2

Gender Reckonings

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 Gender Reckonings
New Social Theory and Research

Edited by James W. Messerschmidt, Patricia Yancey Martin, Michael A. Messner, and Raewyn
Connell

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
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 Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Editors

Part I. Points of Departure: Gender and Power and Its Sequels

1. “Theories Don’t Grow on Trees”: Contextualizing Gender Knowledge

Myra Marx Ferree

2. Hegemonic, Nonhegemonic, and “New” Masculinities

James W. Messerschmidt and Michael A. Messner

3. From Object to Subject: Situating Transgender Lives in Sociology

Kristen Schilt

Part II. The Larger Scope of Gender Analysis

4. Postcoloniality and the Sociology of Gender

Raka Ray

5. Race, Indigeneity, and Gender: Lessons for Global Feminism

Mara Viveros Vigoya

6. Categories, Structures, and Intersectional Theory

Joya Misra

Part III. Four Dimensions of Relationship, Struggle, and Change

7. Why “Heteronormativity” Is Not Enough: A Feminist Sociological Perspective on Heterosexuality

Stevi Jackson

8. Gender Inequality and Feminism in the New Economy

Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely

9. Gender Politics in Academia in the Neoliberal Age

Barbara Poggio

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10. The Holy Grail of Organizational Change: Toward Gender Equality at Work
Yvonne Benschop and Marieke van den Brink

Part IV. Dynamics of Masculinities

11. Concerning Tradition in Studies on Men and Masculinities in Ex-Colonies

Kopano Ratele

12. Rethinking Patriarchy through Unpatriarchal Male Desires

Gul Ozyegin

13. On the Elasticity of Gender Hegemony: Why Hybrid Masculinities Fail to Undermine Gender and
Sexual Inequality
Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe

Part V. Agendas for Theory

14. Limitations of the Neoliberal Turn in Gender Theory: (Re)Turning to Gender as a Social Structure
Barbara J. Risman, Kristen Myers, and Ray Sin

15. Paradoxes of Gender Redux: Multiple Genders and the Persistence of the Binary
Judith Lorber

16. The Monogamous Couple, Gender Hegemony, and Polyamory

Mimi Schippers

Conclusion: Reckoning with Gender

Raewyn Connell

About the Contributors

Index

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 Acknowledgments

An edited volume such as this necessarily invites much appreciation and gratitude. First and foremost, we
thank the contributors to this volume. They have all come together to both collectively celebrate the 30th
anniversary of the publication of Gender and Power, and to offer insightful new social theory and
research. We salute their wisdom and vision—this book would never have been written without them.
Second, colleagues were kind enough to provide formal reviews of the entire manuscript and to impart
valuable criticisms and recommend important changes. Their advice and guidance have certainly
transformed this book into a higher quality publication than it otherwise would have been. Third, we wish
to extend our appreciation to the entire staff at New York University Press, but especially to Ilene Kalish
(Executive Editor), who was graciously and wholeheartedly supportive of this work from its inception, and
to Caelyn Cobb (assistant editor), Dorothea Stillman Halliday (managing editor), and John Raymond (copy
editor). Fourth, we are grateful to Madeleine Pape for her excellent preparation of the index.Finally, we
extend warm hugs to each other. We have been treasured colleagues and valued friends for many years.
Working on this volume together has been a stimulating, lovely, heartfelt, and collaboratively intellectual
relationship from beginning to end.

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 Introduction

The Editors

This book is about why gender matters, how gender relations work, and where the gender order is headed.
We think the time has arrived for a fresh look at these questions, and a critical rethinking of current theory.
The book is a celebration of history, a window on the present, and, we hope, an inspiration going forward.
The chapters of this book are written by social scientists. Questions about gender concern our bodies,
but not bodies alone; identities, but not identities in a vacuum; and relationships, but not just face-to-face
relationships. Powerful social processes are also involved. Corporations, markets, governments, the mass
media, and social movements are actors on the gender scene. On a world scale, gender is woven into the
history of empire and modernity, into the current neoliberal economy, and into the daily conflicts that
make the shocking headlines in our news feed.
Understanding gender, its inequalities and violence, as well as its homeliness and pleasures, therefore
requires a social perspective. Contemporary social science has resources for this. But a lot of what passes
for social analysis of gender is conceptually weak. Hasty gestures toward “gender norms,” “social
construction,” or “stereotypes” do not explain much. In this book we work with more powerful tools and
hope to understand a great deal more. Our emphasis is twofold: celebrating one of the most significant
books in the history of gender studies and advancing new social theory and research.

Celebrating Gender and Power

The publication of Gender Reckonings marks a prominent occasion: the thirtieth anniversary of Raewyn
Connell’s Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics, which analyzed the social reality of
gender with means available in the 1980s, in the immediate aftermath of the emerging women’s liberation
and gay liberation movements. A great deal has changed since then, and building on Connell’s work,
Gender Reckonings takes up the challenge of social analysis of gender in a new historical context.
As mainstream theory in the global North shifted from the concept of patriarchy to the concept of
gender, and from structure to practice, Gender and Power found a receptive audience. Published in 1987,
this book had its origins in the historical experience of the remote settler-colonial society of Australia,
marked by dependence and cultural unease, a continuing indigenous presence, deep-seated race and gender
hierarchies, state-centered class politics, and reformist optimism. In this environment Australian feminism
became deeply involved in institutional struggles, especially in the labor movement, the school system, and
the welfare state. Yet it was also deeply influenced by North American and European thought.
So Gender and Power, though it had a local subtext, was framed as an intervention in an international
debate. Its first section set out to refute the popular models of gender that had led to an intellectual and
political impasse: biological essentialism, sex role theory, and all categorical approaches—such as the
theory of patriarchy—where women and men were seen as blocs sitting opposite each other. These models
prevented an understanding of social process and historical change.
In their place, Gender and Power offered an account of gender as simultaneously social practice and
social structure; as linked with, but not determined by, reproductive bodies. In place of single-cause
explanations of gender inequality, the book treated gender relations as composed of three
substructures—power, production, and cathexis. It tried to map the structure of gender relations in the

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whole society, the “gender order”; and in specific institutions and milieux, their “gender regimes.”
Structure and practice are not opposed; they are in a sense transformations of each other through time.
Gender and Power adapted the existentialist idea of people encountering, and transforming, situations.
Structure was conceptualized as neither static nor fixed, although the label may imply that it is; we think
of buildings, tables, and sidewalks as structures. In social life, structure is in continuous flux because
practice—or the active constitution of social life—is in play. Gender was thus understood as fundamentally
historical, made and remade through historical time. Each of the three substructures had its own tendencies
toward crisis and change.
Picking up the concerns of feminist psychology and gay liberation, Gender and Power also offered an
analysis of femininity and masculinity, which were seen as configurations of social practices in personal
life, linked through the structure of gender relations. They too developed through time, as life projects and
historical shifts in personality. This part of the argument produced the much-quoted concepts of
“hegemonic masculinity” and “emphasized femininity.” Much less quoted was the final section of the
book, which tried to apply the approach to problems of ideology and political practice. It argued for
recomposing gender relations, and multiplying gender patterns, the goal being to democratize rather than
abolish gender.
In short, Gender and Power attended to how individual and collective practices are shaped, constrained,
and enabled by the structures of gender relations and how those structures are changed by those very
practices. Such a theoretical perspective allows us to assume that gender structures persist even as we take
for granted the premise that they are constantly being altered through individual and collective practices.
Published simultaneously on three continents, Gender and Power was part of an internationalization of
gender research. Powerful contributions to feminist thought had already come from the postcolonial world,
with a strong social component. The International Women’s Year in 1975 provided an occasion for official
reports from national governments that in some cases (India and Australia among them) took a social view
of gender, understood in terms of norms and roles. Activists and scholars from the Arabic-speaking world,
from Latin America and Africa, as well as South Asia, made original contributions to understanding
gender in colonialism, masculinities, and questions of race and violence, some of them before equivalent
scholarship emerged in the global North.
Little of this work was immediately recognized in the North, except in specialized area studies or in
development studies. A feminist presence in international aid grew from the 1970s under the rubric of
“Women in Development,” later reconceptualized as “Gender and Development.” By the 1980s and 1990s
this feminist presence was producing sophisticated economic analyses and ethnographic studies of rural
communities and was reaching into questions of gender and environment in contexts of development.

New Social Theory and Research

There is a strand in activism that is impatient of theory, wanting action above all. Theoretical language,
obscure and intimidating, can even be seen as oppressive in itself. The editors of this book take another
view. We agree with the Mexican feminist leader Marta Lamas (2011, 128) that “[t]heory is not a luxury: it
is a vital need.”
Theory at its simplest is a way of crystallizing empirical research and information, summarizing a great
many encounters with reality. Theoretical language communicates important experience, revealing what
otherwise may remain hidden. It allows us to act in knowledge rather than ignorance.
But theory in the human sciences has more to do than classify and condense. Theory is needed to
explain data, to express an understanding of how things work in social life, and how things change. This
too is important for action; it allows practice based on reasoning about strategy.
Theory undertakes another vital task: critique. To change the world is not possible if we simply accept
the accounts given by the powerful and privileged. We need concepts and methods to analyze and reveal,
to unpack the immediately given.

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 Theory must be related to what we empirically know, but it always goes beyond the given. Theory
extrapolates, builds hypotheses, and deploys imagination. It tells us about possibility. Theory allows us to
formulate the purposes of action and identify conditions in the world that we seek to bring about. Theory
shows us how to move forward.
Such ideas lie behind this book. We think new social theory and research are needed for contemporary
gender politics, and we have brought together a group of writers who—using varied styles and conceptual
languages—share an intention to make social research work for gender equality and social justice. The
chapters in the volume, many of which are pathbreaking, represent a collective effort to encourage social
scientists to move forward with theorizing gender, guided by what we have learned over the last 30 years.
And yet, an influential shift in Anglophone gender studies in the last 30 years came from another
direction than the perspective outlined in Gender and Power: French poststructuralism and its merging
with North American debates on sexuality and culture. This perspective gave theoretical form to critiques
of the essentialism of mainstream feminism. At the same time the catastrophe of the HIV-AIDS epidemic
disrupted the gay-liberation model of sexual community. In the harsher political environment of neoliberal
power, struggle shifted increasingly to the terrain of identity and cultural definitions of gender. A
performative understanding of gender became immensely influential, first in the United States and then
globally.
The critique of heteronormativity became central to queer theory, which expressed the radicalism of
many younger activists in the global metropole in the 1990s and 2000s. It gave rise to trans theory,
offering a critique of cisgender dominance. A deconstructionist critique of identity proved hard to
maintain, however. The main practical effect of this movement was to assert a multiplicity of sexual and
gender identities and sometimes an unbounded “fluidity” of gender and sexuality. The acronym LGBT
entered policy and media language, standing for plurality, with further initials added from time to time; in
the 2000s, ironically, a singular “LGBT community” became the rhetorical subject of many human rights
claims. In the academic world, the majority of women’s studies programs were renamed as gender studies,
adding courses about sexuality, lesbian and gay identities, men and masculinity, and trans issues.
The shift of so much gender scholarship to identity, sexuality, norms, and cultural contestation led
attention away from questions of economic exploitation, inequality, domestic violence, and struggles over
policy that 1970s feminism had highlighted. As creative as poststructuralist work has been, it has
de-emphasized issues such as poverty and livelihood, policymaking, industrial struggle, housing and land,
economic transformation, health, and institutional violence.
These latter issues are, however, core business for the social sciences. Research on them has continued
and there now exists a formidable body of knowledge, international in scope and using all the techniques
of sociological research, about the social realities of gender. This knowledge, embedding a generation’s
experience of struggles for gender equality, calls for a contemporary social theory of gender.
It is timely, then, to renew the conceptual contribution of social science and social activism for the
understanding of gender. Our goal is not to reproduce the approach of Gender and Power. Rather, we use
its anniversary to rethink the contribution of the 1980s and to bring together new theoretical ideas and new
empirical work on the social analysis of gender.

***

The contributors to this book were invited to reflect on the past and present of feminist social theory; how
we might theorize today the issues opened up by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, especially the idea of
gender as social structure. We asked them to consider the issues that have emerged over the last thirty
years, and the limits of currently influential frameworks. Above all, we hoped to bring together new ideas
and new theoretical work on the terrain that sociologists tried to map a generation ago—a distinctively
social analysis of gender. We asked our contributors to give examples and ideas of what the social theory
of gender might look like in the future, what audiences it should speak to, and where new thinking may
come from.

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 We believe this book will stimulate new theorizations and analyses of gender. We challenge gender
scholars to revisit existing work on gender and pose next-stage questions about the economic, political,
cultural, and social dynamics that affect it. Tradition and the continuance of unequal gender relations, in
the face of “modernization,” are affecting women and men, boys and girls, in ways that we need to
understand more. Dynamics related to sexual relations and identities are also changing, particularly as
neoliberalism spreads and gains ground.
Gender Reckonings firmly asserts the centrality of the social dimensions of gender, and opens up new
pathways for understanding them. Its chapters are written by accomplished social scientists from different
continents, generations, and intellectual traditions. The authors are aware of the background sketched in
this introduction and they too are trying to lay new foundations.

Thirty Years and Beyond

The sixteen chapters that constitute this book reflect the amazing array of changes that have occurred in
gender theory and research in only three decades. Here we briefly review some of these changes and link
them to the foci of the chapters that follow.

Intersectionality. Of particular importance is the emergence of the concept of intersectionality. Since the
early 1990s, gender scholars have argued that gender must be linked to other categorical
distinctions—such as race/ethnicity, social class, sexuality, age, nation, religion—and not studied as if it
“stands alone.” Over three decades, social scientists have documented that gender does not exist in a
universal form. Rather, gender is continuously shaped in relationship to other distinctions and in turn
continuously affects those same—intersecting—distinctions. Intersectionality is a captivating concept
whose applications have shown that inequalities are fashioned and orchestrated in complex, inconsistent,
continuously changing, and historically varying ways. Chapters in this volume by Ferree, Misra, Viveros
Vigoya, and Bridges and Pascoe place particular emphasis on this point.

Masculinities. A second change has been a rapid development of masculinities theorizing and research.
Taking its contemporary shape in the 1980s, this project changed and expanded rapidly into an
international field in the 1990s onward. It was also linked to new forms of social activism. Studies of
masculinities today form a significant part of what gender studies means, with scholars recognizing that
the lives of women and girls, and especially boys and men, can be understood only if masculinities are
examined. Social scientists have had a leading role in documenting the multiplicity of masculinities, their
hierarchies, their connections with institutions, their complex histories, and their contemporary and future
possibilities for change. Five chapters in this volume focus on this theme, those by Messerschmidt and
Messner, Bridges and Pascoe, Ray, Ozyegin, and Ratele. Three of these chapters explore how
masculinities (and femininities) are shifting in non-North/nonmetropole contexts.

Organizations and work. Third, we note changes in research and theorizing about gender in relation to
organizations and (paid) work. As the trend toward economic equality between women and men first
progressed and then stalled, researchers tried to understand the reasons for gender hierarchy within
organizations and their role in creating inequality—of class and race as well as gender—in the wider
society. A rich library of workplace ethnographies, quantitative studies, and theories of gendered
organizations now informs feminist thinking about the neoliberal economy and labor markets, science and
technology, education, and new industries. Gender in the academy has received substantial attention over
the past fifteen years, from the European Commission for the European Union member states and from the
National Science Foundation for the United States. Chapters that address these issues include Williams and
Neely, Poggio, and Benschop and van den Brink.

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Globalization/neoliberalism. A fourth development has been a deepening interest in the global
dimensions of gender, including the influence of neoliberalism worldwide. During the 1990s,
“globalization” became a buzzword in sociology and gender research became increasingly concerned with
world-scale dynamics such as migration, economic (and cultural) neoliberalism, and anthropogenic climate
change. There was an early tendency in globalization studies to homogenize the world in regard to gender,
although postcolonial, decolonial, and Southern perspectives have contested this trend. However, research
work from the global South has fostered the circulation of fresh ideas and research about gender.
Especially since the 2000s, there has been growing interest internationally in postcolonial approaches that
link gender analysis to the violent history of empire and contemporary forms of global power. Chapters in
the volume that address such issues include Ray, Ratele, Ozyegin, Williams and Neely, and Poggio.

Sexualities. A fifth development of note is the study of sexualities in relation to gender, a field of research
that includes questions about heteronormativity, heterosexuality, homosexuality, and monogamy. Sex,
gender, and sexuality are all related to the issue of reproduction, and sexual practices too are shaped by
intersectional social processes. In the past three decades, gender scholars have studied the diversity of
sexual practices, the cultural definitions of sexuality through norms and stereotypes, and the power
relations reproduced—and challenged—among sexualities. Gender scholars have teased out the complex
connection between gender and sexuality in identities and intimate relationships, in workplaces (including
sex work), and in domestic and public violence. The advances in these areas can be seen in the chapters by
Schilt, Ray, Jackson, and Schippers.

Transgender/degender. Sixth, gender studies has seen an upsurge in research and theory regarding
transgender questions. The 1990s saw a marked expansion of scholarship about people who live outside
the “gender binary” or who expressed their gender in ways contrary to their assigned sex at birth. Social
scientists—some of whom are transgender or transsexual—have studied trans experiences in settings such
as workplaces, schools, and prisons, and debated the significance of gender transition, or gender refusal,
for an understanding of gender relations. Concepts such as “LGBT” and “cisgender,” brought into use by
social movements, now circulate in social science—though, as authors in this book suggest, these concepts
are debatable. The idea of transgender seems to give new relevance to a long-established feminist idea that
equality requires degendering society—but is this strategy right? These issues are explored in chapters
including those by Schilt; Risman, Myers, and Sin; and Lorber.
We hope this book will speak to a broad audience across the social sciences, and beyond. We hope it
will encourage imaginative thinking in new directions, and the exploration of gender relations in all facets
of social life. This will only be possible, however, if gender scholars produce conceptual tools that both
researchers and activists can use.

References

Connell, R. W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Sydney: Allen and
Unwin.
Lamas, Marta. 2011. Feminism: Transmission and Retransmission. New York: Palgrave.

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 Part I

Points of Departure

Gender and Power and Its Sequels

The chapters in part I address the structural theory of gender, the well-recognized consequences of
structural theory for the study of masculinity, and the theory’s unrecognized implications for
understanding transsexuality.
Reviewing the historical and geopolitical contexts in which contemporary gender theorizing developed,
Myra Marx Ferree notes a shift from an emphasis on gender’s relation to social class to an emphasis on
gender’s relation to national context and global location. Ferree reviews Connell’s conceptualization of
gender as a social structure and spells out how the 1987 volume prompted others to employ and build upon
it. Her assessment draws attention to multiple aspects of differentiation and evaluation, particularly as
related to globalization, but more specifically in regard to race/ethnic structures, the influence of social
class, and intersectionality. Ferree emphasizes the necessity of using an intersectional perspective to study
gender at the local, societal, and global levels. She compares U.S. and German universities on their efforts
to improve gender equality and shows how comparable global forces were reshaped by local conditions
and thus produced different outcomes. She emphasizes gender as dynamic—involving situation and
practice, as historically changing, and as geographically variable.
The chapter by James W. Messerschmidt and Michael A. Messner summarizes Raewyn Connell’s
well-known and popular framework on hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities, as well as the
reformulation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity. They show how “new” masculinities can best be
conceptualized by building on both Connell’s original formulation and the reformulation by Connell and
Messerschmidt. They review historical and recent scholarship on masculinities and show how this work
expands upon Connell’s ideas. In particular, they address confusions about the concept of hegemonic
masculinity and contrast it with applications that misrepresent it. Finally, the authors discuss contemporary
scholarly developments, including the variety of ways hegemonic masculinity is represented and practiced.
They also identify numerous “new” masculinities—for example, dominant, dominating, positive, “female,”
and hybrid masculinities, among others.
Finally, Kristen Schilt explores issues related to transgender identities. Schilt considers how the term
“transsexual” evolved in both life and scholarship, moving from the purview of medicine, biology, and
psychiatry to an issue that sociology as a discipline first depicted as a social problem. She maps out
Connell’s initial work on this topic and contrasts it with predominant perspectives of the time. To show
how Connell’s approach suggested a “roadmap” for studying transgendered people as subjects in their own

14
right rather than as problematic cultural objects to be explained, she examines the brief passages in the
book that speak directly to what was then termed “transsexuality” and links this with Connell’s wider
approach to gender as practice. Schilt ends by showing how current work in transgender studies
concentrates on people’s understandings of their gender identities and lived experiences, and rejects the
kind of categoricalism that depicts trans people as deviants who fall outside of the “normal” gender order.

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 1

“Theories Don’t Grow on Trees”

Contextualizing Gender Knowledge

Myra Marx Ferree

Raewyn Connell’s Gender and Power profoundly influenced my thinking when it appeared in 1987, and I
used it regularly in teaching until the shorter volume, Gender, came out in 2002 (and a second edition in
2005).1 Each book spoke to how gender appeared as a social structure of practice in the particular moment
of its publication, and varied importantly in emphasis as a result. As Connell recently said, although asked
by her publisher to write a second edition of Gender and Power, it was really not possible to do that;
Gender had to be a different book, coming as it did in a different historical moment and speaking to
different political and intellectual needs.
Each book speaks to the concerns both of their historical emergence and those of the present moment
through their distinctively structural and historical approach to the now popular concept of
intersectionality. Both Gender and Power and Gender present gender as a relationship of power and object
of struggle that changes over time, but only indirectly indicate how the historically shifting set of gender
arrangements in the decade and a half prior to the publication of each shape them. I argue that Connell’s
dynamic, political, and historically specific understandings of intersectionality relate to the politics of class
and the dynamics of nationalism in the context of globalization in the period of each book. To say that
material conditions of history influenced Connell’s theoretical claims does not disparage the claims’
continued relevance, but rather highlights the shifting terrain of political struggle that feminists face.
I draw my title from Connell’s preface to Gender and Power (Connell 1987, xi): “theories don’t grow
on trees; theorizing is itself a social practice with a politics.” Indeed, like all feminist practice, theorizing is
a practical politics of “choice, doubt, strategy, planning, error and transformation” (61) that has to be done
by situated thinkers, not all of whom are ever called theorists or hold academic positions. Theorizing is
also to be understood as a form of embodied action that takes place in particular historical moments;
feminist theory is work aimed not only at understanding societies but intervening in them, guided by
experience and directing strategic choices with a modesty that acknowledges the doubt and error as well as
transformative aspirations. Looking back at past theory and rethinking it in present conditions is an
essential element of the reflexive responsibility of feminist theoretical practice.
Bringing history more centrally into the work of feminist theorizing also locates political struggles in the
specific sites and circumstances that make intersectionality more than a merely academic exercise and
offer insight into practices that can advance gender justice. I argue that the concept of intersectionality is
weakened when it is treated primarily as operating at the meso or micro levels of group and identity
formations. Drawing on Connell’s macro orientation to gender politics as historically grounded and
continually contested, I present intersectionality as a matter of macro political dynamics (waves) that
generate conflict (turbulence) of different sorts in different locations depending both on the history of the
site (sediments) and the directions from which the “waves” come when political interventions happen
(stones are thrown) from different positions.2 I use my own social location as a student of gender politics in
the United States and European Union (EU) today to illustrate this approach to intersectional analysis in a
historical moment in which neoliberalism often appears as the preeminent challenge.

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 Locating Gender and Power in History
Gender and Power is revolutionary in the sense of being oriented primarily to overthrowing dominant
paradigms and figures of theoretical authority. Its approach is to challenge the assumption of binary and
ahistorical gender “roles” based on the emergent practices of the feminist movements that had sprung into
action in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In its time, the book offered a brilliant critique and
reconceptualization of many classics of the social sciences from Karl Marx to Sigmund Freud and Jacques
Lacan, and from these fragments built a new edifice, a critical theory of gender understood in structural
and relational terms. To briefly recapitulate its core argument, gender is a social relation organizing action,
a historically variable material framework in which collective consciousness and group coordination as
well as individual performances and personalities take on their particular meanings at the micro level.
However, it also defines structure and agency as recursively related, since out of the groups and identities
formed by such structuring relations come the political activities that contribute to the making or unmaking
of material social inequalities at a macro level.
The connections between the micro level of bodies, personalities, and emotional experience and the
macro level of cultures, institutions, and societies are what Connell calls “practices,” emphasizing their
active, reflexive, and political nature (Connell 1987, 61). This middle (meso) level of practice is the site
where structures—macro-level material contradictions and transformations—become visible as situated
agents grapple with the situations they face, as they perceive them. As socially embedded agents, both
individual and collective actors make choices constrained by their separate and joint histories and enabled
and informed by their ethical and political judgments (95). These choices are political: they arise from
power relations, give form to power, and generate specific conflicts (or turbulences). Seeing gender
theorizing as a political practice is to emphasize its choices and consequences as constituting real social
facts.
The gender theory Connell advanced in 1987 was drawn from experiences in challenging the powers of
that time, including the intellectuals who provided what Connell judged to be justifications for inequality’s
resilience rather than a map for transforming it. Gender and Power was intended to be useful to the
women’s movement that had emerged over the previous decade and a half, and was struggling to
understand the specific opportunities and resistances of that period. In addition to the predictable
opposition from gender traditionalists, feminists faced two particular challenges from their “friends.” One
was the “sex roles” ideology of complementarity and pseudoequality with which most liberal theorists
were still working. The other was the Marxist edifice of theory that defined class as the only fundamental
structural contradiction, and class-based struggle as the only source from which true social equality could
come (Sargent 1981). Both liberal and socialist theory informed the social sciences of the 1980s, placing
gender relations into the role of being at best a “secondary” consideration.
“Radical” feminism in liberal societies (notably the US and UK) advanced an alternative view of
“patriarchy” based on analysis of women and men as inherently and eternally oppositional categories.
Thus, the boldest move that Gender and Power made was to translate the women’s movement’s
self-understanding as a transformative social force into a theory of gender that recognized the movement’s
independent historical agency without making a claim for its autonomy from other oppressions or
movements mobilizing with or against them.
To connect gender with other theories of injustice and social action, a theory of socialization was needed
to connect macro injustice to transformative politics. To advance an intersectional view of injustice also
called for severing the institutional anchors that tied gender to the institution of the family, race to
community-level institutions like education, and class to impersonal-seeming macro models of the formal
economy (capital formation, market relations, and national development). Gender and Power
accomplishes both these tasks by building on Connell’s research on educational institutions as sites of
active stratification, an intersectional analysis in which gender and sexuality operate with and through
social class to provide material and ideological resources for embedding the self in hierarchical social
relations.

17
 This empirical work on education and stratification (Connell et al. 1982; Connell 1985) was part of a
larger, global theoretical project, most strongly represented by Raymond Williams (1976) in the UK and
Pierre Bourdieu (1984) in France, that treated culture as a structuring force, not a mere superstructure to
economics. Such class-critical theorists promoted ethnographic and historical methods as the means of
capturing the cultural forces creating class relations in schools (e.g., Willis 1977) and actively producing
meaningful and usable class categories (e.g., Thompson 1968). This context provided both a theoretical
and methodological structure for Gender and Power to extend to gender relations.
The intersectionality of gender and class (not gender and race) that informed Gender and Power was
prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There was a vibrant discussion going on in the US, Australia,
Canada and the UK, and in much of Europe and Latin America, about the proper relationship between
Marxism and feminism, a line of empirical research and theorizing that engaged capitalist patriarchy (and
patriarchal capitalism) in an intersectional way long before the term “intersectionality” itself was coined.
The effort to understand patriarchy as a system of power that shaped how capitalism worked, and vice
versa, focused largely on the macro level of analysis where class was theoretically situated. Gender
relations were understood in historical material terms, especially among leading British Marxist feminists,
such as Sheila Rowbotham (1974) and Juliet Mitchell (1971).
However, gender relations were still likely to be thought of in binary terms; studies focused only on
women and their lives as sites where gender could be seen, not unlike the focus on studying Black
experience as a way of understanding “race.” Empirical research, including my own in the 1970s and early
1980s, focused on studying housework as reproductive labor and reflected a normative standard frame of
families as the site of (re)production of gender inequalities; many feminist critics pointed out how women
were excluded in studies of shop floors, class consciousness, union mobilization, social movements, and
party politics, even in who was counted as a worker (e.g., Feldberg and Glenn 1979)
By the mid-1980s, however, the “separate spheres” approach that assigned women to home, family, and
reproductive labor and men to formal employment and politics was being undermined by historical and
sociological studies that connected home and work as institutions. Women of color such as Evelyn Nakano
Glenn, Mary Romero, Bonnie Thornton Dill, and Judith Rollins used paid domestic labor as a theoretical
wedge that not only introduced race into the consideration of women’s lives and labor but also broke open
the binary gendered boxes of home and work, love and money, and family and economy (Ferree 1990).
But the reflexive theorizing that would specifically make use of the marginality of women of color in the
US to construct “intersectionality” (Crenshaw 1989) or the “matrix of domination” (Hill Collins 1990) to
bring race into macro-social models emphasizing gender and class was still to be done.
Gender and Power came at about the same time as Joan Scott’s similarly brilliant and pathbreaking
article, “Gender as a Useful Category for Historical Analysis” (1986), both addressing the historically
specific material relations of power without either reducing them to class-economic relations or inscribing
them into gendered binaries that stood outside history. Both Scott and Connell independently challenged
the existence of universal symbolic meaning inherent in physical differences, making the discourse of
difference itself visible as an object of politics. Both also came at a moment in which dissatisfaction was
rising with the eternal sameness of depicting gender (or race or class) as simply a system of oppressors and
oppressed. Reintroducing agency to the concern with structure was essential if theories of gender were to
be feminist theories, that is, theories that contribute to the transformation of society toward being more
inclusive, empowering, and egalitarian for women. This is why it is so important that Connell understood
conflict not as a coincidental or temporary condition but as a fundamental principle of both social and
psychic life.
As an intersectional argument of its time, Gender and Power borrowed tools from class-critical cultural
analysis, introducing a theoretical structure that embedded a material, historical, gendered self in a
macro-structural model of process that privileged conflict and contradiction as sources of transformation
that outlived individuals. But Gender and Power did not devote as much attention to racializing social
processes as would later feminist thought, including Connell’s own.

18
 Gender’s Intersectional Moment
Gender is pragmatic, self-contained, and more future-oriented than Gender and Power; its practical
politics strive to lay out a path forward for feminist engagements that would reflect the existing hard-won
insights of the empirical and theoretical study of gender. Published in 2002, 15 years after Gender and
Power, Gender entered an intellectual and political world that had experienced substantial transformations:
the Cold War had abruptly ended in 1989 and the state socialist claim to have “emancipated” women was
exposed as hollow; the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing highlighted the ubiquity
and strength of women’s movements in the global South, spurred movement development into
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and encouraged an unprecedented level of discursive recognition
to women’s rights as human rights; the integration of Europe dramatically accelerated, the European Union
emerged as a political actor with global influence, and European feminists demonstrated the effectiveness
of networking around a gender equality agenda.
Gender thus engages with a political climate in which the transnational dimensions of gender politics are
more prominent. Moreover, the “women’s movement” that seemed to be the main carrier of feminist
thought in the 1970s and 1980s had left the streets to pursue a more institutional politics of gender
transformation, a transformation that feminist activists in Australia had pioneered and for which they
provided useful practical theory to feminists elsewhere (as in their coinage of the word “femocrat”; see
Eisenstein 1996). South Asian and Latin American feminists such as Chandra Mohanty, Gloria Anzaldua,
and Uma Narayan challenged those North American and European feminists who erased the visibility of
colonialism and racism. The collapse of state socialism allowed sometimes-productive engagements
between feminists from those countries and those from the now-triumphalist capitalist countries (Roth
2008). Feminist theory also began to make use of empirical insights arising from social locations outside of
the more politically privileged parts of the world, drawing more explicitly and reflexively on
understandings of gender grounded in the experience of African American women and women of the
postcolonial countries of the global South.
The development of intersectionality as a concept is typically traced to the US-centered analysis of
African American feminists from the Combahee River Collective through Patricia Hill Collins to Kimberlé
Crenshaw. However, the real explosion of interest in the idea began with Crenshaw’s presenting it to the
UN Conference on Racial Discrimination and Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Thus, Gender
enters into a debate founded on both the American analogy of race with gender (in which class appears
often in the list but without any extended consideration of how it works similarly or differently) and on the
international consideration of racism as an aspect of the macro social order. Gender engages with both, but
stresses the latter, more global understanding of racism, carrying forward not only Connell’s own position
as an Australian (half-in and half-out of the metropole) but also Gender and Power’s theoretical reflexivity
and emphasis on political action as the purpose of feminist theory.
The global order that Gender theorizes is very different from the order that Gender and Power
addressed where new grassroots women’s movement activities had been sprouting up everywhere. As
feminist political practice became less confined to the work of women with women, its political position
was less obviously “outside, throwing rocks” at patriarchal institutions, as women were “moving in to
occupy space” in political parties, international development agencies, NGOs, and social movements
(Ferree and Martin 1995). A useful theory of gender politics had to account for this transformation,
without accepting the media frame that saw this as the “death” of feminism (Ewig and Ferree 2013). On
the one hand, theorizing pragmatically about gender politics in a world of increasing economic inequalities
gave new life to theories that separated feminism from the macro-power relations of capitalism, suggesting
gender and sexuality advocacy had failed to move beyond “recognition” to alter “redistribution” (e.g.,
Fraser 1997). On the other hand, in the newly postsocialist societies, gender theory had to contribute to
making sense of the transformations of the present and future, rather than returning to the class-dominant
theoretical legacy of the past (Gal and Kligman 2000).
The shift in historical conditions and thinking about these intersections is evident in the differences
between the two books. Rather than Gender and Power’s effort to tell origin stories and make a case that
gender is a “useful concept,” Gender looks forward to offer a strategic analysis to deploy in a still

19
uncertain and unstable future in which gender knowledge is now a highly contested resource. Indeed, a key
tool of the feminist movement had become a politics of knowledge: socially situated collective labor that
uses teaching, training, reporting, discussing, critiquing, and theorizing to advance a political agenda of
equality. In addition to Connell’s willingness to completely give up on the ideology-as-superstructure
framing in Marxist theory, it is the gains feminists made in institutionalizing their discursive politics
(however precariously) that helps to explain Gender’s otherwise surprising positioning of “discourse” as
an institutional regime of its own, alongside labor, power, and cathexis (a term Connell deployed to refer
to embodied emotions, sexuality, and interpersonal ties).
But the further challenge that Gender faced in the new millennium was to offer an understanding of
macro politics that reflected the instability of categories like race, class, and gender, and framed the
making and remaking of these categories as “real politics” in which power was central. Judith Butler’s
Gender Trouble (1990) moved feminist theory toward understanding bodies as sites of gender practices,
but her framing emphasized their individual “performative” capacities as a dispersed politics of
transformation. Connell uses Gender to offer ideas about more collective forms of politics. Rather than
continuing to place systems of knowledge in the static category of “ideology,” Gender’s strategic concerns
included defining a range of discursive practices that can engage and change institutionalized meanings at
both the macro and micro level. Discourse is now itself recognized as a structure, but not the only
structure, that a politics of social justice must engage in order to be effective.
Gender (unlike Gender and Power) thus engages with postcolonialism and a global order in which
women have been agents as well as victims of oppression. Race is much more explicitly identified as a
form of intersectional gender politics, differentiating what gender can mean—not just as a multiplicative
interaction that has effects on women and men assigned to different racial groups, but at the macro level of
defining how nations define and treat other nations, “tribes,” and ethnicities. By 2002, gender scholarship
had responded to critiques of making white women of the global North the normative standard for
feminism “in the abstract” and turned to increasingly sophisticated examinations of the gender politics
informing concrete global transformations of political economies (e.g., Gal and Kligman 2000; Rosemblatt
2000). Debates had moved beyond framing gender transformation as a “Western import” to engage the
more urgent business of bringing feminist theory into critical perspectives on colonialism and nationalism
(Yuval Davis 1997).
This agenda comes to the book’s surface in three main ways. First, Gender situates Connell
self-consciously as Australian, and presents this as an ambiguous position: belonging physically to the
geographic periphery, but accorded special status as a member of the British Commonwealth, being thus
simultaneously in and not in the global South. Connell’s political choice is to write as an advocate for the
perspectives of the global South. Second, Gender is less engaged with works of theory (not just Freud and
Marx but Butler and Bourdieu) than with empirical research findings. Not only are there many more
studies to be drawn upon in 2002 than in 1987, but the studies Connell selects emphasize work not done in
the US or Britain, but all over the globe. Third, intersectionality now frames the connection between “race”
and “nation” as analogous types of extended kin-like structures (105). The “sphere of reproduction” where
Connell situates gender is thus also inherently one that is racialized by colonialism and governed through
race as well as by gender in defining citizenship and rights at the macro level. Ultimately, Gender presents
globalization explicitly as a macro politics offering feminists both opportunities and threats.
The historical circumstances set in motion by the Beijing World Conference on Women constituted new
structural conditions for theorizing feminist change at a global scale. The Beijing Platform for Action,
signed by most of the world’s national governments in 1995, demanded specific positive organizational
efforts to incorporate awareness of gender inequality into all policy processes in the United Nations and its
constitutive states. This “gender mainstreaming” mandate was adopted in the EU in 1997, and its own
directives to member states demanded not only that gender discrimination be recognized and combatted,
but that positive state action must be undertaken to increase gender equality in work-family outcomes,
setting guidelines for minimum maternity and child-care leaves, equalizing part-time and full-time
workers’ benefits per hour, and setting goals for accessible state-funded child-care services. In 2002, there
was still considerable enthusiasm for what the embrace of gender mainstreaming strategies could offer to

20
deeply transform politics-as-usual (Beveridge, Nott, and Stephen 2000). Although a critique from
femocrats and their allies was emerging that this new direction diminished power-holders’ attention to
women (Kantola and Nousiainen 2009), UN “gender and development” policies increasingly stressed
protecting, supporting, and educating “the girl child” and offering economic opportunity to adult women in
the form of microenterprise loans and training.
Another practical opportunity for feminist politics lay in the proliferation of transnational advocacy
networks that deployed knowledge resources (“epistemic communities” with shared political values) to
effect change (Keck and Sikkink 1998). “Gender experts” were increasingly called on to contribute advice
to governments and organize programs of services to women as constituents of the state. The NGO sector
exploded, triggering concerns about the extent to which “NGOized” politics could represent the interests of
the marginalized (Lang 1997). Developing “gender expertise” began to run on a practitioner track separate
from the theories and practices of academia. Gender analysis was not something that women’s movements
collectively produced; one part was now the intellectual product of formally accredited “gender and
women’s studies” departments and another was the discursive legitimation of policy change being
produced by and for governments. Especially outside the US, gender theory found global resonance in
agency white papers, national and international reports, state-mandated gender training, and transnational
advocacy networks.
Gender could hardly fail to recognize the power relations among nations as an intersectional form of
historical-material social organization that was gendered and that reproduced gender in various forms.
Connell’s theorizing of these connections didn’t “grow on trees”: it emerged from the transformational
politics of governance in which feminists were now globally engaged. By displacing the Western/Northern
metropole from the center of Gender, Connell presents global contestation over the shape of the future
international order as a site of gender contradictions and specifically looks at the emergent discursive
power of gender knowledge to take advantage of these opportunities to do feminist politics.

Gender Politics and Global Restructuring

In looking at the 15 years of change since Gender was published, I am struck by the extent to which the
macro-level forces captured in the term “globalization” are operating in intersectional ways. Even the
second edition of Gender, published only three years later, expands upon the account of the turbulence
being produced by globalizing economic forces, producing not one wave of transformation but many, very
specific sites of contested transformation, often called all-inclusively “neo-liberalism.” I find most theories
of intersectionality offer few strategic insights into the practical politics of contesting these changes and
rarely improve upon the accounts of economic transformation that subordinate or ignore feminist,
antiracist politics. Gender begins to offer such a “strong theory” of intersectionality, on which Connell’s
later work, as well as that of others, builds.
Connell’s practical feminist politics of “choice, doubt, strategy, error and transformation” deploys an
agentic understanding of class and nation as structural formations that intersect with gender at all levels
from macro to micro. More categorical views of intersectionality that focus only on “giving voice” to
marginalized people or on the multiplicatively distinctive experiences only of the less privileged, leaving
privileged statuses invisible and looking away from the macro level of intersectional power relations, are
not wrong, but they are incomplete (Choo and Ferree 2010). Labor, power, cathexis, and discourse are
institutionalized in social formations like classes, nations, races, religions, and genders, but always
intersectionally.
Walby’s (2009) notion of intersecting positive and negative feedback loops is a way of operationalizing
the recursivity in Connell’s view of action and structure. This approach moves beyond unidirectional
path-dependency models of the political economy. Tracing feedback suggests moving back and forth
between action and reaction, with particular historical relations coming sometimes to the foreground of

21
change, while sometimes establishing the institutional structures that enable and limit it. These
institutionalized structures can at any point become the target of reconfiguring politics, with implications
felt on all the others in varying ways.
These formations of inequality are and have always been produced through historically knowable
interactions, processes that leave distinctive “shapes” behind. Thus, the US should be understood as a
racialized state from its founding documents onward, and the embedding of racialization as a process in
every other social relation is inescapable in this national context; politics directed at any element in the
overall system will have feedback into structures governing “race.” However, this process of racialization
should not be casually generalized to other national contexts where the formation of their institutions and
identities has not been so consistently and insistently done in and through privileged and disprivileged
racial categorizations (Bose 2015). My own research on German feminism, for example, stresses the way
in which class formations and conflicts intersected with gender historically to shape strategic opportunities
for feminist mobilization over the previous century and a half (Ferree 2013). Most important, as Connell’s
empirical examples frequently illustrate, both racial politics and class politics in every setting have been
and continue to be shaped by the specific gender relations that run through them.
If histories of struggle build up an emerging substructure of discursive opportunities, actual agents with
particular agendas still need to survey the ground, draw conclusions, and mobilize action to transform not
only themselves but the “facts on the ground” as they see them. As I have argued elsewhere, “Framing is a
way of connecting beliefs about social actors and beliefs about social relations into more or less coherent
packages that define what kinds of actions are possible and effective for particular actors. The point of
frames is that they draw connections, identify relationships, and create perceptions of social order out of
the variety of possible mental representations of reality swirling around social actors” (Ferree 2009, 87).
The discursive approach that Connell brings into prominence in Gender offers additional ways of thinking
about framing as a political process.
One broad framing project for feminist theory can be seen in the concentrated efforts directed at
conceptually sorting out the meanings of “intersectionality” in classification schemes such as those of
McCall (2005), Hancock (2007), and Choo and Ferree (2010). The number of feminist journals that have
devoted special issues or symposia to the concept is enormous and still growing; intersectionality may be
vague enough to be embraced by everyone, but where and how it could actually be useful is remarkably
contentious. Some African American feminist scholars see its use in analyzing intersections that are not
specifically concerned with Black experience as a form of intellectual misappropriation (e.g.,
Alexander-Floyd 2012), while others present it as a “heuristic” that can be deployed for various ends,
including those inimical to social justice (Lindsay 2013). Some feminists in Europe see its application to
policy debates there as fruitful (e.g., Lombardo, Maier, and Verloo 2009), while others are concerned that
it is encouraging the transformation of gender mainstreaming into a shallow form of state “diversity”
politics analogous to the “diversity management” that US corporations export (Prügl 2014).
The growth of feminist influence in governance projects has also drawn theorists’ attention to the
intersectional impacts of women’s movement organizing. Concerns are increasingly expressed about the
negative impacts of national or transnational gender equality projects on men of color in the US (Bumiller
2008) and on women, men, and families in the global South (Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead 2007).
Orloff and Schiff (2014) note that this “governance feminism” is one that is facilitated by neoliberal
economic transformations at the global level, but as Elizabeth Prügl (2014) argues, “Neoliberalism has
become somewhat of a master variable, an explanatory hammer that fits all nails, used to account for a
multiplicity of contemporary phenomena. . . . In order to make neoliberalism methodologically useful, it is
necessary to transcend the reification of the concept, recall the indeterminate way in which doctrines
circulate and are resisted, and [address] the process aspect of any class and governance project” (616). This
“process aspect” includes the gender, race, and nationalist politics waged within and across specific sites
(Bose 2015).
A more macro-level theory of intersectionality would help address the diversity of contested political
changes currently tossed into the concept neoliberalism in a totalizing, often inherently condemnatory way
that is just as problematic theoretically as the universalizing concept of patriarchy proved to be. Not only

22
have defenders of patriarchy been able to cloak their agenda by presenting it as challenging a
unidimensional gender division into dominant men and subordinate women, but defenders of neoliberalism
adopt a discourse of “empowerment” that claims to resist universalizing claims of economic oppression. A
more useful view of neoliberalism situates it intersectionally, as patriarchy has been, considering the
specific nuances of class, nation, gender, race, and religious and sexual politics that shape it, and thus also
the struggles against it (Collins 2017). As with all the other intersectional forces of inequality,
neoliberalism is misunderstood if treated as one division between oppressed and oppressors. Institutions
that follow intersectionally specific trajectories produce gender politics that are distinctive to their
situations, both within and across national borders (see Bose and Kim 2009), but as Connell (1987) argues
“the connection between structures of inequality is not a logical connection . . . [it] is empirical and
practical” (292). Although some invoke neoliberalism as if it has co-opted and overwhelmed all feminist
aspirations (e.g., Eisenstein 2009), Connell argues instead that how local feminisms relate to neoliberalism
is not to be deduced logically but investigated empirically. Even such globally visible trends as
empowering managerial authorities, preferring private rather than public investments, and framing
economic costs and benefits as the most socially important outcomes—a standard definition of
neoliberalism—take on quite remarkably different forms, which in particular cases may be empowering for
individuals subordinated on other dimensions (Prügl 2014). Where and how these shifts generate
turbulences (or contradictions) depends on what other forces they intersect with and what historical
conditions provide a “seafloor” of normalized institutions, practices, and identities over which they move,
shaping and being shaped by these “sediments.” Effective understanding of neoliberal politics demands
specific analysis of the politics of gender, race, and class in interaction with each other at a structural level,
as Ewig’s (2010) analysis of Peruvian health policies demonstrates can indeed be done.
Drawing on my own work, I illustrate the diversity this dynamic model of intersectional feminism
brings to the analysis of institutional transformation by picking some particular sites (institutions of higher
education in Germany and the US) where struggles over class and gender relations are currently highly
visible. The university systems of both of these economically powerful and politically influential countries
are being reconfigured, and feminist critics in both countries strongly identify these transformations with
neoliberalism (Tuchman 2009; Kahlert 2003). But in each national context, the path being taken is so
remarkably different that the common label is misleading.
In the US, the restructuring takes the form of intensified competition at the bottom from exploitative
for-profit institutions that particularly take advantage of Black women’s desires for economic security and
a less-stigmatized identity. These organizations, which McMillan Cottom (2016) calls “lower-ed,” reflect
the intersections of gender, race, and class in US educational policy as much as do the immense
endowments of the exclusive private universities. State disinvestments, tuition increases, and reliance on
highly competitive research funding and on alumni donations are fiscal characteristics that shape the entire
hierarchy of US higher education, making most jobs more precarious and decreasing institutional reliance
on professorships just at the historical moment in which women are claiming a larger share of these jobs
(Ferree and Zippel 2015). University administrators use “globalization” to troll for affluent tuition-paying
students from all over the world and brag about the “diversity” this form of internationalization produces.
In Germany, by contrast, the neoliberal intensification of competition has given rise to increased federal
and state investments in universities and research allocated in the form of grants, and political efforts to
add differentiation in status among its research universities (Zippel, Ferree, and Zimmermann 2016). EU
directives on gender equality, specifying that measures must to be taken to increase the share of women in
science and technology, have been used quite effectively to prod the German government to fund extra
professorships for women and to demand regular audits of success in meeting goals for gender inclusivity
(Zippel, Ferree, and Zimmermann 2016). Competitive pressure and political mobilization lie behind these
gender politics, but also explain the decision to abolish tuition at all German public universities. EU
pressure for “mobility,” especially among its member states, has also increased pressure for
standardization of curricula, English-language instruction across many subject areas, and more regular
formal grading of student progress along with time limits on funding degree completion.
In other words, both German and US universities are going through restructurings called neoliberal that

23
are not merely economic in either case. Given that there are transnational gender politics, geopolitical
national interests, and racialized beliefs about academic success entwined in specific ways with the
neoliberal impulse, one can see very different trajectories of restructuring and radically different types of
opportunities for feminist engagement. While the shared label neoliberal creates an illusion that such
change is driven by class relations alone, any closer look reveals a variety of specific struggles going on
simultaneously in each site, ones that are shaped by gender, in the United States also by race and in
Germany also by nationality.

Conclusions Also Don’t Grow on Trees

While current concerns about neoliberalism—as it shapes governments and globalization as well as
universities—are wholly appropriate, I believe theories of neoliberalism will benefit greatly from
Connell’s macro-level understanding of intersectionality. This conviction grows from my own engagement
in feminist politics, comparative research on gender relations, and personal experiences of universities in
different countries. I see the current changes hitting universities—and other knowledge-producing
institutions—as a tangle of feedback among diverse forces, not one disembodied economic transformation.
More generally, like Connell, I am convinced that not neoliberalism alone, but intersecting macro forces
today are reorganizing social systems globally. These upheavals are being felt in the specific institutions
we inhabit, are linked across space and time with those of all other people, can be framed as being about
gender or race or class or sexuality or nation, and are being contested by diverse social justice movements
arising around the world. What gender means to movement activists, and what they plan to do with it in the
future is the “choice, doubt, strategy, planning, error and transformation” Connell has argued is inherent in
historical agency.
In addition to neoliberalism, other struggles that are global—the racialization of Muslims, the pressures
of migration on affluent countries, the gendering of technological expertise—also are better understood, I
argue, by attending specifically to the sites where multiple forces intersect to generate “turbulences” that
actors can use to generate energy for transformation. Neoliberalism alone is not the explanation for social
change, nor is a new class politics alone the solution to new or persistent inequalities. Rather than “taking a
break from feminism,” as Halley (2008) has suggested might be necessary to confront neoliberal
globalization, I suggest that a macro-oriented and dynamic gender theory should inspire a greater range of
feminist strategic thinking. Taking intersectionality into account would suggest that governance feminism,
as mobilized from the inside of state, NGO, and corporate organizations, offers just one of a number of
options for hydra-headed feminist activism. This implies a discourse about feminism less deeply
ambivalent about power and more willing to act with conviction. Looking at politics from the standpoint of
2016, new forms of feminist collective action seem to be emergent in social media and cultural politics
throughout the world (Ewig and Ferree 2013), including high-risk activism challenging gender relations in
nondemocratic sites like China (Wang and Ferree 2015), Russia (Sperling 2014), and the Middle East
(Al-Ali 2012).
An intersectional feminist theory of politics worthy of the name can find a powerful foundation in
Connell’s evolving understanding of gender and power at the global scale. The macro intersections that
neoliberalism, fundamentalism, nationalism, environmentalism, and neocolonialism have with patriarchy
and feminism were already visible in Gender. Connell’s newest work (2015) stresses the need that
feminists everywhere have for feminist theory from the global South about imperialism, postcolonialism
and collective identities or states, violence, and human rights (see also Tripp, Ferree, and Ewig 2014).
Such historically specific, intersectional accounts of struggle are essential, Connell suggests, particularly
for those of us whose perspective is easily mistaken for being universal—the white, privileged, highly
educated theorists of the metropole.
Nonetheless, Connell is hardly alone in advocating a more thoroughly intersectional account of the
struggles of our own era. Gender politics in this macro-intersectional sense have been persuasively studied
in the way civil war in El Salvador was fought and settled (Viterna 2013), the framing of work and

24
workers in the antiausterity protests in Wisconsin (Collins 2017), and the roots and spread of the global
financial crisis of 2008 (Walby 2015). The global resonance of Connell’s work suggests that
macro-intersectional analyses will continue to illuminate the contradictions in the many interacting forces
shaking contemporary institutions in many locations, and reveal how these turbulent times are perceived
and experienced, resisted, and changed through the practices of both men and women around the world.
This is a global feminist knowledge project not restricted to the academy but one in which all who have a
desire for social justice have a stake.

Notes

1 Acknowledgments: Many thanks are due to Raewyn Connell and the editors of this book for shaping this chapter by raising
wonderful questions on an earlier draft; also to Lisa D. Brush, Christina Ewig, Sarah Kaiksow, Silke Roth, and Aili Tripp for
helping me refine this one.
2 Thanks to Mieke Verloo for providing the core of this imagery.

