained so as not to fully reflect female friendships. Similarly, Manny shared that while conversations were intentional, he still refrained from certain topics that might be awkward. “Right after a long term relationship ended, I was thinking that I might not find someone and end up alone. I got a little depressed. But I did not talk about it with anyone, even Jon. There are some things a guy just doesn’t say to other guys.” Manny did, however, say that while he never talked about his concerns with Jon, during this period he did spend more time with his friend Jon because “the discussions, regardless of the topics, always made me feel better.” While both experienced interactions with this friend type that differed from their other male friendships, they both distanced the experiences from women’s friendships. Manny identified that it was “no where near the level of female friendships.” Karl further explained that while the friendship was steeped in conversations and sharing, “female friendships I think rely on the sharing to exist. Mine is not that at all. It is just an added bonus. I think my friendship with Dave would still exist even if we didn’t share our thoughts. That just makes it better.” This is not to claim that their friendships are MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 142 distinctly different from female close friendships but rather that these two men differentiated them in their descriptions, distancing themselves from a more feminine identified experience. Discussion and Conclusion As these men described, male friendships are generally based on shared interests and activities, as has been consistently found in past studies (Messner, 1992; Swain, 1989). This does not mean that each friendship dyad will be the same, even for the same person. The friendships of the men in this exploratory study can be categorized into four distinct groupings: Non-active, closed active, open active and expressive. While each reflects a different dynamic for male friendships, each supports a preference of male avoidance of feminine characteristics. Even within the two “expressive” friendships, there was a limitation to the amount of sharing that would be allowed, as well as how the friendship and sharing was characterized. Furthermore, only two of the twelve respondents displayed this type of friendship, relating the rarity with which men actively self-disclose with one another, even though almost all of the men defined the ideal form of intimacy in a more feminine style, and, at times, self-disclosed to some of their close friends, such as those in “open active” friendships. Still, the existence of expressive dyads among men who in other friendships avoid disclosing information, characterizes the social construction of friendships. It is not simply that a man creates a type of friendship, or that he is more or less masculine than his counterparts, which determines his friendship styles. Instead, it is more about the development of the friendship based on various social factors. There may be contributing factors that increase the likelihood of having an expressive relationship, such as one (or both) of the men being less traditional in their displays of masculinity. The existence of varied relationships raises questions about the definitive outcome of friendships being a result of certain characteristics of the individual. While individual characteristics, such as the acceptance of more traditional masculine expectations can influence friendship construction, the social construction of the dyad is influenced by a number of factors that gets produced throughout the interaction. Further analysis 143 Migliaccio – Typologies of Men’s Friendships should examine what factors contribute to the development of different types of friendships, focusing on analyses of the dyads and not on the individuals. Regardless of the friendship types, all were influenced by masculine expectations, as well as fears of being marginalized by their friends. In fact, as many of the men expressed, their reticence with sharing was more about how they felt friends might react, or how they did react (such as the men did through the use of humor). The desire to have more expressive friendships was limited by the unspoken expectations of performing masculinity, and in particular, avoiding femininity. Even in their descriptions of their friendships, the men distanced the dyads from more feminine forms, even though they have identified this as the ideal form of intimacy. This is regardless if whether or not they engage in self-disclosure or not. It is about the appearance of the interaction, as determined by social context, i.e. masculinity, social situations, the individuals involved, or even how the thoughts are expressed (humor). The men socially constructed their interactions with friends in a masculine context, both during and through their descriptions later. They produced friendships as a reflection of masculine performances. This, however, does not mean all of their friendships were the same. The key seems to be the ability to differentiate the friendship from feminine forms of intimacy, and not so much what the dyad actually looks like. Fear of being equated with being female would marginalize and emasculate a male, so these men drew a distinction between their friendships and women’s friendships. As has been stated, the first lesson of being male is that one must not appear female. Even with the identification of different possible types of friendships, this study offers a limited view of the experiences of white, educated men, and not of men who are marginalized as a result of race, class or sexual orientation, whose friendships may be different than that of the hegemonic group. 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Migliaccio, Department of Sociology, Sacramento State University, CSU, Sacramento, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819-6005, email: [email protected] Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com We Teach Too: What are the Lived Experiences and Pedagogical Practices of Gay Men of Color Teachers Cleveland Hayes1 1) University of La Verne, United States th Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Hayes, C. (2014). We Teach Too: What are the Lived Experiences and Pedagogical Practices of Gay Men of Color Teachers. Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2), 148-172. doi:10.447/MCS.2014.48 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.447/MCS.2014.48 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 February 2014 pp. 148-172 We Teach Too: What are the Lived Experiences and Pedagogical Practices of Gay Men of Color Teachers Cleveland Hayes University of La Verne, United States Abstract This paper speaks to the lived experiences of gay male teachers working in K-12 settings of color as I as an individual researcher and as we as allies to begin to address the pervasive and loud silences of our attenuated presence in education. This study addresses the experiences of gay (one Black male and two Latinos) teachers of color and will identify and analyze characteristics, how the intersections of race and sexuality impact the principles and themes within the teaching strengths of three gay teachers of color and examine how the successful teaching of gay teachers of color can be used to inform social justice-oriented matters. Keywords: critical race theory, counternarratives, gay teachers of color, teaching and learning 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.48 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 February 2014 pp. 148-172 Nosotros Enseñamos también: Cuales son las Experiencias Vividas y Prácticas Pedagógicas de Profesores Hombres, Homosexuales y de Color Cleveland Hayes University of La Verne,United States Resumen Este artículo habla de las experiencias que han vivido los maestros varones gays de color que trabajan en el nivel K-12 desde mi perspectiva de investigador individual y desde una perspectiva colectva, con el objetivo de empezar a abordar los silencios penetrantes y fuertes de nuestra presencia en educación. Así este estudio aborda las experiencias de maestros gays de color (un hombre negro y dos latinos) e identificará y analizará las características, la intersección y el impacto de los principios y los valores de la sexualidad en la enseñanza de tres profesores homosexuales de color para poder examinar el éxito que esta enseñanza puede tener de cara a informar en asuntos orientados a la justicia social. Palabras clave: teoría crítica de la raza, corelatos, maestros gay de color, enseñar y aprendizaje 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.48 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 150 O ver the past decade, increased attention to the marginalization of queers of color across educational context in North America has forced urgent reevaluations of the legal, political, and pedagogical implications of exclusionary politics (Brockenbrough, 2012, 2013; McCready, 2013). The research done by Brockenbrough (2013) cites the absences of queer of color perspectives in the educational literature and more specifically for this research their perspectives on teaching and learning. An experience that requires the participants to crossepistemological boundaries and examine their experiences within the intersections of race and gender and in some instances class; which will become evident in the narratives of Malcolm, Carlos and Victor. Following the work of Brockenbrough (2013), McCready (2013) and others this article centers the pedagogical practices of three gay men of color. It is my intent with this line of research to bring to the forefront the lived and pedagogical experiences of gay teachers of color. We teach too! This research brings together gay teachers of color in education and aligns with the work of Valdez and Elsbree (2005) in which they use the term “queer border crossings.” This paper speaks to the lived experiences of three gay male teachers of color who work or worked in K12 education and begin to address the pervasive and loud silences of their (gay male teachers of color) attenuated presence in education (DeJean, 2010; Valdez & Elsbree, 2005). Similar to Anzaldua (1987), Valdez and Elsbree (2005), and Tate (1997) crossing borders and epistemological boundaries is accomplished by connecting with individuals within different cultural contexts to develop allies and break their silences. Already largely absent from the existing body of research is that of the lived experiences and teaching practices of Black men and Latinos, but what is even largely absent are the lived experiences and teaching practices of gay teachers of color (Black men and Latinos in particular). Drawing from the teaching strengths of gay teachers of color, and drawing on Crenshaw’s (1995) research on intersectionality, this study will identify and analyze the lived experiences of three gay teachers of color and how the intersections of race and sexuality impact the principles and themes within their teaching strengths and lived struggles (Brockenbrough, 2012; King, 2005; Knaus, 2007). The narratives of Malcolm, Carlos and Victor begin to 151 Hayes – We Teach Too answer the unanswered questions about the participation of Black and Latino queer/gay teachers. Theoretical Framework As theoretical framework in the field of law, Critical Race Theory, LatCrit and QueerCrit theories have some basic assumptions. Briefly, LatCrit and QueerCrit like other CRT related frameworks emerged partially as a result of what some scholars felt was a CRT White/Black binary that did not allow for the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, language and immigration. LatCrit and QueerCrit, how I use it and understand these two frameworks, is usually viewed as compatible, supplementary and complementary to CRT and not as something to replace CRT. Therefore, I follow other CRT, LatCrit, and QueerCrit scholars and utilize all three to form the theoretical framework. Like Knaus (2009), I apply Critical Race Theory for the purpose of developing the voices and narratives that challenge racism and the structures of oppression. Tate (1997) asks the question, “Pivotal in understanding CRT as a methodology, what role