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 2

Hegemonic, Nonhegemonic, and “New” Masculinities

James W. Messerschmidt and Michael A. Messner

The most frequently cited passages in Raewyn Connell’s 1987 book, Gender and Power, are found in the
final section of chapter 8. In these six pages (183–88), Connell introduces the concept of “hegemonic
masculinity” and its relation to “emphasized femininity” and nonhegemonic masculinities. The subsequent
canonization of these concepts, however, has created new problems—not because Connell was “wrong,”
but rather because too often gender scholars deploy the concepts in structurally and historically
decontextualized ways.
Nearly two decades ago, Pat Martin (1998) raised the issue of inconsistent applications of the concept of
hegemonic masculinity, insightfully observing that some scholars equated the concept with a fixed type of
masculinity or with whatever type of masculinity happened to be dominant at a particular time and place.
More recently, Christine Beasley (2008) and Elias and Beasley (2009) labeled such inconsistent
applications “slippage,” arguing that “dominant” forms of masculinity—such as the most culturally
celebrated or the most common in particular settings—may actually do little to legitimate men’s power
over women and, therefore, should not be labeled hegemonic masculinities, and that some masculinities
that legitimate men’s power actually may be culturally marginalized. And Mimi Schippers (2007) argued
that it is essential to distinguish masculinities that legitimate men’s power from those that do not.
Martin’s, Beasley’s, and Schipper’s insights continue to ring true as there remains a tendency among
some scholars to read hegemonic masculinity as a static character type and to ignore the whole question of
gender relations and thus the legitimation of gender inequality. And some scholars continue to equate
hegemonic masculinity with (1) particular masculinities that simply are dominant—that is, the most
culturally celebrated or the most common in particular settings—but do not legitimate gender inequality, or
(2) those masculinities that are practiced by certain men—such as politicians, corporate heads, and
celebrities—simply because they are in positions of power, ignoring once again questions of structured
gender relations and the legitimation of gender inequality (see Messerschmidt 2012).
The potential of Connell’s concepts can only be realized when coupled with what we see as the
theoretical heart of Gender and Power: chapter 6, the centerpiece of three chapters in which Connell
elaborates a structural theory of “the gender order” (the state of play of gender relations in a society) and
“gender regimes” (the state of play of gender relations in an institution). As the phrase “state of play”
implies, Connell’s view of social structure is dynamic, emphasizing a dialectical relationship between
structural constraint and human agency, foregrounding the mechanisms and processes of historical change
and continuity in gender relations. If a reader of Gender and Power fails to grasp this structural foundation
of Connell’s theory, then what follows—particularly in the deployment of concepts like hegemonic
masculinity—can too easily descend into decontextualized, ahistorical, and individualized descriptors
disguised as “theory.”
Grounded in Connell’s structural analysis, gender is revealed not merely as individual attributes or
styles, but as collective agency, constrained and enabled by social structures. Historical crisis tendencies in
the gender order, as well as within and across gender regimes, create both constraints on and opportunities
for action. Examining Gender and Power alongside Connell’s Masculinities (1995) illustrates the method
we seek to underline in this chapter. In Gender and Power, Connell introduces a richly theorized
framework for understanding gender as social structure, with a particular focus on how historical crisis
tendencies create both constraints on and opportunities for action. And in Masculinities, she engages

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empirically with men at carefully chosen social locations where crisis tendencies in gender relations come
to the surface—young working class men in a declining labor market; gay men; men in the environmental
movement who are working closely with feminist women—with the aim of understanding the collective
construction of masculinities in these dynamic social locations. Connell then uses these observations to
understand the possibilities for both progressive and regressive social change in gender relations. In other
words, Connell shows how a close-up empirical engagement with the “trees” of concrete gender relations
is constituted by, and in turn constitutes, the historical and structural context, the “forest,” so to speak. The
key challenge is how to think about different collective configurations of gender—including constructions
of masculinities and femininities—within this larger structural and historical framework.
In this chapter we first discuss the initial formulation of Connell’s framework and outline some of its
early applications as well as some of the criticisms leveled against it. Second, we discuss the reformulation
of Connell’s perspective that was sketched out by Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) and we summarize
some recent scholarly publications supporting that reformulation. Finally, in the last two sections we
outline ways in which hegemonic, nonhegemonic, and “new” masculinities can be productively viewed in
structural contexts, with a particular focus on research that illuminates new directions in masculinities
studies as well as prospects for how masculinities change.

Formulation
Connell’s initial conceptual formulation concentrated on how hegemonic masculinity in a given historical
and society-wide setting legitimates unequal gender relations between men and women, masculinity and
femininity, and among masculinities. As Connell (1987, 183; emphasis added) points out in Gender and
Power: “Hegemonic masculinity is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as
well as in relation to women.” And in Masculinities Connell (1995, 77; emphasis added) defines
hegemonic masculinity “as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted
answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the
dominant position of men and the subordination of women.” Both the relational and legitimation features
were central to her argument, involving a particular form of masculinity in unequal relation to a certain
form of femininity—that is, “emphasized femininity,” which is practiced in a complementary, compliant,
and accommodating subordinate relationship with hegemonic masculinity—and to certain forms of
nonhegemonic masculinities. And the achievement of hegemonic masculinity occurs largely through
discursive legitimation (or justification), encouraging all to consent to, unite around, and embody such
unequal gender relations.
For Connell, then, gender relations are structured through power inequalities between and among men
and women. Accordingly, the concept of emphasized femininity is essential to Connell’s framework,
underlining how this feminized form adapts to masculine power through compliance, nurturance, and
empathy as “womanly virtues” (188). But Connell (183–84) identifies additional femininities, such as
those defined “by strategies of resistance or forms of compliance” and “by complex strategic combinations
of compliance, resistance and cooperation.”
Hegemonic masculinity is also constructed in relation to what Connell identifies as four specific
nonhegemonic masculinities: first, complicit masculinities do not actually embody hegemonic masculinity
yet through practice realize some of the benefits of patriarchal relations; second, subordinate masculinities
are constructed as lesser than or aberrant from and deviant to hegemonic masculinity; third, marginalized
masculinities are trivialized or discriminated against, or both, because of unequal relations, such as class,
race, ethnicity, and age; and finally, protest masculinities are constructed as compensatory
hypermasculinities that are formed in reaction to social positions lacking economic and political power.
Connell emphasized that hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities are all subject to change because
they come into existence in specific settings and under particular situations. And for the former, there often

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exists a struggle for hegemony whereby older versions may be replaced by newer ones. The notion of
hegemonic masculinity and nonhegemonic masculinities then opened up the possibility of change toward
the abolition of gender inequalities and the creation of more egalitarian gender relations.
Connell’s perspective found significant and enthusiastic application from the late 1980s to the early
2000s, being utilized in a variety of academic areas. For example, the conceptualization of hegemonic and
nonhegemonic masculinities was used to understand educational processes; the social construction of
crime; media representations of and men’s involvement in sport; determinants of men’s health; and
organizational structures. The perspective also was used in psychotherapy with men, youth violence
prevention programs, and educational programs for boys, as well as in discussions of art, geography, law,
and feminist politics. Eventually the perspective was fleshed out further by documenting the costs of
hegemony, by uncovering the mechanism of hegemony, by showing even greater diversity in
nonhegemonic masculinities, and by discovering changes in hegemonic masculinities (see Connell and
Messerschmidt 2005).
Despite considerable favorable reception of Connell’s concepts, her perspective nevertheless attracted
criticism that concentrated almost exclusively on the concept of hegemonic masculinity. For example,
some scholars raised concerns about the underlying concept of masculinity itself, arguing that it may be
flawed in various ways (Collinson and Hearn 1994; Hearn 1996, 2004; Petersen 1998, 2003). Critics of
hegemonic masculinity also raised questions regarding who actually represents hegemonic masculinity
(Donaldson 1993; Martin 1998; Wetherell and Edley 1999; Whitehead 1998, 2002). Some critics
additionally argued that hegemonic masculinity simply reduces in practice to a reification of power or
toxicity (Holter 1997, 2003; Collier 1998; McMahon 1993), while others have suggested that the concept
maintains an alleged unsatisfactory theory of the masculine subject (Wetherell and Edley 1999; Whitehead
2002; Collier 1998; Jefferson 1994, 2002). Finally, some commentators claimed that the pattern of gender
relations outlined by Connell is unsound (Demetriou 2001).

Reformulation
In a paper published in 2005, Connell and Messerschmidt responded to the above criticisms and
reformulated the concept of hegemonic masculinity in numerous ways. That reformulation first included
certain aspects of the original formulation that empirical evidence over almost two decades indicated
should be retained, in particular the relational nature of the concept (among hegemonic masculinity,
emphasized femininity, and nonhegemonic masculinities) and the idea that this relationship is a pattern of
hegemony—not a pattern of simple domination. Also well-supported historically are the foundational ideas
that hegemonic masculinity need not be the most powerful or the most common pattern of masculinity, or
both, in a particular setting, and that any formulation of the concept as simply constituting an assemblage
of fixed “masculine” character traits should be thoroughly transcended. Second, Connell and
Messerschmidt suggested that a reformulated understanding of hegemonic masculinity must incorporate a
more holistic grasp of gender inequality that recognizes the agency of subordinated groups as much as the
power of hegemonic groups and that includes the mutual conditioning (or intersectionality) of gender with
other social inequalities such as class, race, age, sexuality, and nation. Third, Connell and Messerschmidt
asserted that a more sophisticated treatment of embodiment in hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities
was necessary, as well as conceptualizations of how hegemonic masculinity may be challenged, contested,
and thus changed. Finally, Connell and Messerschmidt argued that instead of simply recognizing
hegemonic masculinity at only the society-wide level, scholars should analyze empirically existing
hegemonic masculinities at three levels: first, the local (meaning constructed in gender regimes involving
the face-to-face interaction of families, organizations, and immediate communities); second, the regional
(meaning constructed at the level of a society-wide gender order); and, third, the global (meaning
constructed in the global gender order involving transnational world politics, business, and media).
Obviously, within any level multiple and often conflicting hegemonic masculinities will be at play. For
example, Michela Musto’s (2014) research on a coed children’s swim team reveals more egalitarian gender
relations in the formally controlled context of the swimming pool, yet a binary gender divide was

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constructed when the kids moved to more informal interactions and relations, such as on the pool deck.
And links among the three levels exist: global hegemonic masculinities pressure regional and local
hegemonic masculinities, and regional hegemonic masculinities provide cultural materials adopted or
reworked in global arenas and utilized in local gender dynamics.
Scholars have applied this reformulated concept of hegemonic masculinity in a number of ways. First,
gender researchers increasingly are specifically examining hegemonic masculinities at the local, regional,
and global levels as well as how each level may affect the other levels (Morris 2008; Weitzer and Kubrin
2009; Hatfield 2010; Messner 2014). Second, research demonstrates how women and subordinated men
under certain situations may actually contribute to the cultivation of hegemonic masculinity (Talbot and
Quayle 2010; Irvine and Vermilya 2010). Third, studies have appeared that demonstrate how hegemonic
masculinities may be open to challenge and possibly reproduced in new form, resulting in new strategies of
patriarchal relations and redefinitions of hegemonic masculinities (Duncanson 2009; Light 2007). Finally,
scholarly work is now analyzing how neoliberal globalization affects the construction of hegemonic
masculinities in several countries in Asia, Africa, and Central and Latin America, as well as how new
nonhegemonic masculinities may arise under such conditions in these countries (Groes-Green 2009;
Broughton 2008).

New Directions
Recent work on hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities takes gendered knowledge in promising new
directions. We identify four recent developments in the conceptualization of hegemonic and nonhegemonic
masculinities.

Dominant, Dominating, and Positive Masculinities

As mentioned above, to elucidate the significance and salience of hegemonic masculinities, gender
scholars must distinguish masculinities that legitimate gender inequality from those that do not, and some
researchers have now begun to accomplish this. For example, Messerschmidt (2016) recently distinguished
“hegemonic masculinities” from “dominant,” “dominating,” and “positive” forms of masculinities. For
Messerschmidt, hegemonic masculinities are those masculinities constructed locally, regionally, and
globally that legitimate an unequal relationship between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and
among masculinities. Dominant masculinities are not always associated with and linked to gender
hegemony but refer to (locally, regionally, and globally) the most celebrated, common, or current form of
masculinity in a particular social setting. As an example of dominant masculinities, Messerschmidt (2016)
interviewed teenage boys who all identified certain boys in school who were structurally dominant: they
were popular, were often tough and athletic, attended parties, participated in heterosexuality, and had many
friends. In other words, these dominant boys represented the most celebrated form of masculinity in the
“clique” structure within schools, yet they did not in and of themselves legitimate gender inequality.
Dominating masculinities refer to those masculinities (locally, regionally, and globally) that also do not
necessarily legitimate unequal relationships between men and women, masculinities and femininities, but
rather involve commanding and controlling particular interactions, exercising power and control over
people and events: “calling the shots” and “running the show.” For example, in Messerschmidt’s (2016)
discussion of former president George W. Bush’s involvement in the Iraq War, he demonstrates how Bush
refused to engage in peaceful geopolitical diplomatic negotiations with foreign leaders, choosing instead to
practice “hard diplomacy” and thus control worldwide geopolitical diplomatic negotiations through a
global dominating masculinity. Dominant and dominating masculinities at times may also be hegemonic,
but neither is hegemonic if they fail culturally to legitimate unequal gender relations. Positive masculinities
are those masculinities (locally, regionally, and globally) that contribute to legitimating egalitarian
relations between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and among masculinities. Messerschmidt
(2016) found such masculinities constructed by nonviolent boys, who frequently reported, for example,
hanging out with the “laid back” crowd at school (or some other unpopular groups) that included both boys

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and girls who were inclusive and nonviolent, did not emphasize heterosexuality and accepted celibacy,
embraced diversity in bodies and sexuality, were nonhierarchical, had no desire to be popular, and the boys
were not misogynist. Indeed, members of such groups viewed themselves as different from, rather than
inferior to, the dominant boys and girls. Consequently, such positive masculinities were not constructed in
a structural relationship of gender and sexual inequality, they did not legitimate unequal gender and sexual
relations, and they were practiced in settings situated outside stable unequal gender relations.
Research on such dominant, dominating, and positive masculinities is significant because it enables a
more distinct conceptualization of how hegemonic masculinities are unique among the diversity of
masculinities, and making a clear distinction between hegemonic and dominant and dominating
masculinities will enable scholars to recognize and research various nonhegemonic yet powerful
masculinities and how they differ from hegemonic masculinities as well as how they differ among
themselves. Moreover, such research will be considered valuable in the sense of recognizing and
pinpointing possible positive masculinities and thus gender practices that challenge gender hegemony and
consequently have crucial implications for social policy.

Hegemonic Masculinities
The concept of hegemonic masculinity continues to be used by scholars in diverse ways throughout the
world. Consider the examples of South Africa and Sweden. In the former, many researchers have followed
Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) reformulation of hegemonic masculinity by using the concept in the
plural; however, in some instances this has resulted in a fixed understanding of hegemonic masculinity.
Therefore, South African scholars have argued that for the concept to be fully realized “the realms (in
relation to race, class, and age) and levels (i.e., global, national, or local) of its use need to be specified and
observed” (Morrell, Jewkes, and Lindegger 2012, 25). In the latter, scholars use the concept of hegemonic
masculinity in a variety of ways: as part of a typology; by linking it to how unequal gender relations are
maintained; through the application of Connell’s initial formulation; relating the concept to
poststructuralist theory; and attempting to reconceptualize hegemonic masculinity through queer theory
and postcolonialism (Hearn et al., 2012).
Recent research from the United States suggests that hegemonic masculinities—at the local, regional,
and global levels—are constructed differently. For example, Messerschmidt (2016) found that hegemonic
masculinities vary in the significance and scope of their legitimating influence—the justifying of unequal
gender relations by localized hegemonic masculinities is limited to the confines of the gender regimes in
particular institutions, such as schools, whereas regional and global hegemonic masculinities have,
respectively, a society-wide regional gender order and worldwide global gender order legitimating impact.
Messerschmidt (2016) also distinguished between “dominating” and “protective” forms of hegemonic
masculinities and accordingly between different constructions of gendered power relations. He found
different ways hegemonic masculinities were constructed: localized hegemonic masculinities were
fashioned through relational material practices that had a discursive legitimating influence, whereas
regional and global hegemonic masculinities were constructed through discursive practices—such as
speeches and rap albums—that concurrently constituted unequal gender relations linguistically,
metaphorically, and thus symbolically.
Finally, Messerschmidt (2016) noted the significance of reflexivity in the construction of both
hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities. Reflexivity refers to exercising our conscious mental ability
to consider ourselves in relation to the particular social context and circumstances we experience by
engaging in internal conversations about particular social experiences and then deciding how to respond
appropriately. However, masculinities may also be constructed nonreflexively through the practicing of
gender that is emergent, directional, temporal, rapid, immediate, and indeterminate (Martin 2003, 2006;
see also Bird and Sokolofski 2005).

“Female” Masculinities

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Certain individuals in specific times and places transcend their assigned “female” sex at birth and construct
masculinities. For example, in many traditional Native American societies—such as the Klamath, Mohave,
Maricopa, and Ciocopa—girls who practice masculinities were recognized as “two-spirits” through
specific formal ceremonies (Blackwood 1994). As adults, two-spirit women engaged in exclusively
masculine practices and wore “male” clothing; that is, they were defined socially as constituting “social
man with a vagina” (Bolin 1994). And in his book Female Masculinity, Jack Halberstam (1998) catalogs
the diversity of gender expressions among masculine women, uncovering the hidden history of female
masculinities (see also the pioneering work of Devor 1989, 1997; Rubin 2003).
More recently, Messerschmidt (2016) carried on this tradition by showing that masculinity is not
exclusively coupled with people assigned “male” at birth. For example, he found that under particular
social situations masculinity by specific individuals assigned “female” at birth becomes the primary
foundation of their identity while “sex” is then transformed into the qualifier. The coherence of one’s
initial fundamental sex and gender project may be altered whereby masculinity becomes primary and
“real” and “sex” is transmuted to epiphenomenon. Additionally, Messerschmidt found that individuals
assigned female at birth who practiced masculinity may experience specific contradictions between their
bodies and masculinity, and through the discursively sexed meanings of certain bodily developments (such
as breasts and menstruation) and the fact that culturally their bodies were expected to be congruent with
femininity, not masculinity. Indeed, people assigned female at birth often experience a degree of bodily
anxiety in constructing masculinities, especially when embedded in cultural conceptions of two and only
two sexes and its accompanying discursive assertion that men have penises and women do not. For such
individuals, masculinity can be experienced in certain situations—such as sexual situations (see, further,
Schilt and Windsor 2014; Westbrook and Schilt 2014)—as a disembodied phenomenon that affects future
practice. Finally, Messerschmidt’s data on individuals assigned female at birth shows that eventual
genderqueer constructions represent examples of what Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2012, 2013) recently
labeled “post-masculinities,” in the sense of not being exclusively masculine but rather that masculinity is
merely a specific part of their overall gender construction and not its sole defining characteristic.

Globalization
From the 1950s to the 1980s numerous writers in the global South raised important questions and inspired
significant debate on the relationship among globalization, colonialism, and masculinity (Mernissi 1975;
Paz 1950; Nandy 1983). A surge of social research and debate on masculinity followed within different
parts of the global South in the 1990s, at much the same time as in the global North (though less noticed in
Anglophone sociological literature), and as usual in the global economy of knowledge the work in the
global South often used concepts and methods circulating in the global North. For example, Robert Morrell
(1994, 1998, 2001), in an early series of studies, identified three distinct localized hegemonic masculinities
in South Africa: a white hegemonic masculinity constructed by the politically dominant white ruling class
men; an African hegemonic masculinity fashioned by indigenous male chiefs; and a black hegemonic
masculinity that existed in the various South African townships (see also Cornwall and Lindisfarne 1994;
Pease and Pringle 2001). And in the early 2000s, the empirical base of research and theoretical
development on globalization and masculinities was greatly diversified to include, for example, studies on
Japan (Roberson and Suzuki 2003), Australia (Tomsen and Donaldson 2003), Latin America (Viveros
Vigoya 2001; Gutmann 1996), the Middle East (Ghoussoub and Sinclair-Webb 2000), and China (Louie
2002).
Connell (1998, 2005) developed a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship among
hegemonic masculinity, globalization, and a global gender order. First, Connell (2005, 72) defines
globalization as “the current pattern of world integration via global markets, transnational corporations,
and electronic media under the political hegemony of the United States.” Second, Connell illuminates how
a global gender order is articulated as part of this larger operation of globalization, targeting two basic
links currently constituting a global gender order. The first link involves the interaction, interconnection,
and interdependence of nation-states and their regional gender orders. As Connell (2005, 73) puts it, “The
gender patterns resulting from these interactions are the first level of a global gender order. They are

34
[regional] patterns but carry the impress of the forces that make a global society.” The second link creates
new “spaces” beyond individual nation-states: transnational and multinational corporations (that maintain
strong gender divisions of labor and strong masculinist management cultures); the international state
(centered on a masculinized approach to diplomacy and war); the international media (consisting of
multinational firms that circulate gendered meanings through film, video, music, and news worldwide);
and global markets (the increasing reach of capital, commodity, service, and labor markets into individual
nation-state economies). The combination of these forms of linkage is “a partially integrated, highly
unequal, and turbulent set of gender relations, with global reach but uneven impact,” which now structures
the context for considering the construction of local, regional, and global hegemonic masculinities (74).
Messerschmidt’s (2016) examination of the speeches by two recent US presidents—George W. Bush and
Barack Obama—are relevant examples of global hegemonic masculinities that accord with the “second
link” identified above, and are therefore salient components of the “global gender order.”
More recently, Connell (2014) has outlined a strategy for conceptualizing global masculinities based on
North/South relations. In examining masculinities scholarship in both the global North and the global
South, Connell notes how scholars in the latter often rely on theories and research developed in the former
because of the structure of knowledge production in the global economy of knowledge, which has made it
difficult to fully comprehend masculinities constructed in the global South. Connell chronicles a rich
archive of examinations of masculinities from around the global South that provide a foundation for
understanding the relationship among masculine constructions in the North and South. Connell concludes
that the global formation of masculinities must be conceptualized through an understanding of worldwide
processes of colonial conquest and social disruption, the building of colonial societies and the global
capitalist economy, and postindependent globalization (see, also, Connell 2016).
In various recent publications, Jeff Hearn and colleagues (2015; Hearn, Blagojevic, and Harrison 2015;
Ruspini et al. 2011) have likewise noted that most studies of men and masculinities have concentrated their
research efforts within the boundaries of individual national contexts, leaving men and masculinities in
globalization and transnational situations unexamined. Following Connell’s (1998) suggestion that
masculinities scholars move beyond the “ethnographic moment,” Hearn similarly suggests the
development of international, transnational, and global perspectives. Hearn (2015) argues that various
forms of “transnationalization” have created new and changing material and representational gender
hierarchies—or what Hearn refers to as “transnational patriarchies”—that structure men’s transnational
gender domination. For Hearn, some contemporary arenas involving transnational gender inequalities
include transnational corporations and government organizations with men in almost exclusive positions of
power; international trade, global finance, and the masculinization of capital; militarism and the arms
trade; international sports; migrations and refugees; information and communication technologies; and the
sex trade.

“New” Masculinities
In this final section we underline the importance of understanding the development of “new” masculinities
within a structural theory of gender relations and power. Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner (1994) argued,
for instance, that the often celebrated shifting “styles” of the class-privileged white “New Man” of the
1990s were often constructed in relation to the supposedly atavistic and “macho” masculine gender
displays projected onto subordinated men, such as Mexican immigrant men. When an intersectional
(race-class-gender-citizenship status) structural analysis was foregrounded, however, it was revealed that
these men’s common “styles” of masculinity were linked to their social locations. The Mexican immigrant
man’s supposedly “macho” gender displays were actually revealed to be public responses to low levels of
public power, privilege, and status, but research showed that Mexican immigrant men contributed more to
housework and child care than did white, middle-class men. The “New Man,” by contrast, displayed
“softer” styles of masculinity that helped to cement their public power and privilege over women, and over
class- and race-subordinated groups of men.
Recent work on hybrid masculinities by Bridges (2014) and by Bridges and Pascoe (2014; chapter 13,

35
this volume) reveals such “New Man” constructions of masculinity as collective (and culturally creative)
intersectional responses to strains and tensions experienced at structural sites of crisis tendencies. Hybrid
masculinities involve the incorporation of subordinated styles and displays (masculine or feminine, or
both) into privileged men’s identities, in the process simultaneously securing and obscuring their access to
power and privilege. For instance, Kristen Barber (2016) shows how class-privileged men’s embrace of
previously feminine-typed consumption of personal grooming styles actually serves to enhance their
positions of privilege in relation to women and to class-subordinated men. When widespread consent
congeals around such a hybrid masculinity formation—particularly when it is grounded in a
multibillion-dollar men’s grooming industry replete with a continual barrage of celebratory media and
advertising—a situationally hegemonic masculinity emerges, seeming on the surface to signal the
emergence of a “new,” less rigid masculinity while simultaneously concealing and reproducing gender,
race, and class inequalities.
As Bridges and Pascoe (chapter 13, this volume) put it, “The appropriation of elements of subordinated
and marginalized ‘Others’ into configurations of hegemonic masculinities works to recuperate existing
systems of power and inequality,” and thereby must be understood as expressions of, rather than
challenges to, gender hegemony. Paraphrasing Bridges and Pascoe’s argument, hybrid hegemonic
masculinities illustrate some of the changes taking place in reproducing gender hegemony, demonstrating
how the experiences and views of privilege have been transformed, thus making a host of new identity
projects available, which in turn is enabling different groups of men to navigate social change in different
ways.
Structurally contextualized analyses of “new” masculinities can also help us to understand the
engagements of men in feminist and other progressive social movements (Messner 1993). Messner,
Greenberg, and Peretz (2015) examine how, from the 1970s to the present, the shifting state of play of
feminist movement politics, higher education, the state, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions
shaped U.S. men’s engagements with progressive gender politics—particularly efforts to stop sexual and
domestic violence against women. Their analysis emphasizes how intersectional (especially race, class,
and gender) structural contexts shaped which men engage in political action with feminist women at
particular historical moments, and also how these men and women strategize to stop gender-based
violence. Activists of the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, were disproportionately white (often Jewish)
college-educated men who were drawn to antirape and anti–domestic violence work by their immersion in
feminist and other radical social movements of the era. Today’s younger male activists come to
gender-based violence prevention via different paths: white middle class men commonly find their way to
the work via campus-based activism, women’s studies courses, and volunteer or paid work in feminist
community nonprofits. A growing number of younger men of color have taken on gender-based violence
prevention through work with boys and young men in poor communities around youth gang violence,
substance abuse programs, and prison reform.
In thinking about “new” masculinities, global perspectives are important in deploying emergent
concepts like hybrid masculinities. Bridges and Pascoe’s work concentrates on the global North, yet hybrid
hegemonic masculinities also seem to be taking place in some parts of the global South. For example,
Christian Groes-Green’s (2012) notion of “philogynous masculinities” in Mozambique illustrates this.
Groes-Green discusses what he labels the bom pico (meaning, a good lover) heterosexual form of
masculinity, which prioritizes women’s sexual pleasure and emphasizes caring and attentiveness toward
women. However, in prioritizing women’s sexual pleasure, bom pico men reproduce hegemonic notions of
virility, potency, and strength and subordinate men who are seen as being “sexually weak” (that is, unable
to perform). Men who practice bom pico masculinity then are aligning themselves with hegemonic
masculinity even as their practices might seem to distance themselves from it, and, therefore, they
reproduce masculine power over women and “Other” men in a novel way. Moreover, the work of Ratele
(2013; chapter 11, this volume) demonstrates how past traditions remain significant among men living in
South Africa in their constructions of masculinities under both colonization and postcolonization.
Shari Dworkin and her colleagues have drawn from theories of multiple masculinities as foundations for
developing structural interventions for change, thus building an important dimension to HIV prevention in

36
South Africa and other parts of the global South, where the focus has thus far been primarily on
empowering women (Dworkin 2015; Dworkin, Fleming, and Colvin 2015). The researchers critically
examine different approaches to health interventions in the global South, ranging from “gender-neutral” to
“gender-sensitive” to “gender-empowering” to “gender-transformative” approaches (Dworkin 2015,
29–30). They argue that the keys to maximizing the potential success of “gender-transformative”
efforts—that is, programs that aim to create more egalitarian local gender regimes—are (a) introducing
programs that are not isolated health interventions, but are connected with other issues like reducing
gender-based violence and increasing economic independence; (b) as much as possible, creating
interventions with men that operate from an understanding of gender as relational—that is, from an
understanding of the state of play of men’s structural relations of labor, power, and sexuality with women;
and (c) that this relational theory is also intersectional, addressing not just gender inequalities but also race
and class hierarchies among men. As the researchers note,

it is important in programme content not only to consider the democratisation of the gender
order in terms of women and men, but also how hierarchies of masculinities can be taken
into account. It is therefore critical to highlight that men’s disempowerment contributes to
their increased likelihood of being victims of violence at the hands of other men,
perpetrating violence against other men and perpetrating violence against women.
(Dworkin, Fleming, and Colvin 2015, 9)

Fundamentally this means linking HIV and violence prevention programs with men in an effort to
address men’s and women’s economic, colonial, and racial marginality in broader structural contexts.
Understood this way, “hegemonic masculinity” is deployed by the researchers not as a way to describe a
type of man, but rather as “an ideal that collectively structures a field of gender relations” (Dworkin 2015,
13). And, in this high-stakes effort, “changing masculinities” means far more than shifting styles of gender
display; it means addressing deep issues of poverty, health, and violence by attempting to alter the social
structure that generates these problems.

Conclusion
In this chapter we reviewed the initial formulation of Connell’s framework and outlined some of its early
applications as well as some of the criticisms leveled against it. We then discussed the reformulation of
Connell’s perspective by Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) and summarized some recent scholarly
publications supporting that reformulation. Finally, in the last two sections we outlined contemporary
scholarly directions on hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities as well as research examining the
emergence of “new” masculinities. It is clear from the studies we have chronicled in this chapter that
scholars are now engaged in impressive research on masculinities and their relationship to unequal gender
relationships around the globe, and this research documents the continued significance of the concept of
hegemonic masculinity and simultaneously inspires additional gender research that further extends our
knowledge in similar and previously unexplored areas.

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 3

From Object to Subject

Situating Transgender Lives in Sociology

Kristen Schilt

Raewyn Connell’s Gender and Power sets out a social theory of gender and embodiment that
simultaneously strikes down biological determinism and the then-dominant sociological theories of sex
roles. Drawing insights from feminist theory and gay liberation activism, Connell charts the work that
beliefs in natural differences (male/female, hetero/homo) do at a societal level to naturalize gender and
sexual hierarchies. She goes on to outline the institutional forms, such as the family and the workplace,
that often reproduce structural inequality. To this “top-down” theory, she brings in the necessity of
addressing people’s agency within systems of constraints—an inclusion that sets the stage for a structural
theory of gender inequality that accounts for the ways in which social change can and does happen in the
face of institutional and interactional mechanisms of cultural reproduction. As she argues, such a structural
theory of gender must recognize the “interweaving of personal life and social structure without collapsing
towards voluntarism and pluralism on one side, or categoricalism and biological determinism on the other”
(1987, 67).
While the value of Connell’s work to the sociology of gender has been widely recognized, there has
been less attention to the seeds of a particularly nuanced sociological perspective on the lives of
transgender people planted across the pages of the book. Drawing upon the work of ethnomethodologists
(Garfinkel 1967; Kessler and McKenna 1978), Connell argues that social science research on what was
then termed “transsexualism” provides “exceptional insight into the social construction of gender in
everyday life” (1987, 76).1 Yet she goes beyond this theoretical point by offering a sociohistorical analysis
that takes into account broader societal change in cultural ideas about gender and sexuality alongside the
impact and possibilities such changes bring for people’s sense of identities and embodiment. As I show in
this chapter, such a theory—which Connell continues to develop in her later works (1995, 2002,
2012)—stands in stark contrast to the then-dominant approaches to theorizing about transgender people in
sociology. I argue that this nascent discussion provides an early roadmap for a sociological perspective that
takes transgender people’s lived experiences as a starting point of analysis (see also Rubin 2003; Namaste
2000/2005). I conclude with a look at how these ideas have evolved in the field of transgender studies
within sociology.

Categorizing “the Transsexual” as a Social Problem

That Raewyn Connell included even a small discussion of transgender people in Gender and Power—a
manuscript she wrote in 19842—is notable. In the 1960s and 1970s, a great deal of media attention had
been dedicated to spectacular accounts of people undergoing “sex change” operations (see Meyerowitz
2002). In the fields of psychology and medicine, doctors and researchers were engaged in fierce debates
about the appropriate treatment for patients diagnosed with what was then termed “gender dysphoria”
(Meyerowitz 2002). While a small group of sociologists were developing critical gay and feminist studies
in the 1970s and 1980s (see, for example, Altman 1971; Huber 1973), very few researchers were
conducting empirical research on the lives and experiences of transgender people. The few studies that did

42
emerge in this time period typically did not link activism around gender identity by transgender and gender
nonconforming people to other liberation movements, such as women’s liberation and gay liberation (see
Perkins 1983 for an exception; see Stryker 2008 for the history of such activism). Rather, within these
works,3 transgender people were taken up as cultural objects useful for theorizing the concept of “passing”
(Kando 1973), stigma management (Feinbloom 1976), the social impact of homophobia (Altman 1971),
the social pathology of the gender binary (Raymond 1979), the social construction of medical knowledge
(Billings and Urban 1982), and the social construction of gender (Garfinkel 1967; Kessler and McKenna
1978; see King 1987 and Namaste 2000 for a more detailed overview and critique of these studies).
Thomas Kando’s Sex Change (1973) and Deborah Feinbloom’s Transsexuals and Transvestites: Mixed
Views (1976), which draw on participant observation and interview data in a university-sponsored gender
clinic and at community support groups, respectively, highlight one strand of sociological research that
investigated the experiences of transgender people in the 1970s. Influenced by the naturalistic works of the
“second Chicago school” (Matza 1969), namely Howard Becker and Erving Goffman, that sought to
document how social “outsiders” deemed to be deviant by mainstream society navigated social control and
stigma, Kando and Feinbloom use empirical data to detail what they position as an emerging marginalized
subculture. Through these studies, they grapple with providing a career model of “transsexuality,” a focus
much in line with sociological work of the time on “becoming deviant” (Matza 1969) and the construction
of social problems. In a departure from most of the clinical studies of the time in psychiatry and medicine,
these works contain a wealth of information about the challenges that transgender people faced in
accessing medical care, within family relationships, and in seeking employment. While both researchers
include interview excerpts from transgender respondents in their analysis, however, they often undermine
their respondents’ own understandings of their gender identities by maintaining a distinction between
“natural” (e.g., chromosomal) men and women and “constructed” transgender people. Highlighting one
such example, Kando writes of his interviewees, “while feminized transsexuals [trans women] may
sometimes pass quite successfully as natural females, we know that they are not, and so do they” (1973, 5).
Within these analyses, the authors focus predominantly on the stages of physical and identity
transformation that can accompany a person’s gender transition—which, in the early 1970s, appeared to
these researchers as a new social phenomenon in need of empirical investigation—rather than on the
subjectivity and social embeddedness of transgender people.
A second strand of research in the 1970s and 1980s positioned “transsexuality” as an effect of the social
pathology created within a society that only legitimated a gender and sexual dimorphic model of attraction
between female/feminine and male/masculine people. In the feminist and gay variant of this research,
authors expressed a deep suspicion of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the emphasis in the medical
and psychiatric community on surgical and hormonal modifications as a form of treatment. In Dennis
Altman’s Homosexual Oppression and Liberation (1971), he acknowledges the connections between early
trans and gender nonconforming activism and gay liberation, but worries that people who seek to
physically transition are motivated by an internalized homophobia.4 Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual
Empire (1979) offers a more detailed critique. Drawing on a lesbian feminist perspective, she argues that
genital reassignment surgeries are commodities that advertise an impossible dream: to change one’s sex in
order to embody a pathological social construction of femininity or masculinity. Emphasizing this point,
she refers to transgender people as “female-to-constructed male” and “male-to-constructed female”
throughout the book. The social pathology frame presents transgender people as agents of conservatism
who seek to reify the gender status quo. Such an idea is echoed in other sociological work of the time, with
transgender people described as “Uncle Toms of the sexual revolution” (Kando 1973, 145) who “do not
challenge the social institution of gender. In many ways, they reinforce it” (Billings and Urban 1982, 269;
see also Bem 1993).
Sociologists Dwight Billings and Thomas Urban (1982) build on this social pathology critique in their
ethnographic study of a university-sponsored gender clinic. Their article presents one of the only empirical
studies of such clinics in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet, while they document the ways in which doctors’ views
of who makes a “good candidate” for medically supervised transitions are infused with their preconceived
notions about class, race, and gender, they fail to bring this critique forward in a way that considers the
impact of such procedures on transgender people’s lives (see Spade 2006 for a more detailed critique).

43
Dropping Raymond’s lesbian feminist framework for a Marxist lens, Billings and Urban argue that “the
legitimation, rationalization, and commodification of sex-change operations have produced an identity
category—transsexual—for a diverse group of sexual deviants and victims of severe gender role distress”
(1982, 266). Here, they position people seeking genital reassignment surgery as cultural dupes buying into
the medical establishment’s offerings of empty, high-price commodities. Thus, in this frame, “the
transsexual” is pathologically attempting to embody what the researchers set out as a socially constructed
norm—the ultimate example of a person who has been “brainwashed” by gender ideologies.
The final strand of this early sociological research on transgender people—and the strand that has had
the most “staying power” in the discipline—uses transgender people’s interactional experiences with
“gender crossing” to bolster a theoretical argument that gender is a social, rather than a biological,
category. In this body of work, feminist ethnomethodologists Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna
(1978) build upon the first sociological case study of a person who might identify today as transgender:
Harold Garfinkel’s 1967 case study of “Agnes,” a young woman assigned male at birth who was seeking
medical treatment in the 1950s at the UCLA gender clinic. During over 35 hours of interviews, Garfinkel
sought to determine how Agnes was able to live and work as any other young woman in Los Angeles
without having the so-called biological and biographical credentials that other people assumed her to have
on the basis of her appearance and behavior. This case study—and its conceptual argument that all people
must interactionally achieve their gender in social settings—became the cornerstone for the now-canonical
theory of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman 1987). Yet, while this body of work formed a strong
sociological critique of biological essentialism that was key to the development of feminist sociology, the
theoretical frame paid little attention to the actual lives and experiences of transgender people (for a more
in-depth critique of these studies, see Rogers 1992; Rubin 1999; Namaste 2000).
If sociologists in the 1970s and 1980s largely took “transsexuality” as an object of theoretical
investigation, I suggest that Raewyn Connell’s theoretical framework set out in Gender and Power and
developed in her later works locates transgender people as historically and culturally situated subjects. The
few passages in Gender and Power in which she engages in an explicit discussion of “transsexualism” are
located alongside her advocacy for a structural approach to theorizing gender and sexual relations that
emphasizes historical and cultural change in the development and meaning of social categories, such as
“woman” and “homosexual.” Connell further makes a case for the necessity of shifting the understanding
of bodies as passive receivers of culture norms to historically located agents of practice—a concept she
would later term “social embodiment” (2002, 47). It is through “seeing the historicity of gender” (1987,
77) and the ways in which “the body is never outside of history, and history never free of bodily presence
and effects on the body” (1987, 87) that Connell is able to set the stage for a sociological theory that
accounts both for the cultural and historical emergence of “the transsexual” as a new social category and
the subjectivity and agency of transgender people.

From the Categorical to the Sociohistorical

To set out what I see as Connell’s intervention into sociological theorizing about transgender people, I
begin with a short overview of her critique of the “categorical” thinking she identifies as prevalent in much
academic feminist, Marxist feminist, and structuralist/psychoanalytic feminist work that grapples with the
historical and persistent devaluation of women vis-à-vis men. For Connell, the features of a categorical
theory are, first, a “close identification of opposed interests in sexual politics with specific categories of
people” (1987, 54), such as men versus women. Second, categorical theorizing focuses the argument on
“the category as a unit, rather than on the processes by which the category is constituted, or on its elements
or constituents” (1987, 54). Finally, such accounts conceive of the social order as constructed of only a few
categories—opposing categories that are related to each other hierarchically. This approach often elides the
ways in which intersecting identities, such as race and class, might foster unity rather than conflict between
groups imagined to be oppositional, such as men and women, and neglects the importance of historical
change, cultural context, and experiential practice. For her, such theories stay “within the big picture and
pain[t] it with a broad brush” (1987, 54), operating, in effect, as if “the person and personal practice can be

44
eliminated from the equation altogether” (1987, 56). While Connell does not discuss research on
transgender people in this section, her critique could easily be extended to the work that I detailed in the
previous section that theorizes the social category of “the transsexual” while ignoring or glossing over the
experiences and practices of transgender people.
In Connell’s reading, while proponents of categorical approaches to gender and sexual inequality
generally are in opposition to biological determinists, both sets of theorists take binaries of male/female,
masculine/feminine, or straight/gay as unproblematic, static categories—though they link this stasis to
social structures and cultural stereotypes or to chromosomes and reproductive capacities, respectively.
Further, for Connell, categorical thinking is imbued with a “bland optimism about progress” (1987, 77)
that imagines social change only in the form of making existing binaries more equal or eradicating
categories altogether. Connell tempers this “progress” focus, arguing instead that such a utopian project is
always destined for failure because gender and sexuality are structural, embodied, and “a fundamental
feature of the way we have knowledge of human beings” (1987, 76). She proposes instead a theoretical
approach that understands the current sex/gender system as a social process that varies historically and
across cultures, creating space for shifting power dynamics and the possibility for the emergence of new
identity categories and forms of activism. Such a theory emphasizes change but not progress. Shifts in the
sex/gender system, in other words, could bring more freedom and opportunity to socially marginalized
groups, could result in unforeseen new barriers, constraints, and forms of discrimination, or, perhaps more
likely, could do both simultaneously.
Connell illustrates how such a sociohistorical and structural analysis of the sex/gender system could
work in practice by drawing on the then-emerging research on the social construction of homosexuality
(see, for example, McIntosh 1968; Foucault 1978; D’Emilio 1983). While same-sex acts long had been
documented in many historical eras and across a wide variety of cultures, this body of work posited, based
on historical and archival research, that the concept of the homosexual as a category of person did not
develop in the Western world until the late 19th century. Emergent discourses surrounding “normal” and
“pathological” sexual practices in medicine and religion, and the rise of scientific measurements of sexual
behavior, generated a shift toward defining those who engaged in same-sex acts as sick or deviant people
rather than as people engaging in bad or sinful acts. Yet, while the creation of “the homosexual” as a
medicalized and socially pathological category of person generated an increase in social control and
policing around same-sex behaviors and acts, it also made possible a “reverse discourse” (Foucault 1978,
101) that would make space for the emergence of homosexual subcultures, and, later, homosexual political
movements, such as gay liberation, that were aimed at dismantling societal stigma around homosexuality.
Connell then considers what it might mean for sociologists to take seriously “the transsexual” as a new
gender category—one that would be in addition to “women” and “men,” rather than a problematic
imitation of these “natural” categories. In thinking through how the social recognition of this category
might be possible, she gives examples of the radical shifts that the idea of “women” and “men” have
undergone in the last hundred years—including the idea that women have shared, common interests with
one another that are opposing and unique from the shared, common interests of men. She notes:

This social solidarity is a new fact, in no way implied by the biological category. It can
therefore be constructed, historically, in a variety of ways. Thus, it is possible for a new
type of solidarity, a new organization of gender, to emerge. Masculinities and femininities
can be re-constructed historically, new forms can become dominant. It is even possible for a
whole new gender category to be constructed, as with the emergence of “the homosexual”
in the late nineteenth century, and perhaps “the transsexual” now. (1987, 81; italics in the
original)

She acknowledges that historical research and cross-cultural comparisons show that what could be
categorized as cross-gender desires and practices existed long before the term “transsexual” was coined in
the late 1940s (for more on this point, see Meyerowitz 2002). Yet, within the 1960s, a cultural shift

45
occurred that provided a historical context for “the transsexual” to coalesce as first a social problem and
then later as an embodied identity—much in the same way the late 19th century saw the creation of “the
homosexual.”

Transgender People as Situated Subjects

Connell’s argument could remain distanced from people and practice—similar to Foucault’s theoretical
work, which is marked by an absence of social actors. Yet she makes an important departure from a purely
theoretical argument that opens up new sociological approaches to understanding the lives of transgender
people. Discussing the possible emergence of “the transsexual” as a new gender category, she notes that
“practical transformations open up new possibilities which are the tissue of human life. But they do this by
creating new social pressures and risks” (1987, 77). To make this point concrete, Connell draws on an
ethnographic study, The “Drag Queen” Scene: Transsexuals in Kings Cross (1983), by Australian
sociologist Roberta Perkins. The use of this particular work by Connell is notable, as it is a rare exception
to the strands of sociological work about transgender people that I detailed in the previous section. First,
Perkins focuses explicitly on how trans women negotiate their everyday lives across a variety of social
contexts. Her sociological project, in other words, takes the subjectivity and specific social practices of
trans women as its central focus. Second, Perkins begins her book by locating herself as both a sociologist
and a trans woman. She acknowledges that her motivations for the work came from her personal hope that
empirical research could alleviate the stigma many trans women faced, such as “being told that we were
disgusting, deviant, weird, insane, immoral” (1983, 17).
Perkins notes that the majority of existing empirical research on transgender people falls within the
fields of medicine and psychology. Within sociological work, there was a “dearth of material dealing with
the social structure of a community of transsexuals and its interactions with a wider society” (1983, 18). To
address this gap, she conducts participant observation with a cohort of trans women working in what she
terms “drag queen” bars—the only locations where many of them can find employment in the 1980s due to
widespread economic discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming people. To locate her
respondents within their larger social worlds, she also conducts interviews with patrons of their clubs, the
social workers they interact with, and their coworkers. Prioritizing how the women she interviews talk
about their experiences at work, in relationships, with family, and with doctors, Perkins challenges prior
sociological and feminist claims that transgender people are pathologically invested in gender conformity.
Instead, she highlights the expectations of doctors and social workers that pushed trans women into
performing traditional femininity in order to gain access to medical services. Connell uses Perkins’s
findings in Gender and Power to argue for the need for a more complex understanding of transgender lives
that encompasses history, social structures, and individual choices and agency within a system of
constraints—or, as I am suggesting, a roadmap for what an empirical sociology of transgender studies
might look like.
After briefly bringing Perkins’s empirical work into her theoretical scaffolding, Connell adds a nuanced
analysis of the link between bodies and social structure. While bodies are made of “natural” materials, she
argues that chromosomes, genitals, and reproductive capacities are not determinative of identity or
practices. She argues instead that bodies are shaped by their social and historical locations, as a person’s
sense of identity that “grows through a personal history of social practice, a life-history-in-society” (1987,
84). In other words, social categories such as “transgender” emerge in particular historical moments and
become incorporated into people’s social practices and embodiment. Through the cultural solidifying of
such a category, people can come to see themselves as transgender and, as such, can begin to organize
around this identity in an effort to get structural and cultural change. Thus, bodies incorporate and are
shaped by social categories and exert pressure on such categories to shift, transform, and change. These
“circuits”—to draw on a concept she develops in her later works—linking bodily processes and social
structures “add up to the historical process by which society is embodied, and bodies are drawn into
history” (2002, 47). For Connell, such a historical look at the varied and complex social processes that
bring a new social category into existence—and with it, new possibilities for embodiment and identity—is

46
what makes the difference between broad, ahistorical categoricalism and a social analysis that accounts for
sociohistorical change, cultural context, and the embodied practices of people.
In light of Raewyn Connell’s growing body of work that contributes directly to transgender studies (see,
for example, 2012), it may seem strange to focus an analysis on two short passages in Gender and Power
that reference the now outdated concept of “transsexuality.” But, considering this inclusion from a
historical standpoint, Connell’s references—and, in particular, her use of Roberta Perkins’s
ethnography—stand in stark contrast to the dominant theorization of transgender people in sociology at the
time. Perkins highlighted the importance of examining how transgender people’s lived experiences were
embedded in larger social structures, such as the workplace, the family, and the medical establishment, and
how these experiences shifted across historical moments. In the introduction to The “Drag Queen” Scene,
Perkins argued explicitly “that the position of transsexuals in our society will only improve once they are
studied as a group, the emphasis being placed on the social processes involved in transsexualism rather
than on the psychological processes of the individual” (1983, 18). She added her hope that “this relatively
untouched area will come under serious study by social researchers and fieldworkers” (ibid.). Through
using Perkins’s empirical work to ground her theoretical discussion of the historical emergence of
transsexuality, Connell takes up this challenge and introduces a sociostructural theory of gender that
locates transgender people as situated subjects in their own right rather than as cultural objects to be
explained.

Toward a Sociology of Transgender Studies

It is interesting to look back at Connell’s emergent ideas about transgender identities in 1984 from the
vantage point of the late 2010s. Over the more than three decades between the publication of Gender and
Power and this edited volume, the category of “the transsexual” has largely been subsumed by the term
“transgender,” an umbrella term that encapsulates many different embodied identities and practices (see
Valentine 2007; Stryker and Aizura 2013). The interdisciplinary field of transgender studies has gained
prominence in academia, generating new areas of specialty, academic departments, pedagogy, and journals
(see, for an overview, Stryker and Whittle 2006; Stryker and Aizura 2013). Within the growing field of the
sociology of transgender studies, sociologists are examining the diversity of transgender people’s identities
and social locations (see, for example, Rubin 2003; Dozier 2005; Namaste 2005; Lombardi 2009; Abelson
2014), as well as the ways in which transgender and gender nonconforming people navigate institutional
contexts such as the medical establishment (Windsor 2011; Nordmarken and Kelly 2012; Miller and
Grollman 2015); the family (Pfeffer 2012); legal institutions (Meadow 2010); and the workplace (David
2015). In a notable and important shift from previous eras, much more of this research is being conducted
by transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary identified sociologists.
Further, social scientists are interrogating how the increasing visibility of transgender people and
transgender rights movements in the United States is reshaping cultural ideas about gender and sexuality
(Westbrook and Schilt 2014; Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers 2016), and opening up new questions around
issues such as how transgender and gender nonconforming children should be raised (Meadow 2011). This
cultural shift in transgender visibility signals a new sociohistorical context that, following a Connellian
model, will likely bring new forms of constraints and calcification of categories but also open up new
possibilities for social embodiment and meanings of gender. Such changes necessitate new theoretical
models for understanding identity and embodiment but also require an empirical focus on the structural
constraints, the emerging possibilities, and the situated, contextual lives of transgender, gender
nonconforming, and nonbinary people. It is in this intersection of structural theories and empirical analysis
that a trans-centered sociology that builds on the legacy of Roberta Perkins has much to contribute to the
emerging interdisciplinary field of transgender studies.

Notes

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1 Prior to the late 1990s, social science research on transgender people used the term “transsexual” and “transsexualism.” The
terms “transgender” and “trans” reflect more current terminology.
2 I thank the editors for providing me with this timeline.
3 I restrict this overview to sociological works that Connell could have referenced in her 1984 manuscript. While Janice
Raymond is not a sociologist, her book The Transsexual Empire was often cited in feminist sociological work on gender in
the 1980s, so I include it in this discussion.
4 Altman’s view—which shifted in his later works—was shared by some gay men in the early homophile movement in the
1950s. The media attention to Christine Jorgensen spurred a fear among some gay men that “sex changes” would become
mandated by medical and psychiatric professionals as the appropriate treatment for homosexuality (still, then, an official
mental illness) (see Meyerowitz 2002). Such a normalizing project did not develop in the United States, as homosexuality
was taken out of the DSM in 1978.

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______. 2005. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism.
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Nordmarken, Sonny, and Reese Kelly. 2014. “Limiting Transgender Health: Administrative Violence
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 Part II

The Larger Scope of Gender Analysis

The chapters in this section examine two of the ways—postcoloniality and intersectionality—in which the
episteme of gender studies has developed and expanded in the last thirty years.
Raka Ray begins this section by broadening the discussion of gender and social structure using a
transnational theoretical framework. She combines structural analyses of gender with more recently
emerging postcolonial perspectives to explore connections and contradictions in the global gender order.
Ray reviews the practices and cultural/ideological justifications that shaped gender relations in colonial
and postcolonial India. Using case studies of two nonaffluent Indian young people—a man and a
woman—she shows how each struggled to escape the “bounded” situations of their gendered lives in order
to find affirmation in the wider world. Ray demonstrates how global economic forces, including
neoliberalism, are affecting them and also shaping gender relations in a postcolonial nation that is the
second most populated on earth. Ray concludes that the most fruitful theoretical foundation for
understanding the workings of gender in an interconnected world is to link critical gender theory with
postcolonial theory, while simultaneously remaining cognizant of how the neoliberal global economy has
affected the global South.
Mara Viveros Vigoya discusses the history of feminism in Colombia from the 1970s to now, reviewing
its struggles with Marxism and, later, with various feminisms that were imported from the global North but
failed to fit the Colombian context. A legacy of isolation, impoverishment, and exclusion from state
political processes culminated in recent feminist mobilizations among indigenous and Black Colombian
women who sought to protect their communities and cultural heritage. Viveros Vigoya explores the impact
of globalization, neoliberalism, and colonialism on feminism in Colombia. Employing historical data, she
shows how gender perspectives come out of social struggle and how the struggles of indigenous and Black
Colombian women have different contours from those of women of the privileged Spanish-descendant
classes who embraced feminisms from the global North. Her chapter illustrates the need for multiple
perspectives on the social dimensions of gender and rejects a one-size-fits-all theoretical model; the need
to recognize the different macro-social situations in the global North and global South (and across the
South); and the need for solid social-scientific knowledge of those situations in order to make sense of
gender dynamics. Viveros Vigoya concludes that feminists from the global North can learn from
Colombia’s distinctive forms of feminist mobilization.
Joya Misra’s analysis of intersectionality contrasts its utility for a structural analysis with a
poststructural analysis of gender. She argues that the former is more effective at conceptualizing historical
developments, social change, and power and inequality, yet she affirms the value of both structural and
poststructural applications, acknowledging that discourse theories can produce insights about gender.
Misra maintains that an intersectional approach to the study of gender avoids reducing complex realities to

51
either discourse or a few categories. Her contrast of structural and poststructural perspectives emphasizes
how discourse can be used as part of structural analysis without assuming that discourse is “unlinked” to
structural conditions. She critiques the use of a single category (e.g., of gender or race) for studying the
social world, urging instead a multiple categorical method or the avoidance of categories altogether in
favor of a focus on intersectional processes.