should experiential knowledge of race, class and gender play in educational discourse?” (p. 235). Ladson-Billings (1998) states that CRT focuses on the role of “voice in bringing additional power and experiential knowledge that people of color speak regarding the fact that our society is deeply structured by racism” (p. 13). Solórzano and Yosso (2001) define CRT as “an attempt to understand the oppressive aspects of society in order to generate societal and individual transformation and are important for educators to understand that CRT is different from any other theoretical framework because it centers race” (p. 471–472). CRT scholars have developed the following tenets to guide CRT research; all of these tenets are utilized within the design and analysis of this study (Kohli, 2009): 1. Centrality of race and racism. All CRT research within education must centralize race and racism, as well as acknowledge the intersection of race with other forms of subordination and because of the marginalization MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 152 of Black and Latino queerness, little is known about the predicaments of queer educators of color (Brockenbrough, 2012; Kohli, 2009; Sleeter & Delgado Bernal, 2002). During the interview almost in unison, all three of the guys talked about the racism in the schools, assumptions of Black and Brown Inferiority as well as the racism in the gay community. Through out the entire interview process Malcolm hated the use of gay and community in the same sentence. I feel that gay White men in particular could careless about what is going on in the Black community and within the gay Black man community in general. When some Black person makes a homophobic comment then all hell breaks loose but in my mind where are these same folk when someone makes a racist statement. The gay movement epitomizes Whiteness and the privileging of Whiteness. Malcolm also shared,” when I was teaching in a school district in a really conservative state, I was often mistaken for the custodian. It is the reason why I dress a certain way when I teach. I don’t want to leave any doubt.” Carlos and Victor share stories of combating racism within the gay community, they shared, “we have this group of people we know and they happen to be teachers, and they ask us all of these racism questions, like how many people have we slept with because aren’t all Hispanics promiscuous? We are constantly dealing with these negative stereotypes about Latinos. We are always asked why aren’t more Latinos like us. Malcolm stated, “many of these folk are anti anything that isn’t White and definitely do not like their privilege challenged and because of this I don’t support their agendas.” Victor shared this about his experiences with racism is the community in which he teaches. He shared, I think that when I did come out, it was nice to know that oh my god I’m valued for being at least a man and someone can finally be attracted to me. But then to learn that there was magnified racism in the gay community was hard for me to handle for a little while. I feel it at work; I feel it when I come to the University, when I moved into town. Its there and sometimes I think that racism can eat a person alive 153 Hayes – We Teach Too when you don't know how to manage it. It’s even tougher for those who are actually upwardly mobile. It’s easy to avoid racism and stay in a community that is homogenous, that looks exactly like you, stays at the same level and you can forget all about the rest of the word. But I think it is magnified tenfold for the people who want to do something. 2. Valuing experiential knowledge. Solórzano & Yosso (2001) argue that CRT in educational research recognizes that the experiential knowledge of students of color is legitimate, appropriate, and critical to understanding, analyzing, and teaching about racial subordination in the field of education. Life stories tend to be accurate according to the perceived realities of subjects’ lives. They are used to elicit structured stories and detailed lives of the individuals involved (Delgado, 1989; McCray, Sindelar, Kilgore, & Neal, 2002). At the heart of CRT is an appreciation for storytelling. Following hooks (1992), the stories of these three men are important because they counter the institutionalized ignorance of Black and Latino history, culture, and their very existence. This article using CRT and Queer CRT presents a critical analysis of these men lived experiences not only as teachers of color but as gay teachers of color. How do their stories provide counter spaces to the White dominated queer spaces (Brockenbrough, 2012; Ross, 2005)? Lastly, these narratives also counter who is teaching and who can be a successful teacher (Hayes, Juarez, & Cross, 2012). They are not all White and female. 3. Challenging dominant perspective. CRT research works to challenge dominant narratives, often referred to as majoritarian stories. CRT scholar Harris (1995) describes the “valorization of Whiteness as treasured property in a society structured on racial caste” (p. 277). Harris also argues that Whiteness confers tangible and economically valuable benefits, and it is jealously guarded as a valued possession. This thematic strand of Whiteness as property in the United States is not confined to the nation’s early history (Frankenberg, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1998). 4. Commitment to social justice. Social justice must always be a motivation behind CRT research. Part of this social justice commitment must include a critique of liberalism, claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy as a camouflage for the self-interest of powerful entities of society (Tate, 1997). Only aggressive, color-conscious efforts to MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 154 change the way things are done will do much to ameliorate misery (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Tate, 1997). 5. Being Interdisciplinary. According to Tate (1997), CRT crosses epistemological boundaries. It borrows from several traditions, including liberalism, feminism, and Marxism to include a more complete analysis of “raced” people. Ladson-Billings (1998) has already put forth the argument that CRT has a place within education. In this paper, I apply a CRT lens to help present the narratives of Malcolm, Carlos and Victor. The richness, utility, and the power of this framework is that the knowledge and experiences of the participants in this study are deemed valid and both worth listening to and learning from. I use CRT to recognize the experiential knowledge of these three queer educators of color and apply this knowledge as a means to unpack racial oppression both within schools and within the gay community (Brockenbrough, 2012; Dixson & Rousseau, 2006). Methods In keeping with the tradition of the work by Ladson-Billings (1994), this article is not written in the dominant scholarly traditions in which I was trained. However, I marry those “scholarly” tools with my own cultural and personal experiences, as gay Black male educator and because of my work with the Black and Latino communities. Moving away from “traditional” methods allows me to use storytelling and personal narratives to help advance larger concerns (Ladson-Billings, 2013). Drawing on in-depth interviews and applying notions of culturally relevant teaching (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995) to guide understandings of successful teaching and the selection of participants, in this study I examine Victor and Carlos’s narratives. Malcolm’s counternarrative is a composite story. Malcolm’s counter-narrative is a composite story made up of characters and events based on actual individuals and situations cobbled together to represent a particular kind of experience common to and recognized by many scholars of color within higher education. In this article, I juxtapose his composite story with the narratives of Carlos and Victor. 155 Hayes – We Teach Too Following the CRT tradition of storytelling, it is my hope that these narratives will begin to normalize the practices and experiences of gays of color not just in teaching but also in general. If we are to end the oppressive nature of American education, then as an education community we need to expand and open up spaces for gay teachers of color to share their experiences with oppression both in mainstream American as well as gay America. This study is qualitative in design and draws on “a methodology based primarily on acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting narrative data” (Lynn & Jennings, 2009, p. 181). I conducted five in-depth, semiformal interviews with Carlos and Victor. Carlos and Victor are also part of a larger study that I am doing on successful Latino teachers. All interviews conducted for this study lasted between 60 and 180 minutes and were audiotaped and then transcribed to comprise approximately 15 to 30 pages per interview. Victor and Carlos were provided with transcripts of their interviews to review for accuracy; this also provided an opportunity for further informal conversation and feedback. The Teachers: Teaching While Gay Black and Brown Malcolm Malcolm’s narrative looks at issues around identity, resistance, and what it meant to grow up as a Black man in Mississippi. For him the gay piece is an-add on and is not a very important part of his identity. He could not stress that enough. Malcolm who is much older than Victor and Carlos was not out when he taught K-12 education because of where he was teaching. His narrative will share some of the challenges of being a Black man minus the gay identity. He shares: The internalization of Whiteness framed my philosophy when I first started to teach. I first started teaching in Mississippi right after I graduated from Mississippi State. Because of this Whiteness internalization, I felt that in order for students of color to be successful, they are going to have to learn how to play the game, which meant in my mind basically not acting Black (Fordham, 1988, 1996; Foster 1995, 1997). I was looking at the MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 156 students in a deficit mode, that the reason why the students of color in my classes were not successful was their fault: assumptions of inferiority based on class and race (O’Connor, 2006). When I moved to Utah and started teaching in Salt Lake City, I still went into my classroom with the deficit mindset toward students. I still believe that students have to be the best that they can be, and that the reason why they may or may not be is not necessarily something they are doing or not doing. I still believe that too many students of color are becoming victims of a school system that really does not believe that students of color, especially those who live on the wrong side of the street, can learn at a level comparable to that of White students: assumptions of Black and Brown inferiority (Hayes, 2006; Hayes, Juarez, & Cross, 2011; O’Connor, 2006). In addition, I had to include poor Whites in my quest for change through education. In Salt Lake City, there is clearly a division along class lines. Students who live on the east side of Salt Lake are faring much better academically than their counterparts on the west side of Salt Lake. This division required me to cross-epistemological boundaries to look at class and race. My philosophy is still grounded in the belief that students of color’s, regardless of classes, chances of success are still less than a White student from a lower socio-economic class. My approach changed after I enrolled in the master’s program at the University of Utah. It was the professors in the department who provided me with a framework where I began criticizing the system and how it was problematic for me to be critical of the students. If I am going to truly be an advocate for students, students of color in particular, I am going to have to critique liberalism and recognize the experiences that my students bring to classroom. It was through this framework where my pedagogy changed. I began teaching students how to fight within the system (transformative resistance) and be critical of their oppression, even if it is hidden behind equality