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 4

Postcoloniality and the Sociology of Gender

Raka Ray

Gauri from Ferozabad, a small town in India, was a badminton champion at 14, whose parents
(who had a small bangle selling business) refused to let her play anymore when she won a
scholarship to go away to badminton school. From that moment on she plotted her escape. She
hated school because she was ostracized after her sister chose her own husband. Eventually, she
managed to persuade her family that she had won a scholarship for an information technology
course in Agra, which she had not, but they did permit her to leave. Far away from home she
kept herself going with one job after another, selling scooters, and working as a guidance
counselor and a tutor: “All I knew was that I could not go back, my small town would just shut
everything down inside me.” After she graduated she moved from Agra to Delhi where she
worked in a call center. While working there, she took a course on film editing. She finally
managed to come to Bombay and started making a living editing news, while auditioning for
roles at the same time. So far Gauri has made a couple of regional language films, and has
bought a car. For her, Bombay is a city where people work all the time. If you work hard you
will be fine. And you are free to go where you are, within limits, but “no boundation” as she put
it.
Jagdish comes from a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh where almost half the population lives
below the poverty line. His father worked in a sugar factory; and his family circumstances were
too inconsistent for anyone to either pay attention to him or to train him for anything. Jagdish
failed to pass the 10th grade examinations, but then bribed someone to take the examinations for
him the following year. He took a videography class in 11th grade and then started work as a
wedding videographer since his father could no longer support him. Because he loved to dance
and sing, he started participating in Hindu nationalist religious festivals, for which he was paid a
little. After four years there, he moved to a nearby town because it had a theater company. He
worked backstage for the company, until he got a break; he had memorized the whole play and
was able to step in for someone who was sick. Jagdish managed to get a BA in English from the
town of Bisalpur, then found and lost a series of jobs, tried to get into the police but failed the
high jump. He prayed that he could get into a theater academy—he had been on two pilgrimages,
so surely he should be rewarded. He finally got in, borrowed money with interest from his
grandmother (the only one with any money in his extended family), and went to Bombay to seek
his fortune.

I begin with these two vignettes of young lower middle-class people from small towns who have migrated
to Bombay in the hope of making it in Bombay’s entertainment industry with the same aim as Raewyn
Connell in Gender and Power—to lay out the interconnectedness of labor, power, and cathexis in the
creation of young people’s lives. For Connell, the protagonist was Delia Prince, a young Australian
teenager. The year was 1978. Through Delia Prince’s life, and those of her parents, the reader is made
aware that (1) gender patterns are structured and not random and (2) the personal and the collective are
fundamentally linked. This “normal” Australian teenager’s aspirations and trajectories are put in the
context of the state of gendered labor, education, and violence against women worldwide, and in Australia.
This is fully fledged structural analysis, but with a Connellian twist. It is also about practice, for Delia

53
Prince’s life reconstitutes social structure even as it constitutes her life. Can we use Connell’s concepts to
understand gender in the lives of young men and women in small town India today, against the backdrop
of a rising nation and a neoliberal1 and global economy? In what follows I argue that we can do so by
combining insights from Connell’s four major works—Gender and Power, Gender, Masculinities, and
Southern Theory.
The importance of Gender and Power lay in Connell’s attempt to produce a theory of gender formation
and power that was comprehensive, but not monolithic. She understood the task that implicitly lay before
us as the identification of the historically and culturally specific structures of labor, power, and cathexis
that obtained at any one time and place, in order to understand the gender order of that place or institution.
Thus, in describing the configuration of the power of men in advanced industrialized societies, Connell
suggested that it was concentrated in four sites: (a) the forces of institutionalized violence, (b) heavy
industry and high technology, (c) the planning and control machinery of the central state, and (d) a
working class milieu. This precise configuration, Connell implies, would not necessarily hold for countries
of the Global South. This implication is significant, since it enables us to ask what the power of men would
look like in the Global South at different historical moments. What Connell herself did not do in Gender
and Power, however, was to pay enough attention to intersectionality either within nations or across
nations. In other words, while she was well aware that countries are differently placed in terms of global
economic power, and that this differential placement has consequences for their gendered relations, she did
not, at the moment of writing Gender and Power, pay attention to the interconnectedness either of their
economies and histories, or of ideas, and thus to the interconnectedness of their gender orders.
In her next major book, Masculinities (1995), Connell brought masculinity into the study of the
sociology of gender, changing, once and for all, our analytic repertoire with the introduction of the concept
of hegemonic and other masculinities. With this, we were enabled to think of masculinity as a practice that
can only be understood in conjunction with other factors such as race, class, and sexuality. While much
more needs to be done in this field, this chapter derives as much of its motivation from Connell’s work on
nonhegemonic masculinities as from Gender and Power.
In Southern Theory (2007) and Gender (2009), Connell expands her definition of power to include
colonial power, acknowledging colonialism as “the most sweeping exercise of power of the last 500 years”
and referring to the “creation of global empires, the invasion of indigenous lands by the imperial
powers . . . and the domination of the postcolonial world by economic and military superpowers” (Connell
2009, 78). In her analysis of labor, there is a greater recognition of women as a globally flexible, cheap
labor force. And most important, she initiates a long overdue conversation between postcolonial theory,
which considers seriously the continuing impact of colonialism on the social, cultural, and economic
development of both colonial powers and the colonies, and American sociology. Southern Theory is a
critique of the parochial nature of sociology in America. It promotes a sociology that takes the
interconnected history of the world more seriously than it does now, and argues that, in order to do so, we
must be more open to theoretical ideas from a wider range of places than we are today.
Drawing on these concepts, in the remainder of this chapter I argue that our best approach to
understanding gender (for both men and women) in today’s neoliberal world must lead us to the nexus of
colonial power, production, and discourse.2 In thinking about colonial power I elaborate on the issue of the
interconnected world with the help of one body of theory that Connell discusses in Southern Theory
—postcolonial theory. In my discussion of production I pay attention to the effects of the neoliberal
economy on the Global South. I use the term “discourse” as shorthand for the tools we are given to
interpret our world because it bypasses the structure versus culture binary. This version of discourse
analysis is perfectly compatible with nonmonolithic structural analyses, as it suggests that structures and
experiences themselves become legible only through discourse. I end with an analysis of the vignettes with
which I began this chapter and suggest that to understand gender relations today we must inhabit a flexible
structural analysis that pays attention to history and to the effects of discourse on subject formation. But
first I turn to why we need to understand colonialism in order to understand gender.

54
 Why Colonialism Should Matter to Sociology
Theorists of postcolonialism remind us that colonialism was simultaneously a system of rule and of
knowledge production (Hall 1996). The economic effects of colonialism are well known; in terms of
cultural shifts, it is worth paying attention to the way in which colonial powers represented the colonized
so as to draw attention not to the interconnectedness of the world but to the unequal difference between
them. As British sociologist Gurminder Bhambra writes, “The western experience has been taken both as
the basis for the construction of modernity and, at the same time, that concept is argued to have a validity
that transcends the western experience” (2007a, 4). The construction of binaries such as tradition and
modernity, which lies at the very heart of sociological exploration, is an outcome of colonial systems of
knowledge production. Yet until recently there has been little critique of the colonially constructed
categories upon which sociologists rely (Connell 1997)—in other words, there has not been a postcolonial
critique.
Over 30 years ago, Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne (1985) wrote, in their now legendary article, that the
feminist revolution had touched anthropology, history, and literature far more deeply than it had sociology.
Thus, in teaching courses on feminism in sociology, they found themselves having to rely more on
theorists in those disciplines than on sociologists. They suggested that feminism had made more headway
in disciplines more comfortable with interpretive rather than positivist methodologies. Today, these same
arguments could be made for the absence from American sociology of postcolonial theory, which
considers seriously the continuing impact of colonialism on the social, cultural, and economic development
of both colonial powers and the colonies (see Go 2013; Bhambra 2007a, 2007b). In addition to sociology’s
allegiance to positivism (I say this despite my awareness of and participation in the healthy interpretive
minority tradition), the discipline’s attachment to its own modernist foundations and to universalism
heightens its discomfort with postcolonial theory.
The attachment to modernity, as Connell (2007) has shown, cuts across most sociological theorizing,
whether mainstream or radical. Of central concern to the “founding fathers,” the analytic stories of the
unfolding of modernity they narrated assumed a self-contained Europe that formed the empirical crux from
which they generated their theories. While the European countries on which they based their theories
(France, Germany, and England) were fully in imperial mode when they wrote, this did not seem to have
affected Karl Marx’s, Max Weber’s, or Durkheim’s understanding of the transformation of those societies.
Elided was the possibility that imperial adventures were a constitutive force of European modernity, and
thus that the history of the world was irreducibly connected rather than divided into two worlds—one with
history (that moves into capitalism and modernity) and one without (the traditional world). This division
between tradition and modernity marks not only the founding of sociology but is reproduced by
sociologists as varied at James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu (Connell 2007), and holds particularly true
for the way gender is understood.
Sociology also centers the experience of the West in its scholarship, in an approach Julian Go refers to
as metrocentrism (Go 2013). In contemporary American sociology, even within the field of comparative
work, the US is the norm against which other countries are compared. The feminist version of this
challenge is, of course, the understanding of men as the norm and women as the difference. The field of
sociology, as Dorothy Smith (1987) pointed out so many years ago, was founded on questions that are of
concern to men. It was also founded on questions of concern to Europe and the US, but rather than
assuming that Europe and the US were places with particular histories, and thus particular social
formations, the questions that concerned them became the big questions for the entire discipline of
sociology. For contemporary American sociology, the norm to which all societies are compared is, by and
large, the US. The rest of the world, then, is the difference.
While some sociologists have recently put forward the case for postcolonial theory within sociology,
calling for understanding European experiences as particular and not universal (Connell 2007; Bhambra
2007b), attention to the formative experiences and effects of colonialism (Steinmetz 2008; Go 2011), and
the decentering of the European experience (Ray 2013), little attention has been paid to the importance of
the colonial in the field of sociology of gender. Yet it is imperative that we understand relationships
between nations both historically and today if we are to truly understand how gender works.

55
 Through both its economic and cultural power, British, French, Dutch, and German colonialism
fundamentally (though not uniformly) transformed gender in the countries they colonized. By the mid-20th
century it had redrawn women’s legal status around property; introduced the concept of family law, which
divided women’s rights by religion (Mahmood 2015); abolished matrilineal descent where it could (Nair
1996); made women legal minors (through the hut tax in South Africa, for example); weakened women’s
property rights in Nigeria (Oyewumi 1997); made globally normative the idea of the male breadwinner and
female homemaker (Lindsay 2003); cast existing sexual practices in the colonies as inferior and immoral;
and even created new patterns of masculinity—for example, demarcating some groups of men in India as
masculine and others (often those who resisted them) as effete (Nandy 2009; Sinha 1995). Amina Mama
(1997) argues that patterns of gendered violence in the Global South today can be traced to the gendered
violence of imperialism, as can, as we will see shortly, resistance to ideas of gender reform that emanate
from formerly colonial powers.
Colonialism also affected gender relations within the colonizing powers. It provided certain classes of
men from colonizing countries with job opportunities, while for women imperial adventures offered a
chance to move from being seen as an inferior group, to being part of a superior one, to being able to
flourish abroad as wives of colonists, travelers, or missionaries, in a way they could not at home
(McClintock 2002). Of signal importance is that colonialism enabled an understanding of gender relations
on the part of men and women of the metropole (i.e., from the center of empire as opposed to the colonies)
that has had lasting consequences.
By the end of colonialism, the gender orders of societies had been transformed. Three additional
legacies most relevant for understanding gender in the world today remain. First, while most countries in
the world are today neither colonizers nor colonized, we have in its place a radically unequal world that
approximates the colonial world. Second, anticolonial struggles produced forms of nationalism in which
gender came to play a central, and resistant, role. Third, in the struggle over the demise of colonial rule,
women colonizers were on one side while colonized women were on the other (of course there were
exceptions), locked in a battle over land, over ways of life, and over freedom. As a result of these three
legacies, we have a world in which memories of colonialism trouble questions of global sisterhood, where
postcolonial nations are both dependent on and resentful of the Global North, and where these resentments
may take the form of masculine aggression or the policing of the gender order.
While the radical restructuring of gendered power relations as a result of colonialism has been brought
to the fore by postcolonial historians and anthropologists, and indeed was first brought to our attention in
Fanon’s (1967) searing work, within sociology we have been slow to incorporate colonialism into our
analyses, and to thus fold colonialism into our understanding of gender.

Postcoloniality and Discourse

Postcolonial theorists of gender have shown us that while colonial adventures put into place a new set of
understandings about gender and race, creating what we have come to accept as the master narratives of
global patriarchy (McClintock 2002), global inequities in power mean that these narratives continue to get
created and re-created in the contemporary world (Sangari 1999). These discourses exert their own, often
distorted, effects on our understanding of gender relations in the world.
In this context, Chandra Mohanty’s (1988) now classic critique bears repeating in its essence. In an
influential article, Mohanty argued that even in feminist writing Northern women erased the diversity of
third world women, by producing the figure of an “average Third World woman” who was uneducated,
constrained by tradition and religion, and victimized, in contrast to sexually liberated, educated
middle-class white feminists from the Global North. Mohanty argued that these accounts not only silenced
women in the Global South, and were a reconstitution of colonial relations between North and South, but
they also helped constitute the way Northern feminists understood themselves—as more liberal, modern,
and better off than third world women, and thus in a position to be their saviors (Mahmood 1995;
Abu-Lughod 2002).

56
 These representations have not faded away. For instance, in Voice and Agency: Empowering Women
and Girls for Shared Prosperity, the World Bank’s 2014 Report on Gender, there is a map of the world
that shows the share of women who have faced physical or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in
their lives. The map shows that 21 percent of women in North America, 33 percent in Latin America, and
43 percent in South Asia have faced intimate partner violence. In short, violence against women is high,
even in North America. Yet the report does not include a single photograph of a woman from North
America. Rather, all the photographs show black and brown women from the Global South, pictorially
reinforcing the colonially created idea about oppression of women in “traditional” as opposed to “modern”
societies.
These discursive constructions matter because the Global North has economic power over the Global
South. What the Global North thinks filters into policies that then affect women elsewhere. It is this
representational power that Connell begins to acknowledge in Gender, and elaborates more fully in
Southern Theory. A classic example of the interweaving of politics, stereotypes of “third world” women
and men, and its consequences is the US war in Afghanistan (Russo 2006).
Much before the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the US war on Afghanistan, and even before the
Taliban came to power in 1996, feminists in the US began getting worried about the Taliban because of its
terrible reputation around gender. In 2000–2001, an urgent e-mail was circulated throughout progressive
circles in the US, cataloguing the oppressive and untenable situation of women in Afghanistan, and urging
US military intervention on behalf of Afghan women, even as women’s organizations in Afghanistan such
as the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan protested the intervention. 3 But these
discussions of Afghanistan have a history—going back to the colonial era—in which writing about
barbaric gendered treatment has been used to justify military intervention. About 75 years before this
e-mail, American journalist Katherine Mayo’s famous Mother India (1927) adopted a similar tone in
describing the treatment of Indian women by Indian men. Her over 200-page scathing critique of India and
particularly the condition of Indian women fit in beautifully with British arguments against Indian
independence.4 During the period when the Indian independence movement against the British was
escalating, Mother India galvanized the American and English public around “victimized” Indian
womanhood. In colonial India, just as in Afghanistan, women’s “oppression” provided a justification for
both ongoing colonial intervention and war. Such writing set into motion the idea that brown women must
be saved from brown men. The saviors were thus to be white men—and, later, white women. 5
Postcolonial feminists point to the complications that inhere in attempts to create a transnational or
global feminism based on an awareness of such gendered colonial interventions in the past (Shohat 2001).
Feminists from the Global South have argued that Northern accounts frequently ignore the diversity of
feminist movements that exist outside the North. They argue further that Northern feminists often do not
see that the sources of women’s oppression in countries of the Global South may not be men from their
own cultures, but may in fact be linked to the disadvantaged economic and political position of the Global
South in relation to the Global North. Like feminists of color in the United States, who argued that it was
impossible to separate “gender” from “race” and “class” in their political struggles, feminists from the
Global South have argued that their “gender” interests could not be addressed without also addressing
imbalances in the global political economy and the legacies of colonialism. Finally, they critique the
unequal relations between feminists of the North and South, pointing to the ways in which inequalities of
resources have allowed Northern women to become authors and theorists of the global agenda on women,
leaving Southern women to be its object and beneficiaries (Basu 1995), with a few positive models of
solidarity that are able to work with, and through, these inequalities (Basu 1995; Alexander 1994; Mohanty
2003; Otto 2010).

The Postcolonial Neoliberal Economy and Subject Formation

The neoliberal economy ushered in a heightened regime of deregulation, privatization, insecure labor,
predatory extraction, “trickle down” personal responsibility, and, of course, the infamous “structural
adjustment” that required countries of the South to withdraw subsidies to the poor. Globally, men and

57
women have been incorporated differentially into this economy. Some well-established practices of the
global economy continue, shaped as they were by the drastic differences between rich and poor nations and
colonial histories, such as women from Mexico and the Philippines seeking work as domestics in the US,
Italy, and Saudi Arabia. Newer economic relationships have emerged with call centers and other “business
processing outsourcing” situated in India and Mexico serving customers in the US and Europe, global
medical tourism, and women in the US and Europe “renting” wombs in India so they can have a surrogate
baby cheaply.
While the global assembly line was one of the first ways in which we learned about the interdependence
between North and South, in today’s economy the loss of male working-class jobs worldwide, and the
service sector availability of women’s jobs, has somewhat changed the relationship between male
domination and the economy. In this new “romance of capitalism” (Fraser 2013, 220), women’s labor
force participation has increased worldwide, though it is still below 50 percent in many regions, while
global labor force participation rates for men have steadily declined. Women are increasingly active
participants in the professional world as well as in the world of call centers, hospitality, temp jobs, migrant
workers, and microcredit borrowers. In addition, they are now often preferred by global development
agencies as more responsible subjects of intervention (see the NIKE film on “the girl effect”).
Colonial constructions about docile brown women have morphed and yet persist in the neoliberal
economy. The economy’s welcoming of women workers is accompanied by the discursive embrace of
women as those who live self-managed lives through self-application and self-transformation (Brown
2003; McRobbie 2009). Nancy Fraser (2003, 219) argues that second wave feminism and neoliberalism
found an affinity as the emancipatory aspirations aroused by second wave feminism were channeled into
entrepreneurial models both within the advanced industrialized world and the third world. The much touted
microfinance model, for example, inevitably assumes a female entrepreneur (Roy 2010). In the meantime,
globally, young men who do not have a class advantage are not only being left behind, they are
increasingly seen as the losers in the new global order. This development changes substantially the picture
of the gendered order of the global economy.
The consequences of neoliberal globalization for men are much less studied than the consequences for
women (Connell 2014). With the disappearance of work from many parts of the world, in particular work
formerly performed by working-class men, the numbers of men considered surplus or irrelevant to the
economy keeps growing. The power of men can no longer be easily found in a working-class milieu. An
analysis of gender therefore must take into consideration the different ways in which men seek to establish
their masculinity if they cannot do it through production. Within the United States, Jennifer Sherman’s
(2009) work in areas formerly dominated by the logging industry illustrates how white rural men who can
no longer work use moral capital to distinguish themselves from poor men or women of other races,
putting them down as dependent and weak even as they collect their disability checks from the state.
Jennifer Carlson’s (2015) work shows how men increasingly turn to carrying guns as the possibilities of
protecting their families and futures rapidly disappears. And Jordanna Matlon’s (2014) work shows us how
men in precarious work in Cote D’Ivoire try desperately to hang on to style or to political patronage in
order to remain men. Anxieties about poor disaffected men have begun to circulate globally, with the US
Agency for International Development now contemplating giving loans to young men in the Middle East
so that they can start their own falafel businesses instead of becoming suicide bombers (Roy 2010, 147).
In considering the role of labor in today’s economy, therefore, we must be mindful both of the actual
changes in jobs worldwide—the decline of male and manufacturing jobs and the rise of less well-paid and
even more precarious female and service sector jobs—and of the anxieties elicited by these changes. While
the capacity to aspire, as anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (2004) reminds us, has traditionally belonged to
the affluent (and, I would add, men), global discourses about women, which result both from the effects of
the global women’s movement and consumerist capitalism, have resulted in an increase in middle-class
women’s aspirations. This combination of new discourses about men and women and the changes in the
economy have begun to create their own, often violent, backlash.6

58
 Conclusion
The two anecdotes with which I began this story illustrate what happens if we wed Southern Theory and an
understanding of global relationships with Gender and Power and the attention to men from Masculinities.
It involves women, who are increasingly seen as the acting aspirational subject, particularly in the Global
South, and men, who are seen as having little going for them, men who would once have held public sector
lower middle class jobs, or upper working class jobs, but who have less space in the new economy.
For Gauri, work offered her a way out of the boundation of her home and life in a small town. Her story
was similar to that of many other girls in lower middle class or solidly middle class families in small town
India. Their mothers do not usually work, but their fathers are school teachers or principals, small-business
owners, doctors, or government employees. The girls are talented and notice discrimination in their
families between them and their brothers. When Gauri left Ferozabad, it was an individual decision to
migrate, and she did not rely on her family or a husband. She believed in her own talent. Girls like Gauri
would not have left home in the past; few middle class girls in India did. We cannot understand this point
if we ignore colonial history, for part of the ideological struggle of an India trying to free itself from the
British lay in the production of a middle class womanhood that did not work outside the home: middle
class women were to be culturally refined and responsible for the inner life of the family, and protected by
their menfolk (Chatterjee 1990). Educated middle- and upper-middle-class women were relegated to the
domestic sphere, materially and ritually, and had the overall responsibility for managing typically joint
family households while deferring to their husbands’ ultimate authority (Sangari 1999, 307). That Gauri
leaves home therefore indicates a major shift. But her move was enabled by the idea that the economy had
opened up, that there were in the world out there opportunities for women that did not previously exist,
accompanied by the idea that girls should, and could, aspire. Yet it is not clear that the economy has
actually opened enough to accommodate the thousands of aspiring Gauris. In this slippage between
aspiration and economic opportunity lies a story that is yet to unfold.
If the women who leave home are ambitious and aspirational, the men reveal a startlingly different
story. Jagdish has not been successful growing up. In fact, he has failed in almost everything he has tried.
He epitomizes the narrative of the new male loser, unable to become a man because he cannot stand on his
own two feet. His story reveals a certain abjectness, a sense of consistent failure, a desperation. He comes
from a class that no longer has the possibility of participating in a stable working class job. Yet he has a
college degree (a BA in English, a subject that to a postcolonial subject like Jagdish implies prestige) that
is of little value in today’s economy. Men like Jagdish are one step away from the educated unemployed,
given the minimal value of their degrees, and must therefore seek jobs in more precarious sectors than they
did before. They have been told they are losers and, while they search for a way to survive, their lives are
suffused with anxiety and tension, unlike Gauri, whose life seems filled with hope. It is telling that Jagdish
joined a Hindu nationalist organization, for they are one of the last spaces where men like him may get to
reclaim their masculinity.
Rethinking the configuration of gendered power in the Global South today then requires us to think
about men who (1) lose their ability to be breadwinners as the economy loses its manufacturing, and (2)
are less desirable workers of the global service economy, but (3) who still have access to the forces of
institutionalized violence, and (4) whose masculinity may increasingly rely on ideologies of nationalism,
born out of the anticolonial struggle, and now emanating from the state. In the face of this, women face
both new possibilities and new dangers.
Connell makes evident in all her work that gender has a history. Colonialism brought about huge
changes in the gender order, as did anticolonial and nationalist struggles. So, too, now, with the neoliberal
global economy and its discursive exhortations, is the gendered order being shaken. As the process unfolds
before our eyes we can keep our theories relevant by being open to the sort of layered analysis Connell
first encouraged in Gender and Power. Our task is still the identification of the historically and culturally
specific structures that obtain at any one time and place. In this essay I have suggested that the way to do
so is to develop a flexible structural analysis that pays attention both to colonial history and to subject
formation.

59
 Notes

1 By neoliberalism I refer to the heightened privatization, lower government regulation, and reduced public expenditure for
social services that has increasingly marked the global economy over the past 30 years.
2 While there are hegemonic and nonhegemonic discourses, structures and experiences themselves become legible only through
discourse. This version of discourse analysis is perfectly compatible with structural analyses. In the words of Laclau and
Mouffe (2001, 108): “The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there
is a world external to thought, or with the realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick is an event that
certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects is
constructed in terms of ‘natural phenomena’ or ‘expressions of the wrath of God’ depends upon the structuring of a
discursive field. What is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the rather different assertion that they
could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive conditions of emergence.”
3 “The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have had to
wear burqua [full veils] and have been beaten and stoned in public for not having the proper attire. . . . Women are not
allowed to work or even go out in public without a male relative; professional women such as professors, translators, doctors,
lawyers, artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and restricted to their homes. . . . At one of the rare hospitals for
women, a reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying motionless on top of beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to
speak, eat, or do anything, but slowly wasting away. Others have gone mad and were seen crouched in corners, perpetually
rocking or crying, most of them in fear. . . . If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name of human rights for the
sake of ethnic Albanians, citizens of the world can certainly express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder and injustice
committed against women by the Taliban.” This is an excerpt taken from a petition circulated to support Afghan women; see
Rahel Nardos, Mary K. Radpour, William S. Hatcher, and Michael L. Penn, Overcoming Violence against Women and Girls:
The International Campaign to Eradicate a Worldwide Problem (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
4 In this context, Mayo (1927) described India as follows:

We stop at the bedside of a young girl who looks at us with the eyes of a hungry animal . . . married as a baby,
sent to her husband at ten, the shock of her incessant use was too much for her brain. . . . All she could do was
crouch in a corner, a little twisted heap, panting . . . her husband, in despair and rage . . . cast her among the
scrub thicket at the edge of the jungle to die.
But there she was found and saved by an English lady under whose proper care she has at last “begun to
blossom into normal intelligence.” (55)

5 Historian Mrinalini Sinha tells us that far from traveling alone without any assistance from a government agency, Katherine
Mayo was in direct contact with the British administration who had “encouraged her to write a book critical of Indian habits
and traditional Indian practices, partly as a rejoinder to Gandhi, who was making major strides in building a mass-movement
to end British rule” (2000, 627).
6 For an excellent analysis of the terrible rape of a young woman in New Delhi, often read in these terms of aspirational women
and loser men, see “Delhi Rape: How the Other Half Lives,” by Jason Burke, Guardian, September 10, 2013.

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 5

Race, Indigeneity, and Gender

Lessons for Global Feminism

Mara Viveros Vigoya

In this chapter I consider the dilemmas about race and indigeneity faced by Colombian feminisms and their
implications for feminist concepts of gender. These dilemmas arise from a tension between social
movements’ search for a “general subject” and a political project that not only recognizes the idea of
difference but also holds it as a central tenet. This tension has deep roots in the Latin American region,
going back to the postcolonial building of national identities. All the contemporary societies that have tried
to adopt liberal principles to create social pacts have faced an evident contradiction between legal equality
and persistent inequalities of class, race, gender, and sexuality (Wade 2009, 158).
This chapter also seeks, from a perspective of feminist solidarity, to build a bridge between Colombian
experience and thought and feminist debates in the global North. Such dialogue takes place too rarely.
Globalization and neoliberalism have had a great impact on the possibilities of resistance against
oppression both in the center and the periphery of the world capitalist system. We cannot avoid
considering feminist movements from a transnational viewpoint. Yet we need to see global feminism not
as an expression of fixed universal principles, but as an open process combining the thoughts and demands
of different movements, both national and transnational (Millán 2012, 37).
Within feminism, the idea of difference has developed in opposition to the idea of universality.
Difference has been presented either as a demand for a specific identity or as a principle of radical
pluralism (Fraser 1997). In both cases “difference” emerges as a counterpoint to the project of modernity
and its use of universal categories. This opposition has profoundly marked the strategies used by different
feminist groups, and has defined their positions toward the state, the nation, and social intervention.
In Colombia, and more widely in Latin America, the development of feminism over the last thirty years
has been marked by debates about differences among women and the multiple differences that “intersect”
or “co-construct” each other. Feminist practice in this period—one of profound social and political change
across the region—has reworked the global debates about gender in the light of what we now call “feminist
epistemologies of the South” (Mendoza 2010; Viveros Vigoya 2016).
In common with other epistemologies of the South, feminist epistemologies—which involve not just one
perspective but a range of perspectives—call for new processes of producing and validating feminist
knowledges, academic and nonacademic, and new relations between forms of knowledge. This is based on
the practices of the social groups that have suffered most from the consequences of colonialism and
neoliberal capitalism (Santos 2011). The reflections and experiences of a significant part of Latin
American feminism are anchored in a South that is less a geographical concept than a metaphor of
struggles and resistance against oppressions and discriminations based on gender, class, ethnicity, race, and
sexuality. This constitutes an important input to the construction of a “feminism without borders,” and to
the understanding of the dynamics of gender on a global scale.
In what follows, we will first examine the process that Colombian feminism has gone through since the
1970s, in developing its paradigms of action and reflection, which have become increasingly diverse.
Second, we will examine the position currently occupied by social movements of indigenous and

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Afro-descendant women in Colombian feminist debates about the dilemmas and new perspectives that
globalization has imposed upon social movements.

Colombian Feminism, from the Marxist Paradigm to Policy Activism

During the 1960s and 1970s, in Colombia as in the rest of Latin America, civil and military groups
emerged with demands based on Marxist ideology. The leading social movements assumed that the
proletariat was the key political actor, with both the capacity and the duty to transform the social order.
Colombian women were slow in joining electoral political action, and their representation in political
bodies was minimal for a long time (Villarreal Méndez 1995). However, from 1970 onwards, and to the
astonishment and fear of some political parties, feminist groups emerged. These were mainly made up—as
in the US—of “white” women (or their Colombian equivalent, mestiza [mixed race] women with fair skin)
from the middle classes; many had had feminist experience in Europe or North America.
Mostly these were small consciousness-raising groups, seeking to make political what used to be seen as
personal, such as sexuality and contraception (Sánchez Gómez 2005). They widened the definition of
politics and the traditional way of doing politics. These collectives did not necessarily aspire to state
power. They worked in favor of cultural transformations in society, at risk of being overshadowed by the
demands of the “general” Marxist-oriented movement, which recognized no specific oppression other than
class. Feminist groups engaged in debates on “double militancy”—feminist and political—and autonomy,
abortion and sexuality, women’s health, and the life of the marital couple.
A key event, the First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter, was held in Bogotá,
Colombia, in July 1981. Systematic discussions took place about the agenda just mentioned (Sánchez
Gómez 2005, 384). But from that moment, voices were raised to express concern about “the small
attendance of working women, peasant women and women from low-income classes” (Restrepo and
Bustamante 2009, 15) at the event. It was not until the meeting in 1987 in Taxco, Mexico, that the Feminist
Encounters managed to attract “large numbers of women from various sectors of the grassroots movement,
women not necessarily identified with feminism” (ibid., 15). Since the first meeting in Bogotá in 1981,
these encounters have encouraged transnational debates and interchanges among feminist activists from
different countries, with undeniable effects on feminist agendas, such as the production of new identity
discourses and new feminist practices (Álvarez 2000).
During the 1980s, Latin American feminist currents became more diverse, and tendencies such as
“radical,” “moderate,” and “political” began to be defined. At the same time a wide social movement
emerged at the grassroots level, made up of women who sought to work with women from low-income
sectors and create alliances with left-wing parties and organizations of the armed struggle (Fischer 2005).
At this time the first women’s centers were formed in Cali, Medellin, and Bogotá. They produced
information, provided legal and medical services, documentation centers, publications, and so forth. More
solid links were formed across Latin America and the Caribbean. Regional and continental events
multiplied around the commemoration of significant dates: among others, March 8, International Women’s
Day; May 28, Day of Action for Women’s Health; and November 25, International Day against Violence
against Women (Páez et al. 1989).
The collapse of many left-wing projects, in Colombia and across Latin America, and the advent of
neoliberal globalization, affected all social movements including feminism (Vargas 2008, 155). Feminism
in the 1990s went through a radical change in its organizational strategies and its theoretical-political
agenda. The movement went from proposing maximalist demands to specific projects with real social
impact. But what was won in specificity was lost in creativity, as the utopian search was subordinated to
achieving efficacy and policy reform (Gargallo 2007).

The Institutionalization of “Gender” and the Advent of Multiculturalism

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In the 1990s a process of institutionalization of the gender concept and gender perspective began. This
occurred through state programs aimed specifically at women and through gender studies programs in the
universities. The process was reinforced by events like the UN Conference on Population and
Development in Cairo in 1994 and the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. Amid the turbulence
that brought constitutional reform in 1991 and the implementation of a neoliberal economic model, new
gender-specific institutions were created. They included at the national level the Presidential Council for
Youth, Women and Family; at the regional or local level, secretariats and offices of women, aimed at
promoting women’s participation in economic and social development. In 1996, after the Beijing
conference, a National Equity Directorate was created, and the Equality and Participation Policy for
Women was promulgated (Peláez Mejía 2001).
This process meant increased knowledge, dissemination, and visibility of gender issues throughout
society. But a greater use of the concept of gender sometimes stripped the idea of the feminist political
dimension from which it arose. Many feminists left the social movements to join government bodies or
NGOs (Millán 2012). Financing from international sources was often received uncritically, and this
became another cause of fragmentation (Fischer 2005). The neoliberal emphasis on efficacy and
modernization of the social affected feminism, too. The professional displaced the militant, and the
operative became more important than the discursive (Richard 2001, 230). Gender equality was
incorporated into the instruments of neoliberal governance—but did not achieve the transformation of
reality for Latin American women (Millán 2012).
In the 1990s a crisis arose between “institutional” feminists and “autonomous” feminists. The category
of institutional feminism included women working in a great variety of organizations. They ranged from
development-oriented centers with only a weak feminist profile, to collectives with a perspective of strong
countercultural feminism (Vargas 2008, 151). Autonomous feminism, too, had a heterogeneous range of
groups. Their common stance was to operate without international finance, to maintain a distance from the
state and political parties, and generally to seek self-determination and independence from any institution.
The depth and intensity of conflict between these two tendencies were openly expressed in the Seventh
Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter held in Chile in 1996. Since then the polarization
between the two feminisms has lessened, without losing its importance as a reference point in political and
theoretical debates (Vargas 2008, 156).
During the 1990s the academic institutionalization of feminism gained ground in many Latin America
countries (Arango and Puyana 2007). This meant an undeniable recognition of the gender issue in the
university world. Academic feminism supported a greater commitment to gender equity in government
agencies and public policies. It provided technical expertise, both in interventions and in research in this
new field. Paradoxically, however, the institutionalization of feminism in universities was accompanied by
the isolation of feminist academics, and discrimination against gender programs from the faculties and
discipline-based programs. Universities, too, could make rhetorical use of the theme of gender, separated
from its rebellious origins.
One cornerstone of autonomy was the independence of feminist struggles from left-wing parties and the
ideology of class struggle. Defense of that autonomy relied on a political premise: the real or potential
existence of a common identity shared by all women, as a social group dominated by men. This was the
implicit gender theory of canonical feminism. In presupposing that masculine domination overrides any
other power relationship, canonical feminism ignored the interplay between gender differences and
inequalities, and the differences and inequalities of race, ethnic group, and sexual orientation. By avoiding
criticism of the hegemony of whiteness, denying ambivalences around the ideology of mestizaje, and
ignoring the heteronormativity of social institutions, many Latin American feminists unwittingly
reproduced racial hierarchies, a Eurocentric orientation, and heterosexism.
In the 1990s a new era began where “the right to be different” replaced the search for an undifferentiated
national identity based on one language, one race, and one religion. The new Constitution of 1991 played a
part: its multicultural ideology and emphasis on human dignity threw into relief ethno-racial hierarchies
and ingrained heteronormativity in the nation (Curiel 2013).
Though racism and sexuality were mentioned in the First Latin American and Caribbean Feminist

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Encounter, self-critical discussion did not immediately take place. It was only in the Second Encounter,
held in Lima in 1983, that the topic of racism was thematized. The fight against racism and heterosexism
was part of the political agenda of Latin American feminism. But it was very difficult to get the movement
to accept that racism and homophobia might exist within the movement, and even more difficult to give
everyone access to the privileges enjoyed by white heterosexual feminists.
From the 1990s, the number of women’s groups forming around the defense and consolidation of a
specific ethnicity began to grow. These became movements of indigenous and Afro-descendant women.
These movements have questioned theoretically certain key concepts of feminism, such as gender and
patriarchy. At the same time, they have strengthened their links with women’s social movements and with
feminism.
What are the theoretical and political challenges posed by these movements and their links with
feminism? To answer this question one must examine the path followed by the movements of indigenous
and Black Colombian women.

Indigenous Women’s Movements

Ever since colonization in the 16th century, women have been involved in the struggles of indigenous
peoples and organizations for survival and full recognition of their rights (Sánchez Gutiérrez and Molina
Echeverri 2010). According to the National Planning Department, there are currently 84 indigenous
communities, with a combined population of around 1.4 million, representing 3.4 percent of the total
population (DANE 2005). Their struggles, from the colonial period to the present, to maintain their social
organization and to occupy a place in social life, have had three main directions: the defense of the land
and the communal regime, the defense of self-government, and the defense of their own cultures (Sánchez
Gutiérrez and Molina Echeverri 2010).
Indigenous organization was reshaped between 1910 and 1946, amid a series of struggles in areas where
indigenous communities were predominant (Jimeno 2006). However, during the period called “The
Violence” in Colombia and the subsequent political repression, between 1946 and 1958, a great part of the
indigenous population was killed and the remaining population could only merge into peasant
organizations. In the 1960s, for the first time, a wide public debate on the living conditions of indigenous
peoples took place (Gómez 1998). In the 1970s, autonomous organisations of indigenous peoples were
founded that gave rise to the first “modern” indigenous movement, with a program and a regional
organization linking different ethnic groups.
From that moment on, the associations of indigenous peoples were transformed into political actors.
They aimed not only to gain legal recognition but also to engage in debates and wider social processes
concerning forms of government, the education that indigenous communities needed, and protection of the
natural resources in indigenous territories (Villa and Houghton 2005; Sánchez Gutiérrez and Molina
Echeverri 2010).
However, the importance of indigenous women’s contributions on this political stage has been
recognized only recently (Méndez Torres 2006). Since the 1991 national Constitution, the formation of
grassroots organizations by indigenous women has become more common (Ulloa 2007, 20). Organized
indigenous women who advocate for collective processes are beginning to be respected and recognized as
leaders (Méndez Torres 2006, 2007).
Their organizations vary greatly; what they have in common is a search for justice and respect for their
peoples and their way of life (Méndez Torres 2007). Colombian indigenous women have held leadership
positions from which they have questioned the customs and traditions of their peoples that affect the
dignity of women, as well as questioning the effects of neoliberal policies and the armed conflict in their
regions.
Gender and feminism—as categories and political projects that came from the development projects of
international organizations and from the women’s movement—have been taken up in these indigenous

67
organizations in very different ways. For instance, Julieta Paredes, a well-known indigenous leader in the
Bolivian feminist collective Mujeres Creando, suggests that gender, as a concept and a category, holds
possibilities for transforming the conditions of women’s oppression. However, the revolutionary potential
of gender was undermined by those technocrats who reduced this term to a mere pursuit of gender equity,
an objective very different from transcending gender as a system of oppression (Paredes 2010).
In the case of Colombia, women such as Avelina Pancho—an indigenous leader from the Nasa people,
an advocate for the indigenous university project and indigenous peoples’ right to higher education in
Colombia—suggests that “the category of gender has no equivalent term, at least with the same meaning
and nuance, in the indigenous languages originating on the American continent.” In their conception of the
world, the relations between men and women are historical products of ancestral laws and values, which
“have changed gradually due to influences of the broadest environment.” What is important, for her, is to
take advantage of indigenous women’s potential, though often invisible, to generate harmonious and
balanced relations between the communities (Pancho 2007, 60).
Florina López, an indigenous leader from the Kuna people and coordinator of the Indigenous Women’s
Network on Biodiversity in Latin America, introduces other perspectives to the discussion of gender. In
her community, the topic of gender is taboo because it is linked, especially for men, with the rupture of the
indigenous communities’ cultural unity. Therefore, one of the most important tasks is to sensitize men to
the topic of gender, to make them understand that the issue of gender is “as much a problem for them
[men] as for us women,” “because the joint involvement of both men and women is necessary” (López
2007, 81–82).
Other groups have begun to redefine the concept of gender on the basis of their own experiences. They
advocate complementarity as an alternative perspective about relationships between people, and between
humans and nature. An emphasis on harmony with the environment, inherent in the traditional
cosmo-vision of indigenous peoples, assists their recognition “as ecological actors in national and
international representations, discourses and policies, where it is assumed that spirituality and feminine
sensitivity can be found in their traditions” (Ulloa 2004; Ulloa 2007, 22). The discourse of cosmic
harmony provides a critique of the discrimination and exclusion experienced daily by women—illiteracy,
the weight of domestic duties, devaluation of their work and products, ignorance of indigenous issues, and
exclusion from decision making. These are seen to fracture the harmony, which must be reestablished by
combatting the inequalities.
The resulting struggles emphasize collective action, since the defense of collective rights is seen as key
to guaranteeing their survival as a people (Méndez Torres 2007; Pancho 2007). New dynamics of
migration and urbanization have modified older organizational patterns, giving women a newly important
role. Female leaderships have emerged, with positive repercussions for the community. But this has
involved huge personal costs for the women leaders themselves (López 2007).
Indigenous women’s collectives have taken different views of demands for gender equality, whether
positioning themselves in cultural specificities or vindicating their political and social role in their
communities. However, the current tendency is to seek alliances between indigenous and nonindigenous
women. In such alliances, indigenous women demand that the common struggle incorporate their voices
and their experiences of “otherness” and that the shared agenda be sensitive to their questioning of
canonical feminism. This was expressed clearly in a document from an international meeting in Bangkok
in 2005:

From the indigenous women’s organizations we consider that the feminist movement must
review its paradigm, to incorporate cultural, linguistic, spiritual dimensions and the
cosmo-vision of the indigenous woman, as part of the enrichment and integration of the
struggle of women of all peoples. Another important aspect is the formation of alliances
between organizations of indigenous and non-indigenous women, as a united front of the
women’s struggle. (Cited in Millán 2012, 46)

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Feminist academics and women intellectuals have also taken part in this process of building alliances. The
decolonization of feminism has meant the recuperation of indigenous women’s organizational experiences,
stories, and strategies of resistance in different parts of the continent. It has also destabilized both the
Eurocentric vision prevailing in the academic world, and the racial and class hierarchies that maintain
patriarchy in indigenous communities and in mixed-race societies (Hernández Castillo 2013).

Black Women’s Social Movements

To understand current social movements of Black women in Colombia it is necessary to place them in the
history of the country’s Black population. Colombia has the second largest African-descendant population
in Latin America, after Brazil. African-descendant people represent 19.2 percent of the total Colombian
population (Urrea, Viáfara, and Viveros 2014, 96). Africans arrived in the territory that would become
Colombia in the 16th century, and worked as slaves in mining, agriculture, cattle raising, commerce,
fishing, domestic work, and craft production.
From the start of the slave trade, multiple forms of resistance to enslavement developed. They included
rebellions, abortions and infanticide, escapes, and the creation of palenques—fortified communities
created by slaves who escaped and established autonomous spaces for social life, organization, and even
economic production (Viveros Vigoya and Cifuentes 2010). After the official abolition of slavery in 1851,
the former slaves, escapees (cimarrones), and their descendents were gradually absorbed into the
nation-building project. However, their inclusion was marginal, as they were ignored by the republican
legal system and the “rights-based state” (Estado de Derecho). From then on, they fought continuously
through the 20th century for the extension of their citizenship, full participation in politics, and their
economic and social advancement (Andrews 2007).
Between the 1930s and 1950s, claims by Black people were principally made through mainstream
political channels, especially the Liberal Party (Urrea, Viáfara, and Viveros 2004, 91). A modern Black
movement began in 1976, leading in 1982 to the first national organization, the Cimarron National
Movement. It was influenced by the U.S. civil rights movement and the anticolonization and antiapartheid
movements (Agudelo 2005). After the 1991 Constitution, a second wave of modern Afro-Colombian
organizations formed around ethnic-territorial and environmental issues. The Black movement by then had
adopted an ethnic-based discourse, raising tensions between those advancing ethnic and racial claims
inside its ranks (Urrea, Viáfara, and Viveros 2014, 91).
Afro-Colombian women have faced obstacles within both the Black movement and Colombian
feminism in expressing their racial, ethnic, and gender demands together (Lozano Lerma 1996, 2010;
Rojas 1996; Flórez 2004; Lamus Canavate 2012). A first difficulty is the state’s and social scientists’
ignorance of the particularities of Black women, who belong to a historically racialized group. A second
difficulty is a hidden “Andino-centrism” in feminist demands put forward as universal or necessary for all
women, invalidating or making invisible the particular contributions of Black women (Lozano Lerma
2010). Andino-centrism is a legacy of racial and regional hegemony. The Colombian elite of the 19th
century articulated a model of nationhood in which the sphere of civilization belonged to the temperate
zones of the Andes upland region, as opposed to the torrid lowland region where most of the Black
population was located. The hot coastal lowland and the savage inland frontiers were associated, in this
imaginary, with barbarism and ignorance (Arocha and Moreno 2007).
One of difficulties in making the demands of the Black women’s social movement comprehensible
comes precisely from the singularity of their experiences. Their movement is not defined from a separatist
perspective, because “black/Afro-Colombian women, before thinking of themselves as women, saw
themselves as black people, as black communities” (Lozano Lerma 2010, 21). Nor does their movement
consider the gender conditions of men and women as a dichotomy. But there is, de facto, recognition of
female subordination. Grueso and Arroyo (2007) are correct in saying that there is complementarity in

69
gender roles in the productive space of the building of territory, but inequality in political and family
environments. In this sense, the complementarity of gender roles is “complementarity lacking fluidity that
ends up making the women subordinate” (Lozano Lerma 2010, 18).
Black women’s demands have particularly concerned recognition of their land rights and the protection
of their cultural traditions. Given the predatory occupation of their lands by forces in the armed conflict,
and by national and international capital, Black women have had to adjust their mobilization plans to the
general demands of the Black or Afro-Colombian social movement. The way their gender demands are
shaped by social circumstances is shown by Flórez (2004), discussing the Process of Black Communities
(PCN) network in the Colombian Pacific region. The PCN began in 1993 and gained strength by
demanding government recognition of the multiethnic and multicultural character of the nation, respect for
Black people’s cultural differences, and acknowledgement of their territorial rights under Law 70, which
recognized collective land rights (Castillo 2007).
According to Flórez (2004), in the early 1990s the PCN made the radical defense of Black identity a
priority, before any other identity. At the same time, it promoted activities for women in rural areas, in the
context of widely criticized “development” practices (Rojas 1996). In this contradictory context, the
Network of Black Women of the Pacific emerged in 1992 to create solidarity between different women’s
organizations and to strengthen their ethnic identity. In the second half of the 1990s the PCN accepted the
importance of gender issues, but resisted pressure to include them in their political agenda. In a third
phase, beginning in the 2000s, the PCN opened up to gender questions. A search began for conceptual
tools adequate to express the specificity of gender oppressions in those contexts, and to produce “a
perspective of localized gender”—for example, linking the issue of gender with the defense of place or
territory (Grueso and Arroyo 2007).
When the armed conflict arrived, this strategy was indispensable for the survival of the communities
(Flórez 2004, 240). One of the main challenges concerns land rights. Illegal mining, often linked to
multinational corporations, tries to displace Afro-Colombians from their ancestral lands, rich in minerals
and natural resources. Forced relocation of Afro-Colombians often involves intimidation and violence,
including sexual violence, by the armed groups: principally the paramilitaries, but also the guerrillas and
the national army. Consequently the Afro-Colombian community has had to close ranks.
The need for Black women to create nonseparatist agendas for mobilization partly obscured gender
demands. But it also aided recognition of Black women’s participation and leadership in social
organizations whose actions gained recognition by the state. As Lozano Lerma (2010, 22) says:

Although at that time [the women] were not proposing specific rights, the existence of
patriarchy in their communities and organizations led them not so much to a discourse in
defense of their rights as [such], but to actions that obliged the men to take them into
account, to listen to them and respect them, given the important leadership roles they had
begun to develop.

Flórez (2004) notes the progressive “implosion” of gender identities and demands within the two main
strands of the Black social movement—the PCN and the Cimarron movement—among activists and
intellectuals and also in the grassroots movements. Increasingly, the women included in their agenda
feminist themes such as the struggles for the rights of women, for political visibility, and against violence
against women (Lamus Canavate 2012). However, neoliberal policies and the new capitalist extractivism
imposed the need to include the defense of territory, biodiversity, cultural rights, and ancestral knowledge
in these partially autonomous initiatives.
The armed conflict and capitalist depredation have undoubtedly affected all Colombian women. Black
women have paid heavier costs, in terms of displacement, sexual violence, selective assassinations, and
political persecution, because of their active participation in the defense of their ancestral lands. This is
true especially in the Colombian Pacific region. Only recently this biodiverse and pluri-ethnic territory

70
ceased being a peripheral zone exempt from violence; indeed, it became the strategic theater of the armed
conflict, with grave consequences for its inhabitants (Agudelo 2001, 7). The impact of armed conflict and
capitalist intrusion dramatizes the importance of considering the specificities of Black women’s
experiences.
Finally, we should note the changes that have occurred in the Afro-Colombian social movement,
changes made evident during the last National Autonomous Congress of the Black, Palenquero and Raizal
Peoples, held in the city of Quibdo in August 2013. Women participated actively, putting forward precise
demands to transform their gender status within the Afro-Colombian movement. In an open declaration
released through a delegate to the discussion group on national authority, they demanded not only
recognition of the LGBTI community but also the opening of participatory and decision-making spaces on
equal terms to the women of the movement:

Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero and Raizal women are advancing in the defense of our
strategic gender interests. . . . We are not content with improvements that enable us to fulfill
our traditional roles, but we dare to question the relations of masculine domination as a
social and cultural imposition and we are no longer prepared to accept it. The voice of
women in this sense was unanimous, demanding a participation of 50% in all the
organizational spaces of the social Afro movement, both at a grassroots level and at the
level of interaction with the State. (Otras Negras . . . ¡Y Feministas! 2013, 1)

By Way of Conclusion: Lessons for Global Feminism

Organizations of both indigenous and Black women have questioned Colombian feminism, beginning with
reclaiming their own stories and particular experiences of sexism. Both groups have shown reserve toward
what they see as interference by external agents, be they institutions, NGOs, or individual researchers of
either sex (Ulloa 2007, 23). The two groups have related differently, however, to feminist discourse and its
gender theory. This follows from the different positions held by Afro-Colombian women and indigenous
women in the political and symbolic space of the Colombian nation from its beginnings.
These differences have become less absolute due to the effects of multiculturalism, as a social and
political practice, on all the social movements. To be recognized by the state, movements have had to “fit
the images of cultural difference expressed in the unique paradigmatic ethnic subject” (Bocarejo and
Restrepo 2011, 9). Thus, the demands and self-representations of Black communities have been ethnicized,
with all the internal tensions that this implies. Many of their political strategies and their relations with
experts, state officials, and NGOs have been made comparable with those of the indigenous movement
(Restrepo 2013).
Not all the indigenous or Afro-descendant women’s organizations have made antisexist demands. Some
years ago Yuderkys Espinosa (1999) and Ochy Curiel (2009) pointed out that the aim of defending the
specificity of a collective historical, political, and cultural experience does not necessarily entail
challenging patriarchal practices.
Those who have done so have developed a culturally situated political discourse and practice on gender
and have strongly questioned academic feminist theory (Hernández Castillo 2013). As indigenous and
Black movements developed, a promising convergence can be seen between feminist policy agendas and
the field of “decoloniality studies,” which focuses on understanding the “colonial matrix of power”
(Bidaseca and Vásquez Laba 2011). One example is the search for understanding of the historic links
between colonialism and the widespread discrimination and violence to which indigenous and
Afro-descendant women have been subjected in the Colombian armed conflict.
The emphasis given by indigenous and Afro-descendant women to the fact that their struggles are
collective, not individual, points to a distinctive form of politics: the totality of their social relations is

71
expressed in a single struggle. For many of these women, it is not a matter of choosing between their rights
as women and their loyalties to their ethnic-racial groups. Rather, it is a matter of anchoring respect for
their rights as women in their collective struggles, so that both men and women defend them. It is also seen
as important to link the defense of these rights to more general struggles in society, such as resistance
against neoliberal development and its megaprojects.
Global feminist theory has much to learn from the lived experiences, epistemological proposals, and
political projects described above. Colombian indigenous women’s defense of their lands implies
protecting a way of life not focused on the individual but on the collectivity; shielding “the continuity of
life” and passing on an ancestral knowledge that involves other forms of relations between human and
nonhuman; and food self-sufficiency (Ulloa 2016). The struggles that black women have undertaken in
defense of their life and ancestral lands allow us to imagine “a future option that does not only address our
own needs” (Kuagro 2014), and alternative economic dynamics that respect the rule that says “don’t take
more that what the Earth allows” (Proceso de Comunidades Negras 2015; Mina et al. 2015). All these
projects are currently threatened by a context of global capitalism and by policies in favor of extractive
multinational companies.
Recognizing these lessons is the first step in the development of a transnational feminist project of
solidarity, which is willing to listen to, and to draw lessons from, the political practices and worldviews of
indigenous women and Afro-descendent women. The struggles undertaken by indigenous and
Afro-descendent women demonstrate the connections that exist between a global economic model that
facilitates the accumulation of private and foreign capital and the privatization of soil and subsoil, the
militarization of mining regions, the increase of political and sexual violence, and the forced displacement
of ethnic communities from those territories.
While their social experiences are irreducibly different, the weave of life for women in the Global North
is nevertheless closely connected with the lives of women in the Global South. It is, therefore, necessary to
connect the knowledges that arise from political movements led by indigenous women and
Afro-descendent women to the struggles undertaken by feminist women in other geographical areas, who
may stand in solidarity with their struggles and share responsibility for their problems. To think feminisms
from a transnational perspective means to open intercultural dialogues and create “feminist solidarities
capable of crossing the divisions of place, identity, class, work and faiths” (Mohanty 2003), based on a
continuous review of our own commitments and political assumptions.
This does not guarantee that we will eliminate the existing tensions between different feminisms.
However, it does enable us to overcome the many ethnocentric errors that have been committed vis-à-vis
this imagined community of the Other Women (Hernández Castillo 2013), whose lives and struggles have
been subjected to a discursive colonization. It is a matter of annulling any privilege of canonical academic
feminism, yet at the same time avoiding any cultural essentialism that attributes homogeneity or a decisive
role to the social movements of Black or indigenous women. Feminist epistemologies of the South
(Mendoza 2010), based on the varied theorizing and experience of women of the Global South, can thus
enrich our understanding of the functioning of global gendered power and, at the same time, the means to
resist this power.