and universality. Recognizing the difficulty in the task, my belief is grounding firmly in “if a person does not stand for something then the person will fall for anything.” My demand for excellence comes from my father. In a lot of ways, the experiential knowledge he brought to the classroom can be seen in mine. This is what Daddy had to say about what he expects in his classroom, I just explain that, for example, when the second bell rings if your butt has not come in contact with the seat, you’re tardy. I don’t care if you were standing up talking about the Bible or the Koran. I don’t care what you’re 157 Hayes – We Teach Too talking about, or who you’re talking about, if you’re not seated, you’re tardy. And that’s it. And I punish. So I don’t have any problems. I have always liked his no-nonsense approach to teaching. I believe there are some things that are cut and dry. This is my biggest frustration with the system. I think the system is giving students too many excuses as to why they cannot succeed and all the reasons and tools to fail rather than taking what was good from the past and using it as a frame to build the future. Carlos At the onset of the interview Carlos talked about his coming out process, which was completely different from Malcolm who wanted to focus more on his teaching and how he working against assumptions of Black and Brown inferiority, as an example, the school the prison pipeline and its impact on Black and Brown kids in school. While these things were important to both Carlos and Victor, they seem to embrace their gay identities more at the forefront that Malcolm. In this next section Carlos and Victor both share their narratives. I place their narratives together to signify their union as a couple. They have been together 13 years and they do everything together. They came to the interview together which I thought was powerful because again it breaks those assumptions about who is and who is not in relationships within the gay community. This does deviate from the way I presented Malcolm’s narrative but the power of the narrative is still present. Carlos shares, I do believe that teaching is for me and teaching is very important. I take a lot of pride in teaching. I believe that I'm a professional and in my classroom I provide that. In the area of learning, I believe that all students can learn. For me, it's a passion. I teach a literature class and I can't believe I get paid to do this. I really enjoy that and my kids tell me, "Mr. Reynoso, I can see you really like this subject. And they tell me, 'we didn't like it, but we know you like this subject, so we decided to give it a shot." Teaching for me is about developing a relationship. Understanding where the kids come from. And even if I didn't have a story like theirs, I listen to it. We all struggle one way or another. Relate to them. That's just the way I see it. It has happened several times. Many teachers send me their kids, MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 158 because they can't control them in their classroom. They ask, "Can you please talk to this kid?" "Sure. No problem." But once I talk to them, I want to go into your classroom to see if we can talk about this kid, how is it going, and they do. It comes down to our relationship. I believe personally as a teacher that the relationships can develop with the kids I can reach most of them. I try to make them feel like they can become something. The something that an API score or a CST score does not measure. Yes, it’s impossible to make sure that every single kid does well in class. You don’t give up and when they are not doing my work, well it’s not okay for them not to do it. So, my philosophy of education is to reach all of the students through relationships. It's so interesting, once they know that you care about them, they go the extra mile for you: by keeping your classroom clean, by making sure that if you forget to put your objective on the board then you know the principal comes in and they point at it. And you're like, "oh damn. They are looking out for me, from doing well on a test all the way from the smallest thing to the highest. People think that developing a relationship means, "Oh tell me how is your family?" It doesn’t necessarily have to be that. When I come to work and you see a kid that comes different -- their hairdo or something. Just say, "Oh your hairdo looks real nice." That takes you miles with that kid. Or, "that shirt looks really good on you." "Oh you look really good today." You know, little things like that they create a big impact. So, my philosophy of education is that I reach every single one of them in one way or another. I do believe that each student, in different forms, they have the potential to do well in different ways. Some of them are very artistic; you just have to find ways where you mold your lesson in order for them to appreciate your lesson. They can go to that artistic, to that kinesthetic, to that critical thinker. Victor For me at my school right now I have one on one conversations with young Latino students and I encourage them and tell them this is our community, you’re doing a great job right now, stand up, follow what I have done, I can be your example. Look at what I did resent ... there is something about them that drives them to me instantly. I do feel that advocacy is a big part 159 Hayes – We Teach Too of who I am, because that’s where all of my work has been about from working with migrant farmer families to interventionist specialist. I think the school to prison pipeline...the charter school thing is another way of feeding more kids through that pipeline, because the charter schools now are; pulling in the best and the brightest, and the others get left at these schools where there’s less support, less structure. That’s the only path left they have to go. That’s how I feel about the school to prison pipeline. The day I went to observe Victor teach I got to see first hand how he interacts with students rather than sending them to the office. I describe this experience because it shows his willingness to work with a young student who happens to be Latino rather than sending him to the office and the school to prison pipeline is started. Carlos describes the instance with the young Latino Brother. I went out there and I first asked him, so I noticed today is different. I asked is there anything that you noticed that is different. He said, no. I say... (And usually I had this conversation more with him today and that’s where I got to the real meat of things because I knew that he was charged off but maybe being embarrassed and being called out). So you understand that I have to follow through with my consequences, right? He said, yeah I get it. When he came back today he asked my permission do I go back. So I said no wait outside for me again. So, as I went out there I said lets pick up where I left off yesterday. So what were you feeling when I asked you to wait outside. He said, I was feeling a little mad and I was feeling disappointed that you sent me outside, but I was having a really bad day. My mom was yelling at me in the morning and I didn't have lot to eat. And he said I was just having a bad day after that after school, the whole entire day. And that’s when I said I know, I have you in my class everyday. I know what your behavior and attitude is like. So I sensed it. So I said what could we do when you feel that way...when you feel your day is off. He said well maybe I can ask to take a break outside or maybe I can tell you more about it. I said because you know that I’m here to support you. I like having you in class and I want you to succeed. And I always throw in there if it’s a Latino student I say, you know we have to work together on this because were a community. I tell them this. I say I want to help you and they always smile because they know when I say in that genuine way and I MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 160 make it short and brief; I don’t lecture them too long. They always come back to talk or whatever or get advice. I tell the students is that even if there is no push at home; I tell them that they have to work hard regardless because I am asking them to work hard. Because I tell them that once they're in my classroom, I have a certain expectation and that expectation is very high. I have to fulfill it regardless of what they feel their ability is. And there are students that I know that don't have the ability to let's say get straight A's in every subject; but I don’t try to create a double standard for every student. So, I aim high and I push them towards that end and I'm satisfied as long as I see the effort towards that goal. And I think a lot of students for the most part, they know that I care and because they see that I care and I'm on them constantly they end up realizing that even if their parents don't care they know when they come to school that I'm still going to push them and in the end they have to push themselves. Carlos and Victor value what students bring to the classroom in terms of their cultural backgrounds and experiences. The teaching philosophy of “expand, expand, expand” presumes that what students begin with is of positive value and has worth in the classroom—he has to help students expand from something of value, and students bring with them into the classroom that something of value to be expanded. Accordingly, like they do not draw on assumptions of cultural or moral inferiority in their teaching. Just like the long tradition of Black educators, for example, (DuBois, 1924, 1935, 1973; Hilliard, 1997; Horsford, 2009), they accept where their students are when they enter their classrooms, even if it is the narrowest of attitudes, and helps them to build from that point toward their goals. They sees their role as one of helping students resist that dominant, business-as-usual expectation in public schools that they be pushed out of classrooms. Pointedly, they know they have to help their students to expand toward fulfillment of their dreams and goals. They use teaching as a way to help their students to take the appropriate steps between articulating a life dream and making that life dream a reality. Positive relationships between them and their students are a priority (Delpit, 1986, 1988, 1995, 2006; Horsford, 2009). 161 Hayes – We Teach Too Carlos and Victor are teaching much more than the delivery of academic facts in a content area. Recognizing and affirming the challenges that their students, particularly Black males and Latinos students face in classrooms, they attempt to break the cycle of Black and Brown youth being funneled out of school and into the streets and into prisons by talking with them and helping them to develop strategies for the disrespect he recognizes as legitimate in the lives of these young students. As Hayes, Juarez and Cross (2012) put it, they are not, Carlos and Victor, interested in not only academic content and test scores but also in “the souls of kids.” Discussion: What Can We Learn from Malcolm, Victor and Carlos For the purposes of this paper, I draw upon the works of Paulo Freire (1973), Gloria Ladson Billings (1994), Lisa Delpit (1996), Audre Lorde (1984) and others to develop my working definition of transformative pedagogy. Transformative pedagogy refers to an approach or philosophy of teaching accompanied by practices that enable students to develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to navigate within, provide sociopolitical critique of, and foster democratic change within conditions of historical White supremacy. I follow Leonardo (2005) in defining White supremacy as “a racialized social system that upholds, reifies, and reinforces the superiority of Whites” (p. 127). As I define it, transformative pedagogy has three major components. First, there is equity. Equity is equal access to the most challenging and nourishing educational experience. We can learn from these three guys that, equity is more than equal representation or physical presence within an educational program for example. Educational equity refers to full participation as a recognized member of a community. The students at these three respective schools had educational inequities; however, we