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 6

Categories, Structures, and Intersectional Theory

Joya Misra

The importance of feminist theory endures in the 21st century, as scholars increasingly recognize the
centrality of gender to all facets of social life. Structural feminist theories of the 20th century played a
crucial role in identifying gendered inequalities in a wide array of institutions—including politics,
economics, religions, legal systems, the media, families, schools, and workplaces—highlighting strategies
for social change. While socialist feminist theory analyzed the relations between class and gender,
intersectional theory first emerged as Black, Latina, and postcolonial feminist scholars further considered
how race, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, sexuality, and the other characteristics intersect with gender
and class to form more multifaceted patterns of inequalities (Beale 1970; Anzaldúa 1987; Collins 1986;
Zinn et al. 1986). Intersectional theory then complicates the notion of gender as a stable category, building
on insights from poststructural theory, but remains focused on structural inequalities and social change.
This makes understanding how categories figure into intersectional analyses particularly important.
Structural analyses of gender remain dominant in sociology. Sociologists refer to gender as an order
(Connell 1987), a social institution (Martin 2004), or a social structure (Risman 2004; Lorber 1994),
calling attention to the enduring yet dynamic nature of gender, and how power and inequality are
embedded in gendered social relations (Connell 2009). Analyzing gender as a structure identifies the
gendered ideologies, practices, and power conflicts embedded in all parts of society, as well as how these
serve as potential sites for social change (Connell 1987, 2009; Lorber 1994; Risman 2004; Martin 2004;
Acker 2006).
Because much intersectional theory was aimed at correcting a troublingly universal depiction of
women’s experiences (Beale 1970; King 1988; Zinn et al. 1986; Collins 2000; Anzaldúa 1987; Morgan
and Anzaldúa 1981), most intersectional scholarship in sociology remains structural, even as it insists that
gender is complicated by other structures, such as race, class, sexuality, age, nationality, and citizenship.
Sociological intersectional theory primarily analyzes inequalities with an aim to social change. Yet
intersectional theory also breaks down artificially neat categorical distinctions between “men” and
“women,” drawing insights from poststructural theory that undermine simple categorizations.
Intersectional theory refines structural understandings of inequality, recognizing gender, race, class, and
other characteristics as structures reflecting power and inequality, providing new blueprints for social
change.
Intersectional theory thus challenges universal understandings of gendered social relations. Yet this
complex and dynamic understanding of gender does not negate the idea that gender is a structure that leads
to unequal outcomes based on power differentials. While influenced by poststructural theory, much
intersectional theory in sociology remains deeply committed to understanding structural inequalities,
including economic, political, and social power differences. By specifying how gender is structured
differently over time, place, and across groups, intersectional theory identifies important variations in
gendered structures and outcomes, creating more accurate understanding of how these processes work, and
how they can be altered.
For example, consider different theoretical approaches to neoliberalism, defined as strategies aimed at
reducing public sector intervention and regulation in favor of promoting private sector development and
growth. Neoliberalism is deeply implicated in growing inequality, as it tends to lead to fewer protections
for the vulnerable and more opportunities for the wealthy to accumulate resources. A feminist structural

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analysis focuses on how neoliberal strategies reconfigure gender inequalities, while a poststructural
feminist analysis considers what kind of gendered subject is constituted by a neoliberal discourse, calling
attention to the contingent and relational nature of identity. A structural intersectional analysis considers
how an array of social relations are reflected in neoliberal discourse, and how neoliberal strategies lead to
inequalities being reconfigured not only around gender but also around race, nation, class, age, and so
forth. I argue that an intersectional approach provides the greatest insight into how neoliberalism operates,
and therefore provides better traction to resist neoliberal strategies.
In this chapter, I specify the meaning of intersectional theory in sociology and its emphasis on
understanding how different elements of social identity intersect within particular geographic and
historical contexts to create both opportunities and constraints, with these identities further intertwined so
that privileges and disadvantages are connected. Central to my argument is the role of categories in
intersectional theory. I argue that intersectional theory bridges poststructural theory’s emphasis on
disrupting categories with structural theory’s emphasis on analyzing power and inequality through
examining differences by or across categories. I illustrate how intersectional researchers actually use,
complicate, and undermine categories as they carry out their research—sometimes all at the same
time—and what this means for gender theory. I end by arguing that the tools intersectional theory gives us
are critical to creating truly progressive social change.

Structural Theory, Intersectional Theory

Change is central to structural theories of gender, which is unsurprising given that these theories emerged
during a time of enormous change (Connell 1987, 2009; Martin 2004; Risman 2004). Drawing on
Giddens’s (1984) theory of structuration, Risman (2004, 433) argues that “structure shapes individual
choice and social interaction and . . . human agency creates, sustains, and modifies current structure.”
Therefore, structural theory recognizes change and dynamism, both in terms of how shifting structures
may affect peoples’ opportunities and how agency may change the very structures they inhabit. Structural
theory has had to understand both change and why, although change has occurred, gendered inequalities in
media representations, employment, wages, poverty, violence, political power, to name only a few, remain
troubling—in other words, why inequality remains durable (Tilly 1999; Lorber 1994, 2005).
Intersectional theory explores how gender intersects with multiple other structures to affect
opportunities and experiences (Browne and Misra 2003; Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; Glenn 2009;
Collins 2000; Crenshaw 1991). Intersectional theory is often read as identifying differences among women
by race. For example, the theory suggests that a Black woman has different experiences than a White
woman. Yet intersectional theory makes a broader intervention. For example, a White, straight, upper-class
woman will have different experiences than a White, straight, poor woman. Similarly, an African
American middle-class gay man will have different experiences in Detroit and in Seattle, while an Asian
American working-class straight trans woman will have different experiences in 1990 and 2015. Race and
gender intersect, and depend on many factors, including class location, sexuality, gender identity,
parenthood status, and age—as well as time and place (Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996). Intersectional
theory requires us to understand how gender combines with race, class, sexuality, gender identity, and
other statuses, in specific geographic and historical contexts, to create a very particular set of opportunities
and constraints. This does not mean that scholars must design research to include attention to all possible
statuses—yet it does mean that scholars must be attentive to the conditions their research addresses.
While some critics suggest that intersectionality is most useful for redressing the harms inflicted on and
experienced by Black women specifically (Howard Frederick 2010; Nash 2008, 2011), most intersectional
scholars in sociology make a more relational argument, theorizing statuses as relational and interconnected
(Collins 2000; Glenn 2009; Ken 2010; Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996). In developing the concept of
the “matrix of domination” Collins (2000, 222) notes that the goal is to understand how these systems of
oppression interconnect. Glenn (1992, 34) further clarifies, “Thus, to represent race and gender as
relationally constructed is to assert that the experiences of white women and women of color are not just
different but connected in systematic ways.” Therefore, an intersectional approach does not mean simply

78
recognizing the similarities between different types of oppression (e.g., class oppression, gender
oppression, racial oppression), but analyzing how these systems of oppression are intertwined.
All people are located in a relational “matrix of domination,” in that disadvantage for some leads to
privilege for others, while almost all experience both disadvantage and privilege relative to others (Baca
Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; Collins 2000; Glenn 2009). While intersectional theory can be used to focus
specifically on Black women (Nash 2008, 2011), sociological intersectional theory theorizes the
experience of all people as relationally situated in positions of privilege and disadvantage. For example,
White women’s entrance to the workplace displaced both Black women and White and Black men
(Browne 1999). As argued by Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill (1996), each person’s experiences are shaped
by the experiences of those in differing groups around them, with these relationships defined and enforced
through institutions and interactions, and contributing to the construction of group identities. Intersectional
theory gives us the tools to analyze how privilege and disadvantage are connected and intertwined.
By recognizing the dynamic and specifically localized nature of particular inequalities, intersectional
scholars emphasize context. Intersectional scholarship has developed over complex historical terrain,
where progress has varied by location, and been complicated, halting, and sometimes lost. As a result,
intersectional research highlights dynamics and change. Raced, gendered, and classed inequalities shift and
change, and differ from place to place. Rather than having absolute consequences, race, class, and gender
consequences differ by context (King 1988), which allows for change, such as Barack Obama’s election to
the U.S. presidency. Such a perspective “demands that scholars ground their work historically in the
production of the dynamics of oppression” (Ken 2008, 171). Yet, because this approach suggests that it is
not enough to analyze categorical differences between men and women, intersectional research has
sometimes been viewed as poststructural rather than structural.

Poststructural Theory, Intersectional Theory

Poststructural theory argues that categories come into being through discourse—rather than existing
“naturally,” they are made through language (Weedon 1996; Cixous 1976). This leads to a focus on
discourse, and understanding how discourse—for example “welfare queen”—creates certain subjects.
Analyzing the discourse can help uncover the production of the subject, and ultimately the subject’s
experience. Yet this approach may lead to a focus on identity unmoored from analyses of power and
inequality.
Intersectional theory also emphasizes the socially constructed nature of categories. The meaning of race,
for example, changes with historical circumstance; in one U.S. era, Blackness was defined by the “one
drop rule” (Omi and Winant 2004), while Jews in the U.S. came to be defined as White (Brodkin 1998); in
both cases, there are important social consequences to these changing definitions. Gender, class, sexuality,
gender identity, and other statuses also undergo changing definitions and understandings, which are
interdependent (Glenn 2009; Ken 2008). While these categories and intersections are not stable, they have
weighty effects. Intersectional theories in sociology focus less on identity than much poststructural theory
does, and assume that these social constructions contain inherent power differentials that deeply suffuse all
identities, interactions, and institutions (Collins 2000; Glenn 2009; Weber 2001; Browne and Misra 2003).
Feminist analyses of knowledge have long argued against the notion of objectivity, and for situated
knowledge (Haraway 1988; Harding 1992; Hartsock 1989; Fonow and Cook 1991). Both poststructural
theory and intersectional theory also build from a notion of situated knowledge, with intersectional theory
drawing attention to how standpoint affects knowledge production (Collins 1986, 2000; Glenn 2009;
Yuval-Davis 2012; Mann 2013).1 While sociological knowledge has at times aspired to be “objective” or
“neutral,” intersectional researchers show that understanding inequality requires knowledge from multiple
standpoints. Those in dominant groups are less likely to see inequality, so even as White middle-class
women articulate gendered inequalities based on their experience, they may miss gendered inequalities
faced by other groups of women (Acker 2006; Hartsock 1989). Following W. E. B. DuBois’s (1903)
notion of “double consciousness,” intersectional researchers suggest that those in the most marginalized

79
positions may better understand social relations than those in privileged positions, because they need to
understand both perspectives to navigate a world in which they are marginalized (Baca Zinn and Thornton
Dill 1996).
Following from these critiques, intersectional research has worked to uncover the biases in feminist
theory that saw women as occupying a “universal” category (Truth 1998; Cooper 1990; Collins 2000;
Morgan and Anzaldúa 1981). Although women differ from men, women also differ from one another.
Rather than viewing one group of women as the norm, with all other women deviating from that position,
intersectional scholars argue for recognizing the multiplicity of women’s experiences, based on their
structural locations not simply in gender but also in class, race, sexuality, gender identity, nationality, and
other statuses. For example, experiences and expectations regarding caregiving and paid employment have
long differed for women by class and race/ethnicity (Branch 2011; Glenn 2009; Amott and Matthaei
1991); in recognizing this differentiation, intersectional researchers posit more nuanced, varied, and
complex understandings of gender, caregiving, and paid work. Standpoint epistemology helps create new
understandings and knowledge, as scholars from marginalized groups identify what is missing in existing
theory.
This emphasis on the socially constructed nature of categories, standpoint epistemologies, and
destabilizing categories all share common ground with poststructural approaches (Butler 1999). There are
resonances that might help explain why intersectional theory may be viewed as part of the poststructural
feminist project. Yet there are multiple strains within poststructural theory—some distinct and some allied
with the political project of intersectional theory (Scott 1988; Butler and Scott 1992). As Kimberlé
Crenshaw (1991, 1296) describes, “One version of antiessentialism, embodying what might be called the
vulgarized social construction thesis, is that since all categories are socially constructed, there is no such
thing as, say, Blacks or women, and thus it makes no sense to continue reproducing those categories by
organizing around them.” This may be further read as arguing that all knowledge is contested, and
therefore that all viewpoints are equally valid.
Intersectional theory draws from a more structural analysis to correct an overriding focus on discourse
and identity, while working with the problematization of categories noted by poststructuralists.
Intersectional theory argues, in consonance with structural theory, that understanding the socially
constructed nature of categories like race, gender, and sexuality allows us to challenge them (Glenn 1992;
Collins 2012). Power is certainly embedded in how categories are made, and organizing around categories
may shore up existing categorizations. Yet challenging the consequences and meanings of these categories
also has potential for social change (Crenshaw 1991). As Joan Scott (1988) argued, critiquing and
disrupting categories can have profound consequences for political practice. This analytic move places
intersectional theorists strongly in consonance with theorists who argue that while structure shapes agency,
agency, in turn, has the potential to modify (always dynamic) structure (Giddens 1984; Risman 2004;
Sewell 1992).
Therefore, most intersectional research in sociology remains structural, even as it pushes against natural
or simple categories or a unified, objective scientific perspective. Engaging with poststructural theory can
thus help clarify this position and recognize what the convergences suggest. From a poststructural position,
Butler (1997, 269–70) argues against the rubric of a universal, noting the universal become possible only
when abstracted from locations in power. Yet an intersectional structural analysis argues instead for
historicization that specifies, differentiates, and grounds understanding of gendered processes and the
creation of gendered categories (Fraser 1997; Connell 1987, 2014; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005).
While both intersectional and poststructural perspectives see important reasons to deny universalities, in
that they tend to conceal power differentials, a structural intersectional perspective further historicizes and
contextualizes inequalities, and, from this, identifies ruptures and opportunities for action (Glenn 2009;
Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; Connell 2014).

The Use of Categories in Intersectional Research

80
Most structural feminist research is predicated on categories, even when those categories can be broken
down: gender categories may be further delineated in terms of race, ethnicity, class, education, sexuality,
trans or cis gender identity, intersex, nationality, citizenship, and the like. Yet if the intersectional critique
does not simply mean that categories need to be specified, but also that the categories themselves are
unstable and problematic—this has ramifications for both theory and method. If categories—such as
gender—are not clearly differentiated, but partial, dependent on context, and unstable, how do
intersectional researchers carry out research? If scholars see categories as partial, should they always
incorporate a dizzying array of categories to ensure that they reflect the complexity of social life? If
scholars cannot rely on categories as fixed, does this mean that scholars should not use categories, or that
they should emphasize gendered processes, rather than gendered outcomes? In this section, I provide
illustrations of how intersectional researchers complicate, use, and unmake categories in their research, and
the utility of their doing so.
Much intersectional research in sociology relies upon categories, but queries the meaning of the
categories and their effects (McCall 2001, 2005; Crenshaw 1991). McCall’s (2005) influential model
suggests three different orientations toward categories in intersectional research: intracategorical research,
intercategorical research, and anticategorical research. Intracategorical work focuses on examining the
experience of a particular group—such as working-class Latina women; intercategorical research compares
the experiences across groups—such as comparing middle-class and working-class Latina women; while
anticategorical work undermines and questions the notion of distinct categories based on “Latina,”
“working class,” “middle class,” and “women.” I argue that while these three orientations may appear
mutually exclusive, there is considerable overlap. Table 6.1 summarizes McCall’s (2005) argument as well
as the prevalence of these methods in top sociology journals (Jones et al. 2013). Among these approaches,
intercategorical research is more prevalent, followed by intracategorical and anticategorical research
(Jones, Misra, and McCurley 2013).

Table 6.1. Analysis of Intersectional Research

Intracategorical Intercategorical Anticategorical

Approach to
Interrogates Uses relationally Rejects
Categories

Frequency in
Sociology 6% 9% 3%
Journals

Harvey Wingfield on Black Flippen on Latina Penner and Saperstein on

Example male nurses facing glass migrants in the New racial categorization in
barriers South surveys

“Intracategorical” research has focused on a single social category, often one that has been understudied
(McCall 2005, 1780). For example, Stone (2007) discusses how professional women leave high-paying
jobs not because they “opt out,” but because they are “pushed out” of workplaces that are inhospitable to
working mothers. Yet Barnes (2015) further identifies that married Black professional mothers are met
with substantial disapproval from their families and communities if they do not maintain full-time jobs.
Black women are judged based on assumptions that they should be financially independent and represent
their race as professional women rather than provide care for their children. Barnes’s intracategorical
research helps point to differences in how Black professional women’s “opting out” is met relative to
White professional women, even though both face largely unwelcoming working conditions.
Another example of intracategorical intersectional research is Adia Harvey Wingfield’s (2009) research

81
on Black male nurses. Here, Harvey Wingfield (2009) builds on the insight developed by Christine
Williams (1995) that men in jobs dominated by women may ride a “glass escalator” to promotions, rather
than hitting the glass ceiling that women experience in jobs dominated by men. Harvey Wingfield (2009)
notes that Black men nurses do not ride the glass escalator, and instead face “glass barriers” in the form of
challenges from coworkers, supervisors, and patients. While Harvey Wingfield (24) focuses on the
category of Black men, her analysis has important implications for the intersection of gender and race for
both men and women in workplaces. Although Harvey Wingfield’s research relies on categories of race
and gender, her intersectional analysis shows that Black men’s masculinity does not benefit them in
women-dominated jobs as White men’s masculinity does, undermining a simplistic notion of
“masculinity.”
McCall (2005) identifies “intercategorical” research as intersectional research that also focuses on
categories, yet in this case with an aim of identifying patterns of relations between them. Rather than
focusing on one social category, this research considers the relationships between two or more categories.
Yet at times the boundaries between intracategorical and intercategorical research are unclear. For
example, Mignon Moore (2006) compares middle-class and working-class Black lesbians, describing how
middle-class Black lesbians who enact feminine gendered presentations are more integrated into their
families and communities than working-class lesbians who enact more masculine gender identities.
Moore’s work calls attentions to variations among Black lesbians by class, rather than assuming that all
Black lesbians have similar experiences; yet Moore (2012) herself identifies her research as
intracategorical, given her focus on Black lesbians.
Intercategorical intersectional research also argues for close attention to context in shaping inequality.
For example, Miliann Kang (2010) shows that Korean immigrant women who give manicures provide
“pampering body labor” to White upper-class customers in spas, “expressive body labor” to Black
working-class customers in nail art salons, and “routinized body labor” to racially diverse middle-class
customers in discount salons. Context matters in understanding the classed, racialized, and gendered
experience of Korean immigrant nail salon workers. In another example, McCall (2001, 2005) shows how
gender wage gaps differ not only by race and class but also by region, leading to complex patterns: wage
gaps by race, class, and gender differ depending on whether manufacturing jobs are exiting (Detroit),
high-tech manufacturing is occurring (St. Louis), high-tech industries are developing (Dallas), or
immigrant workers are increasing (Miami). As McCall argues (2001), without attending to multiple
dimensions of inequality and context, policy attempts to reduce inequality may exacerbate other forms of
inequality.
Intercategorical research also helps identify new intersections and considers which intersections may be
particularly salient for group outcomes. Chenoa Flippen’s (2013) survey research on Latina immigrants in
the New South shows how employment, occupation, and work hours reflect intersecting disadvantages
including nationality, immigration status, marital status, parenthood, and location of children. For example,
while married women are less likely to work than single women, undocumented married women are much
less likely to work. Similarly, mothers whose children accompany them have different work opportunities
than those whose children are “back home.” Flippen shows how migrant women are differentiated in a
multitude of ways, offering new understandings of the gendered inequalities they face. In another example,
C. J. Pascoe’s (2011) analysis of masculinity in a high school shows how achieving masculinity differs by
race. Unlike White teenage boys, Black teenage boys can dance and dress well without threatening their
masculinity (also see Craig 2013). Yet Pascoe also points out how White students enacting masculinity in
school are less likely to be disciplined by teachers and staff, illustrating how contextualized analyses of
masculinities allow new insights (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Pascoe’s insights identify how
intersectional approaches shed light not only on marginalized groups but also on dominant groups, such as
White boys. If masculinities are performed differently by race among teenage boys in the same school
(Pascoe 2011), or femininities are performed differently among working-class and middle-class Black
lesbians (Moore 2006), this means race and class condition masculinities and femininities. While the
intercategorical approach may subvert broad categories by arguing for finer categories, these finer
categories create more accurate understandings of gender inequalities.

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 McCall (2005) also identifies “anticategorical” intersectional research as work that challenges the very
notion of categories as artificial and reductionist. As she argues, “Social life is considered too irreducibly
complex—overflowing with multiple and fluid determinations of both subjects and structures—to make
fixed categories anything but simplifying social fictions that produce inequalities in the process of
producing differences” (McCall 2005, 1773). Such research, as described by Hae Yeon Choo and Myra
Marx Ferree (2010, 134), analyzes the dynamic production of social identities—racialization, economic
exploitation, and gendering as opposed to race, class, and gender—to identify how power operates.
For example, Nikki Jones (2009a, 2009b) considers the experiences of inner city Black girls and how
they negotiate their identities as they navigate challenging terrain. She argues that the same women
strategically choose among performances of gender, race, and class, depending on context and situation.
By choosing among different displays, even just as a woman walks down the street, Jones (2009a, 2009b)
shows how gender, race, and class are accomplished through situated interactions even as they are
simultaneously affected by structural factors. Categories are unstable and mean different things from
moment to moment.
Penner and Saperstein’s (2013) research also illustrates a more complex reading of categories. They
show that interviewers for the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth identify race differently over time,
in relation to class markers; these identifications also show gendered effects. For example, men and
women living in the suburbs are more likely to be seen as White. For women, welfare receipt makes them
more likely to be seen as non-White, although this does not occur for men. For men, incarceration makes
them more likely to be categorized as non-White, although this does not occur for women. Knowing that
survey researchers are more likely to read a woman as “non-White” if she has received welfare makes
clear how race, gender, and welfare are tied together discursively. Their research illustrates that categories
are dynamic and unstable, and that understandings of race, gender, and class intersect in consequential
ways (Penner and Saperstein 2013).
Yet, again, it can be difficult to identify the dividing line between different kinds of research. Kristen
Schilt’s (2006, 2010) research on how trans men experience the workplace before and after their transition
calls attention to the dynamic nature of categories. Some trans men experience gender privilege in the
workplace after they transition, showing how gendering is dynamic, and reflects a set of workplace
assumptions that benefit those who enact masculinity. This suggests an anticategorical approach. But in
comparing the experiences of trans men before and after transition, the work illustrates intercategorical
research. And by examining variations among trans men, for example by showing how trans men of color
must learn to navigate the stereotypes assigned to men of color, or trans men who are short or slight
identify fewer advantages in the workplace post-transition, the work is also intracategorical. Intersectional
researchers are not, then, choosing to either interrogate, use, or undermine categories, but may be doing all
of the above, in any given research.
Anticategorical intersectional approaches may be influenced by poststructural theory, but primarily rely
on understandings of the socially constructed nature of many categories. These intersectional scholars
emphasize the fluidity of gender and sexuality, as well as how these intersect with one another, and with
class, race/ethnicity, nationality, and so forth, dynamically and contextually. Yet this allows theorizing and
analyzing change in the organization of gender; it can be used to point to how structural inequalities shape
changing interactions and shifting identities (Jones 2009a, 2009b; Schilt 2006, 2010), and well as how
identities may be understood differently based on structural cues (Penner and Saperstein 2013).
All three approaches to using categories can be beneficial for structural analyses of power and
inequality. Barnes’s (2015) and Harvey Wingfield’s (2009) analyses of how both race and gender affect
“opting out” or career opportunities for nurses draw attention to how femininity and masculinity are not
societally supported and rewarded for Black women and men, shining light on how cultural scripts and
organizational practices limit these groups. McCall’s (2005) analyses of the effects of race, gender, and
class in shaping wages in Dallas and Detroit opens the window to analyzing different historically and
regionally specific intersections, which help devise more contextually specific approaches to addressing
inequality in these locations. Flippen’s (2013) analysis of how national origin, legal status, family
structure, and location of children matter to unpacking gender inequalities among immigrant Latinas gives

83
needed information to organizations focused on labor and migration. Penner and Saperstein’s (2013)
findings on how survey researchers read men and women’s races differently based on their experiences
provide important empirical weight to claims of racial bias. The studies described here use categories, even
as they complicate them, to identify complex inequalities and suggest strategies to redress them.

Conclusions
I have traced how intersectional theory in sociology relates to both structural and poststructural theory, and
considered how categories are complicated, used, and undermined by intersectional researchers.
Intersectional theory in sociology shares an emphasis on inequality and power, as well as on change and
dynamism, with structural theory. By highlighting the intertwining of oppressions, the relationality of
privilege and disadvantage, and the importance of spatial and historical context, intersectional theory in
sociology analyzes inequality to develop tools for effective social change. Intersectional theory in
sociology also shares certain insights with poststructural theory, including its identification of the socially
constructed nature of categories such as gender and race, its aims to challenge universal notions of
“womanhood,” and its recognition of the importance of standpoint. Yet intersectional theory as practiced
in the field of sociology rejects relativism, and instead analyzes the power and inequality embedded in
these categories (Mann 2013).
Gender theory profits by building from these insights to develop more consistently intersectional
understandings of power, inequality, and change. Research on social movements and activist
organizations, for example, identifies how intersectional theory has helped register variations in power,
and helped to envision and sometimes enact new social relations (Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin 2013; Lepinard
2014; Kuumba 2002; Bose 2012; Yuval-Davis 2006). Yet, at times, attempts to recognize difference
simply reify stereotypes, or miss the way privilege and disadvantage are tied together (Lepinard 2014).
Avoiding these challenges requires a more relational approach to inequality. Much of the progress on the
gender gap in wages, for example, does not simply reflect women’s earning more—but also men’s
decreasing wages in the postindustrial economy (Bernhardt, Morris, and Hancock 1995; Misra and
Murray-Close 2014). A relational lens leads us, then, to strategize to create an economy that provides more
equitable jobs that pay wages and have work hours that allow both single and partnered people, whatever
their identity statuses, to provide economically and care for themselves and their families (England and
Folbre 1999; Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Theory is most useful if it reflects multiple perspectives—as the
perspectives of the marginalized often recognize vulnerabilities that remain hidden to those in more
dominant groups. During the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society, enormous dislocations led to
class mobilization, which was successful in ameliorating some of the worst outcomes of unfettered
capitalism, though in ways that reinforced many gender and racial inequalities. Theory was crucial to
guiding those mobilizations. During the shift from an industrial to a postindustrial economy, theory can
again play a key role. Yet, in the 21st century, intersectional theorizing has the best hope for identifying
strategies that do not sacrifice particular groups, such as less educated men of color or migrant women
workers.
Intersectional theory should be at the center of sociologists’ analyses of inequality. Attending to how
different groups experience particular struggles allows for analyzing gender, race, and class not only from
different perspectives but also relationally. For example, intersectional theory can identify assumptions of
racialized and classed masculinities that are embedded in policing, and require undoing (Messerschmidt
1997; Brunson and Miller 2006; Rios 2011). Sociologists have been building the tools to recognize the
relational and complex nature of inequality, and must use these tools for structural and cultural change
(Connell 2014). As Glenn (1992) argues, the relational nature of intersectional theory shows us that any
political agenda must recognize not only differences in priorities between groups, but how gains for some
groups may lead to loss of privilege for others. Yet, as she articulates, “This does not mean we give up the
goal of concerted struggle. It means we give up trying falsely to harmonize women’s interests” (37).

84
 Note

1 Indeed, more than a century ago, Anna Julia Cooper (1990 [1892], II) argued in A Voice from the South that “I feel it essential
to a perfect understanding and an equitable verdict that truth from each standpoint be presented. . . . And not many can more
sensibly realize and more accurately tell the weight and the fret of the ‘long dull pain’ than the open-eyed but hitherto
voiceless Black Woman of America.”

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———. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs 30 (3): 1771–1800.
Messerschmidt, James. 1997. Crime as Structured Action: Gender, Race, Class, and Crime in the
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Misra, Joya, and Marta Murray-Close. 2014. “The Gender Wage Gap in the United States and
Cross-Nationally.” Sociology Compass 8 (11): 1281–1295.
Moore, Mignon R. 2006. “Lipstick or Timberlands? Meanings of Gender Presentation in Black Lesbian
Communities.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32 (1): 113–139.
———. 2011. Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Families among Black Women.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 2012. “Intersectionality and the Study of Black, Sexual Minority Women.” Gender & Society
26 (1): 33–39. doi:10.1177/0891243211427031.
Morgan, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa. 1981. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
of Color. New York: Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press.
Nash, Jennifer C. 2008. “Rethinking Intersectionality.” Feminist Review 89: 1–15.
———. 2011. “Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality.” Meridians
11 (2): 1–24.
Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 2004. Racial Formation in the United States. New York:
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Pascoe, C. J. 2011. Dude, You’re a Fag. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Penner, Andrew M., and Aliya Saperstein. 2013. “Engendering Racial Perceptions: An Intersectional
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 Part III

Four Dimensions of Relationship, Struggle, and Change

The chapters in this section cover four dimensions of gender according to what Raewyn Connell terms
“structural theory”: emotional and sexual relations, economic and production relations, symbolic and
cultural relations, and organizational and power relations.
The first chapter, by Stevi Jackson, is on emotional and sexual relations, and summarizes critical
feminist thinking on heterosexuality. She questions this work raises regarding structure and action. Jackson
critiques the concept of heteronormativity and argues for a simultaneous structural analysis of gender and
sexuality. Just because heterosexuality is normatively required in a society does not account for either
gender or sexual practices. She argues that practices, structures, and cultural understandings must be taken
into account in order to explain gender and sexuality in a particular context. To make her case, she
compares young women in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom in relation to how their mothers view and
treat their daughters’ sexuality. UK mothers are far more accepting of their daughters’ premarital sexual
activities, a finding she attributes to cultural patterns as well as to economics and history. Knowing that a
society favors (or enforces) the institution of heterosexuality does not explain the variations in sexual
practices and emotions that characterize it.
In the second chapter, which covers economic relations, Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely
bring neoliberalism to account by documenting how labor markets in the developed world have changed
over time. Williams and Neely show how, compared to thirty years ago, an intersectional feminist
approach helps to explain current labor market dynamics, and provides insight into how one might change
the status quo. They argue that a form of intersectional feminism should drive future demands for change
in the gender order. In reviewing changes over the period, they explore how globalization, outsourcing,
and the subsequent demise of the standard employment contract in the United States have affected working
class men’s labor market experiences (and thus have affected the women in their lives). Williams and
Tobias Neely conclude that changes touted as promoting diversity and fairness have undermined job
security and rewards for both men and women.
Focusing on European universities, Barbara Poggio analyzes education as a cultural institution that
creates gender privilege and disadvantage. Exploring neoliberal influences on what is valued and done, she
finds that the influence of markets and market logic on educational processes is ever more prevalent,
displacing knowledge in an increasingly “rationalized and commodified” context. Poggio reviews the
gender equality projects that the European Union and the European Commission have supported, yet
despite these projects, at a cost of millions of euros, scant evidence exists regarding their effectiveness.
Whereas some gender-related changes have occurred, it is unclear whether they were produced by such

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projects or if they will last. Poggio surmises that although universities have proportionally more women as
students and faculty than previously, minimal change has occurred in women academics’ power, rank, and
status.
Finally, Yvonne Benschop and Marieke van den Brink examine power relations by comparing gender
inequality among organizational consultants and academics, concluding that the latter focus on the effects
of change efforts with little attention to change initiatives while the former provide strategies for producing
change without appreciating the complexities of implementation. Producing a robust theory of
organizational change toward gender equality requires these two groups to “work together,” with attention
to organizational dynamics that produce inequality, the invisibility of power inequalities, the multiple
versions of masculinity and femininity at work, and leadership. Benschop and van den Brink analyze why
academics and organizational consultants talk past each other while proclaiming a common goal: improved
gender equity at work. Using research on gender equity published between 1995 and 2015, they found
three issues of concern to both academics and consultants: explicit change efforts toward gender equality;
the commitment of top management to gender-based change; and the engagement of men in gender
equality. They allege that neoliberal values that have spread around the globe emphasize competition,
winning, and publishing in top-tier international journals and discourage a gender equity priority. They
conclude by urging that academics become less theoretical and consultants more attentive to the “how’s”
rather than only the “what’s” of positive change, although they hold out little hope that the two groups will
work together anytime soon.

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 7

Why “Heteronormativity” Is Not Enough

A Feminist Sociological Perspective on Heterosexuality

Stevi Jackson

Critical approaches to heterosexuality are often assumed to have originated with queer theory, but the
concept of “queer,” which has only been prominent since the 1990s, was a relative latecomer to sexuality
studies. Sociological challenges to the “naturalness” of sexuality date back to the late 1960s and early
1970s (Simon and Gagnon 1969; Gagnon and Simon 1974), while the conceptualization of heterosexuality
as a compulsory imposition began with the rise of the gay and women’s liberation movements in the same
period. The idea that sexuality was socially constructed derived from interpretive sociologies, with the
emphasis on everyday meaning-making and practices, but most feminists and gay liberationists highlighted
structural constraints and the links between gender division and the institution of heterosexuality (Seidman
2009); only a small minority concerned themselves with everyday gendered and sexual practices (e.g.,
Plummer 1975; Kessler and McKenna 1978; Stanley and Wise 1983). When, in the late 1980s and early
1990s, structural approaches were found wanting for their inability to deal with the complexity and
diversity of gendered and sexual relations many scholars looked to poststructuralism and postmodernism
for alternatives. The resultant shift in focus from social structures to culture and representation, or the
“cultural turn,” was the context in which queer theory emerged.
Raewyn Connell’s Gender and Power (1987), published at the cusp of the cultural turn, made a highly
significant and distinctively sociological intervention in arguing for the importance of structure and
practice in the analysis of gender, in taking account of the subjective, emotional, and embodied aspects of
gender, and in addressing both the persistence of gender inequality and variations within gender relations.
Her advocacy of “a form of theory that gives some grip on the interweaving of personal life and social
structure” (1987, 61) is very much in keeping with the aim of this chapter: to outline a feminist and
sociological approach to heterosexuality. Before explaining further, I will chart the development of critical
thinking on heterosexuality and the questions it raises about structure and practice. I will then discuss my
own approach, partly in dialogue with Connell’s, before going on to apply it to a recent cross-cultural and
collaborative study I conducted with Petula Sik Ying Ho (see Jackson, Ho, and Na 2013; Jackson and Ho
2014).

The Feminist and Sociological Critique of Heterosexuality

In the early years of second wave feminism, it was, unsurprisingly, lesbian feminists who made the
connection between “compulsory heterosexuality” (Rich 1980) and other manifestations of male
domination. Monique Wittig arguably took this argument furthest, tying heterosexuality to the very
existence of “women” and “men” as social categories and arguing that “the category of sex is the product
of a heterosexual society in which men appropriate for themselves the reproduction and production of
women and also their persons by means of . . . the marriage contract” (Wittig [1982] 1992, 7). In locating
heterosexuality within wider gender relations, these analyses made it clear that heterosexuality involves far
more than (erotic) sexuality. Subsequently, however, some radical lesbians accused heterosexual feminists
of colluding in women’s subordination (see, e.g., Leeds Revolutionary Feminists 1981). What had initially

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been a strength of lesbian feminist analyses, highlighting the institutional character of heterosexuality,
became a weakness because of the failure to distinguish structure from practice, the critique of
heterosexuality from criticism of heterosexual women. The effect of this divisive move was to close off
debate for nearly a decade. However, the revival of feminist interest in heterosexuality in the 1990s, which
occurred alongside the rise of queer theory, created space for a reworking of structural analysis that
avoided structural determinism and attended to other aspects of sociality.
In order to argue for a feminist sociology of sexuality, it is first necessary to establish how it might both
converge with and diverge from queer theory. Briefly, and at the risk of oversimplifying a complex body
of work, queer theory is concerned with destabilizing the binaries of gender and
heterosexuality/homosexuality, with revealing them to be “regulatory fictions” (Butler 1990). Influenced
by Foucault’s (1981) analysis of the discursive constitution of diverse sexualities, queer theory represented
a challenge to the older gay affirmative politics seen as resting on essentialist categories (as gay, lesbian,
straight); to be queer was to “assume a de-essentialized identity that is purely positional in character”
(Halperin 1995, 62). While oriented to the destabilization of gendered and sexual binaries, queer theory is
also associated with analyzing how they are sustained. The main object of critique, therefore, is what has
come to be called “heteronormativity.”1
Neither everyday social interaction nor social structural arrangements fall within the scope of queer
theory. Moreover, in queer critique of normative binaries, heterosexuality appears simply as the norm
against which other sexualities are defined, thus working against exploration of heterosexuality itself. The
same could be said of the concept of heteronormativity, though I would not wish to deny its analytic
utility; it does serve as a convenient shorthand for the multitude of ways in which heterosexuality is
sustained as the default form of sexual and personal life. My point, however, is that this is not enough.
Focusing only or primarily on heteronormativity can lead to the neglect of what was central to the early
lesbian feminist critiques: the link between institutionalized heterosexuality and gender hierarchy. It also
leaves us without a means of exploring how gender hierarchy might be modified, negotiated, or challenged
within everyday heterosexual lives. Paying attention to hierarchies suggests the need to return to issues of
social structure and to broader definitions of heterosexuality as involving more than simply (erotic)
sexuality, more than the identities built around the gendered objects of our desires and/or their
destabilization.
While queer can be identified with the critique of heteronormativity and feminism with a focus on
gender hierarchy, neither is a singular perspective. There are both differences within and overlaps between
them. Feminists draw on queer theory and some queer theorists are also feminists; queer theorists are not
entirely unconcerned with questions of social regulation and injustice, any more than feminists are
indifferent to the privileging of heterosexuality (McLaughlin 2008). The differences are more a matter of
emphasis and modes of theorizing. Nonetheless, given the influence of queer and poststructuralist analysis
in the 1990s, it was necessary to reassert the importance of material, structural inequalities (Ingraham
1996; Hennessy 2000). It is equally important, however, to recognize that heterosexuality is sustained not
only structurally but also through the ways in which it is lived—the practices, meanings, and desires that
are part and parcel of everyday heterosexual existence and that can also serve to perpetuate (and
sometimes challenge) heteronormativity and gender hierarchy.
The necessity of taking account of the everyday was central to Connell’s original argument on gender
(1987), allowing for varied masculinities and femininities, for human agency and social change. Like
gender, heterosexuality is not monolithic: there is considerable diversity in how it is practiced (Beasley et
al. 2011). Heteronormativity, too, is not rigid and appears to accommodate to change; arguably the recent
advances in rights granted to lesbian, gay, and transgendered individuals in many countries, mostly those
of the “global North,” have not deinstitutionalized heterosexuality but have merely shifted the boundaries
of good sexual citizenship, assimilating those who live according to “responsible” neoliberal “family
values,” but excluding others (Seidman 2005; Richardson 2005). Moreover, changes in the state regulation
of personal life (e.g., partnership and parenting rights) may reflect changing social attitudes, but have not
effected a total social and cultural transformation. In the UK, for example, hostility and violence toward
LGBT individuals is still widely reported, and among British schoolchildren the word “gay” has become a

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term of abuse. A sharper disjunction is evident in South Africa, where constitutional rights for sexual
minorities coexist with the widespread practice of “corrective rape” of lesbians, reflecting complex issues
of cultural beliefs and practices along with the legacies of colonialism and apartheid (Mkhize et al. 2010;
Gunkel 2011).
Heterosexuality can be institutionalized in the presence and absence of laws against same-sex practices
and relationships, in the presence and absence of rights to diverse sexual lifestyles. Among societies in
which heterosexuality remains strongly institutionalized there is considerable variation in both its
structural underpinnings and the social and cultural practices through which it is perpetuated, as well as the
beliefs that sustain them. A critical sociological approach should, therefore, be able to take account of both
differing structural arrangements and other elements of the social.

The Multidimensional Social

These arguments are congruent with Connell’s work. She has argued consistently against mono-causal,
one-dimensional accounts of gender that do not take account of its complexity, of disjunctions and
contradictions within the gender order (Connell 1987, 2002). In Gender and Power (1987) and in later
work Connell has argued for a multidimensional approach to gender. In the most recent articulation of this
argument, Connell and Pearse (2015) identify four dimensions of gender relations: power; “production,
consumption and gendered accumulation”; emotions; and “symbolism, culture, discourse” (Connell and
Pearse 2015). Just as there are “multiple dimensions in gender relations” (Connell 2002, 56), so, I would
argue, there are in the ordering of heterosexuality.
Heterosexuality is multifaceted. It can be seen as a sexual preference or practice—an expression of
desire and a set of sexual acts. As a social practice it involves far more than sexuality, including, for
example, gendered divisions of labor in both domestic and market spheres. As an institution, it is
structurally intertwined with gender hierarchy; bound up with marriage, family formation, and kinship ties;
and subject to state regulation. It is also endowed with symbolic significance, with the meaning that
heterosexual relations have for those living both within and outside them, with the binary cultural
distinctions routinely made between women and men, between heterosexual and homosexual. It has
subjective dimensions encompassing emotions and desires, feelings for and about others, which can range
from love to loathing—including that manifested as homophobia. These various facets of heterosexuality
could be accommodated within Connell’s dimensions of gender relations. While I share her aim of
allowing for complexity, variability, agency, and change, I have developed a slightly different approach.
Rather than thinking of heterosexuality or gender relations as being multidimensional, I see the social
itself as multidimensional and the ordering of gender, sexuality and heterosexuality as reflecting this. This
approach facilitates analysis of the intersections between gender and institutionalized heterosexuality and
other social institutions, practices, divisions, and differences. I have previously identified four dimensions
of the social: social structure, practice (including interaction), meaning, and subjectivity/selfhood (Jackson
1999, 2006). These multiple dimensions of the social do not constitute an integrated unified whole. They
cut across each other, sometimes reinforcing each other, sometimes producing disjunctions. Moreover, as I
have previously argued (Jackson 2006), it is difficult, if not impossible, to “see” all dimensions at
once—while we focus on one, others slip from view. So, for example, in analyzing the mechanisms
whereby global capitalism produces huge gulfs between rich and poor we are not able to attend
simultaneously to what cultural practices are meaningful to those living at any specific location within it. A
perspective that illuminates one dimension may obscure another, suggesting the need for a degree of
theoretical and methodological eclecticism in order to appreciate all aspects of the social. It is therefore
necessary to bring together both structural and interpretive sociologies. While these have often been seen
as incompatible, I suggest they enable us to attend to different, but equally verifiable, aspects of the social:
the powerfully constraining effects of structures that preexist us, on the one hand, and, on the other, the
meaningful interactions and practices of reflexive social actors through which everyday sociality goes on.
A multidimensional approach should enable us to take account of potential or actual variability and

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change and, just as important, of continuity, stability, and resistance to change—for example, the
persistence of the gender divide despite diversity and change in what it means to be male or female, which
is closely connected with the maintenance of the heterosexual/homosexual binary. Institutionalized
heterosexuality is a key point of articulation between gender and sexuality. Gender and sexuality are not,
however, phenomena of the same order. “Gender,” as I use the term, denotes the social division and
cultural distinction between male and female, women and men. “Sexuality” encompasses all erotically
significant aspects of social life including desires, practices, relationships, and identities. It is therefore
more fluid and less objectively identifiable than gender since what is erotically significant is a matter of
definition and shifts contextually as well as historically and cross-culturally. Gender is binary (the
existence of third genders or gender-bending practices inevitably refer back to the binary); sexuality is not,
except in terms of the object of desire, as homo or hetero attraction. But sexuality is not reducible to this
binary; it is not ordered only by the gender of the desired other but by numerous other potential
preferences and practices that exist across the divides of gender and heterosexuality/homosexuality (see,
e.g., Whittier and Simon 2001). While there can, therefore, be many “sexualities,” I use the singular term,
“sexuality,” to refer to the sphere of social life within which diverse forms of sexual life (sexualities) are
pursued (just as there are varieties of jobs and tasks that take place within the sphere of work).
Sexuality as a sphere of life and gender as a social division are empirically interconnected in the
institutionalization and practice of heterosexuality and the maintenance of heteronormativity. These
interconnections are complex. Heterosexuality is implicated in the ordering of far more than sexuality, but
it is, by definition, gendered; gender cannot be reduced to sexuality as it involves much wider social
relations; sexuality cannot be reduced to gender or to the heterosexual/homosexual binary because it is
about more than gendered desires or the gender of the object of desire. These interconnections are further
complicated by the varied ways they operate within different dimensions of the social.

Heterosexuality within the Multidimensional Social

Structure, practice, meaning, and subjectivity/selfhood are all aspects of the social that interrelate in
constituting heterosexuality and perpetuating heterosexual privilege. Social structure provides the
constraining parameters within which we exist. Social reality, however, does not reside only in structures,
but also in the everyday actions and interactions of individuals. These local and particular practices and the
meanings associated with them are the stuff of everyday social life. It is in the space and context of the
everyday that reflexive selfhood is both constituted and deployed, making sociality possible.

Structure
From a structural viewpoint gender is a hierarchical social division and heterosexuality is a social
institution. Like Connell I see social structure in terms of “enduring or extensive patterns” of social
relations and as constraining on individuals (Connell 1987, 92; Connell and Pearse 2015, 73). This
constraining effect is crucial; without it, social patterns cannot be considered structural. For example,
eating is a social practice (Warde 2015) and is extensively patterned: there are particular, culturally
specific ideas about what should be eaten, when, and how. I would not, however, see them as constraining
in the same way as the inequalities that determine who has enough to eat. Similarly, sexual practices are
patterned in specific and often predictable ways, but these are not structural in the same way as inequalities
produced by gender and institutionalized heterosexuality. Social structure has a material facticity that
exists independently of each of us—but since it is the product of a history of human relations and practices,
it requires the continued compliance and reaffirmation of most of us to persist. Social-structural analyses
give us purchase on the material inequalities and injustices that characterize our world.
I also concur with Connell’s view of social structures as differentiated and subject to historical change
and cross-national variability. The most pervasive structure of all, global capitalism, does not take identical
forms even within the wealthy countries from which transnational capital is controlled. For example,
Chang Kyung-Sup’s (2010) analysis of South Korean modernity reveals how familialism remains

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exceptionally strong in the organization of Korea’s capitalist economy and state institutions, resulting in a
far less individualistic and far more male dominated society than in Europe or North America. It is also a
society where heterosexuality is strongly institutionalized, despite the lack of laws against same-sex
relations. Cross-national studies in capitalist East Asia highlight the differing ways in which gender
relations can be ordered in societies with similar (post)industrial economies and a degree of shared cultural
heritage and history (see, e.g., Sechiyama 2013). Patriarchal heterosexuality can coexist in diverse forms
with a variety of local economic and social arrangements, and in both rich and poor countries within global
divisions of labor and resources.
Structural factors order life within heterosexual relations and the options open to those who seek to live
lesbian, gay, or queer lives. Most obviously choices are enabled and constrained by the regulative and
coercive power of the state, which globally varies from jurisdictions that prescribe the death penalty for
same-sex acts to those legislating for near equality with heterosexuals (Itaborahy and Zhu 2015). The
degree to which individuals can escape the constraints of institutionalized heterosexuality are also affected
by other inequalities that intersect with those of gender and sexuality in relation to the wider capitalist
order. Even before rights began to be extended to sexual minorities, consumer capitalism accommodated
queer lifestyle choices within Western cultures (Evans 1993), but such choices are themselves the product
of global and local inequalities. The queer lifestyles of the materially privileged rest upon the exploited
labor of the underprivileged, often in poorer countries, who produce the commodities on which that
lifestyle depends (Hennessy 2000). Within any given country lifestyle choices are not equally available to
all. Throughout the world, for example, the constraints on working class lesbians, a consequence of both
class and gender inequality, can limit access to everything from queer spaces to housing (Taylor 2004;
Chao 2002).
Economic inequality also affects heterosexual lives in a variety of ways, influencing patterns of
marriage and cohabitation and domestic divisions of labor (Irwin 2005). Innovations in heterosexual
lifestyles often reflect class locations and their associated constraints and opportunities. To take one
example, some of those heterosexual couples maintaining “distance” relationships or “living apart
together” (Holmes 2004; Beasley, Brook, and Holmes 2011) find themselves in that situation because of
the difficulties of pursuing two individual professional careers in the same geographic location, but who
are also privileged by having the economic resources to maintain two households. Living apart together
can, for others, be a result of financial constraint or care responsibilities (Duncan et al. 2013).
Personal and sexual life, then, is shaped by wider structural inequalities as well as being ordered by the
intersection of heterosexuality and gender. While institutionalized heterosexuality and thus the
heterosexual/homosexual binary can be considered structural, sexuality in general (including individual
erotic desires, relationships, and practices) cannot. Nonetheless, since sexual relationships and practices
are always embedded within wider, nonsexual relations, they are constrained and enabled by wider
structural arrangements and individuals’ locations within them, both locally and globally. Commercial sex
illustrates this well. It has globalized along with other aspects of the capitalist economy, resulting in the
growth of sex tourism as well as the migration of sex workers, patterned in ways that often reflect
inequalities between rich and poor nations and rich and poor within nations, as well as the intersections of
these inequalities with gender and racialized hierarchies (Agustín 2007; Aoyama 2009; Kempadoo,
Sanghera and Pattaniak 2012). Commercial sexual transactions, however, are also enacted within and
through the localized practices of both sex workers and their clients and the meanings associated with them
(see, e.g., O’Connell Davidson 2001; Ding and Ho 2008; Hoang 2015). Thus dimensions of the social
other than the structural are in play here.

Practices
Gendered and sexual practices are both shaped by structures and can help to sustain them, but are also
negotiated in everyday situations and can therefore sometimes contribute to challenge or change. Practices
are closely connected with interaction—they are frequently effected in interaction with others, and,
conversely, interaction involves locating ourselves within ongoing social activities. Through everyday
interaction and practice we “do” gender, sexuality, and heterosexuality in two senses. First, in the

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ethnomethodological sense, this “doing” produces a socially intelligible “reality” as a “practical
accomplishment” through everyday interpretive interaction, for example through the way we talk about
men, women, and relationships. The second sense of “doing” is through actual practical activities, or
“practices of intimacy” (Jamieson 2011), such as having sex, negotiating domestic chores, or organizing
family parties.
The doing of heterosexuality is not just about its normativity but also, very centrally, about gender
division and hierarchy. Heterosexual couples “do” heterosexuality and simultaneously do gender through
divisions of labor and distributions of household resources—and often these practices become habitual and
taken for granted. There are certainly normative ideas about who should do what in heterosexual
households, and there is copious evidence internationally that women still do the bulk of domestic work,
though to what degree varies from one country to another. To the extent that these gender-defined practices
persist they contribute to upholding a male dominated heterosexual order, but they are subject to change,
negotiation, and, indeed, argument as each heterosexual couple goes on with their daily routines.
The practice of heterosexual sex is also patterned in particular ways. There are defining features (albeit
historically and culturally variable) that determine what counts as (hetero) sex and the expected order of
embodied procedures. There are notions of when and where it should occur and standards of both good and
bad sex, elaborated in self-help manuals instructing couples in how to do it better (Jackson and Scott
2010). Gendered patterns of heterosexual sex are, in some ways and some places, changing. Active
engagement in heterosex has become normalized among young women in many wealthier countries and
there is evidence that, in the UK at least, they are becoming more sexually adventurous (Mercer et al.
2013). Yet double standards persist, as do sexual objectification, coercive sex, and sexual violence—all of
which are global issues, occurring in societies where young women’s sexual conduct is strictly controlled
as well as those where it is not.
In some societies heteronormativity is less absolute than it was in the past, but even in the most liberal
places much of everyday life still proceeds on the assumption that everyone is heterosexual unless known
to be otherwise. Heteronormativity is mobilized and reproduced in everyday life through routine activities
in which gender, sexuality, and heterosexuality interconnect. In daily interaction women’s location within
heterosexual relations, as wives and mothers, is often assumed. In Britain (still) adult women are routinely
(much to my irritation) addressed as “Mrs.,” a practice that positions them in terms of marital status, but to
which men are not subjected. Women are still frequently evaluated in terms of their (hetero)sexual
attractiveness. It has been suggested that “erotic capital” can aid women’s career advancement (Hakim
2011), but if so it reinforces both gender division and heteronormativity—as well as being unequally
available and dependant on age-related and culturally specific standards of beauty. Hence gendered
assumptions are often informed by heterosexual ones. But this does not apply in the same way to
heterosexual men. While womanliness is almost always equated with (hetero)sexual attractiveness and
(heterosexual) domesticity, manliness can be validated in numerous nonsexual ways (Connell 1987, 2002).
Where a man’s or boy’s heterosexuality is unquestioned, his gender is less bound to and defined by
(hetero)sexuality than that of a woman, but if his embodied practices are read as effeminate this can lead to
imputations of homosexuality and undermine his claims to masculinity.
Embodied practices such as dress, posture, and demeanor are central to the performance of masculinity
and femininity and are historically and culturally variable. These practices are sometimes conscious, as in
choosing what to wear, albeit constrained by standards of what is acceptable in a given social setting and
appropriate to our gender. Some are unconscious, not in a psychoanalytic sense, but as habitually
embodied in our everyday doing of gender. These performances are available to be read by others and thus
associated with the meanings of femininity and masculinity and their relationship with heterosexuality.