can learn that those inequities did not stop them from providing a rigorous educational experience, one that was not necessarily banking in nature, to their students (Delgado Bernal & Solorzano, 2001; Hayes, 2006; Hayes, Juarez & Cross, 2012). Second, there is activism. Activism is a part of transformative pedagogy because it entails preparing students to actively reinsert themselves into public spaces and dialogues to help them gain access to the valued MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 162 resources and opportunities they have been either excluded from or denied. This activism demands that students have an understanding of the inequities in society and the “how to,” in terms of beginning to fix those inequities if necessary. Lastly, transformative pedagogy as I define it is about social literacy. Social literacy is preparing students to acquire the discourse or language necessary to resist the fattening effects of materialism, consumerism, and the power of the abiding evils of White supremacy-nourishing an awareness of one’s identity (Ayers, Quinn, & Stovall, 2009; hooks, 1995; Quijada Cercer et. al, 2010). If we are to bridge the Black-White performance disparities in education that plague our public schools, we must find a different way, a new path, an alternative journey (Ross, Bondy, Gallingane, & Hambacher, 2008). Theorizing our lessons and the experiences we draw from allows us to begin imagining and creating a different path and approach to education not grounded in assumptions of Black inferiority and White superiority. The lessons from these three men thus provide the understandings that policymakers need to make sense of why traditionally dominant ways of teaching those students on the margins continue to fail (Knaus, 2009; O’Connor, 2006; Ware, 2006). There is no magical potion or recipe that pre-service teachers can take or use that will tell them how to change failing schools. I use the term “warm demanders” to describe the three of them. What we can learn from these three teachers through their pedagogy is a no-nonsense approach to education for those who are expected to fail in school. Unfortunately, high expectations, no-nonsensical approaches, and culturally familiar communication patterns to education have largely been replaced with “at-risk,” “low performing,” and “poverty” and other deficitoriented adjectives used to describe African American learners. Teacher education programs likewise turn to scripted programs, for example, Ruby Payne framed in the apparently multicultural discourse of “if we could all just get along approach” presented as solutions to the tenacious gap in achievement and school performance evidenced between white students and students of color (Bonner, 2010). If there is one take-away from this section, according to Ware (2006), culturally and politically responsive teachers teach with authority, a form of 163 Hayes – We Teach Too teaching that includes teaching to the whole child as a member of a particular social group situated within a particular context and history. However, being a warm demander is more than coming into the classroom and demanding a checklist of certain behaviors from students. Effective teaching of African American students is not about implementing a particular step-by-step remedy plan. Black and Latino kids, for example, see White teachers arrive in their communities, stand up before them attempting to teach them a curriculum that is already pre-determined and defined in terms of what they need to know. Consequently, the students can in turn answer questions on a standardized test that are likely to have little to no bearing on their actual lived experiences and realities. The teachers, in turn, do not have any connection to their students and neither does the curriculum they are attempting to teach (Ross, Bondy, Gallingane, & Hambacher, 2008). Teachers cannot be warm demanders by doing drive-by teaching. Teachers must be invested in, deeply familiar with, and able to find and draw on the richness and beauty of the communities they teach in. Teachers must not go into communities with the mentality to save the students from themselves, their parents, their culture, or their history and thus miss the resiliency, richness, and beauty of the ways groups and individuals have learned to cope and thrive within a historical context of near constant race-based hostility and forms of micro-aggressions, sabotage, and assault perpetrated by dominant society. Conclusion Black and Latino Gay educators of color have been successfully educating students and leaders for generations now! In today’s educational parlance, we are always talking about these “hard to teach” kids as if it is so very impossible. The education community needs to look to the source of information—those who have accomplished this apparently impossible feat, for wisdom and knowledge about how we too might do this thing that previously seemed an impossible task and when I spend time with these three men, I clearly see their dedication to improving the lived experiences of their students. Malcolm states, “ while many gay folk are on this marriage band-wagon, there are Black and Brown kids headed to prison, the MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 164 school to prison pipeline, teachers coming into schools not prepared to educate “my kids,” the gay agenda is not my agenda.” Lastly, I suggest that there is much more to be learned from the lived experiences and teaching practices of these three gay men of color and the intersections they navigate as they are committed to social justice both in the classrooms they teach in as well as their “gay” lives. Malcolm shared “I am glad that DOMA was repealed but I can not help by mourn the ruling on the Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, and Policies on Immigration that impact my community. I can get married by I can’t vote or the undocumented student in my class cannot go to college.” The three participants discussed in detail that racism is an endemic part of American society and that they have to contend and combat assumptions of Black and Brown inferiority not only in their teaching but also within the gay community. A recurring conversation that emerged was the absences of men of color in the teaching profession in general and gay men of color in particular as well in the larger gay community (Dejean, 2010; Gillborn, 2005). All three participants shared their frustrations with the assumptions that we live in a meritocracy. Malcolm, Carlos and Victor share how they try to get their students of color to understand that working hard is not enough and Malcolm stated that he is in constant battle with colleagues who say that it is. For example, students of color on a continuous basis are systematically excluded from education and the opportunities it provides. Merit operates under the burden of racism, which limits its applicability to people of color (Bergerson, 2003). The three men in the study, all described the importance of drawing on their experiential knowledge and that of their students. They shared that it was important for others in both the teaching profession and the gay community to recognize their knowledge is legitimate, appropriate, and critical to them as they navigate in a society grounded in racial subordination and sexual subordination. It is my hope that this research will assist educators, policy makers, and vested others in comprehending the social justice-oriented teaching approaches that these three teachers have historically employed to foster the academic success of all students and to offer a vision of a more socially just society and oh they happen to be gay. Until we, as an education community 165 Hayes – We Teach Too begin viewing the world through a lens that is grounded in anti-racist struggle, this includes the anti-racist struggle in the gay community and does not affirm assumptions of Black inferiority and White superiority, to include the gay community, not only will we continue to fail in our public schools and the dream of an equal education for all students will remain yet elusive (Blanchett, 2006; Cross, 2003; Delpit, 2006; Horsford, 2009). References Anzaldua, G. E. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Ayers, W., Quinn, T., & Stovall, D. (2009). 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Critical race praxis: Race theory and political lawyering practice in post civil rights America. Michigan Law Review, 95(4), 821. Retrieved from: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/mlr95 &div=36&id=&page= Yosso, T. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion on community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. doi: 10.1080/1361332052000341006 Yosso, T. (2006). Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline. New York, NY: Routledge. Zarate, M. E., & Conchas, G. Q. (2010). Contemporary and critical methodological shifts in research on Latino education. In E. G. Murillo, Jr., S. A. Villenas, R. T Galván, J. S. Muñoz, C. Martínez, & M. Machado-Casas (Eds.), Handbook of Latinos and education: Theory, research and practice (pp. 90–108). New York, NY: Routledge. Cleveland Hayes is an Associate Professor in the College of Education and Organizational Leadership at University of La Verne. Contact Address: Direct correspondence to Cleveland Hayes, College of Education and Organizational Leadership, University of La Verne, 1950 Third Street La Verne, 91750, Canada, email: [email protected] Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com When man falls provider. Masculinity, unemployment and psychological distress in the family. A methodology for the search of affective normalization. Juan Antonio Rodriguez del Pino1 1) Universidad de Valencia, Spain th Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Rodriguez, J.A. (2014). When man falls provider. Masculinity, unemployment and psychological distress in the family. A methodology for the search of affective normalization. Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2), 173-190. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2014. 49 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.447/MCS.2014.49 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 173-190 When man Falls Provider. Masculinity, Unemployment and Psychological Distress in the Family. A Methodology for the Search of Affective normalization Juan Antonio Rodriguez del Pino Universidad de Valencia, Spain Abstract An item that has equipped the masculinity of its traditional hegemonic character has been there presentation of man as immediate major supplier of their environment, than it has historically legitimized in their role as pater familias with all that that en tailed. But this may change in men, with the economic crisis, have lost their jobs and, therefore, the system of domination believed immutable, shows some cracks. This has involved in some countries certain relocation with respect to a changing environment and fail to control sharpening the sense of "loss". Through a methodology used in new ways, men are seen in perspective. Based on their ability to connect with the subjectivity that had been severed, are rewritten from a new model of relationship to themselves and their environments.. Keywords: masculinity, unemployment, unease; family; methodology 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.49 MCS – Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 173-190 Cuando Cae el Hombre Proveedor. Masculinidad, Desempleo y Malestar Psicosocial en la Familia. Una Metodología para la Búsqueda de la Normalización Afectiva. Juan Antonio Rodriguez del Pino Universidad de Valencia, Spain Resumen Un elemento que ha dotado a la masculinidad de parte de su carácter hegemónico tradicional, ha sido la representación del hombre como proveedor principal de su entorno más inmediato, lo que históricamente le ha legitimado en su rol como pater familias, con todo lo que ello conllevaba. Pero esta situación puede cambiar en hombres que, con la crisis económica, han perdido sus empleos y, por tanto, el sistema de dominación que se creía inmutable, muestra ciertas grietas. Esto ha implicado en algunos de ellos cierta desubicación con respecto a un entorno cambiante y que no logran controlar agudizando la sensación de “pérdida”. A través de una metodología usada de manera novedosa, los hombres se observan en perspectiva. Partiendo de su capacidad para conectar con la subjetividad que había sido cercenada, se reescriben desde un nuevo modelo de relación para con sí mismos y con sus entornos. Palabras clave: masculinidad, desempleo, malestar, familia, metodología 2014 Hipatia Press ISSN: 2014-3605 DOI: 10.4471/MCS.49 175 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor C uando se habla de género o de la relación entre hombres y mujeres, el concepto de patriarcado es una herramienta imprescindible para entender y explicar la desigualdad instalada en la historia de nuestra sociedad (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011; Beneria en Martín, 2006; Rodríguez, 2013). El término patriarcado, es decir, poder o gobierno por parte del padre -y por extensión, de todos los hombres-, está muy relacionado, a su vez, con el término género. Así, para Molina, el género es una construcción de ese patriarcado y una categoría que permite descubrir las relaciones de poder existentes (Molina en Tubert, 2003, p.126). El patriarcado, por tanto, es el poder que se observa al asignar los espacios sociales tanto a las mujeres como a los hombres. Asigna espacios y otorga valor y posee autoridad para nombrar y establecer las diferencias. El género, así entendido, por tanto, expresa diferencias de poder pero también las produce a través del discurso sobre las diferencias. Para Molina, el patriarcado plantea una característica polifacética y precisa para perpetuarse en el tiempo “el reconocimiento y la complicidad, en cierto modo, de las mujeres” (Molina en Tubert, 2003, p.143) que aceptan los modelos de lo femenino como inevitable e incluso necesario. Las mujeres son alejadas del poder -es el conocido como techo de cristal-, pero a cambio, a través del patriarcado se les asignan unos valores y roles sociales propios. Mediante la mística de la maternidad se busca obtener un doble objetivo, por un lado, asumir de manera consentida la sujeción y, por otro lado, con la crianza, se convierten en salvaguarda y mantenedoras de las tradiciones. Lo indicado para la mujer, no es exclusivo de ella, sino de ambos. Así la forma en la que se construye la subjetividad de una mujer o de un hombre, su manera de ser, de qué disfruta, de qué padece, de qué habla y de qué calla, es una construcción socio-histórica, que se escribe como guión con discursos y con prácticas, sobre la realidad material de los cuerpos: “Estos discursos y prácticas sociales se hacen carne en las personas concretas, cómo se expresan en la vida cotidiana, cómo se expresan en una manera de ser hombre y una manera de ser mujer que genera muchísimo malestar, sufrimiento y dolor. Mecanismos que son afines al sostenimiento y reproducción de las condiciones del sistema” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.3). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 176 El Patriarcado como Instrumento del Capitalismo Resulta obvio que el patriarcado no es un constructo del capitalismo pero sí que ha mostrado una gran capacidad de desarrollo en este contexto. Esto es debido a que el Estado en su concepción moderna surge tras la revolución francesa y se va desarrollando a lo largo del siglo XIX a través de la sociedad burguesa paulatinamente imperante. Pero este Estado Nación decimonónico había excluido a las mujeres de la ciudadanía. El Código Civil Napoleónico que sirvió de modelo a muchos países, relegó a las mujeres al ámbito doméstico. La igualdad, que era una meta política central de los sistemas democráticos y liberales, hacía de la desigualdad de hecho de las mujeres frente a la igualdad ante la ley una realidad que el Estado debía asumir (Astelarra, 2005, p.59). Desde esta perspectiva, resulta interesante observar como a partir ciertos posicionamientos investigadores se plantea el binomio patriarcadocapitalismo y, desde aquí, entender cómo se “fabrica el hombre y la mujer capitalista (…) para lo cual, será necesario identificar en la vida cotidiana nuestros comportamientos para no luchar por la autonomía, a la vez que en la cotidianidad de nuestras vidas reproducimos la propuesta del individualismo que niega y mutila cualquier atisbo de autonomía, articulando una socialidad que despliega relaciones de poder donde se pone en juego la construcción misma del individuo social” (Cucco, 2013, p.5). En este sentido desde la lógica del capital, que subsume las herencias del patriarcado, se tejen con minuciosa obscenidad los destinos de la subjetividad de hombres y mujeres. Se necesita de los sujetos ideológicos buscados que reproduzcan y den continuidad a su orden. Se necesita encadenar las subjetividades a los designios de la obtención de beneficios, encadenamiento que queda invisibilizado detrás de una naturalización de comportamientos disociados de sus causas; situación por otra parte, que cuenta con la complicidad de gran parte de las miradas de las ciencias psicológicas y sociales. Es desde estos parámetros como: El capitalismo para ser necesita de hombres y mujeres enteramente capitalistas, pero para lograr esto fue necesaria una profunda metamorfosis, primero a sangre y fuego y luego disciplinando las subjetividades hacia la 177 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor aceptación pasiva, cuando no anhelada del horror civilizado. (Cucco, 2013, p. 5) En el modelo planteado patriarcal-capitalista, el reparto de funciones entre hombres y mujeres está claramente estructurado, al igual que ocurre con la distribución de espacios, público y privado, y así, “pasó tiempo hasta que se planteó el trabajo asalariado y el trabajo invisible de las mujeres articulando el rol de proveedor-ganador de pan y el de ama de casa, especie de policía al interno del hogar para garantizar el cuidado del asalariado y de los futuros asalaraditos” (Cucco, 2013, p.5). Para Cucco, es necesario “levantar la mirada; esto ha de ser comprendido en su génesis dentro de la devastadora acción del capitalismo extendido, que es el contexto que se hace texto en la articulación del “ser hombre hoy” (Cucco, 2013, p.2-3). Ello implica comprender la presencia de una subsunción de todos los niveles de la vida humana a un orden civilizatorio mercantil. García Linera (2010, p.22) cuando habla de las acciones para la transformación social, dice al respect (…) En segundo lugar, lo que se tiene que superar ya no sólo es el dominio económico del capital, sino el orden civilizatorio del capital, la materia del capital, la cultura, la organización del trabajo, el tiempo, la sexualidad, la educación, el ocio, el conocimiento, la locura, la fuerza militar, la relación política, la institucionalidad del Estado, las fuerzas productivas, la conciencia del capital, la socialidad y humanidad del capital. De aquí proviene, entonces, una conclusión decisiva: la magnitud de la obra en extensión y profundidad es tal que sólo se la puede llevar como despliegue autodeterminativo directo, en todos los terrenos posibles del cuerpo social, de los miembros de la sociedad sobre sus relaciones de vida. Por otro lado, María Jesús Izquierdo siguiendo a Marx afirma que: Bajo el capitalismo, el trabajador ya no es un ser humano que trabaja, sino mercancía – fuerza de trabajo, capacidad abstracta de trabajar. El “trabajo necesario” de la “fuerza de trabajo” es aquel trabajo abstracto, socialmente necesario, que le permite a “la fuerza de trabajo” existir como fuerza de trabajo, no como ser humano. No cabe hablar de trabajadores, y mucho menos de seres humanos que trabajan, sino de capacidad abstracta de MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 178 trabajar, haciendo abstracción del trabajador a quien pertenece y de las condiciones familiares en que la misma se ha producido. (Izquierdo, 1998, p. 231) Esto genera una serie de cuestionamientos tales como: “¿No nos encontramos hoy con la naturalización de “vivir para trabajar” articulando cada vez más sarcásticamente desde la obscenidad neoliberal y globalizadora, la inevitabilidad de la inestabilidad, de la entrega total de los tiempos, de la brutal competitividad del sálvese quien pueda, de las soledades embrutecidas del emprendimiento individualista cada vez más enajenante?” (Cucco, 2013, p.8-9). Ante lo cual afirma: “La necesidad de considerar el capitalismo extendido en la urdimbre de la sociabilidad cotidiana y las relaciones de poder que allí se expresan, no solo en las cuestiones de género sino también en pautas de crianza y modos relacionales; ya que tras la apariencia de intercambio pacífico se ocultan relaciones de poder y opresión” (Cucco, 2013, p.10-11); reforzando, a su vez, posicionamientos parecidos de otros autores: La sociabilidad del mercado impone un tipo de cooperación cuya sustancia es la competencia. Para ello, debe arrancar primero a las personas de sus lazos comunitarios enfrentándolas después, individualizadas y competitivas, unas contra otras. Tras una ideologíade democracia, igualdad, tolerancia y derechos humanos, esta sociabilidad antisocial, produce un orden basado en la guerra de todos contra todos, la reproducción de la desigualdad y el poder de unos sobre otros. (Morán, 2006 citado en Cucco, 2013, p.4.) Un Modelo Retroalimentado Materno-Paterno-Filial Este modelo así establecido, encarna aspectos nucleares funcionales a los inicios y desarrollo de la lógica capitalista y la subsunción de los postulados patriarcales. Así, Cucco afirma que: El papel del hombre y de la mujer pueden ser representados simbólicamente como aspas que se cruzan en un juego donde la mujer está arriba (aspa izquierda) y el hombre abajo (aspa derecha). Ella hace de cuidadora de hombre e hijos (“mi marido como otro niño más”). Luego el hombre está arriba y la mujer abajo (aspa izquierda), él hace de jefe de familia, de 179 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor sostén y sustento, y ella queda aquí en situación de sumisión y dependencia (“de la obediencia al padre a la obediencia al marido”). Articulan un modelo que, tomando la metáfora de las “medias naranjas”, implica la complementariedad de un juego de dependencias mutuas (Cucco, 2010, p.13) Desde este modelo de cosmovisión, el hombre dependerá de alguien que le cuide para ser trabajador eficaz. Mientras que la mujer precisará de alguien que la mantenga para poder cumplir su función doméstica y de cuidados (trabajo invisible). El sistema necesita que se necesiten. Ellos están dispuestos a pagar precios muy altos por el beneficio de “seguir juntos”. Sostienen una sexualidad a oscuras, robada al tiempo y al pecado. La mujer está centrada en los hijos, la casa, lo doméstico. El hombre en el trabajo. Ella se queja, pero está muy instalada en su lugar. Él calla, aguanta con una falsa conciencia de comodidad (Cucco, 2010, p.14). Para compensar el grado de enajenación que supone ser hombre = trabajador = mercancía, respondiendo a los fines capitalistas (con la consiguiente subsunción de herencias patriarcales), se le otorgan privilegios que lo colocan en una situación de poder respecto a las mujeres. Su inserción en el mercado de trabajo con el rol asignado de sostén familiar le acarrea un fuerte peso y deterioro. Frente a ello el hombre tiene vedada la queja desde su rol asignado de su “ser fuerte” y desde la culpabilidad frente a sus privilegios. Esto sentará las bases de una problemática silenciada (Cucco, 2010, p.8). Por esta razón, se parte de la consideración de que los consensos instituidos no desaparecen fácilmente, y perduran en sus efectos a pesar de los cambios en las condiciones sociales y materiales. Liberarse de los aspectos instituidos que son parte constituyente de nosotros y nosotras mismos/as implica, por tanto, dentro de la intervención social realizar acciones específicas y de modo propositivo, ya que supone estar trabajando sobre temas que nos atraviesan de parte a parte. Pero como señala Mirtha Cucco, “Si los cambios político-sociales no caminan junto a la liberación de la psiquis del individuo, si se apuesta por lo social negando la subjetividad, toda construcción va a ser autoritaria”. Se plantea desarrollar la capacidad reflexiva que implica la capacidad de ponerse en cuestión “más allá de lo permitido