Heteronormative Gendered and Sexual Meanings

Meanings and practices often interlock so that it is often hard to tease them apart. Social practices are
sustained by wider cultural mores, but also by the “sense-making” that goes on in everyday social
interaction. Like practices, meanings can support the status quo—when they are normative or

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ideological—or they can be neutral or oppositional. The realm of meaning is close to Connell and Pearse’s
(2015) “symbolism, culture, discourse.” It includes discourses, those meanings circulating within the wider
culture, as well as those emergent from and enmeshed with everyday interaction—which can be very
specific to a given setting and its participants. Meaning thus cuts across macro and micro aspects of social
relations, although the two can intersect. For example, a couple might be influenced by cultural discourses
of romantic love but might have their own idiosyncratic understanding of what, for them, is romantic.
Some meanings, especially in the form of discourses, can be seen as both deriving from and helping to
sustain given social structures, such as ideas about innate differences between men and women. These
wider discourses also then operate within and guide routine social practices in the form of commonsense
knowledge.
From a macro-social perspective, gender, sexuality, and heterosexuality are constituted as objects of
discourse. The discourses in circulation at any historical moment within a given society serve to
distinguish male from female, to define what is sexual and what is “normal.” Such discourses can and do
change: in many countries same-sex attraction is no longer as deviant as it once was. Yet where there have
been advances in the social inclusion of lesbians and gay men, these have been paralleled by the increasing
acceptance of the idea that “sexual orientation” is innate; thus the normalization of gay and lesbian
lifestyles does not appear to have unsettled the understanding of heterosexuality as a “natural” proclivity of
the majority. The rights gained by transgendered people have made it possible to think of gender as
mutable for some, but has not dislodged the assumption that we should all, by our natures, belong to one
category or the other or that any observable or imagined differences in the aptitudes and temperament of
women and men are “natural.” In large swathes of the world heteronormative condemnation of sexual
“others” remains entrenched. Ironically, there are numerous nations where taboos against same-sex
practices derive from British colonial rule but where gay and lesbian sex is now understood as “un-Asian”
or “un-African” (Johnson 2006; Gunkel 2011.
The shifts in and contestations of the meanings of normative and nonnormative sexualities in many parts
of the world are inexplicable if norms are conceived simply as properties of a cultural order external to us.
Any norm, Judith Butler contends, “renders the social field intelligible” (2004, 42). Such intelligibility,
however, does not simply derive from external norms but is also negotiated in, and emergent from, the
mundane social interaction through which each of us makes sense of our own and others’ gendered and
sexual lives. Creating a sense of an intelligibly gendered, heterosexually ordered world involves a variety
of cultural competences and complex interpretational processes, evident even in the simple act of
attributing gender to another person (Kessler and McKenna 1978; West and Zimmerman 1987). The
interpretive work this involves goes unnoticed because it is so habitual that it is assumed that we are
simply recognizing a natural fact. Thus, insofar as heteronormativity persists in everyday meaning-making,
it is contingent upon being constantly reaffirmed; it can also, potentially at least, be unsettled or
renegotiated.

The Social Self

To be active meaning-making subjects able to interact with others requires a self that is reflexive and
relational. Selfhood is social: it originates not inside ourselves, but through interactions with others and,
through such interactions, is continually modified over time. These ideas derive from the work of George
Herbert Mead (1934) for whom the self is not a fixed inner essence of the individual, but is always in
process by virtue of its reflexivity. It is this reflexivity that makes the self part of the social rather than in
some way outside or opposed to it. Reflexive selfhood is based on the human capacity to see ourselves as
both subject and object, as “I” and “Me,” and therefore to reflect back on ourselves and locate ourselves in
relation to others. It makes sociality, and the interpretive processes on which it rests, possible. This
conceptualization of the self allows for agency through the emphasis on interpretive processes, but agency
here is not envisaged as existing in opposition to the social but as embedded in the social. Agency can exist
even in conformity: we all reflexively understand our social worlds and act in accordance with that
understanding even when we behave wholly conventionally.
This idea of the self fits with Gagnon and Simon’s (1974, 2004) interactionist account of the social

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origins of sexuality. Gagnon and Simon argued for an analytical separation between the gendered and
sexual aspects of the self, seeing them as empirically and contingently, rather than necessarily, interrelated.
The forms that gendered and sexual selfhood take are culturally and historically specific; particular modes
of self-construction become available at different historical moments in specific social locations.
Moreover, gendered and sexual selves are reflexively renegotiated or reconfirmed throughout our lives,
allowing for some fluidity. This does not mean that we are free to make and remake our sexual selves just
as we please—we are constrained by the cultural and interpersonal resources available to us within the
social milieu we inhabit, but because these are resources rather than determinants, variability and change
are possible. We are not all sexually alike, nor are our sexualities fixed over our life span.
In most societies gender attribution is foundational to the self; the moment we are born, or even before,
we are ascribed a gender. This significant act of social categorization profoundly affects our earliest and
ongoing sense of who we are and our place in the world (both for those who accept their initial gender
attribution and those who seek to change or transcend it). From this perspective, a gendered sense of self
precedes our awareness of ourselves as sexual. This does not mean that children are intrinsically asexual
(or intrinsically sexual); rather, because access to crucial elements of adult sexual knowledge is restricted,
children cannot make sense of themselves as sexual until they gain access to the relevant sexual scripts
(Gagnon and Simon 2004). While children in Western societies now become sexually knowing earlier than
in the recent past, the pattern of gendered self-awareness preceding sexual self-awareness remains (see
Jackson and Scott 2010). In relation to heterosexuality, however, the picture changes, because children
come to understand nonsexual aspects of heterosexuality—families, mothers and fathers, for
example—before they gain access to specifically sexual scripts. Such knowledge is a resource available for
reconceptualization as sexually significant once children become sexually self-aware.
This approach assumes variable outcomes in the process of self-formation; there is no single way of
being heterosexual—or homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, or queer—although gender remains significant.
While there are multiple ways of being male or female, for young heterosexuals becoming sexual is
profoundly gendered and so are sexual relations in later life. Becoming lesbian or gay does not mean a loss
of gender since same-sex sexuality, as much as heterosexuality, is defined by gender—but it does require
negotiating different ways of investing gender with erotic significance and different forms of gendered
self-understanding. How this occurs varies historically depending on the kinds of stories of becoming that
are culturally available in any given time or place. It is significant, however, that lesbians and gay men are
often called on to account for their sexuality, while heterosexuals generally are not, which is indicative of
the consequences of heteronormative and gendered assumptions for the ways we understand ourselves and
others.

Applying the Framework: Heterosexuality in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom
If, as I have argued, the institutionalization, practice, and meaning of heterosexuality are historically and
culturally variable, then a comparative study of two differing locations should cast some light on this. In
our research on women’s experience of social change in Hong Kong and Britain, the ordering of
heterosexual relations and the consequences of institutionalized heterosexuality have been key issues. We
interviewed 14 university educated young women aged 20–26 and 12 of their mothers in Hong Kong and
13 similarly placed young women and 12 of their mothers in the UK and also conducted focus groups with
young women. There were both similarities and differences between the Hong Kong and UK samples, as
well as variations within them, but here I focus on some of the differences we found in “practices of
intimacy” (Jamieson 2011), in particular mothers’ attitudes to and regulation of their daughters’ sexual
lives (see Jackson and Ho 2014). The practices we identified were, of course, mediated through the
accounts of our participants and therefore the way they reflexively make sense of them. Such qualitative
data does not directly tell us about social structures, but in interpreting women’s accounts it became clear
that their lives were shaped by structural constraints as well as being imbued with meanings deriving from
their specific cultural heritages and everyday interaction.
Although Hong Kong is now richer than the UK in terms of per capita GDP, an immense gulf between

99
the rich and poor persists—one of the legacies of the colonial era in which the native population was
largely left to fend for themselves, with very little welfare provision beyond (inadequate) public housing.
The material consequences of this situation proved to be very important in understanding the lives of the
women we interviewed. Partly as a result of this and partly as a legacy of different forms of family
organization, the Hong Kong women relied far more on the wider family for economic and social support
than the British women, and norms of filial obligation still affected how young Hong Kong women saw
their responsibilities to their parents (see Jackson, Ho, and Na 2013). But how women practiced their
intimate lives was not wholly determined by structural factors or cultural mores, nor were the meanings it
had for them. It was clear that women were exercising considerable agency and reflexivity in negotiating
their lives and relationships within given social structural and cultural contexts.
Generally, mothers exercised far stricter discipline over daughters in Hong Kong, in keeping with norms
of filial piety but also because of the need to ensure their daughters’ educational and future material
success in the context of economic uncertainty, Hong Kong’s fiercely competitive capitalist order, and
their own likely dependence on their children in old age. This was reflected in their management of their
daughters’ sexuality, in that they had encouraged their daughters to concentrate on educational and career
advancement rather than romantic attachments until they were deemed of marriageable age (in their late
twenties). While British mothers were also concerned about the consequences of the economic climate for
their daughters’ futures, they were far more relaxed about their career aspirations, summed up by a
frequently uttered phrase, “as long as she’s happy.” The British young women grew up with greater
freedom and were also able to develop more independence from their parents on reaching adulthood. Most
left home for good once they began higher education, though a few had become “boomerang” children,
returning home because of lack of a job or relationship failure. All the Hong Kong young women,
however, still lived with their parents, not only due to the cultural expectation that they would do so until
they married but also because of the acute shortage of affordable housing (in the most expensive housing
market in the world). This meant that their mothers continued exercising surveillance over daughters’
conduct, including sexual conduct, into adulthood.
British women in both generations, with the exception of one deeply religious mother-daughter pair,
seemed to accept teenage sexual experimentation as a “normal” aspect of growing up and took nonmarital
sexuality for granted as part of life. The British mothers typically had allowed their daughters to sleep with
their (predominantly male) sexual partners at home, to stay with them on weekends, or go on holiday with
them—and this had often begun before daughters left home to attend universities. They were concerned
about the risk of early pregnancy and most ensured their daughters had access to contraception, but
otherwise did not interfere in their sexual lives, though permitting them to use the parental home for sexual
encounters could be seen as a means of ensuring they were safe. As one mother noted, it also made it
possible for a daughter to return to live in the parental home without it unduly constraining her social life.
Nonetheless, heteronormativity was reinforced through the expectation that daughters would have
boyfriends and would engage in (hetero)sexual activity. One young woman commented that her parents
would be worried if she ended up as a “35-old virgin.”
In Hong Kong virginity prior to marriage remains normative and part of the gendered meaning and
practice of heterosexuality. Since all the young Hong Kong women lived with their parents, this severely
limited their sexual opportunities—sleeping with partners in the parental home was out of the question.
Many mothers assiduously policed their daughters’ virginity; one told us that “virginity is a gift to your
lifelong partner,” while her daughter complained that her mother was constantly checking her virginity
status. Young women gave many examples of how their mothers sought to discourage sexual activity, from
dire warnings against losing their virginity to, in one case, telling a daughter’s boyfriend not to have sex
with her. Whether or not daughters complied with their mothers’ wishes (they were not all avowed
virgins), they revealed a high degree of reflexivity in discussing these issues with us, particularly in the
focus group discussion, often distancing themselves from their mothers through the use of humor. Through
this strategy they demonstrated relational selfhood—locating themselves in relation to their mothers and in
relation to the other young women in the group, creating a shared sense of “what mothers were like” and
how daughters could deal with this.

100
 Hong Kong also remains far more heteronormative than Britain (see Kong 2011; Tang 2011). Its
colonial laws against homosexuality survived until 1991, and there is no protection against discrimination
for lesbians and gay men. Hong Kong mothers frequently saw lesbianism as “abnormal,” though the
daughters were more accepting of sexual diversity. There were two young lesbians in our Hong Kong
sample: the mother of one of them said that it took her two years (and the fear of losing her daughter
altogether) to accept it; the other does not acknowledge her daughter’s sexuality. Both British generations
expressed liberal attitudes to lesbianism; for example, one mother said “the gender of the person that loves
your child is less important than the quality of the love.” The British mothers also often referred directly to
changing structural circumstances—that living as a lesbian today in Britain has become much easier than
in their own youth as a result of increased sexual rights.
Some of the differences discussed here are products of meanings and practices derived from cultural
heritage, such as the continued importance of filial piety in Chinese societies; others are adaptations to
historical, socioeconomic, and political conditions. But these are always negotiated by women possessed
of the ability to be reflexive about the constraints on their lives.

Conclusion
This brief discussion of differences between two territories is indicative of the range of aspects of the
social that need to be taken into account in any analysis of heterosexuality. A full picture can only emerge
through consideration of the structures, practices, and meanings of heterosexuality and gender and of
subjective gendered and sexual selfhood in any given society. This is probably more than can be achieved
within any single study, but it can serve to sensitize us to the limits of what can be discovered and how. It
is also crucial to take account of gender hierarchy as well as heteronormativity and the complex
interconnections between gender, sexuality, and heterosexuality within each dimension of the social.
This is why I claim that a focus on heteronormativity is not enough and why queer theory, while
offering some useful insights, can never do as much as a more sociological analysis because of its limited
appreciation of how heterosexuality works. Queer theorists are simply not interested in what goes on, for
example, within “normal” heterosexual families (or, for that matter, in those founded on same-sex
partnerships). The idea of discursively (and sometimes psychoanalytically) constituted subjectivity,
deriving from poststructuralist theory, also leaves little room for agency or reflexivity. Finally, queer
theory, because of the avoidance of totalizing claims about the social world, cannot deal with structural
issues of power and domination and how gender hierarchy figures in the maintenance of institutionalized
heterosexuality.
I am therefore arguing that we do still need social structural analysis: it is not outmoded and is, if
anything, even more vital to understanding the many inequalities and oppressions that exist globally. A
structural analysis alone, however, is not enough to explore all the complexities of human gendered and
sexual social relations and therefore has to be open to supplementation by other forms of analysis. I have
suggested that the linkages between gender and heterosexuality are structurally particularly strong, but
specific structural linkages between gender and heterosexuality cannot be assumed to determine other
points of connection within other dimensions of the social. We cannot deduce from structural arrangements
how individuals practice heterosexuality or other sexualities, their meanings, or how they contribute to
shaping the self even within one specific part of the world, let alone account for cross-national variations
that might be affected by local cultures and practices as well as structural factors.

Note

1 The term “heteronormativity” refers to the taken for granted assumption that heterosexuality is the (only) natural form of
sexuality and the (only) normal form of couple relationship and family formation. The term is generally extended to social
institutions, practices, and laws or norms based on this assumption. Heteronormative ideas, practices, and institutions

101
 therefore serve to position anyone who is not 100 percent heterosexual as “other.”

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 8

Gender Inequality and Feminism in the New Economy

Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely

At the beginning of Gender and Power, Connell introduces the reader to 15-year-old Delia Prince to
illustrate how the life of a “normal” teenager is a product of a gender regime. The case also demonstrates
how much has changed in the last three decades. Delia lives with her family in a working class suburb in
Australia. Her parents own their home and work in unionized jobs—her father as a tradesman and her
mother as a part-time typist, having been dismissed from her previous job in a bank when she married.
Delia’s father is the family disciplinarian. In his leisure time, he coaches football and drinks beer at the
pub. In addition to her paid work, Delia’s mother performs the housework (she keeps the place
“gleaming”) and manages the accounts of the football team her husband coaches. For her part, Delia
aspires to become a veterinarian, but she will settle for being a bank clerk if her grades are insufficient to
get into the university. Delia has a boyfriend, and hopes to be married by age 20. Delia’s parents are very
protective and control who is in her peer group. Violent sexual assaults in their neighborhood mean that
she is not allowed out at night.
Connell recounts these details of Delia’s life to introduce her theory of gender. Gender and Power
argues that gender inequality is reproduced by three “main structures”: labor, power, and cathexis, or the
expression of erotic desire. Labor practices contribute to male domination by excluding women from
high-paying jobs and relegating them to housework and child care. These patterns are reflected in the
different job opportunities, full-time versus part-time schedules, and the unequal division of housework
and leisure time of Delia’s parents, and in Delia’s sense of her future career possibilities. The second
structure upholding male domination is power, particularly men’s monopoly on violence. Delia’s father is
the undisputed “head of the household” who sometimes uses physical violence to control his family, while
her mother is “second-in-command” (5). Connell connects the violence in the Prince neighborhood to
men’s control of state power, noting that in Australia virtually no women serve in high political offices or
military posts. Finally, Connell argues that cathexis promotes male domination, particularly through the
heterosexual organization of emotional life. This is illustrated by the taken-for-granted heterosexuality of
the Prince household, including the dream of an early marriage for Delia and the danger of sexual assault
(including gay bashing) in the neighborhood. In Connell’s view, these three structures of labor, power, and
cathexis compose Delia’s life and reproduce a gender regime that ensures men’s domination of women in
society.
Much has changed since Delia was a teenager. The institutions shaping Delia’s life have been
fundamentally reconfigured. Connell interviewed Delia’s family during the apex of union density in
Australia; since then, many working class jobs have been outsourced, eliminated, or transformed into
part-time, temporary, or contract work. Families have become less stable, too. High rates of divorce and of
births to single mothers mean that many children today grow up in a household without a father. Today’s
working class young adults suffer from job insecurity, housing insecurity (many live with a parent well
into their 20s), and relationship insecurity (Waters, Carr, and Kefalas 2011). Instead of aspiring to early
marriage, they seem to reject long-term relationships altogether (Silva 2013).
The intervening decades also witnessed significant progress for women. Barriers to women’s
employment have fallen (including in the military), the number of women political leaders has grown
(Australia elected a woman prime minister in 2010), women now outnumber men in colleges and
universities, and firms widely embrace “diversity” as an organizational goal. The U.S. and Australia have

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undergone remarkable changes in attitudes toward sexual minorities; the increasing recognition of lesbian
and gay marriage rights is one example. Gender inequality has not been eliminated by any means, but the
mechanisms driving women’s oppression have changed since Delia’s teenage years.
Although Connell could not have anticipated these changes, her theory does help to account for them.
Connell argues that within the three main structures are “crisis tendencies” that constantly threaten to
“de-compose” the system of male domination (117). Political struggles stemming from conflicts of interest
can result in new institutional practices that challenge men’s power and its legitimacy. Therein lies the
hope of feminist movements: to exploit moments of crisis to envision and demand a more equal and just
society. Unfortunately, according to Connell, the system of hegemonic masculinity (or the socially
dominant discourses and practices that legitimize male domination) often diffuses and appropriates such
challenges.
In this chapter, we examine the crisis tendencies emerging in one of the main structures—labor—with a
focus on U.S. society.1 In the first part, we explain how the pathways to economic security and leadership
positions still favor men despite radical changes in the organization of work. In the second part, we discuss
how increasing economic inequality in the U.S. constitutes a “crisis” fueling feminist demands for justice,
but also exacerbates divisions among women. We argue that understanding and addressing conflicts of
interest among women requires adopting an intersectional perspective, or understanding gender in the
context of race, ethnicity, class, and other forms of inequality. To conclude, we return to Delia. Although
the life of a typical teenager has changed, we argue that Connell’s structural theory enhanced with an
intersectional lens remains a valuable approach for understanding gender inequality today.

Gender Inequality in the New Economy

In work organizations of the postwar era, working class men like Delia’s father anticipated a lifetime of
loyal service to a single employer. Employers rewarded men for their loyalty with promotions, raises,
benefits, and pensions. This standard employment contract was developed in the 1940s and ‘50s during the
so-called golden age of capitalism (Reich 2007).
In the United States, this contract was available only to a select group, mostly white men employed by
large oligopolistic firms. The “family wage” was a cornerstone of this contract. Acknowledging their
dependence on women’s domestic work, union members like Delia’s father fought for and received an
income deemed adequate to support a wife and children at home. Importantly, unions and employers
initially excluded women and racialized minority men from receiving the family wage (Thistle 2006).
During the “golden age,” married white women were not supposed to work at all; those who did work
typically did so in dead-end, temporary, or part-time positions to augment their husbands’ earnings
(Delia’s mother is an example). Minority women were forced to work because their husbands were denied
the family wage. In fact, it wasn’t until the civil rights movement in the 1960s that significant numbers of
black and Latino men gained access to well-paying unionized jobs.
Not surprisingly, as globalization, deregulation, and outsourcing whittled away the terms of the standard
employment contract, working class men experienced the greatest declines. Black and Latino men who
managed to make headway into unionized jobs were the first hit by these forces; they have since impacted
white working class men as well. Over the past 30 years, men’s jobs have become increasingly
precarious—that is, more similar to women’s jobs. In fact, some describe this as the “feminization of
labor” (Standing 2011), claiming that all low-wage workers are becoming women workers, regardless of
gender (McDowell 2014). This “feminization” does not imply that women encounter better working
conditions, but that many of the advantages men—primarily white working class men—previously enjoyed
are disappearing.
A number of statistical trends reflect these disappearing advantages. In the United States, significant
gaps between men’s and women’s rates of labor force participation, job tenure, and perceived job
insecurity are closing (Kalleberg 2011). The earnings gap for men and women has decreased, but for
different reasons at the lower and upper strata of the workforce. The gender wage gap for workers at the

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middle and lower tiers of the labor force declined because men’s wages dropped precipitously. For
example, the median income of male high school graduates aged 25–34 fell 25 percent, from $41,000 in
1980 to $31,000 in 2010 (in constant dollars); women high school graduates in this age group experienced
a decline from $26,500 to $24,000 over the same time period (Pedulla 2012, 29). Thus, the ratio of
women’s earnings to men’s earnings for this group narrowed, from .65 to .77. Calling this an improvement
in women’s status would be a gross misrepresentation; rather, it indicates a decline in men’s status due to
the standard employment contract’s demise.
In contrast, the incomes of the college educated have steadily increased over the past 30 years. Women
have closed the gender education gap; they now outnumber men on American college campuses and
receive the majority of degrees (England 2010). Kalleberg (2011, 106) shows that the incomes of men and
women in the top 5 percent of earners have increased significantly, with men’s wages growing from
$39/hour in 1973 to $55/hour in 2009 (in constant dollars), and women’s growing from $24 to $41 over the
same time period (the corresponding ratios are .62 and .75). For elite workers, the declining gender wage
gap reflects the steeper rise of women’s incomes compared to men’s.
Thus, the new economy has had uneven effects. For the majority of workers, job quality has
deteriorated, a change felt most keenly by men without college degrees. Working class women also
experienced losses, but their plight received less notice because they were already at the bottom of the
labor market. For those at the top, the new economy has been a gold mine—although a significant gender
wage gap persists. Who are these winners? What do we know about gender dynamics at the top of the
labor market?
At the very top, the winners are virtually all white men. In 2014, women headed fewer than 5 percent of
Fortune 500 companies; minority men also have dismal representation among CEOs. Executive
compensation and corporate profits have soared in the new economy. And although executive turnover is
high, job dislocation at the top is softened by generous separation packages, often called “golden
parachutes.”
Most high earners are not CEOs, but managers and professionals. The increase in women’s incomes
since 1980 is due almost entirely to women entering these male-dominated jobs (England 2010). While
most women professionals do not work in these top careers, their numbers increased throughout the 1990s
(although progress stalled in the 2000s). Most women professionals continue to work in nursing, teaching,
and clerical positions—jobs that are practically as gender segregated today as they were in Delia’s
childhood (Williams 2013).
Women who enter male-dominated professions confront structural barriers to their achievement that
result in gender inequality. Elite workers are typically required to work long hours (Correll et al. 2014), in
stark contrast to low-wage workers who struggle to get enough hours (Lambert 2012). Salaried
professionals may feel compelled to work long hours to prove their worth to their employers in an effort to
avoid being laid off. This overwork is facilitated by new communications technology that makes workers
available around the clock. Those with specialized skills may become consultants or start their own
businesses, which can subject them to even greater precariousness and overwork.
The expectation for long hours has consequences for gender inequality because women still retain
primary responsibility for child care and housework. Although elite workers can outsource these tasks
(often to immigrant women in low-paid, precarious jobs), some women “opt out,” or quit their jobs instead
(Stone 2007). “Opting out” is thus a coping strategy for women facing insurmountable pressures to excel
at home and at work, but it is only available to married women with high-earning husbands, a small and
privileged group (Cha 2010). Furthermore, “opting out” may be a gendered cover story to hide job
displacement. When women face the threat of layoffs, they may claim to leave work voluntarily to look
after children to legitimize their absence to future employers.
Wage-earning women across the income spectrum experience conflicting demands of employment and
of motherhood, but most women do not have the option to quit their jobs. Surviving employment
insecurity for many families requires two incomes so that one spouse’s earnings can act as a buffer if the
other is laid off. Yet even dual-earner families cannot always meet the financial demands of raising a

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family in the new economy. Despite earning 75 percent more than the families of Delia’s childhood,
two-income families today have 25 percent less discretionary income (Warren and Tyagi 2004).
Of course, not all households contain two adults capable of earning wages. Marriage rates are falling in
the U.S. for all groups except for the college educated. Rates of divorce and single motherhood are very
high among the poor and less well educated (Thistle 2006). Mass incarceration of poor men in the U.S.
further contributes to the increasing number of families composed of single mothers and their children.
This disproportionately impacts black families. In major U.S. cities, roughly 80 percent of black men have
criminal records and are 20 to 50 times more likely to go to prison for drug charges than white men
(Alexander 2010). Structural racism in the labor market and the criminal justice system creates unique
problems for black women, who increasingly bear the responsibility for raising children alone.
The economic situation of single mothers has always been fragile in the U.S., but diminishing welfare
support worsened their plight. To receive public assistance today, poor mothers must participate in paid
work or job training. The jobs available pay very low wages; many “workfare” jobs are exempt from the
federal minimum wage requirement. Moreover, as hourly workers, they are expected to be available at any
time—to work late at short notice or to work nonstandard hours. Single mothers unable to cope with erratic
schedules are forced to forfeit their meager welfare benefits (Collins and Mayer 2010).
The household division of labor thus remains a critical factor contributing to gender inequality today,
just as it did when Gender and Power was written. Mothers’ primary responsibility for child care in the
U.S., as in many nations, perpetuates men’s domination of women. However, in the past many mothers
could rely on their husbands’ income to support them and their children—an arrangement that buttressed a
power structure in which men were “heads of household” and women were “second-in-command.”
Ironically, this arrangement is only available to the “winners” in the new economy. Unlike Delia, nearly a
quarter of American children reside in father-less households, many depending solely on their mothers’
meager incomes from precarious jobs (U.S. Census 2014; Thistle 2006).
Gender inequality stems not only from the gender division of household labor but also from the structure
of jobs in the new economy. In particular, the institution of teamwork, career maps, and networking can
disadvantage women’s careers. These job features have become ubiquitous throughout the labor market,
from manufacturing (e.g., Plankey-Videla 2012) and service sector jobs (e.g., Ollilainen and Calasanti
2007; Smith 1996), to high-level professional workplaces (Williams, Muller, and Kilanski 2012).
A recent study of scientists in the oil and gas industry illustrates how these new workplace practices can
disadvantage women (Williams, Muller, and Kilanski 2012). In this industry, teamwork has been
implemented in an effort to de-layer companies by transferring management to coworkers who monitor
and evaluate one another. Gender inequality emerges when women fail to get recognition and credit for
their contributions. Women who demand this attention may be stigmatized and marginalized further for
violating “feminine” norms, especially if they work in male-dominated teams. Furthermore, career maps
are replacing career ladders, which specify uniform requirements for advancement. Because career maps
are individually negotiated and because workers rarely know the details of the agreements negotiated by
coworkers, supervisors’ gender bias can flourish unchecked. Finally, networking has become the chief way
that these workers gain exposure and locate job opportunities. In big firms, the networks of white men are
both more powerful and extensive than those of other groups. Race and gender shape the experience of
network ties: while weak network ties benefit white men in their careers, white women and people of color
usually require powerful sponsors in top positions to promote them into higher-paying jobs and leadership
roles (Ibarra, Carter, and Silva 2010).
Importantly, none of these workplace innovations intentionally promotes gender and racial inequality.
Whereas traditional work organizations were designed to exclude white women and people of color,
organizations in the new economy are resolutely “gender neutral” and “race blind,” based on the principle
of equal treatment. Virtually every major U.S. corporation proudly proclaims commitment to fostering a
diverse workforce, even companies with few women and minority men in leadership positions (Collins
2011; Williams, Kilanski, and Muller 2014).
Companies demonstrate their commitment to diversity by featuring workers with a variety of

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demographic characteristics on their websites, advertisements, and recruitment literature, and by instituting
programs to attract and retain workers from different backgrounds. These “diversity programs” include
mentoring, affinity groups, and diversity training—none of which effectively promote women and
minority men into leadership positions (Kalev, Dobbin, and Kelly 2006; Williams, Kilanski, and Muller
2014). Nevertheless, they remain extremely popular (Bielby, Krysan, and Herring 2013). Critics charge
that these “feel good” programs mask persistent discrimination (Ahmed 2012; Bell and Hartmann 2007).
Companies can “brand” themselves as inclusive (despite evidence to the contrary) to protect themselves
from liability if they are ever charged with unlawful employment discrimination.
Thus, the new economy is “pro-diversity” but remains deeply structured by gender and other forms of
inequality. The culture of insecurity, the expansion of precarious employment, the decline of welfare
support, the changed structure of jobs, and the new discourse of diversity contribute to male domination
and the economic oppression of women. None of these factors affected Delia when she was a teenager.

Feminism in the New Economy

When Gender and Power was first published, a key feminist demand was the abolition of the gender
division of labor. Connell endorsed breaking down employment barriers to women and encouraged men to
take on more domestic labor (280). In the United States, liberal feminists embraced these goals; socialist
feminists and women of color feminists were more skeptical that increased labor force participation could
liberate women (Davis 1983; Hartmann 1979; hooks 1981). Since then, the two sides have moved even
further apart. In the current era of economic inequality, structural racism, and employment instability, the
conflicts between elite women workers and other women appear irreconcilable.
At the top of the economic pyramid, we see the emergence of “neoliberal feminism” or “transnational
business feminism” (Eisenstein 2009; Roberts 2014). Referring to a corporate-friendly approach to gender
equality based on the business case for diversity, this paradigm equates women’s empowerment with their
right to participate in the market economy. This neoliberal approach trusts the market to absorb women on
an equal footing with men because it will make companies more profitable; businesses that do not join the
gender equality bandwagon will fail.
One key neoliberal feminist demand is to increase workplace flexibility through employer-sponsored
policies that allow for part-time schedules, telecommuting arrangements, and temporary and extended
periods of time off (Christensen and Schneider 2010). Implementing such options, it is argued, will
promote gender equality by enabling workers to balance their work and family obligations. Like the
business case for diversity, advocates believe these innovations will increase productivity and profits by
improving employee retention and morale (Correll et al. 2014).
There are many reasons to doubt this approach to achieving gender equality in the workplace. First,
research shows that those who use flexibility policies (mostly women, despite the gender neutral language)
suffer economic penalties for doing so (Glass 2004; Noonan and Glass 2012). Second, “work-family
balance” assumes the separation of spheres—a bounded work life that is separate from a bounded home
life; that’s an unrealistic idea for those laboring under the constant threat of downsizing whose employers
expect round-the-clock availability (Adkins and Dever 2014). Finally, without government protections,
expanding workplace flexibility will likely increase insecurity for many workers, especially in the
low-wage labor market, where “flexibility” enables employers to manipulate employee schedules
depending on workflow (Williams 2013). When neoliberal feminists advocate for flexibility, the interests
of low-wage workers are not considered (Correll et al. 2014).
Neoliberal feminists believe that increasing the number of women in executive positions will address
these concerns. Advocates believe that women are naturally more risk-averse, empathetic, and altruistic
than men, so admitting more women into the C-suite of corporations’ top executives would therefore result
in policies that benefit workers, especially other women. This trickle-down approach to gender equality is
believed to eliminate the need for governmental regulation of corporations, since women leaders will
naturally implement socially responsible policies (Nelson 2013; Roberts 2014). Consequently—and

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paradoxically—neoliberal feminists exhort women to aggressively compete with men and to grasp every
opportunity for advancement (e.g., to “lean in”).
Some women who have gained entrance into the power elite have used their newfound wealth and status
to invest in other women. Melissa Fisher (2012) finds a growing interest among women executives on
Wall Street in economically empowering other women through microfinance, investment mandates, and
corporate social responsibility programs. These efforts reflect broader initiatives to create “shared value,” a
dual emphasis on the bottom line and collective good driven by the belief that what’s good for society is
good for business (Pfitzer, Bockstette, and Stamp 2013). Women executives adapt these ideas with the
goal of benefiting women’s economic well-being (even though their fortunes have come from investment
practices that produce the conditions they seek to ameliorate). The outcomes of shared value initiatives are
difficult to measure (Beard and Hornik 2011). Like diversity programs, shared value and social
responsibility campaigns may only further the interests of the corporations and investors sponsoring them,
rather than address the underlying causes of gender inequality in the new economy.
For women struggling in low-wage precarious jobs, neoliberal feminist goals are at best irrelevant and at
worst part of the problem. Encouraging women to work harder and promoting “flexible” working
conditions only worsens the exploitation of those at the bottom end of the labor market. Furthermore,
investment initiatives and corporate campaigns designed to empower women may reflect the concerns of
the women driving them, but overlook their actual impact on low-wage women workers (Eisenstein 2009).
Instead of embracing neoliberal solutions to gender inequality, working class women have turned to
labor organizing. Although not necessarily in the name of “feminism,” unions have adopted women’s
demands for increased wages, equal opportunities, guaranteed hours and schedules, and the end to sexual
harassment and assault in the workplace (Cobble 2007; Walby 2014). In the United States, this has been an
uphill battle, as unions have fallen on especially hard times. Private sector employees have seen their
unions decimated. In the public sector, unions are under attack by neoliberal politicians, especially the
female-dominated teachers’ and nurses’ unions; the male-dominated police and firefighter unions have
managed so far to retain their legitimacy (Farnham 2011; Greenhouse 2014b). Meanwhile, newly formed
service unions in low-wage labor markets struggle against well-funded, organized, and unwavering
corporate opposition; Walmart and Amazon, the largest private U.S. employers, are notorious examples
(Kopytoff 2014; Lichtenstein 2009).
One bright spot for low-wage women workers in the U.S. is the recent success of voter initiatives to
raise the minimum wage. With the support of nonunion worker advocacy groups, voters in 2014 approved
increasing the minimum wage in a number of cities and states (Greenhouse 2014a). These victories
represent an advance for gender equality because women are overrepresented among minimum-wage
earners.
In the new economy, some feminists question whether activism should continue to focus on waged work
(Adkins 2012; Weeks 2010). Instead of encouraging women to work harder, Nancy Fraser (2009)
encourages women to demand limits to employers’ control over their lives. She urges feminists to fight to
valorize carework, including the unpaid domestic labor that women provide for their families. The goal is
not to promote women’s competitiveness in the workplace, but rather to shrink the power of employers
over workers by opening up opportunities to pursue interests outside of work. Instead of focusing activism
exclusively on access to jobs and improved working conditions, feminists should fight for sustainable
hours at work—not too few or too many—and more control over their time.
An intersectional approach reveals what is at stake in recognizing the value of carework. As middle
class women in the U.S. and elsewhere follow the neoliberal dream of emancipation through employment,
their families outsource carework, often to women of color and women migrant laborers from the Global
South (Glenn 1992; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2007). Evelyn Nakano Glenn (1992) argues that past feminist
attempts to address the “universal needs of women” obscured differences and perpetuated abuses against
poor women and women of color. Recognizing the value of carework would only begin to right this
historical wrong.
At the minimum, valorizing carework would require paying domestic workers a living wage and

110
providing them the time and space to care for their own families. If they too must outsource carework—a
situation facing migrant domestic workers—then those workers must be guaranteed living wages and time
to devote to their families as well. However, increasing the wages of domestic workers and providing them
time for their own families would mean that middle class women likely could no longer afford their
services. Thus, addressing the needs of women throughout the labor force will not only require a
revaluation of carework but a redistribution of income so everyone has access to this vital resource. This
model of “work-family balance” differs from the neoliberal version because it aims to provide all workers
with ample time and money to care for themselves and others—a goal that requires mutual recognition
across the divisions of class, race/ethnicity, and nationality.
The theory of intersectionality draws attention to how economic success for some women today is
contingent on the hardship and exploitation of others. These conflicts of interest among women constitute
what Connell calls “cracks” in the system of male domination. Because the organization of labor in the
new economy does not provide adequate support for many women, a “main structure” of male domination
is delegitimized and new demands for social justice can emerge. It is not surprising that feminist demands
to restrict employer power are gaining traction at this historical moment.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we focused on labor, which is an important factor in reproducing gender inequality today.
However, we have argued that changes in the new economy have altered the labor processes that promote
men’s advantages over women.
In the new economy, the life of a typical working class teenager in the U.S. differs from that of Delia
Prince in significant ways. Today’s teens are more likely to live with a single mother who supports the
family on an insecure job with stagnant wages and unpredictable hours. Those lacking a college education
face bleak employment prospects, while those who attend a university must incur debt to finance it
themselves. Young women are encouraged to be economically self-sufficient and independent, yet they
remain at a disadvantage in workplaces organized in ways that privilege men.
Gender inequality still structures the life of today’s Delia Princes. But because the mechanisms of
gender inequality have changed, feminism is also changing. Thirty years ago, feminists fought for
women’s access to paid work. Today, women are expected to have a job and to work all the time, while
those without jobs are expected to undertake self-improvement projects to enhance their chances of
employment. The only women exempt from these requirements are married to wealthy men.
Thirty years ago, feminists fought against the standard labor contract that explicitly endorsed male
domination. Today, workers confront an employment culture that valorizes diversity and gender equality.
While this is unquestionably a step forward for women, it does not solve the problem of male domination.
The redesign of workplaces—in particular, the institution of teamwork, career maps, and
networking—favors men and qualities associated with masculinity. Moreover, women’s ongoing
responsibility for domestic labor penalizes them in their paid jobs, virtually assuring the continuation of
the gender wage gap.
These are the reasons why some feminists argue that paid work cannot liberate women. A job may be
necessary for survival, but it does little to advance the cause of social justice for women. On the contrary,
most women’s jobs leave them exhausted and bereft. This is inevitable when employers have the upper
hand, as in a neoliberal culture. Without unions or government regulations to restrain them, employers
degrade working conditions, and, to paraphrase Marx, the more women work, the more impoverished they
become.
Because the new economy breaks from the previous system of gender inequality, feminists have the
opportunity to imagine alternatives. As Connell writes in Gender and Power, the historical condition of the
gender order is “about change produced by human practice, about people being inside the process” (144).
How are feminists using the current moment to forge alternatives to the prevailing gender order?

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 The intersectional turn in feminist theory is the key to this endeavor. In exposing how interests among
women conflict, women of color feminists illuminate cracks in the gender system and envision viable
alternatives. Instead of imploring women to work harder and “lean in,” these feminists and their allies are
demanding the reorganization of work, care, distribution, and recognition with the goal of inclusivity. Only
by reducing income inequality, lessening employers’ power, and alleviating the negative impacts of job
insecurity will the dream of gender equality become reality.

Note

1 Parts of this chapter are derived from Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely, “Gender and Work: Precariousness and
Inequality,” in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn (New York:
Sage, 2015).

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 9

Gender Politics in Academia in the Neoliberal Age

Barbara Poggio

Gender, Education, and Knowledge

One of Connell’s key contributions to gender studies consists of her in-depth analysis of education, which
she views as a primary arena for gender construction. Attention to how educational institutions contribute
to the production and reproduction of gender asymmetries has been a constant of her studies and research
since her earliest texts, such as Making the Difference (1982), to the more recent ones (Connell 1982,
2013). In these works gender and education are principally dealt with in relation to social justice issues.
Education is viewed as a process that is able to produce capacities for practice and, as a result, to generate
advantages and disadvantages for individuals and groups on the basis of specific differences such as
gender, but also class and race.
To some extent, Connell’s work on education represents an important basis for the development of her
structural approach to gender analysis, where structure and practice concepts are closely interconnected. In
this intertwining, situatedness and historical change are crucial dimensions. From the various studies and
research carried out by Connell in educational contexts there emerges recurrent attention to how people’s
practices are constrained by educational structures, but at the same time to how they can change and shape
those structures. A prime analytical construct with which to observe the configuration of gender relations
in these contexts is the gender regime in educational institutions, which is based on four main components
(Connell 1996): power relations, division of labor, patterns of emotions, and symbolization. One specific
symbolic structure is represented by the gendering of knowledge through which certain characteristics and
skills are constructed as male, and others as female. Connell refers on several occasions in her work to the
intertwining of rationality and masculinity in Western thought and the patriarchal ideology. In Western
philosophy, science and technology “are culturally defined as a masculine realm. Hegemonic masculinity
established its hegemony partly by its claim to embody the power of reason. Masculine authority is
connected with disembodied reason” (Connell 2005, 164). In advanced capitalism, men’s domination of
women is no longer legitimized by religion or physical force, but by the technical organization of
production: efficiency of means prevails over the ultimate ends.
In recent work, Connell focuses on the subtle, and yet pervasive, dynamics that connote educational
contexts in an era when the neoliberal agenda is becoming predominant. She seeks to show how the
imbalances embedded in knowledge acquisition are exacerbated by the principles of neoliberalism, a
paradigm for economic theory and policy-making and an agenda of social transformation driven by the
ideas of individual entrepreneurial freedom and market deregulation. The results of neoliberal policies are,
according to Connell, the commodification and privatization of public institutions and more and more
spheres of social life, the accentuation of class exclusion, and the postfeminist ideology of gender
neutrality. Her analyses consistently address the impact of the pervasive market logic on educational
processes and practices, a scenario in which knowledge is increasingly rationalized and commodified. The
new keywords have become privatization, competition, deregulation, quality assurance, performance
management, and corporate branding, and the new totems are “league tables,” indices, and the
technologies of research and educational measurement.
Although market ideology presents itself as being gender-neutral, it is in fact fundamentally gendered.

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Connell (2013) illustrates the consequences of this above all in relation to first-level education, where the
neoliberal program requires mothers who are pressured to support the participation of their children in a
competitive education system. The gender implications of the affirmation of the neoliberal paradigm are,
however, also present in the scientific and academic institutions on which the analysis developed in this
chapter centers.
In what follows, I focus on the relationship between gender and science, and on gender construction
processes within the domains of the formal production and legitimation of knowledge, namely universities.
I concentrate on the European context, with which I am most familiar because of my direct participation in
projects supported by the European Commission and which involve diverse European universities and
research centers.

The Persistence of Gender Asymmetries in Higher Education and Knowledge Production

Contexts
There have been significant changes in participation by women and men in the various levels of education
over the past thirty years. One phenomenon frequently noted today is the feminization of the student
population, which also characterizes tertiary education. Yet statistical evidence continues to show the
existence of gender disparities in participation in technical and scientific educational programs, as well as
an imbalance in higher-status scientific careers.
The main reports on gender differences in science in Europe indicate that, despite some progress, gender
inequalities in scientific contexts persist and have proved difficult to overcome. The so-called scissor trend
still persists, and the tendency is for it to widen during the course of a person’s working life. Even as
female students and graduates outnumbered male students, and the gender gap among PhD students and
graduates is now very small, women are still poorly represented in senior positions at scientific institutions
and in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Horizontal and vertical
segregation reinforce each other, producing unequal job opportunities and careers for women compared
with men. Data show relevant gender gaps even in salaries and in the allocation of research funding
(European Commission 2009, 2016; European Research Council 2015).

Main Interpretive Lens for Gender Asymmetries in the Academy

There is a significant body of literature dealing with the topic of gender asymmetry in scientific contexts.
The interpretations used to account for these asymmetries refer to a number of factors ranging from innate
characteristics to the organizational practices of academic institutions.
The most traditional explanations of the gender gap in academia emphasize the role of inborn cognitive
sex differences, which can be identified, for instance, in differing mathematical and spatial performances
rather than verbal and written abilities, which are attributed to biological factors such as brain structure and
function, or to hormonal composition or mental development (National Academies of Science 2007).
Numerous studies have been conducted in this area to measure the differences in performance between
girls and boys, and to explain differing educational choices on the basis of them. The most recent data,
however, show a progressive decrease in this gap, which in some countries (such as Sweden, Norway, and
Iceland) has disappeared (European Commission 2012). Moreover, it has been demonstrated that
integrated educational systems and more equal societies correlate with smaller, or even nonexistent, gaps
in scientific performance (Guiso et al. 2009).
A second theoretical approach, mainly based on cross-national studies and on the use of several kinds of
indexes of gender equality, stresses the importance of macro-structural factors, such as the type of
education system, the labor market, the care and welfare regimes, and the development of gender equality
in countries. Even if gender asymmetries in scientific careers are common in various countries, women and
men do not face the same structural and normative opportunities and constraints in every national context
(Musselin 2005). The internal and external structure of the labor market, the position of the academic

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occupation in the socioeconomic hierarchy, and the support provided by the welfare system generate
different experiences of academic work (Le Feuvre 2015).
A third body of research focuses on cultural determinants in socialization and gender identity
construction processes. According to this perspective, a dichotomous, stereotypical view of gender
differences underlies the divergence of career pathways, and it assigns different tasks and competences to
women and men in society, associating women with reproduction and men with production, women with
social skills and men with technical ones. Various socialization agents (such as the family, peers, teachers,
and the mass media) cooperate in the construction of gender identity and influence the educational paths of
girls and boys through stereotyped expectations, pressures on vocational choices, and different evaluation
criteria that reinforce gender asymmetries (Cassell and Jenkins 2000; Xie and Shaumann 2003).
Moreover, many studies have shown that scientific careers reflect the traditional model of the male
worker without domestic or familial obligations and totally committed to his work as the norm (Dean and
Fleckenstein 2007). Attention to other spheres, such as the family, is seen as a limitation on total
dedication to a scientific career. The prevalent career model in scientific contexts is based on the “long
hours culture” (Currie, Harris, and Thiele 2000), constant availability (Ward 2000), and the linearity of the
career pathway (National Academies of Science 2007). This therefore has negative implications for
anyone—whether a woman or a man—who wants to combine professional and family commitments, but it
penalizes females more severely because it is expected that women will give priority to caregiving. The
difficulties associated with reconciling scientific work and caregiving duties are documented in a large
body of literature, which has noted that often the dilemma is resolved by a woman’s abandoning her career
or temporarily suspending it. Some women (unlike men) decide not to have a family at all if they see doing
so as incompatible with a having a career (Blackwell and Glover 2008).
Finally, a fourth strand of research includes studies focused on organizational practices, and therefore on
how scientific and academic organizations behave, with specific regard to the gender and power dynamics.
Studying academic institutions in this perspective means analyzing the norms that govern formal
recruitment and promotion procedures, observing power relations and gatekeeping practices, and analyzing
formal and informal networks (Bagilhole and Goode 2001; Benschop and Brouns 2003). Various studies
have shed light on the presence of mechanisms deeply embedded in the cultures of scientific and academic
organizations, mechanisms that are reproduced through homosocial practices, such as the informal
male-dominated networks that perform a gatekeeping role by means of gendered mechanisms of inclusion
and exclusion; biases in formal assessment procedures, such as peer review, recruitment, and evaluation,
which give rise to unequal access to research funding or academic positions (European Commission 2012);
asymmetries in the allocation of time to the different kinds of academic tasks performed by men and
women (production/research tasks versus reproduction/teaching and administrative tasks), with differing
consequences for career advancement; and isolation and discouragement, and even sexual harassment (De
Welde and Stepnick 2014).
These various interpretations furnish a composite picture of the problem and highlight its multifaceted
and multilayered nature. However, they should be considered in light of more general changes that
characterize the world of science, producing new configurations affecting the various areas considered
that, in general, have important implications for gender balance within scientific domains.

The Impact of the Neoliberal Model

The practices emerging in science production and the evaluation of scientific performances, as well as the
new working arrangements in scientific organizations consequent on the growing hegemony of the
neoliberal agenda, are not irrelevant from the point of view of gender asymmetries in academia.
The orientation of European education policies toward the neoliberal model was ratified in 1999 by the
Bologna Declaration, which affirmed the need to rationalize and harmonize national university systems
and to promote new procedures of accountability, quality assessment, funding, selection, and performance
evaluation.

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 Neoliberal policies make research and scientific work increasingly rationalized and efficiency-driven in
response to the urgent need to transfer new knowledge from academia to society, and to promote economic
growth and competitiveness in global markets (Ylijoki and Ursin 2013). One important result of this
change has been that universities are progressively changing “from institutions supporting and operating
on social interests, public welfare and equality of opportunity to ones centred on the neoliberal values of
individualism, competition, contractual relations and ‘freedom of choice’” (Ward 2012). Academic
organizations increasingly become “greedy institutions” with regard to the level of undivided loyalty, high
work productivity, and emotional engagement that they expect of their members and the redefinition of the
boundaries between personal and family life and work time (Currie, Harris, and Thiele 2000). On the one
hand, universities require increasing workloads, greater flexibility and availability, and accelerated
rhythms and time pressure, while on the other, instability is on the increase, salaries are falling, and career
prospects and professional development are shrinking for the younger academic generations (Court and
Kinman 2008).
The neoliberal turn has changed the model of university governance. It has led to the application of
management methods similar to those used in private, for-profit companies, with a growing emphasis on
managerialism and entrepreneurialism at the expense of the independence and collegiality of the teaching
staff. Moreover, it has significantly affected the nature and content of academic work, in particular by
severing the relationship between teaching and research (Barnett 2003).
These processes have remarkable gender implications. Some scholars have observed that the total
commitment required in the neoliberal frame is closely associated with the male breadwinner model and
the notion of heroic masculinity that excludes management of caregiving responsibilities (Bellavita 1991).
The dominant model is no more that of science as an agora, where the social dimension of scholarship
prevails, but an Olympian model, in which the dominant profile of a researcher is that of “a young man in
solitude high on top of the Olympus, distanced from all everyday practices” (Benschop and Brouns 2003,
207). At the same time, the proliferation of seasonal, part-time, and contract employment seems more
dramatically to affect women, who are more likely to be hired into such positions (Higher Education
Statistics Agency 2014).
Managerialism is seen as imbued with masculine discourse and practices. As recognition and evaluation
of merit gradually become more focused on productivity, performance, and entrepreneurship, other
dimensions of academic work important in the past, such as teaching responsibilities, become more
feminized, and progressively lose prestige (Thornton 2014). And the growing emphasis on STEM
disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), considered as engines of innovation and
economic growth, has obvious consequences from a gender perspective because these disciplines are
differently targeted.
If we consider in particular the neoliberal attitude to gender policies, on the one hand the increasing
emphasis on performativity and cost cutting has reduced the attention to equity issues, which are seen as
luxuries (Blackmore and Sachs 2003). On the other, greater benevolence is accorded to the gender
mainstreaming strategy, as well as to approaches oriented to diversity management, where women are
considered as potential resources that should be better exploited (Schunter-Kleemann and Plehwe 2006).