por el orden establecido hegemónico no saludable” (Cucco, 2010, p.15). MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 180 Los Hombres y la Problemática Silenciada Lo interesante aquí es observar cómo, desde estos planteamientos, el orden social impuesto desde el sistema capitalista en las relaciones mujereshombres afecta de manera diferente a ambos. Si por un lado, para las mujeres, autoras como Di Nicola, entre otras, denunciaban la situación que conllevaba la denominada mística de la maternidad, donde se busca obtener un doble objetivo, por un lado, asumir de manera consentida la sujeción y, por otro lado, con la crianza, se convierten en salvaguarda y mantenedoras de las tradiciones (Di Nicola, 1991, p.25). Por otro, para los hombres, se reafirma la idea de que: “El hombre, en la apariencia de no tener la carga de los niños y la casa, no tiene peso visible, por tanto es un privilegiado, el hombre es “superior y poderoso”, ser trabajador y estar fuera de casa es un privilegio, el hombre no tiene carga. Por tanto si es un privilegiado, no puede denunciar sus malestares, ya que de ese modo “atentaría” contra sus privilegios” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.8). Siguiendo lo propuesto por Fernández (1993) la oposición entre lo público y lo privado entró en la lista de polaridades, junto con razón – sentimientos, inteligencia – intuición, palabra – emoción, poder – afecto, producción – consumo, eficacia – donación. Todos los últimos términos de esas polaridades se hallarían regidos por el principio constitutivo de la moderna vida privada: la sujeción de la mujer a la familia, a través del ingreso del hombre a la producción de lo público, sea por medio del trabajo, del poder o del lenguaje. La mujer a cambio se hallará a cargo de la producción del mundo privado y la racionalidad del espacio que es el de los sentimientos (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.6). Para estos autores, el hombre es un ser que implica un deber ser, que se impone sin discusión: “ser hombre es equivalente a estar instalado de golpe en una posición que implica poderes y privilegios, pero también deberes: el privilegio masculino es también una trampa” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.8). Y por tanto, todas estas condiciones generan una problemática que no se piensa y de la que por ende, no se habla. Es lo que vienen en denominar: “Problemática silenciada del hombre”, la cual, genera altos grados de sufrimiento tanto en hombres como en mujeres, haciendo indispensable su visibilización y su trabajo. Así, para Alfredo Waisblat y Ana Sáenz, 181 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor La subjetividad del hombre queda encerrada en su cárcel de “trabajador eficaz”, de proveedor de la familia, y desde allí, será mejor padre y hombre, cuanto más y mejor sea lo que lleve a casa. Esa será su tarea fundamental, y uno de los signos más preponderantes de su identidad. El trabajo asalariado de hoy, es heredero de toda esta violencia, implica las expropiaciones del hombre antes mencionadas, y la Invisibilización de las condiciones de construcción de este “trabajador”. Pero de todos modos, como esto es invisible, no puede oponerse a los supuestos privilegios que el hombre tiene “por derecho”, no se puede quejar, no puede expresar su malestar ni sus emociones (es requisito indispensable desafectivizarlo para que pueda soportar todo este “horror civilizado”) ya que cualquier queja atentaría contra su posición privilegiada, tal como se plantea en los Supuestos Falsos. (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.8) Se trata, por tanto, “de un hombre que fue construido desde las lógicas de un ser omnipotente, activo, fuerte, y capacitado para enfrentarse con lo público de un modo privilegiado, con los códigos adecuados para el aprendizaje, competitivo, jerárquico y con lazos sociales precarios” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.9). Desde este punto de vista, la construcción del “trabajador asalariado eficaz” (ganador de pan) conlleva, además, otros atributos sociales valorables tales como el hecho de tener que ser fuerte, rudo, sin sentimientos, identidad construida desde el tomar, poseer, afirmarse usando la fuerza si es preciso, alejándole al hombre del ámbito familiar y, por tanto, de los hijos. El valor del padre tiene que ver con el dinero que puede conseguir (posteriormente tendrá que ver con esto y con el éxito). “Con el salario adquiere una posición objetiva de poder, pero enajenado” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.11). Desde esta perspectiva, Alfredo Waisblat afirma que, “toda la subjetividad del hombre queda transformada en fuerza de trabajo, la expresión de la riqueza de lo humano, queda subsumida en categorías económicas, y expresada en las mismas” (Waisblat, 2013, p.4). La identidad del hombre queda encerrada en su cárcel de “trabajador eficaz”, de proveedor de la familia, y desde allí, será mejor padre y hombre cuanto más y mejor sea lo que lleve a casa. Esa será su tarea fundamental, y uno de los signos más preponderantes de su identidad. El trabajo asalariado MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 182 de hoy, es heredero de toda esta violencia, implica grandes expropiaciones en la subjetividad del hombre. Tal y como señala Waisblat, No puede conectar con la paternidad y el afecto hacia su familia, no se lo construye para cuidar y por ende, menos aún para cuidarse y no ponerse en riesgos, no puede decir “no sé” (porque hasta el valor se le supone), la articulación de la vida cotidiana ha caído del lado de la mujer y lo deja en un lugar enorme de dependencia, no puede conectar con una sexualidad saludable, al quedar ésta del lado del “rendimiento y dar la talla” y por último, pero no menos importante, está muy deteriorada la capacidad de conectar con sus emociones y más aún la expresión de las mismas. (Waisblat, 2013, p.4) Desde este planteamiento se observan diversos niveles de relación claramente diferenciados. Por un lado, La sociabilidad con los otros hombres se establece en términos de “producción de objetos” regalos, dinero, etc. Esto genera una situación particular: pedir ayuda o dar ayuda, queda restringido nuevamente al plano de “proveer”. Por otro lado la asunción en la familia del rol de proveedor, produce el sentimiento de falla, con la pérdida de autoestima que esto conlleva y la obligación de resolver solo esa mácula en su masculinidad. “El hombre se siente mal pero no es capaz de explicar lo que le pasa. Y si los sentimientos no se elaboran, pasan factura y se expresan de otras maneras” (Waisblat, 2013, p.4). El Desempleo o la Metáfora de la Bomba Emocional Como ya hemos indicado en otros momentos, hay que destacar el hecho según el cual, la masculinidad es, tal y como señala Jociles, “un concepto que articula aspectos socio-estructurales y ocio-simbólicos, por lo cual exige que se investigue tanto el acceso diferencial a los recursos (físicos, económicos, políticos, etc.) como las concepciones del mundo, las conductas, el proceso de individuación y la construcción de identidades” (Jociles, 2001, p.11). Es por ello que un elemento que le da identidad y lo define en su contexto desaparece, genera, como es el caso del desempleo, trastoques indudables que pueden conllevar consecuencias más allá de las supuestas previamente. El desempleo, por tanto, va más allá del mero hecho de perder el empleo, genera distorsiones en la estructura misma de la 183 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor masculinidad tradicional puesto que resta al hombre, así entendido, de uno de los elementos identitarios clave. El desempleo, por tanto, se observaría como el fracaso de la función taumatúrgica del hombre desde tiempos ancestrales, el aprovisionamiento de los suyos. Todo ello, si lo relacionamos con la variable edad y lo ponemos en relación con hombres desempleados en sus últimas etapas productivas, lo que los expertos enmarcan en la franja entre 45 – 65 años cobra un mayor elemento de dificultad que no resulta baladí. Así, si recogemos lo indicado por Subirats y Castells, “competir es la gran palabra de la masculinidad de nuestro tiempo, una palabra que ha pasado del deporte a la economía y de ella a invadir el conjunto de la sociedad. Competir, es la versión actual de pelear” (Castells & Subirats, 2007, p.98). Una vez, por tanto, que desaparece esa competición, esa lucha,… ¿qué queda? De esta manera, en el momento en que el trabajo que le daba identidad y un lugar valorado en la sociedad y entre otros hombres, desaparece, “la posibilidad de sostener y expresar afectos también se ve severamente afectada. El hombre se encierra y no saca fuera lo que le pasa” (Waisblat, 2013, p.6). En este sentido, la familia igualitaria (llamada también significativamente por los especialistas, la “familia postpatriarcal”) puede ser la nueva respuesta. Ya que, tal y como indica García de León: “En ella se dan los ingredientes excelentes de cultura + dinero, los cuales son capaces de generar una “economía interna” muy estimulante. Establecer un nuevo pacto, por fin, entre personas que se respetan por igual” (García de León, 2009, p.216). Esta es la realidad familiar idealizada, cuando ambos miembros adultos proveen, aportan a la economía familiar. La cuestión que se destaca es cuando no se produce esa situación, sino más bien su contraria. En este sentido, el desempleo, desempeña ese papel de espoleta, de acicate, que impulsa al replanteamiento por parte de los hombres de su rol dentro de la organización familiar, puesto que como indica Flaquer: “los hombres tienen que dejar esta coraza que les seguimos fabricando y entrar en una comprensión distinta de la vida y la realidad” (Flaquer, 1999, p.2). Se demuestra como la aceptación de proveedor, de trabajador, conlleva elementos positivos tales como la imagen de libertad que proyecta ante los demás, su presencia en los espacios públicos, etc. Pero a su vez posee una MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 184 contraparte, la “casi obligatoriedad” de negarse la opción del afecto, de lo emocional, de los sentimientos. Da la impresión que nos encontramos con un binomio imposible si se es trabajador, esto conlleva un triunfo social, que a su vez, implica la imposibilidad de mostrar flaqueza, y todo lo que implica muestra afectiva. Es lo que desde la metodología ProCC se conoce como problemática silenciada, que ya hemos mencionado más arriba. Para romper con esta situación viciada, según el planteamiento ProCC, “el hombre debe comenzar a cuestionar una identidad que brinda tantos privilegios como dolores, debe ser consciente de que recuperar lo que se le ha expropiado, le permitirá tomar distancia del imaginario social hegemónico y transitar espacios que siempre le resultaron ajenos” (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.15). La Metodología de los Procesos Correctores Comunitarios ¿Una Alternativa Viable? La cuestión valorada aquí es observar cómo una vez que los hombres se quedan en desempleo, esto afecta a estado anímico y cómo es posible “reparar” ese malestar a través del análisis de la situación y la toma de conciencia respecto al papel desempeñado hasta el momento en base al criterio patriarcal-capitalista. Para ello, como afirma Cucco, se parte de la situación de malestar que sienten los hombres cuando no trabajan y eso les priva de un elemento clave de identificación, el rol de proveedor. Por tanto, se inicia a partir de un momento negativo que hace de “en la vida cotidiana normal está presente la queja, queja que denuncia malestares” (Cucco, 2006, p.65). Pero ese malestar no es reconocido a nivel médico o a través de temas de salud. Ello ha implicado que desde la metodología ProCC (Procesos Correctores Comunitarios) se halla acuñado un concepto que recoge esa situación, la Normalidad Supuesta Salud (NSS) y que en palabras de Cucco y Losada, recoge a nivel general “todos aquellos malestares que la población sufre y que habitualmente no analiza, ni cuestiona porque los considera normales, que no generan demanda explícita, sino que ocupan el lugar de la queja, que no tiene interlocutor válido y que sin embargo se cobran altos precios en Salud y Bienestar” (Cucco & Losada, 2002, p. 32). A través del concepto de Normalidad Supuesta Salud, se identifica, de 185 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor alguna manera, una situación que hasta el momento no se había logrado describir: “nombrarlos, darles entidad, permite su identificación y caracterización” (Cucco, 2006, p.66). Situación, a su vez, que en la actualidad podemos reconocer en los hombres desempleados. Desde esta intervención se reconoce la influencia metodológica del psicoanálisis, pero se destaca que la actuación que realizan no supone un trabajo terapéutico, aunque sí de reflexión, a través del “espacio grupal en tanto lugar de génesis y neogénesis de la subjetividad, y el espacio institucional como instancia que precede y sitúa” (Cucco, 2006, p. 66). Para que todo esto fuera posible tenía que articularse un tipo de subjetividad, la que se puede entender cómo “autopercepción consciente de los sujetos, y que supone una identidad inherente y unitaria que es fuente de toda acción y de todo sentido” (Cucco, 2006, p.106). Atribuyendo, por tanto, al sujeto unas características propias. Esto se hizo a través del desarrollo del individualismo metodológico como creación de categoría filosófica que luego se llevó a categoría psicológica y a otros ámbitos, porque el capitalismo necesita un sujeto individualista. Nos referimos a un conjunto de teorías que desarrollan una concepción del ser humano como individuo “libre” de ataduras, alejado de la comunidad, produciéndose el alzamiento del “individuo” sobre las ruinas del ser humano como ser social, en palabras de Agustín Morán (2002). En este tipo de sociabilidad, la sociabilidad capitalista, los vínculos son algo funcional, algo que ejercemos pero que no vivimos como constituyentes, sino como algo amenazante. Dentro de este escenario, sólo un vínculo nos promete la eternidad y la completud del yo, sólo un tipo de vínculo ofrece la posibilidad de un yo ideal inalterable y la promesa de una completa satisfacción: el vínculo con el mercado. Como decía Marx, las relaciones entre las personas se transforman en relaciones entre cosas, mientras que se antropomorfiza la relación con las cosas. El mercado aparece como un ente vivo y proveedor que a través del consumo, promete la posibilidad de lograr una satisfacción completa. Un psiquismo construido de esta manera precaria, determina la emergencia socio histórica de un sujeto ávido de imaginario social (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011,p.12-13). Sin embargo, no habría ser humano individual, sin el hecho social, sin la sociedad. Tampoco habría sociedad sin personas, sin individuos sociales, que solo pueden individualizarse desde su dimensión social previa. El ser MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 186 humano es condición y consecuencia de lo social, y es falso que todos los seres humanos sean iguales (obrero y empresario, por ejemplo). Sin la vida social no hay racionalidad. El ser humano se desarrolla en “los espacios grupal e institucional (…) pero estos espacios son espacios no neutrales, portadores de ideología, expresión de la institución efectiva de la sociedad” (Cucco, 2006, p.107). Para Waisblat y Sáenz, se pone la mirada en la construcción de la subjetividad, y desde ahí, se abordan algunas cuestiones en común de hombres y mujeres (…) Las condiciones patriarcales de desigualdad e inequidad, siguen existiendo hacia lo interno y deben ser trabajadas en todas sus dimensiones. Pero hay un sistema opresor que determina con violencia real y simbólica una subjetividad deshumanizada y enajenada en la consecución de beneficios económicos. Esto es lo que se refleja en la construcción de los Supuestos Falsos. Esta construcción permite la elaboración de programas con mucha potencia de transformación ya que se trabaja dialécticamente la relación entre lo constituido, la subjetividad masculina y femenina y lo constituyente que son las formaciones sociales hegemónicas a partir del imaginario social (Waisblat & Sáenz, 2011, p.1314). Así, la intervención, como insiste Cucco, “está dirigida a incidir sobre las expresiones de la variable trasversal, o sea en las cristalizaciones efectivas de lo imaginario, en los comportamientos (…) desocultando aspectos invisibilizados en la Normalidad Supuesta Salud (…) conllevando cambios en los comportamientos cotidianos” (Cucco, 2006, p.181). Es necesario, por lo tanto, hablando de masculinidad, ocuparse, según sus planteamientos, de la subjetividad maltratada, de las expropiaciones desde donde se construye, de los dolores; de todo esto tantas veces silenciado. Pero, a su vez, (Cucco, 2010, p.2) considera como muy importante poder abordar el trabajo de los roles masculino y femenino desde una concepción estructural, entendiendo la construcción de dichos roles acorde con la formación económico-social que les da lugar. Esto nos permite descifrar la alta ingeniería, que en la lógica del Capital, conllevan los roles asignados-asumidos masculino y femenino, pudiendo tomar como un ejemplo paradigmático lo que hemos llamado “el rol del hombre trabajador” y el rol de la mujer de “ama de casa”. Por lo indicado, entonces, la metodología ProCC implica partir de una concepción socio-psico-bio en interrelación dialéctica, que permite, 187 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor tomando como objeto de estudio la vida cotidiana, dar cuenta de la relación entre formación socio-económica y el devenir subjetivo (Cucco, 2006, p. 177). Como sus diseñadores explicitan; “Los programas ProCC, son programas, por tanto, de intervención comunitaria específicos para la atención de los malestares cotidianos que pretenden potenciar el desarrollo del protagonismo personal/social para la búsqueda de soluciones, y el planteamiento de alternativas de una problemática dada” (Cucco, 2006, p. 177). Para Cucco, no sólo se trata de un modo de producción económica, sino de un modo de producción social (…). La institución familiar es un ámbito privilegiado para realizar, paso a paso, este disciplinamiento de los comportamientos(…). La sociedad busca entonces, instituir interpretaciones dominantes que se arraiguen en las subjetividades, intentando clausurar todo intento de interrogación, dado que esto entraña el riesgo de cuestionar las certidumbres sobre las que se asienta su identidad. Esta institución de las significaciones instaura las condiciones de lo factible, y mantiene unida a una sociedad, en el plano de la subjetividad colectiva. Así toda formación económico-social “sujeta” su orden (Cucco, 2010, p.3). La Psicología Social, desde la perspectiva de Enrique Pichon Rivière, se inscribe en la crítica de la vida cotidiana, ésta implica (Pampliega de Quiroga & Racedo: 1993, p. 13) “el análisis del destino de las necesidades de los hombres en una formación económico-social determinada”; lo que evidentemente concierne al análisis realizado desde la metodología de los Procesos Comunitarios Correctores. Dentro de esta metodología, cobra nuevo valor cierto concepto que no es desconocido, así, Mirtha Cucco, para desarrollar el proceso corrector, recoge la definición de rol de G. Mead, adaptándolo y redefiniéndolo como “un modelo organizado de conducta relativo a una cierta posición del individuo en una red de interacción ligado a expectativas propias y de los otros”. Ese rol no sólo es expresión individual, sino que es producto social y, por tanto, puede enriquecer el nivel de lectura en la dinámica grupal donde, trascendiendo la dimensión vertical/horizontal, se trabaja la expresión del imaginario social efectivo (variable transversal) (Cucco, 2006, p.193). Para lograrlo, se hace uso en el grupo formativo mediante la acción grupal, lo que se denomina juego dramático, porque “trabajar con técnicas dramáticas consiste en utilizar, en función de nuestros fines una forma de expresión habitual de nuestro comportamiento: la dramática” (Martínez, MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 188 2005, p.85). El interés que posee esta técnica es debido a que “la consideración de la escena, el juego en el espacio, lo gestual, los tonos, las miradas agudizarán la lectura y permitirán aflorar niveles impensados del imaginario grupal” (Cucco, 2006, p.209); es decir, el individuo, podrá expresar de una manera dramatizada, ante el resto del grupo, lo que el peso social que “arrastra” le impide expresar libremente. En Conclusión Cuando se trabaja la problemática del hombre, las mujeres suelen dar una nueva vuelta a su problemática con un fuerte impacto. Así, al tomar conciencia de la problemática silenciada del varón, definitivamente no pueden seguir sosteniendo la esperanza de que su cambio dependa de que “le ayude” aquel al que no le pasa nada, ya que “sí le pasa”. Entonces el problema se focaliza de diferente modo, sin menospreciar lo que de dominación entre ambos queda por trabajar, ya que el Supuesto Falso es real como dijimos, en tanto objetivación de una realidad material de control. Por otra parte los hombres se sorprenden y emocionan con el desocultamiento de su problemática silenciada expresando, en muchas ocasiones, que es la primera vez que han podido penetrar en algo que les concierne tanto y que está sin embargo tan oculto (Cucco, 2010, p. 9). Esto debe dar lugar a un nuevo modelo de relación donde los hombres miran a la otra parte con otra mirada Como concluye Sanfelix, “El cambio en los varones está siendo lento y con dificultades, pero tal vez estemos ahora más cerca que nunca de la consolidación de la ruptura con la norma hegemónica” (Sanfelix, 2011, p. 27) y, por tanto, aunque resulte ahora incipiente e incluso anecdótico, puede ir consolidándose beneficiando en un futuro no muy lejano a ambas partes. Referencias Astelarra, J. (2005). Veinte años de políticas de igualdad. Valencia: Ediciones Cátedra. Castells, M. y Subirats, M. (2007). Mujeres y hombres ¿Un amor imposible? Madrid: Alianza. 189 Rodríguez del Pino – Hombre proveedor Cucco, M. (2013, Julio). ¿Engranajes que se desplazan, espacios que se abren? Superando el rol de proveedor o nuevas versiones renovadas. Ponencia presentada en la Jornadas sobre Cuestiones de género: Los aportes ProCC. De la masculinidad hegemónica a las masculinidades. La Habana. Accesible en http://jornadas-masculinidad.webnode.es Cucco, M. (2010). “Hombres y mujeres ¿Sólo un problema de rosa y azul? La formación del sujeto que somos. Capitalismo, relaciones sociales y vida cotidiana.” Nuestra Ciencia. Revista del Colegio de Psicólogos de la Provincia de Córdoba- Argentina, 14 (37-46). Cucco, M. (2006).ProCC: Una propuesta de intervención sobre los malestares de la vida cotidiana. Del desatino social a la precariedad narcisista. Buenos Aires: Editorial ATUEL. Cucco, M., & Losada, L. (2002). Metodología de los Procesos correctores comunitarios. Rescoldos, 6, 31-36. Di Nicola, G.P. (1991). Reciprocidad hombre/mujer. igualdad y diferencia. Madrid: Narcea. Fernández, A. (1993). La mujer de la ilusión: pactos y contratos entre hombres y mujeres. Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidós. Flaquer, L. (1999). La estrella menguante del padre. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel. García, A. (2010). Forma valor y forma comunidad. Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros. García de León, M.A. (2009). Cabeza moderna/corazón patriarcal (luces y sombras de un gran cambio social en la identidad de género). Revista Barataria. 