Policies to Combat Gender Asymmetries in Academia

Various policies intended to combat gender asymmetries in academic institutions have been formulated
and implemented in many countries since the beginning of the new millennium. Initially, the actions and
programs were mainly targeted at helping women to gain access to and pursue a scientific career, based on
the assumption of their intrinsic weakness, through two different intervention methods. On the one hand,
women’s participation in tertiary scientific education is encouraged and promoted through actions to
render the choice of scientific disciplines more appealing to women or to assist them in their academic
pathways (for example, by implementing mentoring schemes), thereby combating the risk of dropping out.
On the other hand, women’s careers are supported by increasing their scientific productivity, promoting

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access to funding, incentivizing attention to gender equality in the preparation of projects, providing
financial incentives to rebalance the gender presences in departments, introducing quota targets, enhancing
female role models, facilitating networking among women, and providing support for maternity and
maternal leave.
Over time, however, it was realized that these programs were not sufficient to close the gender gap in
scientific careers, especially regarding women in positions of responsibility, and that the main focus should
be not on women but on organizations. This realization led the European institutions to stress the need to
make structural changes to educational institutions by employing a systemic and sustainable approach. In
2007, taking its lead from the U.S. National Science Foundation program that aims at Increasing the
Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers (ADVANCE;
begun in 2001) and has a strong emphasis on institutional transformation (Risman and Adkins 2014), the
European Commission launched the Science in Society initiative, as a part of the broader 7th Framework
Programme (FP7). Its aim was to foster greater gender equality in academic and scientific contexts through
support for universities and research institutes that undertake to implement structural changes by the
creation of consortia.
This program, which lasted until 2013, funded over twenty projects, many of which had the direct aim
of promoting equal opportunities for men and women in scientific and research organizations, with a
special emphasis on management changes (in the first phases) and structural transformations by the
implementation of tailored gender equality plans (in the subsequent phases). Every project involved a
partnership of different European universities and research organizations.
Because some of the projects have just concluded and others are still in progress, it is not possible to
offer an overall evaluation of the program or its impact on European universities. However, by analyzing
the documentation available on the respective websites and on the Community Research and Development
Information Service (CORDIS) website,1 we can consider their premises, objectives, and actions (as they
are enunciated) and draw some preliminary conclusions.
The projects present a significant number of actions that fall within the two categories of intervention
identified above: actions directed at women to increase their presence in scientific tracks, and actions to
support women’s careers in scientific institutions. However, as requested by the European Commission’s
calls, we can note an effort to formulate strategies and policies more directly tailored to the specific
requirements and characteristics of the organizations concerned, starting from a situated analysis of the
context, and also aimed at developing and implementing actions that focus on organizational structures and
practices rather than on women. In almost all projects, there is an initial phase of quantitative survey data
and sometimes a qualitative review of issues central to the objectives of the projects. The priority
requirement of securing the support of decision makers and management for the objectives and planned
actions is also often emphasized. The most frequently cited objectives are promotion of gender awareness
at an individual and organizational level and changes in organizational settings.
Among the most significant and impactful actions mentioned are the integration of top-down and
bottom-up approaches to create networks within universities in order to design and activate change in a
gender-sensitive perspective (the STAGES2 and TRIGGER3 projects); the implementation of actions aimed
at making decision making transparent, like gender budgeting4 in the GENIS LAB5 project, focused on the
analysis and monitoring of how financial and time resources are distributed in the scientific organizations
involved (assuming that allocations reflect power relationships); the integration of a gender perspective
into research and curricula pursued by different projects; the analysis of resistance practices activated by
organizations in relation to project initiatives aimed at introducing structural changes that might represent
significant tools and processes for acquiring knowledge about and understanding of gender regimes and
orders within the institutions involved (FESTA project6).
However, we can also identify issues that could limit the capacity of the organizations involved to
produce profound, effective internal changes, in particular in light of the transformations that are now
under way in scientific spheres as a result of the affirmation of a neoliberal agenda.
One of these can be identified in the same conditions under which the projects have been instituted and

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carried out. Strong pressures on universities to raise funds can represent a significant motive to participate
in this kind of project, thus undermining the true willingness to produce structural changes and support
policies and actions that are required for effectiveness and sustainability.
A second concern is the rationales sometimes used, both by the EU institutions and the funded projects,
to argue for the need to rebalance the presence of women and men in scientific contexts, where a subtext
emerges very similar to that used in the neoliberal debate: criteria such as competitiveness, success, and
excellence are not necessarily critically described but they are identified as priorities, whereas equality is
principally evaluated as a factor of productivity and efficacy rather than a right or a value as such (in the
logic of the “business case”). In fact, in these discourses the principal framework of reference remains the
one proposed by the neoliberal agenda, which is not disputed.
A third critical issue is the exclusive focus on STEM disciplines, which on one hand strengthens the
perception of the centrality of these sectors within the current economic and research system, and on the
other overshadows the overall impact of the ongoing changes also in more highly feminized sectors, like
the social sciences and humanities (SSH), as well as the growing asymmetries between the two areas.
Moreover, a fourth critical issue is the scant attention paid to emerging work models in scientific
organizations oriented to flexibility and fragmentation. Most of the projects concentrate on existing
asymmetries in the scientific careers of women and men in permanent positions but tend to ignore the
situations of the increasing numbers of individuals with temporary or precarious contracts—a phenomenon
particularly important in the current scenario, all the more so from a gender perspective. One exception in
this respect is the GARCIA7 project focused on the early stages of academic and scientific careers and in
particular on untenured researchers and their tenuous career prospects relating to differing gender regimes.
Research and change actions in the GARCIA project are undertaken at macro, meso, and micro levels in
order to highlight the emergent criticalities that both STEM and SSH disciplines represent. The goals are to
make the work of these researchers more visible within scientific organizations and counter the
precariousness of their work and life experiences. The project pays particular attention to gender
asymmetries and hopes to achieve concrete results including increased visibility for women researchers’
work, management of the work-life balance, wider inclusion in welfare programs, and increased awareness
and reflection about current evaluation/assessment processes.
Finally, it should be noted that in all such projects only cursory treatment is given to dimensions more
closely associated with emotions and sexuality. For example, bullying and molestation remain common in
academic institutions and indeed may be exacerbated by the vulnerabilities women have due to being in
precarious positions. Furthermore, such issues are often made invisible by being treated as if they are
individual, not organizational, in character. Questions connected with intersectionality, for example with
regard to different race/ethnic, social class, age, and sexual orientation statuses, are also considered only
cursorily if at all.
While the last group of projects of the 7th Framework program were still under way, 2014 saw the start
of a new European program, Horizon 2020—Research and Innovation Framework Programme, which is in
some respects significantly different from the previous ones. It is based in part on the results that have
emerged from the projects already completed. It has among its declared objectives: (a) promoting equality
in research groups; (b) promoting gender balance in decision making; and (c) integrating the gender
dimension into research and innovations. The most important difference is that, in the new program,
gender is treated as a cross-cutting issue from the mainstreaming perspective,8 with the aim of integrating
the gender dimension at each stage of the research cycle, in all activities where it may be relevant, from the
research idea phase (generating gender-sensitive ideas and hypotheses), through the research proposal
phase (formulating gender-sensitive research questions, selecting mixed teams of men and women,
creating gender-equal working conditions), to the actual research phase (managing and monitoring gender
equality, valuing women’s and men’s work equally), and to the dissemination phase (using gender
impartial language and reporting data in gender-sensitive ways).

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 Applying Connell’s Model to Academia
This chapter has considered the contribution of Connell’s thought to gender studies with specific regard to
education, in particular higher education and knowledge production contexts like universities. These
institutions play a central role in Connell’s research work and more generally in gender studies, because
they are privileged contexts of gender production and reproduction (as well as possible deconstruction) of
specific gender regimes that determine gender relationships both within organizations and in society at
large.
Intervening in universities is particularly strategic for pursuit of a full institutional citizenship that
“connects the project of inclusiveness to universities’ core mission of advancing knowledge and preparing
the future citizens and leaders of a different polity to address complex problems and entrenched injustices”
(Sturm 2006, 250).
Over time, gender balances in educational institutions have changed as the number of women has
increased significantly. Nevertheless, universities—and within them scientific faculties and
departments—continue to be strongholds of men and masculinity/ies. Recent changes in the management
models of educational institutions and the rise of neoliberal policies, with their emphasis on merit and the
valorization of human capital, offer alternative scenarios than those of classical liberal discourse, based on
women’s exclusion and targeted on male networks and privileges. At the same time, they introduce values
and practices that appear to lower the odds of gender equality improvements, such as the growing
flexibilization and precarization of scientific careers, the affirmation of an individualistic and increasingly
competitive model of scientific work, based on the idea of heroic masculinity and the request for a total
and exclusive work commitment, without room for other aspects of social life.
In the foregoing pages, I focused on initiatives funded by the European Commission to tackle gender
imbalances and support the presence of women in scientific research. In this section, I deepen this analysis
in accord with Connell’s “structural inventory” of the four main gender dimensions: power relations;
production, consumption, and gendered accumulation; emotional relations; and symbolization. On a
theoretical level, I try to systematize key issues emerging in the debate on the gender politics of higher
education, and, on a political level, I propose a comprehensive rather than partial agenda for gender reform
politics.

Power Relations
The rise of the neoliberal agenda in higher education has produced new power configurations. It has
increased the power of central managers and academic administrators (rectors, deans, and heads of
departments) and reduced that of teachers and students. It has generated an imbalance between the various
curricula and disciplines (STEM vs. SSH) on the basis of their differing capacities to raise funds and
generate profits. It has increased the amount of staff working on part-time and fixed-term contracts at or
near the bottom of the organizations. The gender implications of these processes are manifest because
women are largely underrepresented in dominant positions and in disciplines more tied to the market.
Policies to counter the gender imbalance in higher education institutions should start from careful analysis
of these processes and foresee rebalancing measures. Yet they should also support forms of collective
decision making and the creation of new networks and communities. The experiences considered comprise
analytical tools (such as gender budgeting) that move in this direction, although initiatives that effectively
reallocate resources or foster participative management are still rare.

Production, Consumption, and Gendered Accumulation

The neoliberal production model has profound implications for the gender division of labor. It concerns
not only the allocation of different roles and tasks within scientific organizations but also the structure of
conditions that make scientific work possible. A growing emphasis on constant availability and total
dedication to work involves an a priori division of labor, with one subject (usually the man) totally devoted

122
to science and another (usually the woman) responsible for the domestic sphere. The division between
production and reproduction is then metaphorically reiterated in how activities are allocated and valued
within a scientific context. To counter structures of this type, it is necessary to conduct analyses of various
asymmetries and their implications for development, valorization, and rebalancing measures. In the
research projects to which I have referred, this was done through the analysis of data, processes, and
policies. Yet this kind of work requires further effort, especially in light of various resistance measures. It
is important to monitor how such projects are managed and whether project leaders are supported within
an institution. Indeed, in a context of increasing cuts and financial difficulties, the risk to academic
organizations of participating in these projects to raise funds, without a real commitment, is high. The risks
could perhaps be reduced if the institutions were pressured by the funding entities to produce genuine
change.

Emotional Relations
Emotions represent an area in need of action by projects designed to improve gender balance. Work
intensification, the push for individualization, an intensely competitive climate, and an emphasis on
evaluation typify scientific organizations within a neoliberal frame. These conditions are particularly
problematic for academics and scientists in unstable jobs. Feelings of insecurity, precariousness, anxiety,
and vulnerability characterize the experiences of many such people. Women are more subject to such
pressures and risks for both structural and cultural reasons. Among the interventions that could be
implemented to reduce these phenomena are activating spaces for scholarship, public dialogue, and
discussion aimed at restoring relations of mutual cooperation and collegiality. Moreover, attention to
bullying and sexual harassment is minimal to zero, despite concerns that these practices may be on the
increase.

Symbolization
Gender symbolism is regularly used in academia to justify the different and dichotomous positions of men
and women, for example, in distinctions between “hard” and “soft” data, mind and matter, reason and
intuition, objectivity and subjectivity. A neoliberal paradigm introduces values and symbolic codes into
scientific organizations that are laden with such gender implications. Representation of scientists as
solitary heroes, associated with excellence, “performance,” “ranking,” “business,” and “entrepreneurship,”
fosters a definition of scientific work as requiring men and masculinity/ies. In many projects reviewed
here, little if any effort is made to deconstruct this kind of discourse. Indeed, in some cases neoliberal
rhetoric of this sort is used to advocate for diversity in/of management policies.
A case can be made that Connell’s paradigm would be enriched by the construct of positioning or the
discursive process whereby selves are located within cultural circulating discourses and narratives (Davies
and Harré 1990). Considering the processes of subjectivation and positioning highlights the ways in which
scientific organizations affect members’ identities by encouraging a focus on performativity, competition,
individualization and commodification. Focusing on these processes will allow us to observe the practices
of adaptation or resistance implemented by individuals, men and women, toward the subject positions
made available to them by the dominant discursive order.

Conclusion
Although it is impossible to provide a balance sheet for the effectiveness of gender equity projects funded
in recent years by the EU Commission, I can highlight issues for readers to consider. Changing formal
organizations and complex institutions such as the academy is difficult at best because it entails countering
historical patterns and vested interests on the part of those in privileged positions who may passively resist
or actively work against change. Universities are a relatively undisputed domain for men and hegemonic
masculinity (see Messerschmidt and Messner, this volume). Thus, change toward greater gender equity is

123
difficult in light of this gendered patterning and associated scientific practices. Neoliberalism also is
difficult to counteract. The projects have paid the price of such difficulties and resistances, and their results
may well fall short of their hoped for ends. Still, perhaps they will have raised awareness of gender issues
and contribute to a climate that is more inclined to consider and implement change.
The choice by European institutions to move in the direction of gender mainstreaming entails both
benefits and drawbacks.9 On the one hand, this choice can be read as a response to the need to perform
actions and interventions less directly focused on women yet that will take account of gender dynamics as
they cross-cut the construction processes in science. Gender mainstreaming can be viewed as a strategy to
remedy dissatisfaction and criticalities that have emerged from separate projects for women over the years
and that will move even further in the direction of effective systemic and structural changes in scientific
and academic institutions (Squires 2005). However, some critics of gender mainstreaming see it as a
neoliberal reorganization strategy aimed at optimizing gender-specific human resources for the
institution’s welfare (including finances), thereby mooting its political potential (McRobbie 2009).
According to these readings, gender mainstreaming risks becoming a technocratic exercise, implemented
from the top down and realized through funded projects—reporting on actions and deliverables rather than
producing sustainable changes in dominant gender regimes and orders. In this perspective, the strategy of
gender mainstreaming blurs the issue of power in gender relations.
If gender mainstreaming and other gender equity approaches to academia are to avoid losing their
transformative potential and become truly effective, constant attention must be paid to the processes and
structures that regulate gender relations, as well as to changes generated by emerging structures whereby
old inequalities are reinforced or new ones created relative to gender and other dimensions intertwined
with it. Moreover, it will be necessary to maintain a balance between the different levels of intervention
from the situated dimension of organizational micropractices to the system-wide implications of
neoliberalism (Jeanes, Knights, and Martin 2011). Universities, Ferree and Zippel (2015, 562) claim, are
“complex organizations for producing and reproducing knowledge as a form of power.” They are arenas
where different and often conflicting tensions coexist.
Connell’s theory of gender provides a frame of reference that calls for a multidimensional reading of
gender relations suited to understanding imbalances and dynamics in the academic world. It treats gender
as a historically constituted relational structure that is in constant change, recognizes the probability of
conflicts within each gender order and regime, and encourages attention to neoliberal as well as to other
contextual influences on universities’ practices and transformations. Interventions and actions aimed at
fostering gender equality in higher education have necessarily to start from this awareness. They must
avoid any shortcuts and temptations of celebration and demonization. Finally, they must acknowledge the
existence of multiple narratives and discourses, each of which is rife with paradoxes and ambivalences and
is situated within specific historical-political-cultural contexts. Without such awareness, the risk of
meeting with failure and frustration seems assured.

Notes

1 The website can be found at cordis.europa.eu.

2 STAGES—Structural Transformation to Achieve Gender Equality in Science—at www.stages.csmcd.ro.
3 TRIGGER—Transforming Institutions by Gendering Contents and Gaining Equality in Research—at www.fp7trigger.com.
4 Gender budgeting is an application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process. It means a gender-based assessment of
budgets, incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process and restructuring revenues and expenditures
in order to promote gender equality (Council of Europe 2010).
5 GENIS LAB—Gender in Science and Technology LAB—at www.genislab-fp7.eu.
6 FESTA—Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia—at www.festa-europa.eu.
7 GARCIA—Gendering the Academy and Research: Combating Career Instability and Asymmetry—at www.garciaproject.eu.
8 Gender mainstreaming is a strategy for promoting gender equality based on the integration of the gender perspective into
every stage of policy processes.

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9 Debates about the adoption by European institutions of this approach have focused on the conflicts between “gender equality”
and “mainstreaming” and on the difference between transformation and integration. See Walby 2005; McGauran 2009.

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 10

The Holy Grail of Organizational Change

Toward Gender Equality at Work

Yvonne Benschop and Marieke van den Brink

After 30 years of feminist research and actions, we still have not reached the Holy Grail of gender equality
at work. In this chapter, we theorize one of the major problems today: the slow progress toward gender
equality in contemporary work organizations. Such a theory contributes to the general interdisciplinary
field of gender studies, fitting in particular into the subfield of “gendered organizations,” which is at the
crossroads of (critical) management and organization studies and gender studies. Concepts such as gender
regimes or inequality regimes have been helpful to understanding the systematic, overall pattern of
interlocked practices and processes of gender, class, and race relations in organizations continuously
producing inequalities (Acker 2006; Connell 2006). Yet the academic knowledge on how to make changes
toward gender equality1 in organizations has lagged seriously behind. This chapter sets out to contribute to
the development of a feminist theory of change toward gender equality in organizations.2
We start by identifying the different actors involved in organizational change toward gender equality
and their take on the subject. Several authors have hinted that the academic–practitioner divide hinders
fruitful knowledge exchange and collaboration (Benschop and Verloo 2011; De Vries 2015; Kulik 2014).
This divide between feminist research and activism is apparent in other fields such as violence against
women and education. Yet in the context of organizations it seems that a rather strict division of labor
occurred between the academy and practice, with practitioners in the mud of organizational change,
academics in the ivory tower of analysis, and consultants running up and down the stairs to connect the
two. These major players all seem to have their own perspectives on organizational change toward gender
equality. As Connell (2006, 837) notes, “The way we think about gender is a key to the way we act on
gender reform.” We examine the local gender knowledge (Cavaghan 2012) of these different actors.
We argue that there is a politics to this local gender knowledge, in the sense that some bits of knowledge
are seen as more legitimate and visible and carry more weight with decision makers on organizational
change. This affects the progress of change and should be taken into account in any theory of change.
These are the two core questions of our chapter: How do different key actors envision organizational
change toward gender equality? How do their perspectives facilitate or hinder change toward gender
equality in organizations? The answers to those questions relate to the politics of knowledge and contribute
to a theory of change toward gender equality generally.
We distinguish between two groups of actors involved in creating knowledge for theory and the practice
of change processes toward gender equality in organizations: academics theorizing organizational change
and consultants researching and advising organizations to change. We note that of course the boundaries
between these two perspectives are blurred and that there are academics who engage in consultancy and
consultants who cross over to academia. In order to capture the local gender knowledge available, we
analyze academic writings and consultancy reports on organizational change toward gender equality. We
access the practitioner perspective in this chapter through the academic and consultancy publications about
practices of change and the role of organizational change agents, such as diversity professionals, managers,
ambassadors, or champions (Kirton, Greene, and Dean 2007). It is clearly beyond the scope of a single
chapter to discuss all the local gender knowledge available. Therefore, we focus on three core issues that

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feature most prominently in current writings about organizational change toward gender equality and are
presented as the crucial elements of any attempt to change. The first issue concerns the change of
organizational cultures and structures. When thinking about changing gendered cultures and structures,
specific issues arise around the commitment of top management (second issue) and the engagement of men
in change efforts (third issue).

Short Note on Methodology

To provide a comprehensive and critical review of the literature on gender/diversity and organizational
change, we conducted a series of searches using the Institute for Scientific Information’s Web of
Knowledge database. We used the following keywords in different combinations: organizational change,
gender equality, diversity, inclusion, commitment, top management, leadership, champions, engaging men,
men in gender equality, organizational culture change, structural change organizations. To cover books and
book chapters as well, we additionally searched on Google Scholar with similar keywords. We refined our
search to select material published in the period 1995–2015 because (a) an analysis of the first selection of
publications showed a growing academic interest in changing organizations from 1995 onwards, and (b)
similarly the data show that the year also corresponds to the time when diversity research started to
proliferate in management studies (Özbilgin et al. 2011). The vast majority of the articles and book
chapters we found documented and analyzed gender inequalities in various sectors of the labor market,
from sports to the financial sector, and from health care to development. In contrast, we were looking for
academic work that specifically and explicitly centered on instruments for or accounts of organizational
change programs or projects on gender inequalities. We therefore only included academic publications that
concern actual organizational change efforts toward gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. By going
through these publications and their reference lists, we added publications that were considered relevant
but that had not showed up in our initial search. The result is a vast array of publications on gender and
change in organizations from different disciplines and perspectives.
For consultancy publications, we identified global consultancy firms that publish research and advice
about gender equality change projects. Two such companies regularly report on gender equality: Catalyst
and McKinsey, both originally from the United States but also active across the Western world. We
searched their websites and publications to identify reports on strategies for creating inclusive cultures or
workplaces, or both, including changing organizational cultures and ways to engage men in gender
equality work. Our analysis begins with a review of the competing perspectives of academia and
consultants regarding organizational change toward gender equality.

Changing Organizational Processes

The first key issue we discuss concerns the different perspectives of academics and consultants on
changing organizational processes. For academics, the focus on organizational processes was a new
alternative strategy for creating gender equality in organizations, differing from earlier approaches such as
“fixing the women” and “valuing differences” (for an overview of approaches, see Ely and Meyerson
2000). Both are strategies focused on the individual that forget to target the organizational cultures and
structures that reproduce the hierarchical valuing of gender difference in organizations (Meyerson and
Kolb 2000; Zanoni et al. 2010). Acker (2006) was one of the pioneers arguing that organizations
systematically produce inequality because organizational structures and cultures are not gender neutral. Ely
and Meyerson (2000) argued that making the workplace more inclusive entails a postequity approach that
changes core organizational processes, beliefs, cultures, routines, and structures. Changing these
taken-for-granted organizational routines and practices attempts to undermine the roots of inequality by
fundamentally altering the way work is defined, executed, and evaluated (Ely and Meyerson 2000). This
approach advocated action research and close collaboration with organizational “change agents” to change
gendered structures and cultures as the most effective way to enhance gender equality (Liff and Cameron
1997; Nentwich 2006). Little empirical work has been published on how exactly these organizational

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processes can be changed (Benschop et al. 2012; De Vries 2010), and which initiatives and practices have
proven the most effective in different settings (Kalev, Dobbin, and Kelly 2006). The research that does
exist mainly highlights the reasons for the limited success of change initiatives (Eriksson-Zetterquist and
Styhre 2008; Liff and Cameron 1997).
Another strand of literature that focuses on changing organization processes stems from (critical)
diversity studies and uses the concept of inclusion (Holvino, Ferdman, and Merrill-Sands 2004; Mor-Barak
and Cherin 1998; Roberson 2006). Inclusion shifts attention to creating an organizational context in which
everybody feels like an insider and “encompasses involvement, engagement, and the integration of
diversity into organizational processes” (Roberson 2006, 228). These changes in organizational processes
must lead to an inclusive culture in which employees must be able to both bring their “uniqueness” to work
and have a feeling of belonging (Shore et al. 2011). Organizations that are inclusive involve employees in
critical organizational processes such as decision making (Mor-Barak and Cherin 1998), encourage equal
treatment of all employees, and simultaneously recognize and acknowledge individual differences (Zanoni
and Janssens 2007). In line with the literature on organizational processes described above, work on
inclusiveness has not yet yielded comprehensive knowledge about how to create such an inclusive culture.
An exception is inductive identification of the organizational practices that foster the valuing of multiple
competencies (uniqueness) and the ability to express multiple identities (belongingness), two key markers
of inclusiveness (Janssens and Zanoni 2014).
All in all, the academic perspective on organizational change toward gender equality advocates
transformational change of organizational structures and cultures. The core idea is that persistent
inequalities and their underlying power processes can be changed only if organizational processes are
transformed, because the interventions geared at changing individual employees or managers will leave the
gendered system intact.
The emphasis on organizational processes, culture, and inclusiveness is also reflected in consultancy
reports. Catalyst published a series of reports on inclusive workplaces and cultures (Catalyst 2015),
introducing change models that are applied to member organizations. These models are based on literature
on organizational change, but they hardly engage research from academic gender and diversity studies. As
a consequence, these reports use the concept of inclusiveness and inclusion as key but fail to clarify what
an inclusive culture entails. For instance, one report introduces a model for creating inclusive workplaces
that includes leadership, change commitment, and developing a business case. This report builds on
field-based insights about the effective management of change initiatives. However, no specific attention is
paid to what inclusiveness entails.
McKinsey’s Women Matter report (McKinsey 2015) focuses on gender equality at the top of
corporations. A study of 1,400 managers from a wide range of companies worldwide points toward the
need to create an “ecosystem” of measures including strong chief executive officer/top management
commitment, human resource policies, development programs, and performance indicators on diversity. In
addition, the report suggests that gaps in the corporate culture and mind-sets can be addressed by
“inclusive programs” that can build awareness among men about the greater difficulties women face in
reaching the top. These inclusiveness programs thus seem to be focused on bias training for men.
Summarizing, we observe that the perspective of consultants presents inclusive cultures in a positive
light, primarily as good for business, and remains largely silent about gender inequalities and underlying
power processes. Inclusiveness equates to women’s participation at the decision-making table, a
participation in business as usual without changing the gender order.
Creating inclusive workplaces and changing core organizational processes have been a dominant topic
in both academic and consultancy literature. Both stress the need to change organizational practices and
beliefs, such as leadership and cultural notions about the quality of employees. In the academic literature
changes in practices and beliefs are needed to counter power inequalities; in consultancy publications,
changes are geared to the realization of members’ full human potential, ultimately providing competitive
advantage to the employer. Neither academic nor consultancy publications have answers for how to
accomplish these difficult change efforts, but consultancy reports have a more positive and instrumental
tone of voice, and they propose models and stories to show that change is possible. This pattern may be

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related to the fact that consultancies’ core business is selling advice to corporations. The need to sell
advice limits the opportunities for profound critique or acknowledgment that change is difficult and
multifaceted. Consultants may play down critique because it is risky to bite the hand that feeds. Also, an
inclusive workplace, in the consultants’ view, is a workplace with women participating in top
management. Inclusion is thus restricted to giving women a boost up the ladder, leaving intact the ladder
that hindered them in the first place (Cockburn 1989). Contradictorily, the academic literature targets that
ladder, emphasizing the difficulties that arise when changing organizational processes, structures, and
cultures. These studies have been critiqued for not being practically oriented and lacking guidelines on
how to make organizations more gender equal (Benschop et al. 2012). Another striking difference is that
consultants talk about the fashionable topic of inclusiveness but do not explicate what it is beyond mere
participation. They hardly address “belonging” and “uniqueness,” both of which are central to the
academic notion of inclusion among diversity scholars.

Commitment from the Top

The second core issue is the commitment of top management. Turning to academic literature about
organizational change generally and gender equality more specifically, the premise of the commitment of
top management stands out. This commitment is seen as important not only because of symbolic effects
but also because it increases the odds that equality actions are taken. The importance of top management
support for diversity is highlighted in the diversity literature (DiTomaso and Hooijberg 1996, 169), but
what this support entails is not elaborated.
The commitment of top management to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion is expected to lead to
diversity practices and outcomes (Dansky et al. 2003; Leo and Barton 2006). Studies on the leadership of
organizational change efforts point to leaders’ responsibilities as shapers and framers of organizations and
to their role as champions for equality and diversity in their organizations (Ng 2008). Van den Brink
(2015) argues that, for successful gender interventions, leaders must prioritize gender equality, create a
sense of urgency, provide financial and personnel resources, and display gender-aware leadership. Scholars
also point to tensions between commitment and action. Some studies show that leaders may express
positive attitudes toward gender equality as a principle but resist when it comes to concrete actions (Wahl
and Holgersson 2003). This suggests that the commitment of top management to gender equality is not
self-evident. Commitment may be only of a rhetorical nature, as it seems to be a challenge to engage
leaders into action that goes beyond sloganism (Cox and Blake 1991), verbal and symbolic support
(Holvino, Ferdman, and Merrill-Sands 2004), or lip service (Benschop 2000).
All in all, academic literature generally underlines the importance of commitment by top management
for gender equality change. Yet, in most studies, leadership commitment is problematized, and no studies
confirm that leadership is a success factor for change. This means that we need to develop more
knowledge about how and when leadership makes a difference in gender equality change.
The claim that leadership is crucial can also be found in any consultancy report on gender equality. Both
Catalyst and McKinsey frame the commitment of top management as a sine qua non condition for change
to happen. The chief executive officer (CEO) is seen as the primary role model who must be involved for
the rest of the organization to follow his/her example. Catalyst emphasizes a transformational leadership
style in which leaders communicate about the vision, establish coalitions, empower the change agents, and
negotiate conflicts. McKinsey stresses that senior executives need to tell stories, preferably personal and
emotional ones, about their engagement, experiences, and beliefs about gender diversity to strengthen the
case for diversity and to prompt more people commit to it. Interestingly, consultancy reports typically lack
information about the concrete actions that top managers must take in order to act upon this commitment.
They are vague about actions needed from leadership to advance gender equality. After all, any change
project benefits from a transformational, visionary leader who sets a strategy, tells stories, and empowers
the change agents. Two core issues are silenced in this nostalgic call for a strong leader. One is that men
who care enough about gender equality to act upon it are as scarce as the men and masculinities literature
on organizations illustrates (Collinson and Hearn 1994; Connell 1987; Martin 2001). The second is the

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naïveté of relying on a strong leader and a top-down approach to organizational change. The latter
overestimates the relative power of a leader in multifaceted and complex organizational change processes.
Commitment from the top for organizational change toward gender equality is, in our view, an
underresearched premise. Specification as to what this commitment of top management to gender and
diversity change initiatives actually entails is lacking in both academia and consultancy. Furthermore, it is
striking that the importance of commitment at the top is so readily and widely accepted when change
projects are often initiated elsewhere. Unions, for instance, play a role in advancing gender equality in
organizations through collective bargaining (Kirton and Healy 2013). Diversity networks and employee
affinity groups in organizations are drivers for change (Dennissen, Benschop, and Van den Brink 2014).
And, finally, some governments, notably Norway, enforce quota laws to increase the number of women in
top management positions.

Engaging Men
The third issue in changing organizations is the engagement of men in gender equality initiatives. This
relates to the issue of commitment at the top, as top managers tend to be men, but it goes beyond the top
layers of management to the involvement of all men. This issue has gained momentum in academic work,
particularly in more recent years. Connell (2005, 1801) notes how gender equality was placed on the
agenda of society, politics, and management by women, but stresses that men are necessarily involved in
gender equality reform because widespread support from both women and men is required. Furthermore,
current power relations have men in the control seat. As such, men act as gatekeepers for gender equality
(Connell 2005, 1802) and as the purported drivers and champions of gender change (De Vries 2015).
However, Wahl (2014) notes that male managers with basic levels of gender awareness do not necessarily
“have the required competence, or will, actually to become change-agents and initiate organizational
change” (143). Another rationale for engaging men reflects the belief that women who push for gender
equality are biased and primarily self-interested, whereas men can do so from an impartial standpoint with
only the best interest of the organization in mind (Van den Brink 2015). Ironically, this casts men as the
more legitimate champions of gender equality and adds another layer to the marginalization of women. De
Vries (2015) offers a more nuanced account, seeing two sides to this claim. On the one hand, the call for
engaging men can be framed as a way to make gender change an organizational problem instead of a
woman’s problem, stressing the organization’s responsibility and accountability for gender change in
organizations. On the other hand, De Vries stresses that engaging men cannot be set apart from gendered
notions of leadership that privilege men, notions that strengthen rather than undermine the gendered status
quo. Her study of Australian executives championing a gender change process shows the complexities of
gendered leadership of change in organizations.
The classic feminist adage that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house (Lorde 2003)
still features in the background of discussions of engaging men in gender equality changes. Yet reducing
men to protectors of male privilege is a simplified representation of men’s role in organizational change. It
fails to do justice to their importance in successful change and the genuine engagement of some men in
gender equality efforts (see, for instance, McKearney 2014), to the disadvantages men face in the gendered
division of labor (Connell 2005), or to the perils of masculine stereotypes for men who do dangerous work
when guided by macho masculinity norms (Ely and Meyerson 2010). Indeed, such categorical thinking
obscures the profound differences between men and the multiplicity of masculinities (Collinson and Hearn
1994; Martin 2001), with some benefitting from the privileges and others bearing the costs of gender
inequality and with some actively advocating and others actively resisting gender change. Several studies
recognize and encourage strategic alliances between women and men as the way forward for gender
change in their organizations (Benschop and Verloo 2006; Van den Brink and Benschop 2012).
Summarizing, the academic literature acknowledges the need to engage men in gender equality change.
Academic visions differentiate between men and masculinities, differentiating between men who benefit
and those who experience the disadvantages of gender inequality. It is the latter group that is expected to
contribute to changing organizations.

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 Turning to the consultancy publications, we find similar arguments for engaging men, such as the
mutual responsibility of women and men for gender equality change, and the leadership positions of men.
McKinsey (2015) reports on how the low level of engagement of men, men’s less favorable perceptions of
women’s leadership abilities, and men’s skepticism about the value of diversity initiatives are important
barriers to cultural change toward gender equality. They emphasize the necessity to move mind-sets,
stating that “ultimately, what is good for women will also be good for men—and for corporations” (7), but
without further substantiation. Catalyst has made the engagement of men a cornerstone of their activities,
publishing multiple reports and tools on the subject of engaging men (Catalyst 2015). Their key arguments
are that men are a largely untapped resource, and that male champions can be role models who influence
other men who are not convinced of equality. The reports result from a hybrid collaboration between
Catalyst researchers and gender studies academics, pairing scholarly research to consultancy advice. The
research exposes restrictive masculine norms that affect men in organizations, identifies barriers (apathy,
fear, ignorance) that prevent men from taking action, and offers ideas on how to raise men’s awareness of
gender inequality by defying some masculine norms, encouraging men to mentor women, and promoting a
strong sense of fair play. Catalyst presents concrete actions men can take to create an inclusive workplace,
and has developed a Diversity and Inclusion training program to increase men’s gender awareness,
examining what drives men’s interest in training and the perceived effects of a specific training program
on the attitudes and behavior of white men toward inclusion.
Summarizing, the consultants stress that men have to and can be engaged in gender equality work when
they are made aware of the benefits that gender equality has for them. While some publications analyze
masculine norms and inequalities, they remain largely silent about the loss of privilege that comes with the
change.
Engaging men in gender equality change is thus a topic of debate in both the consultancy and scholarly
literatures. Academics tend to acknowledge the legacies of feminism, the women’s movement, and
feminist scholarship that complicate men’s involvement in gender equality change projects (Hearn 2014).
In the consultancy publications we observe a preferred presentation of gender equality as a win-win project
benefitting men as well as women and not as a zero-sum game that only women benefit from and men
stand to lose. Further theorizing is necessary to substantiate these benefits for men, as changing
inequalities inevitably calls for a redivision of power along gender lines, and thus some men will have to
give up privileges. Simultaneously, the lack of progress on gender equality at work gives rise to the
development of strategies to include men in gender change projects. Especially alluring is involving men
in leadership positions to advance gender equality and move the project forward energetically. Of course
new complexities and dilemmas develop around what De Vries (2015) calls the gendered nature of
executive leadership for gender change and, more practically, around the gender awareness or lack thereof
of the men who lead.

Facilitating or Hindering Change?

Now that we have analyzed the perspectives of the key actors on three core issues, we come to the second
research question: How do the different perspectives facilitate or hinder change toward gender equality in
organizations? Academics tend to focus on the persistent and systematic nature of gender inequality, and
have little to say on how to change inequalities. As for the consultants’ perspective, they have a lot to say
about changing organizations, providing tools to change organizations to a certain extent, but without
addressing the issues of power and inequality.
Our position is that organizational change toward gender equality is hindered by the politics of
knowledge inherent in both perspectives. Politics drive academics to problematize organizational processes
to build theoretical contributions. Theory gets them published in international A+ journals, often leading to
inaccessible jargon that escapes practical significance (Sinclair 2004). Even with open access publishing
on the rise, the focus on theoretical contributions is hindering dissemination among a wider nonacademic
public. An incentive to bridge the gap to practice is lacking when academic survival depends on
international top publications as an end in itself, and not as a means to create knowledge that can be used

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by change agents in organizations to make a difference. Kulik (2014) argues that academics fail to deliver
on the knowledge needs of practitioners.
Consultants are also tied to their politics of knowledge, regulated by the neoliberal commercialism of
the business market. They seek to be hired by the powers that be, and thus are immediately implicated in
the management of the organizations they work for, even if they are presented as the outside innovators of
business (Sturdy et al. 2009). Consultants refrain from drastic critique or measures. They need to keep their
clients happy either as a matter of self-policing to secure the business relation, as a response to clients’
refusal of all too critical measures, or as a form of impression management promoting their capability to
make organizations change. Whereas scholars can boast academic independence, consultants need to
produce palatable results, preferably in the form of practical toolkits, checklists, and in-step recipes.
We thus note that the knowledge in both perspectives is limited. The different goals of academia and
consultancy hinder interchange and crossover between academic and consultancy knowledge. So, we are
left with the question of whether a feminist theory of organizational change for gender equality calls for a
critical dialogue between academics and consultants.

Conclusion
The goal of this chapter is to contribute to the development of a feminist theory of change toward gender
equality in organizations. We have shown that current theories about changing organizations toward
gender equality are hindered by the politics of knowledge among both academics and consultants.
Academic research lacks tangible starting points to bring about change. Consultants sell positive stories
about the possibilities for organizational change by providing clear-cut models and recipes. Yet their
understanding of cultural change valorizes change accelerators and key milestones, but fails to specify
what constitutes these accelerators and milestones for gender change. Since there is no one-size-fits-all
change recipe for all organizations, theoretical work should be informed by situated knowledge from the
inside of organizations. We thus argue that the knowledge from both groups of actors is necessary to
develop a feminist theory that can actually be useful for changing gender regimes in organizations.
In order to ensure the mutual learning and collaboration of the different actors, we need to work with the
politics of knowledge. Multiple perspectives are needed to grasp the complexity of change both
theoretically and practically. For feminist academics, this means a more pronounced engagement with
practical change agendas as well as with theoretical contributions. The work of feminist consultants would
benefit from a more realistic perspective on nonlinear, messy, and complex change processes.
Commitment to feminist principles may help to bridge the two perspectives, since they share the quest for
the Holy Grail of gender equality. Because of these shared goals, we are optimistic about the opportunities
for collaboration between feminist academics and feminist consultants. Action research projects provide a
learning environment in which collaboration can thrive when both parties are willing to transcend their
own perspectives, to be open to not-knowing, and to explore new roads to organizational change.
We conclude that a feminist theory of change needs to target organizational processes that reproduce
gender inequalities, needs the commitment of top management, and the active engagement of both women
and men. In Connell’s terms, this means a change in the gender division of labor, in gender relations of
power, and in gender culture and symbolism (Connell 2002). We concur with Connell (2005, 1819) who
emphasizes the need for widespread social support for gender equality and wants to treat men
systematically as agents in gender equality processes in organizations. After all, both women and men
stand to gain from changing gender relations in hegemonic masculine cultures that can be dysfunctional
and dangerous (Ely and Meyerson 2010). We have demonstrated that we currently are missing in-depth
knowledge on the form of leadership required to realize this kind of gender change. The issue is
preeminently an area for dialogue and collaboration between academics and consultants who are driven by
a feminist agenda. They can collectively provide insights into the specificity of gender change processes in

134
comparison to other change agendas. This will help us understand which strategies, interventions, and
actions of leaders are needed and what dilemmas they encounter. We realize that overcoming the politics
of knowledge is no easy endeavor, but one that just may set us on the right path to the Holy Grail.

Notes

1 We define gender equality in organizations as the equal access of participants to power and control over goals, resources,
outcomes, influence on decisions, opportunities, security and benefits, and pleasures (cf. Acker 2006).
2 We would like to thank the editors and especially Pat Martin for her thoughtful comments and suggestions to improve this
chapter.

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 Part IV

Dynamics of Masculinities

The chapters in this section concentrate on masculinities—and demonstrate how far research on this topic
has traveled in the past thirty years. In the first chapter, Kopano Ratele argues that since all practices are
embedded with past traditions and all traditions are gendered, masculinities scholars should not, as they
often do, equate “traditional masculinity” with patriarchy and domination. Specifically, Ratele critically
assesses the notion of tradition for men in societies that were formerly colonized and now are subject to
globalization forces that are “modernizing” masculinity conceptions. Colonization and globalization have
placed African men under multiple pressures that affect their relationship to community culture and
practices. The issue is dramatized by the life and death of Nelson Mandela, who valued deep ties to his
community of origin but faced very different demands in the world of national and international politics.
Ratele advises viewing tradition as an open question, not as a given, and concludes that traditions in
masculinity are multiple, uncertain, and contestable.
The second chapter, by Gul Ozyegin, reassesses the place of patriarchy in gender theory. Ozyegin
investigates this through new and emerging masculine practices, focusing on the “unpatriarchal desires” of
young adult Turkish men who publicly disavow patriarchy while in practice constructing unequal gender
relations—reproducing a masculine-patriarchy nexus in new ways. Ozyegin reports a case study of a
young couple—Oktay is the man, Sezen the woman—to explore how patriarchal values associated with
“protecting” a woman operate in a new context. Oktay wants a “modern” young woman but he also wants
Sezen to subordinate her interests (and time) to his. The existence of patriarchy in a society where legally
women and men have equal legal rights causes dilemmas for young men like Oktay. Ozyegin’s conclusion
is that Sezen has undergone liberation in her life options while Oktay has garnered conflict and confusion
in his.
A third chapter by Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe takes the idea of newly emerging masculinities a
step further (this time in the global North) by examining the meanings of contemporary transformations of
masculinity. Bridges and Pascoe explore how distinct hybrid masculinities both accomplish and obscure
gender inequality and how they can be understood through Connell’s notion of “symbolic relations.” They
ask if nonhegemonic masculinities are truly on the increase, thus creating a chink in men’s privileges
relative to women’s. The answer is no: the emergence of hybrid masculinities is not a sign of improving
gender equality. The apparent loosening of masculinity norms, rules, and policing that hybrid masculinities
are said to offer is primarily an increase in flexibility for privileged white men (and boys). They add
options for how these men can act and show that they are “being men.” They do not challenge hegemonic
masculinity as we know it nor the gender system that exploits and subordinates women as well as gay and
racial minority men. Bridges and Pascoe call into question any assertions that hegemonic masculinity is on
the decline.

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 11

Concerning Tradition in Studies on Men and Masculinities in

Ex-Colonies

Kopano Ratele

Following his death on December 2013, the first president of postapartheid South Africa was laid to rest in
Qunu, the Eastern Cape Province, where he had spent part of his boyhood. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s
passing generated massive international coverage. Messages of condolence and support for his family, his
comrades in the African National Congress (ANC), and the country over which he governed came from all
over the world. Many of the world’s premiers came to honor him for his statesmanship. International and
local celebrities paid homage to his acts as a man who forgave his white oppressors. His personal
development and political leadership in moving blacks and whites toward reconciliation were liberally
praised in global and local media.
The numerous well-deserved tributes notwithstanding, some observers reminded us of the many turns,
contradictions, and dilemmas that characterized the man’s life. Among these was that Mandela was born of
the royal house of abaThembu people in rural Eastern Cape where he herded cattle as a boy, grew up into a
radical African nationalist who at one stage took up armed struggle, served a very long prison term for his
political beliefs, and became a globally recognized icon of peace and forgiveness. Given where he came
from, a turn that Mandela had to negotiate relatively early in his life was that he could have become a chief
among the abaThembu but was pulled toward the pursuit of national liberation. Another noteworthy
contradiction was the apparent tug between self and group in Mandela’s life, between being a charismatic
personality and a dedicated member of the groups to which he belonged (e.g., the ANC and abaThembu).
While these slices of Mandela’s life reference aspects of tradition, the dilemmas of interest in this
chapter are those that signal moments where cultural traditions knock against other social forces and
institutions.1 An example is when the command of a king bumps up against the laws of the state, or when a
practice seen as part of tradition (such as the practice of ukuthwala, meaning heterosexual marriage via
abduction among some Nguni communities) runs afoul of the law of a country. When Mandela died, then,
a question that had to be answered was how he would be buried: according to the customs of the
abaThembu royal house, or would he be given a state funeral (Ndeze 2013)? The key dilemma analyzed in
this chapter is how to understand tradition and men’s genders in ways that are not alienating to one’s
tradition or to one’s commitment to the ideals of men’s equality with women.
The notion of tradition attaches itself to various phenomena, including family, politics, gender, and
theory. All traditions are, however, ultimately about something handed down from previous generations
(e.g., parents, teachers, theories), a sense of belonging (to a place or group), a shared continuity of
experience (what does it mean to be a man or woman among abaThembu?). Defined as a historical
discursive and material resource, tradition is key (like nationality, race, or religion, for example) to a sense
of belonging and experience from which members of a group draw to apprehend the present, past, and
future. Crisply captured in the Sesotho language, setso (meaning where things or people come from),
tradition is indicative of not only extraindividual experience as a symbolic resource but of temporality too
(Glassie 1995). Speaking of Sesotho, language is, to be sure, a vital part of tradition, and therefore vital in
fully understanding traditions. The focus here is on cultural sorts of traditions, how they are considered in
theories, research, and activism around men and masculinities. By masculinities, following Connell and
Messerschmidt (2005, 836), is meant “configurations of practice that are accomplished in social action
and, therefore, can differ according to the gender relations in a particular social setting.”

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 The fascinating thing about using Mandela as an example of the conceptual question at the center of the
chapter is precisely that, in contradistinction with a figure such as Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, the fourth
president of democratic South Africa, the former seemed to have found answers to the apparent tensions
raised by his pride in his traditional Thembu customs and his role as a president of a multiracial/cultural
country that constitutionally upholds equal rights on the basis of, among others, race, belief, gender, and
sexuality (Ratele 2013). Working through such dilemmas might be productive in efforts toward a situated
and dynamic appreciation of traditions in studies on men and masculinities—not as more primary than
race, class, religion, sexuality, or age, but as one other vital social force that is co-constitutive with gender.
Mandela’s apparent reconciliation of the predicaments between “the traditional” and modern
constitutionalism notwithstanding, the chapter proposes that such tradition-inscribed dilemmas were never
fully worked out in his life and thus returned to haunt the man at the end. More abstractly, it is contended
that such predicaments are not restricted to men and women who are born outside major cities of the
world—the cities usually (self-)identified as modern or postmodern—even though they may be magnified
in the lives of subjects who have experienced colonial disruptions of the continuity of their “traditional”
social structures, relations, desires, and identities. “Colonial disruptions” signal colonization and
coloniality. A product of the conquest of the native by the colonizer, colonialism refers to a situation
whereby one national or subnational group is economically, politically, and culturally dominated and
exploited by another (Bulhan 2015; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2007). As relations that emerge from a specific
period in history yet outlast it, coloniality “refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a
result of colonialism, but that define culture, labour, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production
well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations” (Maldonado-Torres 2007, 243; see also Quijano
2000).
Although he is not a gender scholar, Paulin Hountondji’s work (1983, 2000) has been useful for
situating an engagement with tradition as part of a larger critique of the global neoliberal structures of
knowledge-making, including the international division of intellectual labor whereby the global South
produces raw data and the global North produces concepts (see Connell 2014b). Regarding cultural
tradition per se, Hountondji’s intervention is useful in challenging dominant thought and prevalent studies
on tradition. He has suggested that when we take on the task of analyzing the meanings of tradition in play,
we must always begin by resisting the temptation of instinctive justification but also that of irrational
contempt. The latter temptation he refers to as cultural imperialism based on first-order ethnocentrism,
most visible in a sense of superiority in Western traditions cultivated by scholars, writers, artists,
journalists, and ideologists, evident in Euro/American-centrism. The former temptation he calls cultural
nationalism, an unreflective reaction to the historical inferiorization and persistent marginalization of
cultures by Euro/American powers and Western hegemonies. This temptation takes the form of excessive
identification with one’s own culture. Hountondji (2000, 6) advises ridding ourselves of “the obsession of
the Other and develop again a free and critical relationship to our own cultures.”
Another theorist useful in approaching tradition is Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013), whose work draws
on the critical coloniality “school.” He illuminates how coloniality has been constitutive of what he calls
“post-colonial neocolonised” African cultural and gender relations and thought. Anibal Quijano (2007),
who is central to this school, has posited that while European cultural colonization was not as destructive
in Africa as it was in Latin America, it was intensive, delegitimating, and oppressive over African cultures
and modes of knowing and producing knowledge.
Part of the answer to neo/postcolonial African cultural and gender relations is to develop dynamically
situated anti/post/decolonial theories of culture and gender. By this is meant theories and tools to analyze
gender that take full recognition of the colonial disruption and the persistence of the ongoing coloniality of
cultural and subjective realities; theories and tools that begin from the concession of the interruption of the
continuity of some men’s and women’s lived experiences and sense of belonging by colonial invasion as
well as the durability of that interruption (see also Césaire 1972; Fanon 1965). Tools and theories like
these, focused on African realities, are not abundant. However, there are useful existing elements. I think,
for example, that a theory that offers a grip on the interweaving of personal life and social structure, such
as that of Connell (1987)—in particular the notions of gender as a social practice and hegemonic
masculinity—is very helpful. For gender thought centered on neo/postcolonial African social realities,

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however, we need other elements—for example, gender-critical work on African masculinities (e.g.,
Morrell 1998), and work on women that contests Western feminist thought (e.g., Amadiume 1987;
Oywùmí 1997).
This chapter does not attempt to analyze the relationship of tradition to masculinity in Mandela’s own
life. Neither does it dwell on the subject of gender within the traditions of abaThembu. Instead, the chapter
engages in further reflections (see Everitt-Penhale and Ratele 2015; Ratele 2013) on the entanglement of
masculinity and tradition as signaled in discourses such as those by Mbanjwa, Ngcukana, and Ndlangisa
(2013). The seeming shifts and paradoxes that featured in Mandela’s life, and his relationships as an
individual with his political vis-à-vis his cultural traditions, are of interest because they appear to confirm
the finding that lived experiences of masculinities are characterized by multiplicity and change, but also
because they suggest that the relationship of individual men to traditions can be dynamic and complex. On
this basis, a number of proposals are made in this chapter. A reconsideration of the notion that there is a
special category of men and masculinity (and women and femininity) to be referred to as traditional men or
traditional masculinity (traditional women or femininity) is warranted. A need exists to consider the
significance of tradition in the constitution of masculinities, but chiefly of men’s and women’s practices in
former colonies and neocolonies. We have to admit that all gender practices have traditions, and all
traditions embed implicit or explicit gender theories. And all concepts used to understand men and women
and their relations emerge out of particular cultures. Therefore, there is enormous need to undertake
theoretical and empirical work to undo the misrecognition of the traditional evident in a broad swath of
scholarship on men (cf., e.g., Levant et al. 1992; Mahalik et al. 2003), particularly subjects from the former
European colonies where tradition can be one of the bulwarks against contemporary Western
Euro-American economic and cultural colonization (see Quijano 2007).
This chapter seeks to carve out a clearer position for tradition within the field of men. The first section
stays with one of Mandela’s apparent dilemmas. Next I point out a need to cultivate space for the concept
of tradition within critical studies on men. I then suggest that tradition is a body of beliefs with associated
acts that have to be thought of as a resource. In that section I consider how, instead of misreading “the
traditional” (as in the concept of “traditional men”), what’s missing is thinking on time—how time,
generation, or history, are imperative in considering tradition in studies of men in neo/postcolonial
societies.

Mandela’s Dilemma
A starting point into the key dilemma at the center of the chapter and apparently inscribed into Mandela’s
struggles is something noted by Mbanjwa, Ngcukana, and Ndlangisa (2013). These journalists were
reporting on events surrounding the journey of Mandela’s body toward its final resting place in Qunu. The
newspaper article itself is a study of the multiple ties, identities, roles, and affiliations that defined
Mandela. From a critical masculinities perspective one sentence was striking in conveying the dilemma at
issue: “As only male relatives can accompany the plane according to abaThembu tradition, his grandsons2
Mandla, Ndaba and Zondwa Mandela travelled with the body” (n.p.). Immediately, a gender-critical
question about tradition pressed itself upon us: Why can’t females accompany the body of the deceased?
Others followed. Why do abaThembu send members of their group who die elsewhere back “home”?
Given the colonial and apartheid damage of African families and communities in South Africa and the
scattering of people around the world, where is home and who decides? Does the custom apply to all the
abaThembu or only to men born into royalty?
Intentional or not, the effect of that sentence was not only to provoke questions on gender and tradition.
It also suggested that the customary practice of male relatives being able to accompany bodies of deceased
was unchanged, absolute.
In the case of Zuma, he, the presidency, or the ruling party has had to recant, explain, or apologize for
his views on women and gays that undermine the Constitution and specific laws on equality and
nondiscrimination.3 In contrast to Zuma, Mandela appeared to have worked out the apparent dilemma that

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emerges when one takes pride in cultural traditions but also leads a modern multicultural polity that
guarantees gender and sexual rights (Republic of South Africa 1996). Yet Mandela had not fully resolved
the dilemma between his devotion to political liberation, in particular the liberation of women, and his
obvious fondness toward his boyhood traditional customs, as is apparent in his acclaimed autobiography,
Long Walk to Freedom. In the early part of the book Mandela reflects on his childhood growing up among
the Xhosas:

My life, and that of most Xhosas at the time, was shaped by custom, ritual and taboo. This
was the alpha and omega of our existence and went unquestioned. Men followed the path
laid out for them by their fathers; women led the same lives as their mothers before them.
Without being told, I soon assimilated the elaborate rules that governed the relations
between men and women. (Mandela 1994, 13)

The insinuation in this extract is that the singular path followed by most Xhosa men or women was fixed,
that the rules that govern gender relations were unquestioned. In Xhosa tradition, men follow(ed) the path
of the fathers and women that of their mothers. Mandela assimilated the rules of how to be a Xhosa man.
Yet the point of this narrative is that Mandela would question. He became something other than what
custom intended. He was a different man—although it can be argued that it was because he left the village
for the city, even if he remained Xhosa.
Mandela misconstrued tradition, understanding it in too deterministic a way. Some boys do/did not
follow their fathers, and some girls do/did not lead the same lives as their mothers. Even in villages where
life is slow to change, there is always a questioning both of custom and the gender order (Connell 1987).
While he nursed a fondness for his childhood, Mandela sets up custom, ritual, taboo, and rules to make up
a straw man against somewhere else where subjects question and change is commonplace. More crucially,
Mandela misreads how gender arises from a given cultural tradition and in turn shapes tradition. To change
cultural tradition requires a study of how men and women are defined and relate to each other within that
tradition. To achieve fundamental change in gender relations demands an inquiry into traditions.
Other moments that indicate that Mandela misread tradition appear throughout the book and his
documented life. Zolani Ngwane (2014) has remarked that the contestation of Mandela’s divorce from
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his second wife, was on the grounds that the husband had neglected
abaThembu custom whereby tribal elders should have been asked to mediate the dispute between wife and
husband. In his response during the trial, Mandela said: “I respect custom, but I am not a tribalist. I fought
as an African nationalist and I have no commitment to the custom of any particular tribe” (Ngwane 2014,
115). Ngwane sees Mandela’s words as indicative of his ambivalent attitude toward tradition. Certainly,
but it is tradition in relation to something else: African nationalism, global politics, relations between
women and men. For instance, Mandela’s ambivalence crops up from not having fully worked out the
relation between one’s (anti)”tribalist”4 sentiments and pronationalist commitments. In other cases the
contradiction might emerge from not having worked out the relationship between “traditionalist” family
relations and egalitarian masculinities.
It would be inaccurate to consider these instances from Mandela’s life as expressive of a prototypical
member of abaThembu, even though he would have been a chief had his father not been deposed by the
colonial administration, or as an expression of hegemonic masculinity among abaThembu men,
postcolonial African political leaders, or black men. The dilemma reveals the difficulty of fully grasping
constructions of masculinity outside of traditions.
Awareness about the place of cultural processes also clarifies how Mandela, or some African political
leaders, could be powerful without embodying hegemonic masculinity in their nation. “Constructed in
relation to women and to subordinated masculinities,” hegemonic masculinity refers here to “the cultural
ideal (or ideals) of masculinity,” as Connell (1987, 186 and 184) observed. She also stated that although
hegemony does not preclude force, a masculinity achieves a hegemonic social position that reaches “into
the organization of private life and cultural processes” (Connell 1987, 184). The choice of culture by

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Connell seems significant. At various places in Gender and Power there is awareness of the cultural
locatedness and limits of Western gender theory. For instance, Connell contends:

Social scientific theories of gender are a Western invention, as far as I know, and definitely
a modern one. Other civilisations have had their own ways of dealing with human sexuality
and the relations between the sexes. As Indian eroticism and Chinese family codes
illustrate, these can be as sophisticated and elaborate as anything the West has created. But
they are different kinds of cultural formation. (1987, 24)

And she adds: “When relations between cultural elements change, new conditions for practice are created
and new patterns of practice become possible” (ibid., 289).
An analysis of Mandela’s gender ideas and cultural politics would certainly be interesting as he
offers—in a context of cultural change—a potentially different model of manhood and cultural
subjectivity, particularly as he was a politically powerful man. There are also several moments in his
(auto)biography that illustrate this constant movement in and out of psycho-discursive practices of
“traditional,” “modern,” powerful, and marginal masculinity (Wetherell 2008; Wetherell and Edley 1999).
What I wish to stress is that Mandela was mistaken in his notion about the indisputability of custom, ritual,
and taboo, and his incorrect analysis of the relation between tradition and gender was based on his
ambivalent refusal to engage tradition. As Ngwane (2014) contended, “Like most intellectuals, Mandela
believed he could patronise or pay tribute to tradition (by engaging an imbongi, paying lobola or hosting a
ritual slaughtering) while retaining his independence from its precepts.” In short, the notion that the
traditional is never questioned misrecognizes the social, political, and ideological character of tradition.
The dilemma of abaThembu custom pitted against nationalism may be particular to Mandela; however,
the general outline of the predicament, where local beliefs, ideas, or practices come up against globally
powerful ones, is widely observable. The challenge is to think of tradition in the light of gender theory and
gender as a constitutive element of culture.

Clearing a Space for the Concept of Tradition in Critical Studies on Men

Debates on the concept of tradition in discipines such as anthropology, folklore studies, and cognate
disciplines have been extensive, and it would be difficult to present a comprehensive review of the
literature (e.g., Ben-Amos 1984; Handler and Linnekin 1984; Gusfield 1967; Soares 1997). In research on
masculinities, tradition usually turns up as a term to distinguish some men/women and
masculinities/femininities from “others”—in terms such as “traditional men/women” and “traditional
masculinity/femininity” (see Carrigan, Connell, and Lee 1985). Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Michael
Messner (1994, 200) noted that in the context of the university classes they teach in the United States,
classes populated mainly by white and upper-middle-class students, traditional men would be “black men,
Latino men, immigrant men, and working-class men.” In a global context, the “others” include men in the
global South, homeless men, and rural men. It is crucial to also note that the figure of the “traditional man”
is not just used by students and nonresearchers but is also common among masculinity researchers
(Everitt-Penhale and Ratele 2015). Whether in everyday conversation or academic spaces, the injudicious
use of concepts like traditional men, and opposing it to modern or new men, tends to misrepresent gender
realities and ignore men’s structural positions (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994). Clearly, there is a
need to clear space for and bring new insights about tradition onto the field of men, so that we may ask
questions such as can “traditional men” mobilize against gender-based violence, and, vice versa, can
egalitarian men like tradition?
Tradition is fascinating precisely because within the body of work on men, even though commonly
alluded to, it is less common to find work that theorizes the concept (Santaularia 2010). Several reasons
may underpin the lack of engagment with the concept of tradition in studies of men (Everitt-Penhale and

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Ratele 2015). Among these is a tendency to interpret the concept to refer to mere factitiousness or
convention. Too often, to cherish tradition is conflated with a lack of critical thought. Often identifying
with tradition is confounded with authoritarianism and conservatism. Although conservatism and
authoritarianism can be a feature of traditionalism, they do not exhaust tradition.
With regard to gender theory on men in former colonial contexts, because conservative patriarchal
traditions of the colonized had been appropriated by the colonizers as a key apparatus “to rationalise
domination by a minority over the rest of the population and thereby to justify social control through a
variety of political and directly coercive institutions” (Spiegel 1989, 49), scholarship on men’s gender
practices has largely disregarded contestations within traditions (but see Walker 1994, 2013).
Where people identify themselves with the dominant form of globalized Western modernity, traditions
tend to be treated as what “others” have. Conversely, in some parts of the world where there is a strong
identification with tradition as a bulwark, tradition as what “we” have. Yet all men and women have a past,
as Edward Shils (1971) said about all things. And, even while he cast it aside, Foucault (2002, 23)
observed that “tradition enables us to locate the new against a background of permanence.” To recognize
when and in what ways men change we need theories, research, and politics that recognize that all men and
masculinities, women and femininities—“new,” queer, and “traditional,” or African, American, or
“modern”—are embedded in traditions. Just as masculinities positioned as “modern” have been readily
seen as constructed, masculinity characterized as “traditional” cannot be conceived as the only ones with a
tradition; there are in fact plural “traditional” masculinities. The common deployment of “traditional
masculinity” is often inconsistent with some of the basic conceptualizations of masculinities studies.
Instead of taking tradition as ancient views from the past restricted to some men and women, masculinities
and femininities said to be traditional ought to be seen as socially constructed in the present, as historically
contingent, and as being impossible if not characterized by mutability.
The prevalent view of tradition in masculinity studies is of something fixed, a trait that only some men
have. Whereas masculinity is commonly accepted to be a cultural fact arising from gender relations,
masculinity defined as “traditional” tends to be something almost outside of time. Those who use the
concept of the “traditional” in this manner unconsciously, or consciously, sneak in classist, racist, or
ethnocentric prejudices about “othered” men and cultures (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994). A space
to study “traditional” masculinity/ies as something more than merely “invented” (Hobsbawm and Ranger
1983) but constantly shifting, heterogeneous, and as emergent from contemporary cultural relations of
gender is therefore desirable.
While the reification of tradition in relation to gender is evident in several disciplines, “traditional
masculinity” seen as a form of masculinity characterized by archaic attitudes and conduct is evident within
psychological studies of men, emanating largely from the United States (e.g., Burn and Ward 2005). There
is a US/Western European and usually urban, often white, and mainly middle class-centred view regarding
the concept of “the traditional” with respect to masculinities. However, psychological studies of men too
tend to individualize and pathologize traditional masculinity. Masculinity in general, and traditional
masculinity specifically, is seen as a personality trait, or an attitude, or something in the mind of
“backward” individuals (Mahalik et al. 2003; Thompson and Pleck 1995). For example, traditional
masculinity ideology has been associated with “restricted emotionality,” “self-reliance through mechanical
skills,” “negativity toward sexual minorities,” “avoidance of femininity,” “importance of sex,”
“toughness,” and “dominance” (Levant et al. 2010, 33). In this measure, traditional masculinity ideology is
turned into a property of individuals instead of ideas about tradition and gender. This strand of work on
tradition does not merely fail to recognize the intense debates on tradition in fields such as anthropology,
ethnology, and folklore, but also that what is called “traditional masculinity” is profoundly misleading.
Authoritarian masculinity is a better term.
Tradition emerges as a social problem precisely at the moment of change—whether in the nation, in
subnational groups, or among women or queers. It surfaces with queer struggles, with women’s liberation,
with the birth of the postcolonial nation—that is, at decisive ruptures in internal struggles around
recognition of a people, ethnicity, and language, women’s rights, and nonheteronormative sexualities.

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 Tradition as Particular Kinds of Beliefs
Tradition is a highly elusive and contentious concept. There are, however, several commonly accepted
meanings from which we can found a beachhead toward a more useful working concept. Tradition is
usually associated with words such as custom, lore, ritual, heritage, habit, taboo, common law, rules,
“tribal” identification, and belief. This is how Mandela seemed to understand tradition. However, all of
these are loose and unsatisfactory equivalents. Not all rules or habits are part of tradition. If tradition is the
same thing as, for instance, belief, then what kind of belief is tradition?
Tradition may be considered to be a set of shared beliefs, and accompanying acts, that the actors who
identify with the tradition take to be a resource in making sense of, and acting in, the present—a resource
that has social, political, symbolic, or ideological functions (cf., e.g., Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Glassie
1995; Shils 1971). A distinctive characteristic of these beliefs is that they are inherited. They are usually
tacit, but not always so. These beliefs make up one of the major social forces that operate in a given place.
Similar to religion, class, race, or gender, tradition can be deployed to segregate between in-group and
out-group members. It can be used to bring people together. It can be called forth when people need others
to help mark death, marriage, birth, or graduation into manhood (as done among amaXhosa when males
are sent for ulwaluko at a certain point of their lives; see Mandela 1994). It can be used to maintain
hierarchies within the group. It can be used to enhance personal standing in society.
Accounts of tradition have therefore to be understood as indicative of how the practices and experiences
of individuals, in the context of life with or against others and a collective past, are authorized, contested,
transmitted, inherited, interpreted, and reinvented. Beliefs taken to be part of a tradition are therefore
always a social enterprise. They are not psychological creations. Their principal value is that they are a
socio-symbolic resource for “believers.”
Tradition is also distinguishable from other kinds of habits in that it tends to more readily elicit a sense
of “us” or “them.” In this way it can be as powerful as, for instance, sexuality, socioeconomic status,
religion, or race. Tradition is raised when people wish to self-consciously locate themselves or others in
relation to the past, concerning how the present came about.
As earlier noted, the meaning of the term for “tradition” in Sesotho, a South African indigenous
language, refers to where a group of people or their ways of life, beliefs, customs, rituals, practices, and so
forth come from. This term signals how Basotho (speakers of the language Sesotho) comprehend tradition
as implicating generational movement. It points to history and the temporality that defines beliefs that
make up tradition. This insight makes history or social time an indispensable perspective in studying
masculinities and femininities in relation to tradition. Time is one of the two intertwined elements that I
would like to underscore. To speak of the “traditional,” I contend, without acccounting for social
temporality and history is absurd.
The second element requiring emphasis is the act of passing something down between generations.
Tradition is always intergenerational. How, though, are we to understand tradition in those cases where
intergenerational ties have been discontinuous? Such a question arises in the context where societies have
been disturbed by major social upheaval. But it also crops up where the transmission of tradition between
parents and children is rendered more complex because parents have died or left home. South Africa is a
dense example of such societies. Not only is it a former colony, currently approximately a million children
in the country are growing up in child-headed households (Hall, Meintjes, and Sambu 2014). I would like
to turn in the last part of this section and consider how these elements are crucial in thinking about
tradition, in studies of men, in neo/postcolonial societies.
An examination of where people come from and the inherited “things” that make up tradition becomes
at once imperative and demanding, because of intergenerational discontinuities and impaired bonds
between parents and children, and a widely shared sense of void where something ought to be (the absence
of a significant proportion of fathers, for example). While South African research on fatherhood has
problematized the discourse of absent fathers (e.g., Clowes, Ratele, and Shefer 2013; Langa 2014; Richter
and Morrell 2006), it has not thoroughly placed “fatherlessness” within the context of the impairment of

146
“traditional” cultural bonds, and of the colonial and apartheid evisceration of tradition as a shared social
and psychological resource. In trying to apprehend topics like fatherhood in neo/postcolonial contexts,
with tradition in sight, it seems necessary therefore to give serious consideration to interrupted historical
time, discontinuous intergenerational memory, and cultural disruption.
Among the effects of colonialism and apartheid was the degradation of the traditions of the colonized
and blacks. Colonialism and apartheid were purposefully geared toward the deformation of the cultural
worlds of the indigenous people, besides land robbery and labor exploitation. More precisely, the distortion
of tradition was the result of at least three interrelated processes.
First, aspects of tradition were pressed into the service of white capital accumulation. Able-bodied men
were forced or induced (usually under threat, but sometimes with the collusion of headmen) to leave their
families for superexploitative work in the growing mining industry. Migrancy in turn had myriad
unfavorable relationship-related consequences—besides interrupting intergenerational ties.
Second, tradition was vulgarized in order to serve the racial subordination of blacks to whites. White
men literally installed themselves as chiefs over black cultural affairs. Mandela (1994) remarks on this in
his autobiography in regard to the authority of white civil servants over tribal affairs, including the powers
allocated to them by law to depose and appoint chiefs.
Third, patterns of authority within black families were unhinged. White men, it could be said, in view of
patriarchal relations in white and black families, arrogated the roles of the father over black fathers and by
implication over all black subjects. Mohamed and Ratele (2012) have suggested that the history and
experience of becoming men and women under colonialism or apartheid pose a problem for black subjects
as they cannot return to the past without complication.
The interruption of cutural time by colonial conquest and apartheid policies—that is, the disruption of
socialized temporality as an element of tradition—implies that the inheritors of tradition may be uncertain
about their past even while they want to claim it. It means that contestations around tradition are more
complex and potentially unresolvable, but troubling for understanding gender relations on such a terrain,
because the disruption of tradition was a disruption of what it is to be a man and woman. Under colonial
and apartheid rule some men were refused the status of adult manhood. For men subjugated by colonialism
and apartheid, claims about a culturally valued masculinity were mixed with feelings of historical
humiliation and a desire to remember tradition.
It seems that without a historical perspective on tradition, analyses of masculinities in former colonies
remain very partial. A number of scholars who can be brought under the broad rubric of
anti/post/de-colonial theory may be of help in theorizing and researching masculinities in neo/postcolonies
as they have as one of their aims the examination of the historical and contemporary economic, political,
cultural, and social relations as constituted by imperialism, colonialism, and apartheid (cf., e.g., de Sousa
Santos 2010; Go 2013; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013). Some postcolonial theorists, such as Achille Mbembe
(2001), have called for investigations of how the former subjects of colonialism exist in and negotiate
different temporalities. Mbembe (2001, 8) has observed how “social theory has failed to account for time
as lived in its multiplicity and simultaneities, its presences and absences.” Viewed as chacterized by the
question of temporality, traditions in neo/postcolonial societies are enfolded in “an entanglement of
presents, past, and futures that retain their depths of other presents, pasts and future” (Mbembe 2001, 16).
A key concern in analyses of masculinities in neo/postcolonial cultures thus ought to be men’s and
women’s struggles precisely about and with tradition as a resource in the face of the power of globalized
Western European and American cultural hegemony. The questioning of the significance of tradition
happens even while they hold to some bits of their inherited beliefs (such as holding on to the value of
lebollo—a Sesotho term meaning the ritual initiation of boys into manhood). Men’s and women’s struggles
around tradition are attempts to recover lost time and restitch the continuity between generations. These
struggles may be examined as to how they speak to the intimate association of historical time, of the
disruption of the continuity between a generation of fathers and children. The invocation of tradition needs
to be analyzed for how it works to suture a ruptured sense of time in the life of indiviuals, groups, and
society. Individuals and groups are of course continually trying to reposition themselves in the flow of

147
disrupted time/temporalities. Thus, to speak of traditions may be one attempt to revive a sense of collective
and subjective time, to reclaim the continuity of experience between generations, between parents and
children, while also recovering memories and remaking a sense of commonality.
When Mandela said “men followed the path laid out for them by their fathers; women led the same lives
as their mothers before them,” he was betraying how the development of masculinities and femininities is
indispensable to tradition-making, and simultaneously how tradition is entwined with gender-making.
Gender relations do not sit outside of tradition, and instead are constitutive of that which is seen as
traditional. Tradition in turn authorizes proper and improper gender relations, constitutive of masculinities
and femininities. Gender relations, as Connell (1987) observed, are present throughout all of cultural life.
Therefore, conscious of some men’s and women’s deployment of the language of tradition to assert and
maintain gender patterns and ideologies, it is clear that in order for studies of gender in the global South to
realize their transformative potential it is necessary to consider discourses on traditions, to analyze ideas of
tradition in masculinity politics, theories, and research. Working on changing regimes of gender and
sexualities seems to imply usually indirect involvement with tradition. However, it seems preferable to get
more directly involved with tradition—that is, for critical masculinity scholars to deliberately aim to
transform the space of (gendered) tradition itself. It is vital to engage tradition because, while true for
many countries around the world, it is particularly in the global economic peripheries where tradition gets
more of a salient role as a resource to contest subjective and structural power, construct an original,
meaningful identity, consciously produce a life with others, and sustain a sense of continuity between
present, past, and future.

Notes

1 Grateful acknowledgement is due to Raewyn Connell, Michael Messner, James Messerschmidt, and Patricia Martin for the
kind invitation, gentle questioning, and editorial input that helped me in shaping this chapter.
2 Mandela had six children: two girls (one deceased) and two boys (both deceased) with his first wife, Evelyn Mase; and two
girls with his second wife, Winnie Madikizela Mandela. It was because the sons were deceased that the grandsons took the
place of their fathers.
3 For example, Zuma was challenged by gender activists on his comments that it is “not right” for women to be single,
childless, and that having children is extra training for a woman (Pillay 2012).
4 The “tribe” (and associated words like tribalist) is ill-advised. As Archie Mafeje observed, “In many instances the colonial
authorities helped to create the things called ‘tribes,’ in the sense of political communities; this process coincided with and
was helped along by the anthropologists’ preoccupation with ‘tribes’” (Mafeje 1971, 254).

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 12

Rethinking Patriarchy through Unpatriarchal Male Desires

Gul Ozyegin

Is patriarchy a useful concept for analysis of gender? How should we understand its relation to gender
theory? How does the concept of patriarchy as a system of male domination, neither uniform nor static,
figure into various domains of gender and gender vocabularies?
I employ the term “rethinking patriarchy” in my title to orient the reader to the particularities of the
Turkish case, but more importantly my usage is intended to recall a notable absence in gender theory. I
advocate a conceptual framework that can address a missing domain in gender theory: gender domination.
When patriarchy was expelled from Northern gender theory as too abstract, too broad, and ahistorical, it
seems we also vacated the domain of gender domination altogether from our theorical vocabularly and
dropped it from our conceptual toolkit. With the rise of the intersectionality paradigm,1 the anaytical power
of investigating how gender domination comes to be constituted, maintained, and transformed in particular
ways was diminished.
An important category of analysis, patriarchy is notably absent from the burgeoning literature on gender
in the West. The hegemonic intellectual categories of gender in contemporary feminist scholarship take us
away from explorations of the nature and dynamics of patriarchy. Now the paradigm of intersectionality
provides the dominant concepts of gender with a seemingly infinite and flexible capacity to animate
research and theory. Postcolonial feminist scholars have pointed out the growing strategic use and
transnational circulation of critiques of patriarchy as a strong marker of the boundaries between the global
North and South (the absence of patriarchy in the West but the existence of “patriarchy elsewhere”) in the
service of various economic and political global neoliberalization projects. Indeed, Inderpal Grewal (2013)
argues that “patriarchy” has been outsourced to the global South.
I propose that it would constitute a vital omission to our building of gender theory and politics to leave
out of our research and theory the experiences of those individuals who intrinsically link domains of
gender to patriarchy and who see themselves, their gender arrangements, and their struggles through a
prism of patriarchy.
Like Raewyn Connell, I see a major task in taking account of the theoretical concepts and methods
produced in the global South in the elaboration of gender as an analytic paradigm. Connell sees rendering
visible theories and concepts produced in the global South and bringing them into the center as the most
difficult contemporary challenge to the social sciences in which practices of Eurocentric knowledge
production rule. As she puts it cogently, feminist literature “works on the tacit assumption that the global
South produces data and politics, but doesn’t produce theory” (2014, 520). Actively privileging plurality
and the permeability of different theoretical voices to allow for the cultivation of a mode of knowledge
production, what Connell calls “cross-fertilization,” is a formidable task for it hinges on so many radical
institutional and political transformations. Cross-fertilization requires forging links that allow
understanding connected and mutually constitutive processes and, more importantly, as Connell
underlines, recognizing theory and concepts produced in the global South. Seeing, naming, and theorizing
the connections, I want to suggest, is also fundamentally dependent on theory embedded in substantive
empirical interrogation that captures experience in actually lived terms.
My goal in this chapter is to participate in the effort to build cross-fertilization and to deepen the
challenges of this concern with an illustration from my research. The task of this chapter is to reevaluate

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the place of patriarchy in gender theory from the perspective of heterosexual young men in Turkey who are
the subjects of, and mediums for, (re)producing patriarchy but who have unpatriarchal desires and struggle
to enact unpatriarchal identities and gender practices. It is toward this end that I approach the narratives of
love, sex, and self-making the young men shared with me.2 These men’s narratives provide a useful point
of entry for understanding historically and culturally specific configurations of masculinity and patriarchy.
Their narrated experiences of sex, love, and romance are telling, constituting a rich site for furthering the
theorization of the masculinity-patriarchy nexus, how they come together, and how they are uncoupled or
recoupled in speech, action, and intimate relations.

Patriarchy as “Elsewhere”: The Expulsion of Patriarchy from Northern Theory

Feminist scholars have used the concept of patriarchy as a foundational concept to describe and analyze
what they see as simultaneously an ideology, structure, and organizing force in social institutions and
practices for women’s gender-based subordination and oppression. While the patriarchy paradigm framed
many studies in the formative years of feminist scholarship, increasing debates among feminists about how
to define the category of “woman” formed a significant impetus for disowning interest in the concept of
patriarchy during the last decades of the twentieth century. Black and Third World feminists’ challenges to
the Euro-American second-wave feminist movement—its construction of white middle class heterosexual
women as the “unmarked” subject and object of feminist analysis—generated efforts to theorize
differences of race/ethnicity between women and to examine how these differences modify our
conceptions of subordination based on gender (Crenshaw 1989; Mohanty 1988; Spelman 1988). The
concept of patriarchy has come to be regarded as ahistorical, apolitical, homogenizing, lacking cultural
specificity, too abstract, and too broad—an imprecise category not useful in understanding the gender
order. It served to underlie white women’s oppression to the exclusion of other oppressions, obscuring the
complexities of class and racial oppression and Western colonialism.
Out of these concerns, a new paradigm—intersectionality—gained currency, seeming more
commensurate with the emergent queer movements, masculinity studies, the global women’s movement,
and postcolonial feminism. Feminist scholarship has placed the concept of intersectionality at the core of
feminist theory and politics, and intersectionality has excited feminist inquiry in many disciplines. Now
considered the basic building block of feminist theory, the intersectionality paradigm has, not surprisingly,
generated a great deal of discussion regarding how it should be precisely defined and where and how it
should be studied (McCall 2005; Davis 2008). The question emerges whether, by using intersectionality as
a theoretical tool, we are eliminating the analytical power of investigating how each category of difference
or inequality comes to be constituted and historically transformed in particular ways.
Two recent articles by postcolonial feminist scholars Inderpal Grewal (2013) and Vrushali Patil
(2013) reflect new and productive destabilizations of core assumptions about the decline of patriarchy in
feminist scholarship. Grewal notes that while we see an acknowledged abandonment of the concept of
patriarchy by theorists in the West, the relevance of patriarchy to describe “others” outside the
American-European contexts has been on the rise: “an essentialist notion of the term ‘patriarchy’ has
become naturalized in relation to the ‘Global South’”(7), serving to buttress and legitimate all kinds of
projects for fiscal gain (including wars waged to save women, as a contemporary version of the saving
“brown women from brown men”). Patil (2013) argues that in spite of the well-established critiques of the
concept of patriarchy, there is an unfinished agenda because much Western feminist writing has evaded the
intellectual and political challenges of investigating patriarchies working relationally on a transnational
scale and scope. She asks theorists to expand feminist inquiries beyond particular national settings,
taking up questions about how patriarchies were and are located in transnational contexts.

The Turkish Case

Turkey offers a transformative setting for reconsidering patriarchy in gender theory. Historically in Turkey

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patriarchy and paternalism have been intertwined and the definition of masculinity has been imbued with
dominance and a strong emphasis on men’s roles as protectors. As such, this specific constellation of
patriarchy and paternalism implicates traditional masculinity, like femininity, as “selfless”—a linkage that,
as we will see, forms a strong impetus for young men to actively disinherit traditional masculinity and
pursue self-consciously unpatriarchal selves. The Turkish case also helps unpack the ways young men
come to be invested in romance, over sex, as sources of recognition, challenging our understanding of
patriarchal desires and highlighting the importance of incorporating notions of patriarchy in gender theory.
At the present historical moment, we see the coproduction of global neoliberalism and local
“neoconservative familialism” (Korkman 2015), which together have led to the emergence of a new mode
of patriarchy (Coar and Yeenolu 2011; Kandiyoti 2011; Acar and Altunok 2012) in Turkey.3 The Islamist
government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power for the last 13 years,
promotes a new Turkey that fosters piety based on Sunni Islam by the top-down imposition of Islamic
morality. The government advances a pronatalist agenda and policies, prioritizing procreation in
heterosexual marriage, actively encouraging early marriage and at least three children, restricting abortion
rights, and challenging working mothers to part-time employment and work in the informal economy. In
short, the suturing of global neoliberalization with Islamization is a project linked to the fortification of
patriarchal familialism. At the same time the strong dissension and resistance to this fortification animates
and shapes feminist and LGBTQ movements.
While melding neoliberalism with neoconservatism is remaking patriarchy, during the last two decades
the patriarchal underpinnings of law have been marginalized or eliminated. During the early 2000s, a
strong feminist campaign within the context of the EU accession process resulted in gender-egalitarian
legal and policy reforms that have granted women equal citizenship rights. The new civil code of 2001
equalized the status of husband and wife in the conjugal union by abolishing the concept of the head of
family, establishing full equality with respect to rights over the family abode, marital property, divorce,
child custody, and rights to work and travel. The new penal code of 2005 reclassifies sexual crimes like
rape as crimes against the individual rather than as crimes against “public morality” or “community order.”
During this time state paternalism has also undergone a process of dismantling. Historically, the Turkish
welfare system has been structured around a patriarchal male-breadwinner family norm in which women’s
dependence on male protection formed a vital source of security (social security, health insurance, and the
pension system). The AKP’s reform of the welfare system was instigated by gender-neutral neoliberal
policies, with an emphasis on the privatization of the benefits systems. The reforms eliminated women’s
privileged access to social transfers. However, this dismantling of the paternalistic welfare state is
increasing women’s vulnerability to economic and social risks precisely because with new economic
policies women are being pushed to part-time employment in the formal sector and work in the informal
sector that more than ever is reinforcing patriarchal gender identities and roles, particularly the valorization
of motherhood and caregiving as women’s central roles and identities in Turkey, while (re)constructing
men as protectors of women (Dayolu and Balevent 2012; Toksöz 2012).
The most recent perspectives on men and masculinities in Turkey bring our attention to a crisis of
hegemonic masculinity. They highlight the ever-increasing global centrality of neoliberal economic
transformations, the newly enacted conservative national policies, the altered forms of the gendered
division of labor, fatherhood, and militarism and warfare, and how these processes destabilize the
reproduction of hegemonic masculinity. Importantly, these perspectives aim precisely to grasp the native
self-understanding and practical realizations of this crisis as they are worked out on the ground. This
approach involves an emphasis on subjectivity and attention to the interconnections between the global and
local, the role of the state, and how these factors come together to shape the types and forms of
(re)negotiations and enactments of masculine identities (Açksöz 2015; Bepnar 2015; Özbay 2015).

Imported Vernaculars
Turkey also provides an important context for discussing the ways experience is retained and theorized in
actual analysis. There is considerable distance between theorizations of gender in the North and

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importation of its terms from English and the vernacular feelings their adaptations create. “Gender” is a
relatively recent coinage in Turkey, translated from English. Gender as translated in Turkish is toplumsal
cinsiyet, literally meaning “societal sex.” Transforming a genderless meaning of sex into gendered
toplumsal cinsiyet constructs categories that allow us to speak about socially constructed experiences and
identities. However, the specific vernacular feelings toplumsal cinsiyet create are awkward and do not lend
themselves to easy mobilization in creating discursivity for social movements. For instance, instead
of gender-based inequalities (toplumsal–cinsiyete dayal eitsizlik), the feminist movement uses the
expression kadn erkek eitsizlii (inequality between men and women) or erkek devlet (male State). The
common vernacular words patriarki or erkek iktidar (male power or ataerkil, paternal power), on the other
hand, allow us to speak about lived experiences. They are versatile in referencing perceptions and
symbolic inferences, forming a core imaginary and providing the images, norms, and ideals for people’s
self-understanding of their struggles. In short, not gender but notions of patriarchy and practices of
patriarchy in creating gender-based system of domination provide a language and symbolism with which
to imagine and represent experiences. Thus, the concept/critique of patriarchy is an anchor of local
feminist movements and theory. I propose that we should not underestimate the importance of political
attachment to patriarchy as a struggle term deployed within feminist/women’s movements. It would
constitute a vital omission to our building of gender theory and politics to leave out the experiences of
those individuals who intrinsically link domains of gender to patriarchy and who see themselves, their
gender arrangements, and their struggles through a prism of patriarchy. We should not also underestimate
the effective significance of the vocabulary of patriarchy on the ground in contexts in which feminism and
its movements have been posed explicitly against patriarchy.
My perspective on theory construction is that theory is produced within a dialogical realm, a form of
interpretive and imaginative exchange between the analytical tools we employ and the experiences of the
subjects of our studies as narrated to us or observed by us. In order to be locally and politically relevant,
feminist theory must both sustain and critique the terms of reference of our ethnographic subjects and their
experiences while “also lead[ing] fruitfully beyond it” (Connell 2014, 539). Otherwise, in reference to this
discussion here, women and men who believe that their relations are defined by patriarchy find themselves
unrepresented, and indeed unpresentable, within a theoretical language devoid of the key terms of
patriarchy.

Unpatriarchal Male Desires

The young men I interviewed came of age amid Turkish society’s pivot away from state-based paternalism
and have been intensely subjected to the ethos of neoliberalism. Accordingly, they see themselves as
embarking on projects of “entrepreneurship of the self” where old ideals of paternal selflessness are
replaced by new ideals of masculine individualism, ambition, and pleasure seeking. The young men I
spoke with believe that their fathers’ lives followed a predetermined teleological course imbricated in
patriarchal history. Their lives were marked by the conformity of protective paternalism and structured by
a patriarchal order that devalued male passion, emotionality, creativity, and authenticity. Although the
impact of fathers is complex and dynamic, what remains consistent across the young men’s narratives is
the sense that adhering to the patriarchal association between masculinity and protection provided their
fathers with narrow ranges of identity. By contrast, these young men’s identity-making hinges on
self-expansion through the invention of new forms of subjectivities, pleasures, and relationships.
As these men reject the patriarchal modes of masculinity modeled by their fathers, they explicitly seek
new types of affective relationships with “selfish” women who break with the traditional models of female
selflessness embodied by their mothers by privileging their own desires and ambitions. Especially for those
upwardly mobile men from traditional family backgrounds who lack suitable others to confer recognition
on their new masculine selves, relationships with such women become important sites upon which they
confirm the success of their self-making. Yet, as we will see, even as these men seek recognition and
support for their own self-making from women who are equally driven and independent, they cannot
completely repudiate the maternal model, longing at the same time for “positive” “selfless” girls who
subordinate their desires to the needs of the relationship. The tension of this paradox is felt most acutely by

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men from conservative and rural family backgrounds whose desire to be recognized as desirable and
important in intimate relationships with young women who have their own desires for recognition can lead
to male domination, jeopardizing these men’s projects of creating unpatriarchal male identities.
Precisely because these men are authoring new types of masculine selves, dependent on recognition
from suitable others, the desire for intimacy and recognition emerges as more important than the desire for
sex in their narratives. The desire for recognition is a powerful formative force in structuring masculinities
in a cultural context that steeps desire in a patriarchal tradition, a tradition of motherly devotion and of the
privileging and adulation of sons’ desires and needs. I examine the terrain of these anxious boundaries and
how they are experienced from the point of view of one 23-year-old man: Oktay.4 The stories and themes I
draw upon from my research in this section bring Oktay into the foreground in ways that help make
concrete theoretical points about what interrupts or changes the patriarchal construction of masculinity as
dominant and protective in Turkish society.

(Re)Making Male Dominance: Oktay’s Story

In our interview, Oktay declared that “the woman I will marry [will] have a different life than my
mother’s,” signaling his self-conscious and active rejection of paternal masculinity. An ambitious,
high-achieving 23 year old, Oktay was raised in a traditional home structured by patriarchal gender and
sexual values. According to Oktay, dominating intimate female others is central to his father’s identity.
Oktay described his mother, a homemaker with limited formal education, as a typical selfless mother. In
our interview, Oktay revealed that he does not feel he really knows his mother, a fact he attributed to her
total selflessness: “Because, I think, it is not permitted to know her; she makes herself obliterate, puts her
desires in the background, because she is someone who sacrifices herself for her children and her
husband.” Although Oktay blamed larger cultural patterns of male domination and the all-consuming role
of motherhood for women’s selflessness, he had nevertheless lost personal respect for his mother. As he
put it, “I cannot receive [or gain] anything from my mother anymore.”
In rejecting his mother’s selflessness, Oktay simultaneously rejected the mode of masculinity upheld by
his father. His efforts to reflexively constitute an alternative masculinity are thus steeped in a rejection of
the mutually reinforcing traditions of selfless femininity and patriarchal masculinity. While away at
college he forged a deep desire “not to become like [his] father.” One telling motivation in Oktay’s
self-reimaging was the revelation that his sister did not love his father, something that provoked a fear in
Oktay that a future daughter might not love him. Imagining himself as not being loved and admired
remained Oktay’s emotional point of reference for his romantic aspirations, development, and identity.
Oktay met his girlfriend, Sezen, during their freshman year at Bogazici. According to Oktay, they love
each other deeply, and Oktay values her in large part because he can be totally himself around her:
“Anything I can experience and feel I can tell her without becoming uncomfortable because I think she
understands me. That is, I can let myself go.” Oktay and Sezen have been together for three years and
explore embodied sexuality but haven’t experienced sexual coitus. A key episode of their relationship was
an eight-month separation, linked, as Oktay put it, to his “curtailment” of Sezen’s freedoms. Despite his
resistance to inheriting his father’s oppressive masculinity, Oktay consistently sought dominance in his
relationship with Sezen, disapproving, for instance, of Sezen visiting male friends at their houses to play
cards or staying out later than she promised.
Despite his professed rejection of the masculine practices of domination, Oktay’s motivation to control
Sezen’s mobility and relationships arose out of a discourse of masculine protection (the critical but
unnamed term in his narrative, I observed). In Oktay’s view, Sezen’s unsuspecting and warm personality
and her inclination to become close with people easily (the exact qualities that made Oktay fall in love
with her) rendered her vulnerable and in need of his protection and control. He said that he had no
objection to Sezen’s socializing and staying out late with friends in their own circle: “She can do anything
with friends I know.” He saw the issue as Sezen’s innocence in dealing with outsiders and her tendency to
approach people with open arms without recognizing that men might have ulterior motives.

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 Oktay also developed an intense preoccupation with what he saw as Sezen’s selfishness, which, over
time, fostered feelings of insignificance in him. As he put it, “I desire to feel important. . . . I desire for her
to respect my values. Maybe even I want her to live by my values.” A variety of situations connected with
this desire “to feel important” surfaced in Oktay’s narrative, indicating that Sezen’s “selfishness” was, in
Oktay’s estimation, a function of her prioritizing her own desires. For example,

even cooking together can be a problem. For instance, she likes spinach and I don’t like
it. . . . I love pasta. She was taking care of the spinach dish when I asked her to watch the
pasta, but she didn’t hear me because she likes spinach. I coded this as evidence that she
doesn’t value my desires; she values her own desires.

Oktay’s need for Sezen to reassure him that she desired him even extended to the academic environment
they share—Oktay reports feeling jealous when Sezen pays too much attention in lecture, ignoring him:
“We are taking the same classes; she is listening to the lectures, and taking notes. She is disinterested in me
during classes.” Oktay feels entitled to constant, public assurances that he is at the center of Sezen’s
attention: “For instance, let’s say five of us are studying together and trying to understand something at the
same moment. If she understands first, I want her to explain it to me first. That is, I want to know that I am
the top priority among other people in her life.” Importantly, Oktay values Sezen’s attention precisely
because she is a modern, unsubordinated woman. She can provide the recognition men like him need to
support their new selves—the love, desire, and understanding of a high-achieving, independent woman.
Yet, paradoxically, these same qualities meant that Sezen prioritized her desires over his, making him feel
unimportant, unloved, and, unrecognized.
As dominance is conveyed and practiced within relationships, it can be contested, accepted, challenged,
or assimilated with complete acquiescence or all-around conflict. Oktay and Sezen’s experience was
all-around conflict. Oktay’s desire to restrict Sezen’s freedom upset her, but, according to Oktay, “She
wasn’t telling me because she feared that I’d be angry. And because we love each other, we avoid fights.”
Instead, she apologized for her “transgressions” so as not to upset him. In time, however, “She realized that
her freedoms were curtailed and she found herself apologizing to me too much because of my reactions.”
According to Oktay, she eventually couldn’t stand to remain quiescent while her freedoms were
subjugated, and she left him.
Oktay’s eight-month separation from Sezen helped him gain a critical distance on his relationship.
Despite having a brief affair with another young woman during this separation, Oktay was reminded of the
exclusiveness of his devotion to Sezen. The separation led him to reassess how he should deal with his
intense desire to control her. Knowing he would need to change his behavior in order to rekindle and
preserve their romance, he committed to quashing these controlling impulses. Now back together with
Sezen, however, he sees himself as keeping his “desires captive in the background.” While backgrounding
his desires offers Oktay a solution to sustain his relationship, he claimed that he could not help but
continue to think about Sezen’s selfishness, and this trait haunts him when he envisions his future with her,
believing that “in a marital relationship, selfishness would bring harm to the relationship.”
Oktay comes across as brutish and narcissistic, consumed by his desire to be recognized as special and
driven by open displays of superiority—when I asked him if Sezen also engaged in another relationship
when they were apart, he said that she hadn’t but that he wished that she had “for the sake of her
understanding of my specialness.” This stance can be understood as a specific expression of the more
general phenomenon of the desire for recognition: it is symptomatic of an uncertainty of rank and porous
dividing lines between different types of masculinities. Oktay lacks familial others with “suitable selves”
to confer recognition for the man he wants to become. All he wants to be is a man who is loved and
admired by women for his nonoppressive behavior, but this dimension of ideal masculinity is one that
neither his oppressive father nor his selfless mother is equipped to affirm. The intimate, gendered other
thus becomes crucial to the development of the self—with paradoxical effect.
Oktay’s story challenges assumptions we make when we constrain our analysis to the gendered

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dichotomies of yearning for love and sex that prevail in the literature. Longings for love and sex are not
independent from but are in fact complicated by other significant longings—like the longing for
recognition. However, as we have seen in Oktay’s account, this longing for recognition can lead to
masculine domination, when, as Benjamin (1988) suggests, young men wish to be recognized as subjects
without returning that recognition. Oktay’s story not only highlights practices of domination but may also
helps nuance the dialectics of male ambivalence when girls claim selfishness in relationships and refuse to
make “meaningful the feelings, actions, and intentions” (Benjamin 1988, 21) of the masculine self.
The path young men, like Oktay, desire to traverse in placing themselves out of patriarchy highlights the
potential for the analytic refinement of patriarchy in gender theory.

A Dialogical Approach to Gender

Connell’s theorization of hegemonic masculinity addresses a foundational question in gender theory: What
are the relationships between forms of male dominance and gender relations? Her formulation of the
concept of hegemonic masculinity is dependent upon and reflects the centrality of patriarchy itself. She
defines hegemonic masculinity “as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently
accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy” (2005, 77). Her definition of hegemony in
terms of the successful correspondence of “cultural ideal” and collective “institutional power” recognized
the significance of the institutional materialization of patriarchy. Furthermore, her stress on
“correspondence” gives historicity and specificity to patriarchy, which is determined through specific
institutional and organizational forms and underwrites the hegemony of certain groups of men. Her theory
also emphasizes how the patriarchal dividend—“the advantage men in general gain from the overall
subordination of women” (79)—provides the matrix within which hegemony, the distinctive form of
domination in the gender order, occurs. In particular, the hegemonic capacities of the dominant form
depend on its contribution to men’s gender cohesion—that is, the complicity of other, subordinated
masculinities (despite their deep contradictions), who benefit from the patriarchal dividend. In other words,
patriarchy guarantees (at least in an abstract manner) the universal general interest, advantage, and
privilege of all men.
However, Connell’s conceptualization of the relationship between hegemony, domination, and
femininity remains underdeveloped (a fact she herself acknowledges in a footnote). In her theory,
femininity is always organized as an adaptation to men’s power (1987, 188). She defines “emphasized
femininity” as “compliance with subordination” and argues that it “is oriented to accommodating the
interests and desires of men” (1987, 183). Connell ignored the problem of how different femininities are
articulated or dislocated in specific conjunctures across different fields of domination and hegemony.
Femininity is thus treated as a residual category and conceptualized with no sustained attention to different
forms of patriarchy and women’s varied responses to them. Despite the fact that in Connell’s theory
hegemony, subordination, and complicity as relations are fundamentally rooted and always present in the
gender order, an account of how femininity’s relationality to masculinity enters into the complex links
among hegemony, subordination, and complicity remains unexplored. This lack of attention to femininity
results, in Connell’s work, in the conflation of hegemony and domination and, perhaps more importantly,
undermines a theorization of gender relationally.
Indeed, it is exactly for this reason that gender scholars who approach their research in various
geographies with theoretical tools borrowed from Connell study masculinity and femininity as typologies:
hegemonic, complicit, emphasized, exaggerated, marginalized, and subordinated. Furthermore, as Michael
Moller (2007) argues, “the conceptual mobility” of these typologies “may also conceal important aspects
of the knowledge thus produced; namely the exclusion of those practices, statements and feelings which do
not fit this typology of masculine objects” (268). Such practices would include the strong desires of some
young men, like Oktay, not to be dominant, controlling, and protective when young men attempt to escape
from hegemonic masculinity because it is, like femininity, aligned with selflessness due to the interlinkage
of paternalism and patriarchy. As such, this specific constellation of patriarchy and paternalism implicates
traditional masculinity, like femininity, as “selfless”—a linkage that, as we will see, forms a strong

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impetus for young men to actively disinherit traditional masculinity and pursue self-consciously
unpatriarchal selves. In addition to encouraging a limited disciplinary field of vision that overdetermines
male identity, changes in the construction of masculinity are often articulated as changes in the relation
between masculinities (Collinson and Hearn 1994).
Indeed, explicitly stated in Connell’s later work (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 848) is the
realization that femininity must be examined not only from the viewpoint of compliance with patriarchy
but also from that of the new identities and practices of young women.
I propose a dialogical approach to gender in which gender is theorized relationally. I emphasize the
importance of pursuing gender relationally because attention to how practices of domination and
subordination are constructed and experienced is important to transforming the relations of domination,
and to capturing to the ways women and men contest the boundaries of their transformative capacities both
in relation to each other and in relation to the structural and institutional materiality of patriarchy. This is
particularly crucial in a societal context like Turkey in which the gender order is destabilized and the
stability of hegemonic masculinity is being contested and strongly critiqued in both local practices and
discourses like those explored here by young men who question the paternalistic construction of
masculinity.
I apply such a dialogical approach to gender and conceptualize men and women as coproducers of
masculine and feminine ideals. I also conceptualize intimate romantic and sexual relationships as sites both
for the reproduction of patriarchy and for challenges to it. Romance and sex as an intersubjective terrain
shapes young people’s perceptions of who they are and generates experiences that reinforce or contradict
the enactments of patriarchal gender identities and sexual selves (Ozyegin 2015).
One of the most striking features of the gender transformation across all classes in my larger research is
the merging of young men’s and women’s desires for expanded selfhoods beyond the selflessness implied
in both the protective masculine and the maternal feminine models. Men in Turkey are deemed
appropriately masculine when they are protective and carry the power to define the boundaries of action
and conduct of the girls and women under their protection. The renunciation of this model by young men is
propelled by Turkey’s neoliberal turn within the context of globalization and the changing structures of
career trajectories propelled by massive privatization. However, the building of male self-expansion is
organically linked to and dependent on a vision of the feminine other who provokes and nurtures these
male desires for layered selves. The male narratives described a vision of desired femininity that was
marked by opposing dualities of, on the one hand, ambitious, charismatic, sexually desiring, and
self-possessed women and, on the other hand, positive, alturistic, “energy-giving” women.
The emergence of the new definition of masculinity has occurred simultaneously with the appearance of
a new construction of femininity among young women. This new femininity constitutes its identity not
through maternal roles but through a shared desire for individualized selves defined against
other-directedness, self-sacrifice, and female subservience to the desires of others. The desire for
self-governance and the rejection of male intrusion on female sovereignty in the name of protection mark
the most important constitutive dimensions of the new femininity. Like its male counterpart, this new
femininty also has its cocreators. The desired man in the female narratives is constructed dualistically as
someone who seeks power and creativity for self-expansion and who has strong ambitions to become a
dominant actor in society, while simultaneously disavowing gender-based traditional privileges to control
and dominate women.
I conclude that these nonpatriarchal gender projects should not be read necessarily as a promise of
democratic gender relations. The very notions of desirable femininity, the dialectic between charismatic
and engery-giving women in male narratives that would help make expanded male selves possible, might
ultimately undermine young women’s claims to a new femininity untied to maternal selflessness and
female altruism. In the same fashion, the female constructions of ideal masculinity, the dialectic between
power in the public sphere and escaping power and domination in intimate relations and the private sphere,
might actually serve to undermine female desire for noncontrolling men.
I consider bringing the rich dimensions of “undoing” patriarchy to gender theory as a distinct analytical

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pathway. This pathway also addresses the methodological question of how we might continue to
investigate the link between gender and patriarchy.

Conclusion: From Gender Domination to Rethinking Patriarchy

Focusing on the identification of selfhood with unpatriarchal values among men raises particular questions
and new analytical openings for a feminist theory of gender, lending a valuable paradigm that can reveal
the relevance, complexities, and contradictions of the concept of “patriarchy” in gender theory. I have
proposed an integration of the language of patriarchy via the example of young men in Turkey who
self-consciously disavow patriarchy and paternalism while simultaneously giving it new forms and subtle
expressions. I suggest that their stories cannot be told at all without representing the subjects’ explicit
engagement with patriarchal ideals and the cognitive and emotional narrative sources that guide their
vocabularies. This is not just a challenge for a simple recognition of experience in theory or a claim that
experience itself is either a superior or entirely sufficient form for theoretical representation or, as Connell
says, “theory is the moment in a larger social process of knowledge formation that transforms data or
experience, always in some way moving beyond the given” (Connell 2014, 521).
Focusing on a nation such as Turkey highlights the complex and multifaceted domain of patriarchy and
provides strong justification for approaches that challenge nation-based boundaries and stress
interrelationships rather than ahistorical and preconstituted categories of patriarchy. In particular, it offers
an important vantage point from which to view the historical specificities and transformations of Turkish
conceptions of patriarchy and state paternalism in relation to global neoliberalism, a complex alignment in
the making that is both destroying and remaking the patriarchy-paternalism couple simultaneously in
different realms. The ongoing presence of building hegemony to create a new Turkey, the strong resistance
to neoconservative patriarchal familialism from feminist and LGBTQ movements, and unpatriarchal
desires among young adults offer a transformative setting for a reconsideration of patriarchy in gender
theory.
If the aim of gender theory is to generate explanations and imaginaries of change that are indeed
politically meaningful and transformative, the basis for achieving that end will depend on its
epistemological principles and categories being informed across time, global locations, and cultural
particularities. Patriarchy is now conceived as a dangerous traditional form of gender- and aged-based
domination that has been supposedly eradicated in the global North, while, as Gwepal illustrates in the
quotation with which I begin this chapter, “an essentialist notion of the term ‘patriarchy’ has become
naturalized in relation to the ‘Global South’.” We must reject the false certainties and the temptation to
construct an “epistemological other” in the service of collective projects of domination by the global
North. In the same vein, how we deploy conceptions of the “transnational” in relation to patriarchy is
important. Limiting the Southern voice to a critique and an exposé (of how contemporary transnational
connections operate as neocolonial projects) without tracing in practical terms the real and varying
relationships in local patriarchies, which have such a formative place in constructing gender, risks
becoming reductive, and actually has the potential to disempower and short-circuit the integration of
theories produced by the global South.
In urging a focus on rethinking patriarchy, I am not suggesting that there is an effective universal,
singular form of patriarchy that encompasses all gender relations and constructs male power and privilege
the same way, and shapes how gender is defined, constituted, identified with, and reproduced. Patriarchy is
a particular system of gender domination, neither uniform nor static. However, without refining and
studying the term “patriarchy,” we run the risk of reifying, dehistoricizing, and valorizing patriarchy in the
global South and discounting patriarchy in the global North. Critically extending and developing the
concept of patriarchy in gender theory makes one more attentive to the project of creating new integrative
paths (cross-fertilization, in Connell’s terms), by which Southern theory can be incorporated into Northern
theory. The Turkish case illuminates the ways in which the concept of patriarchy can help address the
incompleteness of gender theory, which currently leaves vast numbers of social actors and political
practices thoroughly unaccounted for and constructs a false universalism. It also builds upon the strength

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of gender theory developed by Connell by providing avenues to address and elaborate the relationality of
gender in a more systematic way.
We should devise a theory of gender domination to describe and theorize sites of
domination-subordination, practices intimately associated in the creation of gender relations based on
domination, finding new ways both to map variations among the domination of men and the subordination
of women and to incorporate a focus on interaction/intersection with other systems of domination.
Whatever the approach, we must open a thread via gender domination that can provide the anaytical
template to link theories produced in different locations that contextualize and particularize gender
domination spatially and epistemologically. Gender relations as relations of domination enter into and help
to constitute other collective relations and institutional arrangements. Gender domination in gender theory
thus provides a larger conceptual canvas and inclusive epistemological and political agenda. The richness
that can be garnered from such a theoretical incorporation helps us articulate transformative projects at the
systemic macro-structural or institutional level and at the micro-interpersonal or individual level, locally,
globally, and transnationally.

Notes

1 Originally proposed by black feminists, as way to interpret the effects of race, gender, and class, the intersection theory
suggests that instead of looking at race, gender, and class as separate entities, they need to be looked at as interactive,
multiplicative, and mutually amplifying experiences and processes that create unique locations of subordination and
domination, privilege and disadvantage. Kathy Davis (2008) brilliantly argues that it is the very ambiguity and
epistemological vacuity and methodological rootlessness of the concept of intersectionality that in fact defines its success.
She argues that the concept’s undefined parameters powerfully invite inclusion of different epistemological traditions and
methodological strategies.
2 In this chapter, I focus on one such narrative. My larger research includes 87 upwardly mobile young adults interviewed
between 2002 and 2006 in Istanbul, of which 22 were heterosexually identified men.
3 Neoliberalism is considered as a major governing force in the world today, but the concept lacks a precise definition
applicable to every case. My usage of this concept is derived from David Harvey who stresses that neoliberalism is better
understood as “a theory of political economic practices” that emphasizes that “human well-being can best be advanced by
liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private
property rights, free markets and free trade” (2005, 2). While this definition is illuminating, it needs further explication as the
practical implementation of neoliberal policies and practices depends on cultural and historical particularities. For example,
in the Turkish version we see a lack of correspondence between neoliberal economic practices and a weakening of the role of
the state, in contradiction with one of core neoliberal tenets. During the early 1980s neoliberalism gained prevalence in
Turkey where a privatized and liberalized market economy replaced state-controlled capitalism. Neoliberal transformations
are marked by a new economic and cultural configuration and legal changes, broadly characterized by the global opening of
markets, a radical process of privatization (selling state-owned enterprises, goods, and services to private companies), and
establishing and preserving foreign capital investments. The concept of neoliberalism also includes a perspective on changing
notions of selfhood, the production of the presupposed neoliberal subject centered on the ideals of entrepreneurial freedom,
self-invention, flexibility, autonomy, and self-realization. Exploration of the complex social, psychological, and material
processes that collectively foster the formation of the neoliberal subject now occupies the research agendas of a growing
number of scholars across a number of social science disciplines. This chapter situates itself in the framework of this
contemporary concern and offers the voices of educationally advantaged young men in Turkey. These men are not only
intensely subjected to neoliberal images, ideologies, and institutions but also have the ability to appropriate, reject, or reshape
the ethos of neoliberalism in a plurality of contexts.
I use the expression “local neoconservatism” to highlight the wide application of neoliberal policies and the Islamist
project of reconstructing patriarchy to control and regulate women’s sexuality, labor, and feminine bodily modalities within
the context of globalization. It is “neoconservative” because the Islamist government vigorously advocates quite extensive
top-down policies to cultivate Islamic piety by focusing on gender relations and sexuality. These new state policies are
designed to facilitate a pronationalist agenda of sexual reproduction, promotion of (heterosexual) early marriage, gender
segregation in the public sphere, and the control and regulation of public life—particularly the elimination of sexually
animated environments. Also, the very existence of new gender conservatism in Turkey is a testament to the advances made
by the feminists and how they articulated a powerful critique of patriarchal institutions, ideology, and practices.
4 Fictitious name.