10, 209-220. Izquierdo, M.J. (1998). El malestar de la desigualdad. Valencia: Editorial Cátedra. Jociles, M.J. (2001). El estudio sobre las masculinidades. Panorámica general. Gazeta de Antropología, 17, 1-15. Martín, A. (2006). Antropología del género. Madrid: Editorial Cátedra. Martínez, C. (2005). Fundamentos para una teoría del psicodrama. Buenos Aires: Editorial siglo XXI. Mestre, Y. (2013, Julio). El varón adulto medio desde la perspectiva de los Procesos Correctores Comunitarios. Ponencia presentada en la Jornadas sobre Cuestiones de género: Los aportes ProCC. De la MCS – Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2) 190 masculinidad hegemónica a las masculinidades. La Habana, Accesible en http://jornadas-masculinidad.webnode.es/ Morán, A. (2006). Materiales para curso de capacitación organizado por el Centro de Desarrollo de Salud Comunitaria. Madrid: Centro Marie Langer. Morán, A. (2002). El individualismo metodológico. Aportes para la comprensión del sujeto roto actual. Madrid: Centro Marie Langer. Pampliega de Quiroga, A. y Racedo, J, (1993). Crítica de la vida cotidiana. Buenos Aires: Editorial cinco Rodríguez, J. A. (2013). El hombre unidimensional desestructurado. Barataria. Revista Castellano-Manchega de ciencias sociales, 16, 97-106 Sanfelix, J. (2011). Las nuevas masculinidades. Los hombres frente al cambio en las mujeres. Prisma Social, número 7, 1-29. Tubert, S. (Ed.) (2003). Del sexo al género. Los equívocos de un concepto. Valencia: Editorial Cátedra-Universidad de Valencia. Waisblat, A. (2013, Julio). El impacto del desempleo en la subjetividad masculina. Una intervención comunitaria con hombres en situación de desempleo. Ponencia presentada en la Jornadas sobre Cuestiones de género: Los aportes ProCC. De la masculinidad hegemónica a las masculinidades. La Habana. Accesible en http://jornadasmasculinidad.webnode.es/ Waisblat, A., & Sáenz, A. (2011, Enero). La construcción socio-histórica de la existencia. Patriarcado, capitalismo y desigualdades instaladas. Ponencia presentada en Jornadas sobre Roles masculino y femenino a debate, Bilbao. Juan Antonio Rodríguez del Pino es profesor en el Departamento de Sociología y Antropología Social de la Universidad de Valencia. Dirección de contacto: Correspondencia directa a Juan Antonio Rodríguez del Pino, Universidad de Valencia, Departamento de Sociología y Antropología Social, Av. Tarongers, 4b, 46021 Valencia, email: [email protected] Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com Performing American Masculinities: The 21st-Century Man in Popular Culture Sandra Girbés1 1) Universitat de Barcelona, Spain st Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Girbés, S. (2014) Performing American Masculinities: The 21st-Century Man in Popular Culture. Masculinities and Social Change, 3(2), 191-193. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2014.50 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.447/MCS.2014.50 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). MSC– Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 191-193 Reviews (I) Watson, E. & Shaw, M. (Eds.) (2011). Performing American Masculinities: The 21st-Century Man in Popular Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253222701 El libro Performing American Masculinities aporta una serie de ensayos que evidencian los cambios experimentados en las representaciones de la masculinidad a través del análisis de programas televisivos, películas, anuncios, obras teatrales, literatura, eventos políticos, música, fotografías o contenidos de Internet producidos en el contexto norteamericano entre mediados de 1990 y 2010. El conjunto de ensayo parte de la relación existente entre los cambios sociales experimentados a nivel global durante este período y los diversos modelos de masculinidad generados como respuesta a las modificaciones identificadas en el espacio, el tiempo y en las relaciones interpersonales. Partiendo de la premisa de que los acontecimientos históricos modifican los procesos de construcción del género y de las identidades individuales, se presta especial atención a dos sucesos a los que se les ha atribuido un elevado valor real y simbólico en el contexto norteamericano: la crisis financiera iniciada en 2008 y la elección del presidente Barack Obama. Estos eventos conectan con las dos ideas centrales que articulan el libro. El primer capítulo, titulado Masculinities and the Market: Late Capitalism and Corporate Influence on Gender Processes y formado por cuatro ensayos, aborda la influencia que la coyuntura económica ejerce en la formación y en la reconfiguración de la masculinidad. En esta parte de la obra se aportan diversas perspectivas sobre las influencias ejercidas por el sistema económico abordando temáticas como la intervención del mercado de trabajo en la construcción del género, la regulación que el capitalismo tardío ejerce sobre la sexualidad o aportando una perspectiva de género a la agencia de los sujetos frente a los problemas financieros. En el capítulo Masters of Their Domain: Seinfeld and the Discipline of Mediated Men’s Sexual Economy, Wesley Buerkle parte del análisis de la serie Seinfeld y del programa Queer Eye for the Straight Guy para analizar 192 Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2) la tensión surgida entre la masculinidad en la sociedad industrial, basada en la sobriedad y en la productividad, y la emergencia de un nuevo modelo en la era neoliberal que pone el énfasis en el consumo y en la autocomplacencia. Brenda Boudreau, en el capítulo Sexually Suspect: Masculine Anxiety in the Films of Neil LaBute, identifica el surgimiento de una crisis de la masculinidad entre finales del siglo XX y principios del siglo XXI. Como resultado, muchos hombres deben enfrentarse a las inseguridades generadas por la pérdida de una noción clara de masculinidad y a las expectativas sociales en relación con su vida pública o sexual. Por otro lado, las aportaciones de Margaret C. Ervin en el capítulo The Might of the Metrosexual: How a Mere Marketing Tool Challenges Hegemonic Masculinity se centran en el fenómeno de la metrosexualidad. La autora argumenta que lo que comenzó como una estrategia de mercado de las grandes empresas ha sido utilizado para generar nuevas formas de vivir la masculinidad que se oponen a los modelos hegemónicos. La segunda parte del libro, titulada Beyond Gender Alone: Defining Multidimensional Masculinities y compuesta por cinco ensayos, se centra en la masculinidad como resultado de la intersección de varios factores incluyendo étnia, religión, diversidad funcional, sexualidad y transgénero. Uno de los personajes públicos a los que se dirige la atención en esta parte del libro es el presidente de los Estados Unidos Barck Obama. En el capítulo Obama’s Masculinities: A Landscape of Essential Contradictions, Mac E. Shaw y Elwood Watson abordan cómo la figura del presidente abre un interesante debate sobre étnia, poder y género. El análisis de las representaciones mediáticas de Barack Obama, personaje publico al que se le atribuye una masculinidad ambigua e incluso feminizada, da paso a profundizar sobre las creencias e imaginarios vinculados a la masculinidad de los hombres afroamericanos. La perspectiva étnica y cultural también es abordada en el capítulo elaborado por John Kille, Popular Memory, Racial Construction, and the Visual Illusion of Freedom: The Re-mediation of O.J. and Cinque. Partiendo de la escena del juicio que inicia la película Amistad de Steven Spielberg, el autor reflexiona en torno al papel de los medios de comunicación en la transmisión de la desigualdad entre hombres blancos y negros a lo largo de la historia norteamericana. Girbés – Performing American Masculinities [Book Review] 193 Performing American Masculinities ofrece un amplio repertorio de investigaciones sobre cultura popular norteamericana y estudios de género en el contexto capitalista que nos permiten romper con concepciones estáticas de la masculinidad. Además, este libro apunta hacia nuevos escenarios y disciplinas, evidenciando la necesidad de seguir generando diálogos e investigaciones multidisciplinares en torno a las masculinidades. Sandra Girbés, Universitat de Barcelona [email protected] Instructions for authors, subscriptions and further details: http://mcs.hipatiapress.com Construcción de masculinidades igualitarias Juan Carlos Peña Axt1 1) Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Spain st Date of publication: June 21 , 2014 Edition period: June 2014-October 2014 To cite this article: Peña, JC. (2014). Construcción de masculinidades igualitarias. Masculinities and Social Change, 3 (2), 194 - 195. doi: 10.4471/MCS.2014.51 To link this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.447/MCS.2014.51 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE The terms and conditions of use are related to the Open Journal System and to Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) MSC– Masculinities and Social Change Vol. 3 No. 2 June 2014 pp. 194-195 Reviews (II) Peña Axt, J. (2013). Constucción de masculinidades igualitarias. Tesis original no publicada: Barcelona, Universidad de Barcelona. En esta investigación se analizan los actos comunicativos en contextos educativos de formación profesional (y grupos de iguales), familiares e interacciones que se producen en las redes sociales (Facebook), para identificar qué interacciones favorecen una masculinidad igualitaria. De esta forma poner de manifiesto procesos en los que se socializan a los jóvenes en modelos de masculinidad igualitaria, transformando las relaciones de género que superan los procesos de reproducción social como la son las desigualdades de género y la violencia contra las mujeres. En favor de relaciones afectivo-sexual basadas en el diálogo e igualdad. El análisis de actos comunicativos incluye el lenguaje verbal, tanto como el lenguaje no verbal, el contexto social o situación de los hablantes en el contexto social) y la consecuencia de la interacción con el objetivo de identificar interacciones dialógicas y de poder presentes en una relación. Este trabajo se fundamenta en el trabajo llevado a cabo por Jesús Gómez, que como sociólogo y educador, trabajó como línea de investigación las relaciones afectivo-sexuales. Este sociólogo demuestra que la atracción es una cuestión social vinculada directamente al proceso de socialización que viven los individuos. Desde este punto de partida, sostengo en la investigación que hoy en día existen jóvenes que en su carácter igualitario con las chicas, resultan atractivo para éstas. Y por otro lado, y en esta misma línea, demostrar que para las chicas, los hombres que están más próximos a una masculinidad hegemónica continúan teniendo éxito e las relaciones románticas. Sin embargo, este modelo de hombres ya no es el único que resulta atractivo para las chicas. Es decir, que en una sociedad como la actual, existen muchos indicios para demostrar que estamos frente a situaciones novedosas en el ámbito de las relaciones afectivo-sexuales de los adolecentes, y porque no decirlo de los adultos. La investigación está dividida en dos partes. En la primera parte consta del marco teórico y del diseño metodológico. En el marco teórico está planteado el estado de la cuestión donde se revisan los principales autores y Peña – Construcción de masculinidades igualitariass 195 conceptos centrales en temas de actos comunicativos, masculinidad y socialización. En el diseño metodológico expongo la metodología comunicativa crítica, con la cual trabajó en esta investigación. Además está la estrategia metodológica de trabajo de campo y análisis de la información. En la segunda parte de esta tesis está el análisis de los resultados y las conclusiones. El análisis de los resultados de este estudio estará dividido en dos partes. En la primera parte se presentará el trabajo llevado a cado dentro del centro de formación profesional en donde se hará hincapié en las interacciones y actos comunicativos entre los jóvenes que permiten una visibilización de una masculinidad igualitaria atractiva. En esta parte del estudio se podrán identificar a aquellos chicos que promueven la masculinidad igualitaria. Dentro de las principales conclusiones de esta investigación, se destacan principalmente, que existen en las interacciones dentro del espacio educativo actos comunicativos que reproducen el modelo hegemónico de masculinidad. Sin embargo, existen actos comunicativos que promueven nuevas masculinidades y que además les dotan de atractivo. Es en este tipo de actos comunicativos donde hay que reforzar a los jóvenes igualitarios puesto que el sólo hecho de potenciar sin atractivo reproduce la doble moral, en donde las mujeres dicen querer relaciones con hombres buenos, pero terminan relacionándose con hombres que les traen consecuencias negativas. Dentro del espacio familiar las interacciones y la socialización familiar está orientada principalmente a que las adolescentes tengan relaciones con hombres que principio les conviene. Sin embargo en las interacciones entre padres, madres e hijas existe solamente un lenguaje de la ética y no un lenguaje del deseo Juan Carlos Peña Axt, Universidad Autónoma de Chile [email protected]