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 13

On the Elasticity of Gender Hegemony

Why Hybrid Masculinities Fail to Undermine Gender and Sexual Inequality

Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe

Gender is susceptible to extraordinary change; gender inequality is, by comparison, much more durable.
Indeed, shifting gendered styles have been at the center of discussion among masculinities scholars and
contemporary social commentators, many claiming that the days of emotional repression, homophobia, and
sexism are nearing their end. Consider, for example, some recent trends in masculine expression: the
“metrosexual,” the “hipster,” and the “bro.”
The earliest of these, the metrosexual, emerged in 1994 (Simpson 1999 [1994]; Barber 2016). This
well-coiffed twenty- or thirtysomething, white, educated, professional man likely lived in a city and
stylistically laid claim to symbolic territory typically associated with women and gay men (de Casanova,
Wetzel, and Speice 2016). This “new heterosexual masculinity, one rooted in consumption and vanity”
(Barber 2016) purchased grooming products, wore designer clothing, and spent a great deal of time and
money on hygiene and appearance (e.g., Whitehead 2007; Coad 2008; Shugart 2008).
Appearing on the heels of the metrosexual (though echoing earlier gendered expressions [Mailer 1957]),
the hipster is a white, usually college educated, 20–30-year-old, city-dwelling man, distinguished by tastes
such as musical interests, hairstyles, grooming habits, clothing, literary and artistic curiosities, as well as
culinary and libation preferences. More countercultural, androgynous, intellectual, creative, and
independent than the metrosexual, the hipster draws on a gendered form of nostalgia for masculinities of
old—embracing styles of facial hair, dress, or particular cultural artifacts from specific historical periods
(at least as those periods are collectively imagined). The rise of the artisanal hipster aesthetic is part of a
more general elevation of all manner of “geek masculinities” to new heights of gendered status (Bell
2013).
Other recent expressions of masculinity, such as the bro, seem to be less indicative of change. “Bro” is
most often used to describe young, white men, connoting a playful, immature, hypermasculine, frat boy,
party culture (e.g., Ward 2008, 2015). As a prefix or suffix, “bro” masculinizes all sorts of identities,
objects, relationships, and behaviors: “laxbros” (lacrosse players), “brogrammers” (computer
programmers), “dudebros” (generic, hypermasculine twentysomethings), “brogurt” (yogurt for men),
“brotein” (protein as a dietary supplement), “broga” (yoga for men), and, perhaps most conspicuously, the
“bromance.” From movies (I Love You, Man, 2009) to social media hashtags (#mancrushmonday),
“bromance” describes intense emotional bonds and perhaps even intimate touch between young,
straight-identified men (e.g., DeAngelis 2014), forms of homosociality that seem to share little in common
with similar relations in relatively recent history (e.g., Bird 1996; Grazian 2007).1
While by no means an exhaustive list, taken together we suggest that these three emergent
configurations of gender illustrate that masculinity is changing. What does it mean for heterosexual men to
care deeply about their appearance in ways that are typically associated with women or gay men? What
does it mean when men proudly announce intimate relationships with other straight men? Do they herald
larger changes in the structure and organization of gender relations and inequality? Can they be seen as

164
evidence of a general demise of homophobia or sexism? The answer to all of these questions is both “Yes”
and “No.” Indeed, the larger question—and one that is more challenging to answer—is what do
contemporary transformations in masculinity among historically privileged groups of men mean?
The sense that masculinity is changing is nothing new (e.g., Rotundo 1993; Segal 1990; Kimmel 2012).
Over a half century ago, Helen Hacker (1957) asked why and how masculinity was transforming, what
kinds of new dilemmas and burdens awaited men navigating emerging gendered expectations, and whether
changes in masculinity might foreshadow transformations in inequality. Historical evidence suggests that
gendered anxieties and discourses that follow shifts in gender relations are recycled. Indeed, while the
examples of the metrosexual, the hipster, and the bro are contemporary ones, they indicate that gender is a
historical process, and that some configurations of practice are more likely during some historical periods
than others as patterned responses to transformations in gender relations.
As with previous historical periods during which masculinities were being redefined, the extent of
contemporary transformations and their impact and meaning is the source of a great deal of theory,
research, and debate (e.g., Connell 1985, 1987, 1995, 2002; Messner 1993; Anderson 2009; Bridges and
Pascoe 2014). What we are interested in here is not the fact that change is happening, but how to interpret
the meanings of these changes. It is tempting to read the metrosexual, the hipster, and the bro as part of a
narrative of extraordinary and progressive change—men seem less inhibited by strict expectations of
manliness. Indeed, some scholars suggest that the transformations associated with young, white, educated,
and class-privileged men are signs of “the declining significance of homophobia” (McCormack 2012).
Others argue that contemporary masculinities are no longer organized hierarchically; rather, they are
“inclusive” (Anderson 2009) and represent a fundamental challenge to systems of power and inequality.
We suggest that symbolic changes in the gender order need to be understood in terms of what they
accomplish, but also what they obscure.
To understand these emerging identities as both accomplishing and obscuring gender inequality, we
bring Raewyn Connell’s theorization of “symbolic relations” into dialogue with our conceptualization of
“hybrid masculinities”––the selective incorporation of identity elements typically associated with various
marginalized and subordinated masculinities or femininities into privileged men’s gendered performances
and identities (e.g., Demetriou 2001; Messner 2007; Messerschmidt 2010; Arxer 2011; Bridges 2014;
Bridges and Pascoe 2014, 2015). By drawing on the substructures of Connell’s theory of gender relations,
we articulate how flexibility in some substructures can work in ways that conceal the resilience of others.

Gender Relations
Drawing on Juliet Mitchells’s (1966) insight that gender inequality was established by a complex yet
“specific structure” made up of distinct components, Connell makes sense of gender relations as composed
of four constituent parts: power relations, production relations, emotional relations, and symbolic relations
(Connell 1987, 2002). These four dimensions of gender relations are interconnected and mutually
constitutive. As with other understandings of gender as a social structure (e.g., Lorber 1993; Risman
2004), the identification of these four substructures emerged out of previous feminist theorizing.
As “substructures” (Connell 2004), Connell understood these dimensions of gender relations as working
together, though not always to the same ends or with the same means. As such Connell’s theory makes
possible an understanding of gender inequality as capable of being challenged and reproduced
simultaneously. As Connell notes, however:

The argument does not assume that they are the only discoverable structures, that they
exhaust the field. Nor does it claim that they are necessary structures. . . . The argument
rests on a gentler, more pragmatic but perhaps more demonstrable claim that with a
framework like this we can come to a serviceable understanding of current history. (1987,
97)

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Intentionally leaving a theory open like this speaks to this framework’s ability to adapt to new contexts and
contingencies. Connell’s theory of gender relations does more than simply account for change; it actively
anticipates change.
Not only do gender relations change, but these changes actually constitute gender relations. Gender
relations are historically unstable and prone toward crisis, something Connell calls “crisis tendencies.”
Crisis tendencies are uneven, often affecting gender relations incompletely. While the gender order
continually tends toward crisis, Connell suggests that this propensity may have intensified in recent
history, producing “a major loss of legitimacy for patriarchy,” such that “different groups of men are now
negotiating this loss in very different ways” (1995, 202).
Conceptualizing crisis tendencies as an integral feature of gender relations allows us to make sense of
historical change by considering the diverse potential embedded within any historical transformation in
gender relations. Crisis tendencies speak to the flexibility of systems of power and inequality. Though the
history of gender inequality is sometimes presented as a slow but steady march toward equality, Connell’s
theory makes possible an understanding of progress while contextualizing this potential with a
conceptualization of inequality as flexible and adaptive.

Hybrid Masculinities
As relations of power, production, emotions, and symbols change, these changes reverberate throughout
the gender order. Building on the dimension of symbolic relations in particular, the concept of hybrid
masculinities attests to the flexibility of gender inequality. Hybrid masculinities illustrate a great deal of
change among symbolic and emotional relations—transformations that obscure the fact that power
relations have been less challenged than it initially seems.
Hybrid masculinities refer to the selective incorporation of elements of identity typically associated with
various marginalized and subordinated masculinities and—at times—femininities into privileged men’s
gender performances and identities (e.g., Demetriou 2001; Messner 2007; Messerschmidt 2010; Arxer
2011; Bridges 2014; Bridges and Pascoe 2014).2 These transformations include men’s assimilation, among
others, of “bits and pieces” (Demetriou 2001, 350) of identity projects coded as “gay” (e.g., Hennessy
1995; Demetriou 2001; Heasley 2005; Bridges 2014; Bridges and Pascoe 2015), “Black” (e.g., Ward 2008;
Hughey 2012), or “feminine” (e.g., Arxer 2011; Wilkins 2009; Schippers 2000; Messerschmidt 2010).
Research on hybrid masculinities points to a patterned set of consequences associated with the processes
of incorporating elements of the identities of various Others. Hybrid masculinities work in ways that
reproduce contemporary systems of gender, race, class, and sexual inequality, but, importantly, obscure
this process as it is happening. The emergence of hybrid masculinities indicates that normative constraints
associated with masculinity are shifting, and shows that these shifts have largely taken place in ways that
have sustained existing ideologies and systems of power and inequality (e.g., Messner 1993, 2007;
Demetriou 2001; Messerschmidt 2010; Bridges 2014; Bridges and Pascoe 2014, 2015).
The interpretation of changes in gender relations provided by our conceptualization of “hybrid
masculinity” directly critiques a growing body of literature that suggests that new configurations of
identity and practice are best understood as resistance to gender and sexual inequality. This “inclusivity”
framework (Anderson 2009; McCormack 2012) suggests that these changes in gender relations represent
important, lasting, and serious changes in various dimensions of gender inequality. Yet historical work on
masculinity documents that it is a category of identity characterized by internal and dialectical
contradictions (e.g., Kimmel 2012; Aboim 2010) and that hegemonic configurations have demonstrated
extraordinary elastic properties over time, incorporating new modes of behavior and practice in periods of
crisis (e.g., Messner 1993, 2007; Connell 1995; Demetriou 2001; Bridges 2014; Bridges and Pascoe 2014,
2015; de Boise 2015), and taking on unique forms in different regions and local contexts (Connell and

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Messerschmidt 2005). This chapter provides an alternate analysis of contemporary shifts in masculinities
not as uniform challenges to gender and sexual inequality, but as complicated processes that have the
collective effect of obscuring inequality.
The concept of hybrid masculinities grew out of analytic limitations associated with Connell’s
theorization of hegemonic masculinity (Demetriou 2001). In analyzing straight-identified men’s
assimilation of elements of “gay male culture,” Demetriou suggested that the concept of hegemonic
masculinity, which had at its core a symbolic distance from “subordinated masculinity” (a configuration
Connell [1987, 1992, 1995] argued was best represented by gay men), could not account for why straight
men might adopt the styles of subordinated men. This is, for Demetriou, inconsistent with a Gramscian
conceptualization of “hegemony”:

Whereas for Gramsci the process is essentially a dialectical one that involves reciprocity
and mutual interaction between the class that is leading and the groups that are led, Connell
understands the process in a more elitist way where subordinate and marginalized
masculinities have no effect on the construction of the hegemonic model. (Demetriou 2001,
345)

As such, Demetriou suggests that hegemonic masculinity is better understood as a “hegemonic masculine
bloc” capable of appropriating “what appears pragmatically useful and constructive for the project of
domination at a particular historical moment” (2001, 345). While it may seem that the adoption of
elements associated with gay men by straight men is a significant movement away from hierarchical
gendered relations, Demetriou suggests something much more dynamic—that the incorporation of “bits
and pieces [of gay male culture] . . . [produce] new, hybrid configurations of gender practice that enable
them to reproduce their dominance over women [and other men] in historically novel ways” (2001,
350–51). The appropriation of elements of subordinated and marginalized “Others” into configurations of
hegemonic masculinities works to recuperate existing systems of power and inequality.
Demetriou’s understanding, however, presupposes concrete social groups in definite relations of alliance
and subordination. Our identity-based approach situates these practices as much more fluid and dynamic.
As such, our theorizing of hybrid masculinities builds on—rather than opposes—Connell’s framework. It
is not the case, for instance, that young, straight, white men are the only ones “playing” with masculinity.
Nor is it necessarily true that young men are intentionally playing with masculinity in ways that either
maintain or conceal gender inequality. Our conceptualization of “hybrid masculinities” captures the
dynamic processes through which some groups receive a qualitatively different set of patterned
consequences for their participation and have a qualitatively different set of considerations at stake in
participating in the first place.
Our theorization of “hybrid masculinity” connects a consistent finding across a collection of research
that has shown that hybrid masculinities are broadly associated with at least three distinct consequences
that exacerbate, reflect, and conceal existing inequalities in patterned ways (e.g., Bridges and Pascoe
2014). First, hybrid masculine practices often work in ways that create discursive space between privileged
groups of men and hegemonic masculinity, enabling some to frame themselves as outside of existing
systems of privilege and inequality—something we label discursive distancing. Second, contemporary
hybrid masculinities are often premised on the notion that the masculinities available to young, white,
straight men are less meaningful than the identities of various Others, whose identities were at least
partially produced by collective struggles for rights and recognition. We call this process strategic
borrowing. Third, hybrid masculinities work to fortify symbolic and social boundaries between (racial,
gender, sexual, class-based) groups—further entrenching, and often concealing, inequality in historically
novel ways. We refer to this consequence as fortifying boundaries.
Collectively, these patterned consequences exemplify the processes by which meanings and practices of
hegemonic masculinity change over time in ways that have sustained the structure of institutionalized
gender regimes to advantage men collectively over women and some men over others (Connell and

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Messerschmidt 2005). Similar to Connell’s (1987, 1995) conceptualization of the four substructures of
gender relations as interrelated and overlapping, we see each of the consequences we identify here as
heuristic devices that enable us to examine the meanings of contemporary shifts in gender identities,
relations, and inequality. Below, we provide more detail from research that highlights the three processes
as interrelated, yet distinct.

Discursive Distancing
Research on men’s profeminist, political, and grooming activities illustrates how hybrid masculinities can
work in ways that discursively distance men from hegemonic masculinity as they also (often more subtly)
align themselves with it. “Bromances,” for instance, are instructive—they are, on the surface, a
relationship that would seem to reduce the distance between hegemonic masculinity and intimacy between
men in a way that questions the centrality of homophobia to contemporary masculinities. Yet the very
language to describe these relationships—“bro”—works to symbolically enshrine heterosexuality by
establishing distance from same-sex eroticism even while seemingly engaging in same-sex intimacy. In
this way, “bro” works as a both a symbol and discourse associated with a dominant configuration of white,
heterosexual masculinity (Ward 2015). An analysis of men’s antisexist work and beauty practices
documents a similar process of change in symbolic relations that does little to disrupt the systems of power
that structure gender and sexual relations more broadly.
Men’s participation in antiviolence movements such as Walk a Mile in Her Shoes marches (Bridges
2010) or My Strength Is Not for Hurting campaigns (Masters 2010) illustrates discursive distancing. Walk
a Mile marches require that men wear high-heeled shoes and walk one mile protesting violence against
women and pledging support to end it. These men are standing in solidarity with women, actively
opposing men’s violence, and wearing women’s clothing—all practices that seem to distance them from
hegemonic masculinity. As Bridges (2010) observed, however, march participants can reproduce gender
and sexual inequality even as they actively resist it. Participants regularly joked about wearing women’s
clothing, their (in)ability to walk in heels, and same-sex sexual desire—all of which worked to align them
with hegemonic masculinity even as their participation in antiviolence activism distances them from it.
The My Strength Is Not for Hurting campaign—one of few antirape campaigns explicitly directed at
men—also works to distance men from hegemonic masculinity through framing rapists as pathological
men while depicting the nonrapist as hegemonically masculine. The nonrapist is a “real,” “strong” man
who is fundamentally different from (the presumably weak and unmanly) rapist. The campaign draws on
ideologies about men’s inherent “strength” and protectionism (“. . . is not for hurting”) in a way that
symbolically reinscribes unequal gender relations. Campaigns like this separate “good” from “bad” men
and fail to account for the ways that presenting strength and power as natural resources for men
perpetuates gender and sexual inequality even as they are called into question (Murphy 2009; Pascoe and
Hollander 2016). Both Walk a Mile marches and the My Strength Is Not for Hurting campaign create some
distance between these (good) men who oppose gendered violence and (bad) hegemonically masculine
men who presumably support it. Yet, in challenging men’s violence against women, both campaigns
simultaneously reaffirm hegemonic masculine forms.
Other boundary blurring projects accomplish similar ends. Kristen Barber’s (2008, 2016) study of white,
middle-class, heterosexual men’s interactions with workers in professional men’s hair salons illustrates a
related dynamic in which some men engage in beauty work formerly coded “feminine.” Barber shows how
men rely on a rhetoric of expectations associated with professional-class masculinities to justify their
participation in the beauty industry while simultaneously naturalizing distinctions between themselves and
working-class men, framing the latter as misogynistic and responsible for reproducing gender inequality.
Barber highlights the ways these men avoid feminization while simultaneously strengthening their status as
class-privileged men. The cost of the salon services excludes working-class men; but more than this, the
salons’ clients position themselves as more gender and sexually progressive than the nonwhite and
working-class men not represented in these places. Thus, the straight, white, educated, and elite men in
Barber’s study frame costly salon haircuts as a sign of progressive masculinity—a potent symbol they
frame as illustrating their status as “new” men (see Messner and Messerschmidt’s chapter in this volume).

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 While bromances, men’s prowomen activism, and beauty work may appear to be new, the process of
discursive distancing is not. As Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Mike Messner argued:

Too often critical discussions of masculinity tend to project atavistic hypermasculine,

aggressive, misogynistic masculinity onto relatively powerless men. By comparison, the
masculine gender displays of educated, privileged New Men are too often uncritically
applauded, rather than skeptically and critically examined. (1994, 215)

Ignoring the intersectional dynamics that inequitably distribute access to specific hybrid masculine forms
risks presenting contemporary changes as indicative of transformations in systems of inequality that still
exist—albeit in new forms. As Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner (1994) suggest, men of color,
working-class men, and immigrant men, among others, are often implicitly cast as the possessors of
regressive masculinities. In fact, when groups of marginalized and subordinated Others craft hybrid gender
identities, they often do so with very different consequences and concerns than those of white,
middle-class, young, urban men. Discursive distancing provides a sensitizing concept to analyze these
intersections in finer detail. Part of analyzing transformations in symbolic gender relations must involve a
critical assessment of the work accomplished for the groups who get labeled as transformed.

Strategic Borrowing
Configurations of hybrid masculinity associated with privileged groups of men are often premised on the
notion that the masculinities they perceive as available to them are meaningless when compared with
various “Others.” Indeed, cultural appropriation is a defining characteristic of processes of
hybridization—domination through “negotiation” rather than “negation” (e.g., Sinfield 1996; Burke 2009).
Research on hybrid masculinities has shown that men who occupy privileged social categories
“strategically borrow” symbols associated with various Others in ways that work to reframe themselves as
symbolically part of socially subordinated groups.
While challenging inequality may be part of the motivation driving hybrid masculine configurations,
research suggests that these practices may also have to do with exploring pleasures that powerful men have
been denied by gendered expectations. Relatively privileged men who mobilize hybrid configurations of
masculinity gain access to some of the symbolic and emotional pleasures associated with transgression. In
this way, hybrid masculinities can also be seen as a form of symbolic tourism—enjoying the pleasures
associated with transgressing normative gender and sexual boundaries, but avoiding much of the injustice
and pain.
Once made visible by feminist challenge and critique, privileged configurations of masculinity are
capable of dramatically reworking the meaning associated with that visibility to recuperate privilege in
new ways. Through this process, white men are presented as victims (Messner 1993) and inequality
becomes less easily identified. Like Mary Waters’s (1990) research documenting white people’s relative
ignorance of the ethnic flexibility they are afforded, the hybrid identities available to young, straight, white
men may be very different from those available to marginalized and subordinated groups. As Patricia Hill
Collins writes, “Authentic Black people must be contained—their authentic culture can enter white
controlled spaces, but they cannot” (Collins 2004, 177). The strategic borrowing of symbols and styles
associated with various marginalized and subordinated “Others” has a patterned set of consequences,
research documents. One manifestation of this are hipster masculinities, which borrow bits and pieces from
working-class, white masculinity as a way of symbolically laying claim to masculine authenticity.
Strategic borrowing is also at work in the incorporation of gay culture by straight-identified men. The
emergence of the identity of the metrosexual seems perhaps the best example of this. Indeed, de Casanova,
Wetzel, and Speice’s (2015) interviews with metrosexual-identified men indicate that white-collar men
embraced this configuration of gender strategically (for career advancement) “rather than [out of] a
collective rethinking of masculine norms or a challenge to hegemonic masculinity” (2015, 78). As

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culturally dominant models of masculinity assimilate symbols associated with subordinated “Others” and
alter the look and feel of contemporary performances of gender, however, these practices do little to
challenge men’s structural position of power and authority (Demetriou 2001). Rather, as Demetriou writes,

[w]e are used to seeing masculine power as a closed, coherent, and unified totality that
embraces no otherness, no contradiction. This is an illusion that must be done away with
because it is precisely through its hybrid and apparently contradictory content that
hegemonic masculinity reproduces itself. (2001, 355)

Similarly, by theorizing the symbolic elements of sexuality, Bridges (2014) analyzes the causes and
consequences of heterosexual men subjectively identifying aspects of themselves as “gay” in ways that
preserve their heterosexuality and simultaneously reinforce existing boundaries between gay and straight
individuals and cultures.
Steven Arxer’s (2011) study of interactions between heterosexual men at a college bar documents an
analogous practice. The behavior of the men in Arxer’s study is surprisingly different from the
competitive, emotionally detached, sexually objectifying practices that characterize straight men’s
interactions in Bird’s (1996) or Grazian’s (2007) research. Instead, these men draw on the emotionality
presumably displayed by gay men (illustrating flexibility within Connell’s “emotional relations”) to
increase their chances of sexually “scoring” with women (providing no real challenge to “power
relations”). Thus, while a different collective performance of masculinity than the “the girl hunt” that
Grazian (2007) examined or Bird’s (1996) analysis of the “men’s club,” the consequences of performing
emotional sensitivity are strikingly similar in terms of sustaining existing systems of power and inequality.
Similar consequences occur with racial strategic borrowing among white men (e.g., Hughey 2012; Bridges
and Pascoe 2014).
When we frame young, straight, class-privileged, educated, white men’s “new” performances of
masculinity solely as indicators of a decline in gender and sexual inequality (e.g., Anderson 2009;
McCormack 2012), already marginalized groups of men often end up situated as playing a greater role in
perpetuating inequality (Messner 1993; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner 1994; Bridges and Pascoe 2014).
By framing an extraordinarily privileged group of men as both the embodiment and harbinger of feminist
change, social scientists participate in further marginalizing poor men, working-class men, religious men,
undereducated men, rural men, and men of color (among others). Even as young, straight, white men
borrow from young, gay, black, working-class, rural, or urban men to symbolically boost their masculine
capital, research shows that these practices often work to reaffirm these subordinate and marginalized
groups as deviant, shoring up existing relations of power and dominance.

Fortifying Boundaries
By co-opting elements of style and performance from less powerful masculinities, young, straight, white
men’s hybridizations often obscure the symbolic and social boundaries between groups upon which such
practices rely. Through a process we call fortifying boundaries, hybrid masculinities further entrench and
conceal systems of inequality in historically new ways, often along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and
class.
For instance, when men engage in sexual practices that challenge the relationship between normative
masculinity and homophobia, they may reify inequality. Jane Ward’s (2008, 2015) research on white
straight-identifying men who have sex with other straight-identifying men illustrates this process. Ward
documents the ways that, in their search for sexual partners, these men objectify women, reject effeminacy
among men, and hypereroticize men of color. They talk about hooking up with other men while watching
“pussy porn,” say they do not want to have sex with men who are feminine “sissy la las,” and use
stigmatizing language to describe their ideal men-of-color sex partners. Ward calls this particular
configuration of practices “dude sex,” implicitly suggesting that sex between men might challenge

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contemporary gender relations, but sex between “dudes” does not. Similar to the “bromance,” “dude sex”
relies on symbolic relations to simultaneously challenge and reinforce systems of power and inequality.
Though violating the “one-act rule” (Schilt and Westbrook 2009) of men’s homosexuality by participating
in same-sex sex, these men simultaneously reinforce gendered and raced inequality. In fact, according to
Ward’s research, engaging in same-sex sex is proof of their masculinity precisely because of their race and
class position—a process Ward (2015) calls “hetero-exceptionalism.” Their identity projects are situated as
having a better political and cultural “fit” with heterosexuality, relying on symbols and stereotypes of
gendered and racialized performances of masculinity to authenticate their heterosexual masculine
identities.
Some of men’s practices that initially appear to be feminist also perpetuate gender inequality even as
they obscure it. Recent changes in the ideologies and practices of fathering may seem progressive—such
as increasing levels of emotionality and time spent with children. But, upon closer investigation, they also
often entrench gender inequality. The new fathering movement of the twentieth century, for instance, was
not necessarily about challenging gender inequality in families, but about a particular style of men’s
parenting (Messner 1993), that, as Stein (2005) argues, redraws boundaries around men’s heterosexuality
and masculine authority. In her study of the Promise Keepers movement, Heath (2003) examines the ways
that men embody “new fathering” by playing larger roles in their children’s lives and increasing their
emotional availability while also enforcing gender inequality by espousing a “biblical” notion of “the
family” in which women submit to their husbands (see also Donovan 1998).
Groups of evangelical Christian men exemplify the processes by which hybrid masculinities can be
understood to fortify boundaries between groups even as they appear to challenge those boundaries (e.g.,
Diefendorf 2015; Wilkins 2009; Gerber 2015). For instance, Diefendorf’s (2015) analysis of young
evangelical Christian men’s claims to sexual abstinence before marriage appear to be a fundamental
departure from hegemonic configurations of masculinity, which emphasize sexual experience. She shows,
however, that such claims are better understood as enabling these men to continue to collect on forms of
gendered entitlement that have arguably been more successfully challenged outside of these groups. Thus,
Diefendorf shows that rather than resisting hegemonic masculinity, this strategy is a hybrid configuration
of masculinity that fortifies boundaries and systems of inequality between these men and “Other” men and
between men and women in ways that work to these men’s collective (and continued) advantage.
While diverse boundary-blurring work is accomplished in many contemporary configurations of
masculinity, much of this blurring is best understood as superficial. Within Connell’s framework, research
on hybrid masculinities illustrates an extraordinary flexibility in symbolic and emotional relations. But this
flexibility often works in ways that conceal the continued resilience of power relations. This makes the
gender order appear to have transformed a great deal, when less has actually changed than these practices
appear (and are sometimes used as evidence) to demonstrate.

Conclusion
Connell (1995) theorized something she calls “gender vertigo” as accompanying periods of change—the
sense of unease as gendered personality structures and relations transform.3 It is associated with public
challenges to cultural conceptualizations of masculinity and femininity and the experiences associated with
charting new gender projects under shifting systems of opportunity and constraint—liberating for some,
disorienting for others, and potentially infuriating for those who refuse to acknowledge change. As Connell
writes,

The pattern of difference/dominance is so deeply embedded in culture, institutions and

body-reflexive practices that it functions as a limit to the rights-based politics of reform.
Beyond a certain point, the critique of dominance is rejected as an attack on difference—a
project that risks gender vertigo and violence. (Connell 1995, 232)

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Because crisis tendencies are a fundamental feature of the structure of gender relations, gender vertigo is a
historically recycled set of anxieties that accompany transformation. Hybrid masculinities are gender
projects that offer some men new tools to navigate the gender vertigo accompanying periods of crisis in
gender relations. The hipster, the metrosexual, and the bromance, as well as other gendered configurations
in this chapter, are gender strategies that accompany transformations. Our theorization of hybrid
masculinities, however, situates them as more than this as well: hybrid masculinities are strategies with
patterned consequences for groups of men who hold concentrated constellations of power and authority.
Recent changes—produced both by structural change and feminist critique and reform—have shed light
on masculinity and gender privilege in historically unprecedented ways. Privilege works best when it is
invisible, when it goes unrecognized by those who benefit the most. When the experiences of privilege are
fundamentally altered, so too are the “legitimating stories” that justify systems of gendered power and
inequality. The concept of hybrid masculinities offers a framework within which we can better assess how
privilege adapts to structural and sociopolitical change by highlighting these emergent strategies of action
and legitimating stories and strategies.
Research on hybrid masculinity suggests that we should be careful when assessing whether these
transformations are best understood as challenges to systems of power and inequality or simply shifts in
the ways those systems are perpetuated (e.g., Bridges 2014; Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Budgeon 2014).
Legal scholar Reva Siegel (1996) refers to processes of social reproduction involving the appearance of
social transformation that share some of the patterns we have identified here as
“preservation-through-transformation.” Similarly, we suggest that it is critically important to separate an
analysis of the motivations and the consequences of hybrid masculinities—recognizing patterned
consequences even when individuals may be unaware of their participation or even their interests in
reproducing existing structures of power and inequality.4 While the motivations behind hybrid
configurations of masculinity may be to challenge inequality or explore pleasures men have been denied
by stoic configurations of masculinity, research suggests three separate dimensions of hybrid masculinities
that have the collective consequence of obscuring power and inequality. Indeed, rather than challenging
inequality, they are better understood as what Kandiyoti (1988) referred to as “patriarchal bargains.”
Hybrid masculinity helps us recognize that meaningful changes in or successful challenges to systems of
gendered power and inequality are more complex than they may at first appear. Considerations of what
real (not simply stylistic) change will look like is an open question and must be answered with a
framework capable of making sense of the elasticity of gender and sexual inequality.

Glossary of Key Terms

Discursive distancing—hybrid masculine practices that create symbolic space between privileged
groups of men and hegemonic masculinity, enabling some men to frame themselves as outside of
existing systems of privilege and inequality.
Fortifying boundaries—hybrid masculine practices that entrench and conceal systems of inequality in
historically new ways, often along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class.
Gender and sexual inequality—the organization of social relations through which heteronormative and
patriarchal ideals become part of the structure of society, embedded in social institutions, interactions,
identities, and culture.
Gender hegemony—the process by which gender inequality is justified through social structures,
interactions, and institutions—a process that is continually transforming as it adapts to new historical
circumstances, challenges, and social contexts.
Hegemonic masculinities—configurations of masculinity that symbolically organize inequalities among
men and legitimate inequality between men and women.

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Hybrid masculinity—the selective incorporation of identity elements typically associated with various
marginalized and subordinated masculinities or femininities into privileged men’s gendered
enactments and identities.
Strategic borrowing—hybrid masculine practices of cultural appropriation by which privileged groups
claim ownership of cultural symbols associated with subordinated and marginalized social groups.

Notes

1 This type of intimacy—both emotional and physical—is not historically unique. A great deal of scholarship documents
intimate relationships between men throughout U.S. history. See, for instance, E. Anthony Rotundo’s (1993) and John
Ibson’s (2002) work on emotional and physical intimacy between men in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as Jane
Ward’s (2015) work, which documents same-sex intimacy as consistently part of heterosexual masculinity. What we are
seeing today are contemporary expressions of a long-standing pattern of relationships among men rather than something
historically unprecedented.
2 Subordinated and marginalized groups also incorporate elements associated with dominant groups as well. Consider
Messerschmidt’s (1997) analysis of Malcolm X and his participation in a form of zoot-suit “hipster” masculinity among
African American men in the 1930s and ‘40s in the United States as well as Nandy’s (1983) analysis of British colonialism in
India. While they illustrate a process of hybridization of masculinity as well, African Americans and Indians are here
motivated by very different concerns and operating under dramatically different constraints than the hybrid masculinities we
analyze in this chapter. We are suggesting that this form of hybridization (involving dominant groups appropriating cultural
elements of various Others) often works in ways that do not resist systems of inequality.
3 While “gender vertigo” is now primarily associated with Barbara Risman’s (2004) work on challenges to gender relations
within the family, she borrows the concept from Connell’s theory.
4 Discussions of “men’s interests” are necessarily complex (e.g., Messner 2004). Connell discusses men’s “interests” in ways
that do not necessarily demand conscious reflection or malicious intentions. As she writes, “Interests are formed in any
structure of inequality, which necessarily defines groups that will gain and lose differently by sustaining or by changing the
structure” (1995, 82). Our examination of hybrid masculinities considers them as working “in men’s interest” in a similar
manner.

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 Part V

Agendas for Theory

In this final section of the book, the chapters propose ideas for how gender theory should develop in the
future. The first chapter, by Barbara J. Risman, Kristen Myers, and Ray Sin, argues for a theoretical
“(re)turn” to gender as a social structure. Risman, Myers, and Sin examine the current neoliberal context
that emphasizes how individual choice creates the danger of promoting nonreflexive celebrations of
diversity while ignoring ongoing structural inequalities. Risman, Myers, and Sin call for viewing gender as
a system of stratification while simultaneously resisting essentialist ideas—including the concept of
cisgender—that create oversimplified umbrella categories. They urge prioritizing the deconstruction of
gender structure as a precursor to creating a world characterized by greater equality in relation to gender
and other categorical distinctions.
In the next chapter, Judith Lorber, in a return to her previous work on gender paradoxes, ponders the
question of how—under what structural conditions—the emergence of multiple genders, and chosen
gender displays, challenges structured social inequalities in workplaces, families, or other social
institutions. Similar to what Bridges and Pascoe (in this volume) say about hybrid masculinities, multiple
genders, Lorber warns, are not in and of themselves revolutionary. Lorber argues that the recent spate of
multiple genders being hailed by some as a sign of degendering—a development that could undermine the
current binary gender order—is in fact no such thing. Multiple genders not only fail to free people from
gendered distinctions and norms, they help shore them up. Lorber favors the option of degendering the
many realms of social life where we now place great emphasis on gender divisions.
Finally, the chapter by Mimi Schippers examines sexuality by arguing that the monogamous couple is a
discursively constructed ideal and compulsory structure for sexual and emotional intimacy that
simultaneously legitimates gender hegemony. Schippers examines polyamory, which refers to an intimate
relationship—physical or emotional, or both—with more than one person at a time and to which all
involved actively consent. She suggests that consensual nonmonogamies, such as polyamory, can develop
new forms of intimate and sexual relationships by stressing gender egalitarianism, thereby becoming a
fruitful area of empirical research and gender theory development. Schippers concludes that monogamy
fosters unequal gender relations whereas polyamory has the potential to subvert inequality and promote
egalitarian relations between women and men.

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 14

Limitations of the Neoliberal Turn in Gender Theory

(Re)Turning to Gender as a Social Structure

Barbara J. Risman, Kristen Myers, and Ray Sin

Choice feminism has co-opted feminist language in a way that takes the political out of the personal.
—Meghan Murphy, “Choice Feminism”

In 1987, Raewyn Connell published Gender and Power, introducing a new approach to understanding
gender as inequality. She insisted on the importance of everyday practices and structural constraints,
pushing us beyond individualistic approaches to gender. In this chapter we argue that advances first
pioneered by Connell, the integration of structure and practice, highlighting the co-construction of
individuals and society, are in danger of being reversed by a neoliberal1 turn in gender theory.2 To make
this argument, we provide a brief history of gender scholarship. We then show how gender scholarship has
recently veered away from concerns about sexism and inequality to focus on questions of identity and
agentic gender performance as part of narrowing concerns to the individual, a shift at least compatible with
a neoliberal turn.
We provide three different kinds of evidence for our concern: (1) recent research published in feminist
journals that situates gender as individual identity or strategy with little attention to gender inequality
(Bantjes and Nieuwoudt 2014; Mora 2012; Balogun 2012; Kim and Pike 2015; Gimlin 2013); (2) a recent
focus on individual rights to choose pronouns and the identification of a new identity binary based on
individual identity (“cis” as the opposite of trans) (Schilt and Westbrook 2009); and (3) the popularization
of “born that way” rhetoric for gender, borrowed from the gay rights movement (Khan 2015). Using data
from a collaborative research project studying Millennials,3 we show one limitation of the neoliberal turn
toward identity in feminist writing: it cannot do justice to the complexity of young adult lives. We show
that relying upon neoliberal concepts at the individual level of analysis hampers our understanding of the
persistence of gender inequality even in the face of an increasing spectrum of gender performances.
Finally, we conclude by suggesting a return to feminist scholarship that continues to celebrate diversity at
the individual level while refocusing attention on feminist attempts to dismantle gender as a structure
itself.

From Sex Roles to Stratification: A Brief History of Gender

During the heyday of functionalist sociology, only those writing about the family (e.g., Parsons and Bales
1955; Zelditch 1955) were interested in sex and gender. They theorized that sex roles should socialize girls
for domesticity and boys for labor force participation and patriarchal fatherhood. Once the second wave of
feminism crashed the gates of social science, women pointed out that gender is not about roles but
primarily about inequality (England et al. 2007; Lorber 1994). Psychologists (e.g., Bem 1974, 1981;
Spence, Helmreich, and Holahan 1975; Spence, Helmreich, and Stapp 1975) began to measure sex role
attitudes using scales derived from old personality and employment tests (Terman and Miles 1936). Within
a few years, however, it became clear that femininity and masculinity were not actually opposites

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(Locksley and Colten 1979; Pedhazur and Tetenbaum 1979; Edwards and Ashworth 1977), and Bem
(1981, 1993) reconceptualized gender in what was then a novel way: she posited that masculinity and
femininity were two different personality dimensions distinct from bodies. This became the accepted
understanding used by psychologists and sociologists alike.
Early feminist sociologists used sex role theory to show how gender socialization disadvantaged girls
(Lever 1974; Stockard and Johnson 1980; Weitzman 1979) by socializing them into femininity as a
personality trait, presuming gender training embedded societal norms deep inside of us. Psychologists and
sociologists alike implied that the key to eradicating gender inequality was to raise a new generation
without gender limits and to resocialize adults. Soon, however, feminist sociologists began to critique this
approach that reduced gender to personality. Lopata and Thorne (1978) published a now classic article
showing the functionalist presumptions underlying “sex role” explanations for differences between women
and men: the very rhetorical use of the language of “role” requires conceptualizing a complementarity
devoid of questions of power and privilege. Social scientists would never use the language of “race roles”
to explain the differential opportunities and constraints of majority and minority members of a Western
society. The language of “sex role” presumed a stability of behavior across the life cycle and gender
patterns that are similar across class, sexuality, and race and ethnic groups. It became clear that gender was
not only about socialized personalities and identities but that a more deeply sociological analysis was
needed.
Two distinct sociological theoretical alternatives developed: an interactionist framework, “doing
gender,” and a focus on how organizational structure shapes people, the new “structuralists.” The
interactionist “doing gender” framework introduced by West and Zimmerman (1987) argued that gender is
something we are held morally accountable to perform, something we do, not something we are. At the
same time, a structural focus on workplace organizations was introduced by Kanter (1977) to explain
inequality between women and men with organizational characteristics such as differential opportunity and
tokenism. Apparent sex differences in leadership style represented women’s disadvantaged organizational
placement, not their gendered personalities. Epstein (1988) supported this argument, suggesting that most
of the differences between men and women were deceptive distinctions: if men and women were given the
same opportunities and constraints, the differences between them would vanish. Much research ensued
suggesting that male advantage remains even when men and women fill identical structural roles (Williams
1992). Purely social-structural variables cannot explain the power of gender.
Emerging during this period, Connell’s Gender and Power represented a shift in the paradigm of gender
scholarship. Connell drew on historical cross-cultural research to argue that it was with the urban
revolution and the development of bureaucratized state capitalism in Western Europe that gender
inequality was institutionalized into the particular sexual division of labor we now recognize. The
proliferation of trade and colonialism led to a global diffusion of colonial versions of gender, although
always in conversation with local cultures. Connell concluded that gender is socially constructed,
historically contingent, culturally specific, and about power. Connell offered a complex view of gender
that included individual psychology, social structure, and the relationship between them. Connell’s work
complicated feminist theorizing about gender, incorporating recursive models of structure and practice.
Soon thereafter, Lorber (1994) suggested that gender difference itself was socially constructed, specifically
as a legitimation for inequality. Similarly, Messerschmidt’s (1997, 2016) structured action theory also
pushed the integrative envelope. He emphasized the “construction of sex, gender, and sexuality as situated
social, interactional and embodied accomplishments” (2016, 37). Together these works shifted the ground:
gender could no longer be understood entirely as psychology, nor entirely as structure (see Risman and
Davis 2013 for a more detailed intellectual history of gender scholarship).
From the end of the 20th century onwards, the conceptualization of gender as a stratification system that
exists outside of individual characteristics and varies along other axes of inequality became the new
consensus (Lorber 1994; Martin 2004; Risman 1998, 2004; Collins 1990; Crenshaw 1989; Harris 1990;
Ingraham 1994; Mohanty 2003; Nakano Glenn 1999). Theorists turned their attention to gender as an
institutional structure of inequality across different levels of analysis (Lorber 1994; Martin 2003, 2004,
2006; Risman 1998, 2004; Acker 1990, 1992). Gender can be conceptualized as a social structure,

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integrating social processes that occur at the individual, interactional, and macro levels of analysis without
claiming a priori any more significant explanatory power (Risman 1998, 2004). The gender structure is
dynamic and change in any aspect will reverberate throughout. Moreover, Connell’s recognition of the
global nature of the gender order has inspired scholars from different countries to understand how local
gender structures interact with the gender orders from other countries, which, in turn, constitute a global
gender regime (O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999; Walby 2004).

The Neoliberal Turn in Gender Scholarship: From Multilevel Stratification Systems to

Choice Feminism’s Essentialist Authentic Self
In the 21st century, there has been renewed attention to the individual level of analysis, to a concern with
identities and the authenticity of gendered selves. While such issues are critically important, the increasing
focus on diversity of gender identities and performances without linking them back to the social structure
may have the unintended consequence of essentializing femininity and masculinity within the body. This
returns us to a view of gender that is primarily about individuals, personalities, and selves and not a
concern with societal stratification. The short history above provides evidence that this is not the first time
that social science has struggled with gender essentialism. But this recent iteration seems to be distinct,
spawned by the current influence of neoliberalism. Within a neoliberalist framework, attention is shifted to
the “choice” and responsibility of individuals, with less attention to the governmental and other
social-structural explanations for social life. While few feminist sociologists identify themselves as
neoliberals, it seems as if there has been an unreflexive importation of neoliberal thought into the study of
gender that is problematic both as an analytic strategy and as an effective collective feminist project to
eradicate gender inequalities.
We provide three different kinds of evidence for our concern: (1) recent research published in feminist
journals that highlight gender as individual identity or strategy with little attention to inequality; (2) the
social construction of a new gender binary with the linguistic adoption of the term “cisgender” as an
opposite of transgender and an array of new identity pronouns; and (3) a reliance upon “born that way”
rhetoric, which requires essentialist presumptions.

Femininities and Masculinities

Much recent research focuses on the varieties of femininities and masculinities constructed by those in
marginalized social groups, often providing thick description of masculinities and femininities of all
varieties, with perfunctory concern for gender inequality or the processes of the social construction of
gender itself (Bantjes and Nieuwoudt 2014; Mora 2012; Balogun 2012; Williams 2002; Gimlin 2013;
Paechter 2007). For example, Kim and Pike (2015) critique the Father School movement in Korea for
stigmatizing how Korean men “do gender” and for promoting Western hegemonic masculinity. But they
do not much wrestle with how enactment of alternative masculinities might increase or decrease women’s
power in Korean families, the sexism women face in Korean society, or the homophobia faced by gender
nonconforming men. Similarly, Gimlin (2013) examines narratives of women undergoing breast
augmentation as aesthetic surgery and reports that the cultural narrative of desired femininity has shifted
from authenticity to intervention and improvement. She suggests that the desire to improve oneself may
signify empowerment and agency. What goes underexamined is that breast augmentation is another
manifestation of the imposition of almost impossible standards of beauty upon women, standards that
cannot be achieved without the burden of medical risks and exorbitant cost. Such burdens of beauty are
primarily the work of women (and not men), and even among women such work further stratifies
femininity by social class.
While description of the varieties of masculinities and femininities does help decenter the white middle
class from the study of gender, what remains underanalyzed is how these varieties of “doing gender”

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connect to inequality between the sexes, or even between the varieties of gender. Research on gender that
focuses on cultural variations of femininities and masculinities, devoid of concern for the structure of
inequality, is one kind of evidence of a global neoliberal worldview colonizing the study of gender.

Freedom from Old Binaries: Choosing New Pronouns and Identities and New Binaries
A second kind of evidence of an encroaching neoliberal focus on the individual is an increasing tendency
to study the choices of individuals, while allowing social-structural analysis to recede into the murky
background. Although sociologists have critiqued choice models for decades, there has been an increasing
emphasis on choice in recent scholarship and activism (see Budgeon 2003; Baumgardner and Richards
2000). While choice may seem liberating and socially progressive, we agree with critics who have argued
that it is a mistake to lose the forest while we study the trees (see Groenveld 2009; Murphy 2012;
Zimmerman, McDermott, and Gould 2009). For example, the freedom for those who reject the binary of
male/female (or men/women) to use new pronouns (e.g., ze and hir) may shake up the binary logic that
presumes gender can only be about men and women. And yet the new ability to choose gender pronouns
that evade the binary may ironically preserve the larger system of meaningful gender categories. When
people resist gender categories because they are too limiting, pressure builds to shatter the stereotypes that
bind. But if those most miserable within the categories as they now exist can opt out, then the pressure
needed for stereotypes to lose power is lessened, leaving them intact. For those most oppressed, opting out
eases the pain, which is important. Opting out itself can be revolutionary. If everyone were to opt out of
gendered pronouns, the gender structure itself might crack down to its foundation. But does the recent
proliferation of categories portend such an imminent collapse? We think not. Most people unreflexively
inhabit the gendered binary, and those who opt out of male or female opt into a rebel category. Despite
expanded choices for the few, the categories of women and men have remained intact, and stereotypes
attached to gender continue to constrain the majority who remain identified as male or female. Rather than
exploding gender categories altogether, choice allows liberty for some without attacking stereotypes or
constraints for most others. Further, the rhetoric of cisgender makes intersex people invisible. There isn’t
an agreed-upon “sex category” to which intersex people “should” have been labeled at birth, as they are
quite literally between the binary of sex categories (see Viloria 2014).4 In fact, intersex scholars and
activists point out that the sex categories themselves are social constructions used to oppress people who
don’t fit (Davis 2015; Fausto-Sterling 2012).
Neoliberal “choice” ideology has also trickled into feminist research on gender identities. One example
of the individualist turn by gender scholars is the construction of the new category “cisgender,” a term that
refers to anyone who identifies with the gender that aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth (Schilt
and Westbrook 2009). The term has recently come into popular use as more attention is given to people
who transition from the sex assigned at birth to another sex (transgender), as well as those who reject the
binary entirely (using identities such as genderqueer and agender). Indeed, the term has recently been
added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Despite its popularity—or perhaps because if it—the rhetorical
language of cisgender needs some deconstruction.
The earliest written record of using “cis” as a prefix related to gender can be traced to a German
physician, Ernst Burchard, in a sexology textbook in 1914 (Williams 2013). Burchard used
“cisvestitismus” to refer to human beings who dress in gender-normative clothing. But “cis” did not
become popular for 80 years, until biologist Dana Leland Defosse used the term “cisgender” as a linguistic
term within molecular biology. He used “cis” as a prefix to describe action from the same molecule, while
“trans” refers to action from a different molecule. Organic chemistry uses the terms similarly (within and
across). Cisgender as a term was only recently adopted by activists in the transgender rights movement to
differentiate themselves from the majority (Enke 2012). In 2009, Schilt and Westbrook introduced
cisgender to the sociological community as “individuals who have a match between the gender they were
assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity” (461).
This new terminology is useful in conversations about trans issues as it disrupts assumptions of gender
normality. It acknowledges that trans people face especially pernicious, dehumanizing gender policing (see
Schilt and Westbrook 2009; Westbrook and Schilt 2013; Schilt 2011). Yet the term cisgender also creates a

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new binary, dividing those who are cisgender from those who are not. What it does not do is help us
understand the increasing fluidity of bodies, identities, and performances in contemporary society. For
example, children who identify as transgender may remain so identified for life, while others may not
(Drescher and Pula 2014; Wallien and Cohen-Kettenis 2008). Some experience gender dysphoria only
later in life. In Messerschmidt’s 2016 book, Masculinities in the Making, some respondents are very clear
that they have held a variety of identities and are open to the possibility of other identities in the future.
How does a trans/cis divide help us or them chart new insights into gender fluidity, or ambiguity? What if
the new binary itself simply adds another set of expectations on today’s youth, instructing them to figure
out who they “really” are and stay there?
The current concept of cisgender is limited in three major ways. First, the cis-trans language introduces
yet another binary, oversimplifying gender complexity for all people, including ignoring those actually
born intersex. Second, the concept presumes a certain gender essentialism, at least for those who are not
trans. Third, and perhaps most problematic, is that this new language leaves the other gender inequality
unmarked: between men and women (whether they are those assigned the category at birth or not), and
between those who conform to gender stereotypes and those who do not. While the point of this new
binary is to underscore that cisgender people are privileged, and transgender people are not, the articulation
of that privilege with male privilege and gender conformity is often left unexplored (for an exception, see
Schilt 2011).
It is very clear that the language of cisgender and the new gender binary is useful for transgender
activism. The very existence of a rhetoric for “marking” what Schilt and Westbrook (2009) refer to as
“gender normals” highlights the argument that neither group is more normal than the other. Both cis and
trans people need to be identified by an identity label for trans activism. What is less clear is whether such
a new binary is useful for social science.

“Born That Way” Rhetoric: From Sexual to Gender Identities

In a neoliberal framework, where individual choice and freedom are at the center of attention, conflicts
among social scientists can indeed erupt. We see this happening in research on sexual orientation and
political activism. Khan (2015) argues that while the “born this way” explanation for lesbian and gay
identities has been effective in the marriage equality movement, it obfuscates the strong social science that
has shown that sexuality is culturally variable and that homosexuality as an identity is a modern invention.
Extending this same logic to gender, Khan contrasts basic sociological evidence about gender as socially
constructed with the strongly held opinions of those who believe that masculinity or femininity is their
only biologically “authentic” self. That belief can be as strongly held by those assigned male at birth and
by transmen, or by those assigned female at birth and by transwomen And, yet, much research in social
science shows that biological determinants explain a small variance of gendered responses and identities
(Cohen-Bendahan, van de Beek, and Berenbaum, 2005; Davis and Risman 2014; Jordan-Young 2010).
The meanings attached to gender and the ways gender is manifested are culturally shaped, historically
contingent, and variable. Still, gender (like sexuality) is often experienced as a deeply essential authentic
core self. To the extent that we uncritically accept the essential need to be masculine or feminine as
biologically “authentic,” we support individuals’ right to self-determination. But to do so as social
scientists requires us to ignore what is at the moment the state of the art social scientific evidence. We
agree with Khan (and also see D’Emilio 2002) that most social scientists remained silent regarding their
knowledge about sexual plasticity because of the political efficacy in doing so. To remain silent in a
political movement may be efficacious, but social scientists have not remained silent about the social
construction of sexual identities within the social scientific community. We fear the silencing of social
science in the face of the rhetoric of a new essentialist gender binary (cis/trans). Surely there are better
ways to affirm and support the rights of transgender and genderqueer people without creating a binary that
ignores the variation in gendered selves among the many who are not transgender and challenges the
theoretical power of the social construction of gender. To concretely illustrate the problem of narrowing
attention to gender identity once again, we turn to an overview of a study we have conducted of U.S.
Millennial youth.

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Millennials and the Gender Structure: The Limitations of Neoliberal Conceptualizations
of Gender
In order to explain the empirical limitations of neoliberal frameworks on our understanding of gender
complexity, we use data from a research project on which we collaborated. In this project, we collected
116 interviews with mostly working class minority Chicagoland Millennials. The sample was also gender
diverse, with over 15 percent respondents who were genderqueer or trans. Their stories illustrate how
focusing on individual identity, choice, and the rhetoric of cisgender would create far more confusion than
clarification.
In analyzing our data, if we were to apply the cis/trans binary to our sample, we would be unable to
understand the experiences of all of our subjects. Cis people are not at all a homogenous, monolithic
group. They do not share some attribute that provides them a common privilege. Too broad an array of
people are currently defined as cis: effeminate men, butch women, tough guys, and feminine ladies. Men
and women who do not conform to gender stereotypes may challenge the gender structure even as they
claim a gender category that aligns with their assigned sex. For example, we talked to a self-identified
butch lesbian woman who had always felt constrained by gender norms and oppressed by her body. Once
she had her breasts removed, she was at peace with being female and was distressed when panhandlers
addressed her as “sir.” Why is it helpful to label this woman as cisgender? Her struggles are ignored if we
lump her into this amorphous category.
Similarly, the cis/trans dichotomy also has the unintended consequence of essentializing the trans
community as undifferentiated. Some trans people seek to pass, while others want to disrupt gender
categories altogether. We found the stories told by transgender respondents who were in transition and
wanted very much to pass as “the opposite sex” were very different from the transgender respondents who
were rebels against the gender structure and were comfortable being publicly and openly identified as
transwomen or transmen. Both were quite distinct from those who held a genderqueer identity, or were
neither male nor female identified. The Millennials who opted for a genderqueer identity and who wanted
to smash the binary are also sometimes categorized within the broad “trans” label in that they rejected the
sex category assigned at birth. Our genderqueer respondents were quite different from the transgender
ones, however, as they reported far less childhood trauma and were far more political in their
conceptualization of gender politics.
In order to apply the cis/trans lens to our sample, we would be forced to categorize our subjects as either
cis or trans. How do we determine this? Categorizing people into the cis/trans dichotomy involves
exploring how they align their “true selves” with their gender performances. Assuming that people have an
essential gendered nature flies in the face of theoretical insights of the past four decades, and it collapses
the complexity that Connell herself helped us to understand. A focus on people’s true selves pushes us
backward toward a biological essentialism that research does not support. For example, gender
nonconforming respondents talked very openly about having held a variety of gender identities. A
self-identified genderqueer female had previously identified as a butch lesbian, and then as a transboy. She
wanted us to know that her gender was a journey, and she did not know where it might lead. But she was
very open to yet another identity still in the future. The creation of a category of “cis” versus “trans”
presumes a stability that simply does not exist, at least not for all of our respondents. And how can it be
applied to the intersex? Are intersex people who align their gender identity with the sex category that was
imposed by their medical doctors during infancy cisgender (see Costello 2015)?5
And finally, were we to rely on a neoliberal analytical framework, we would fail to examine the
structural consequences of gender. The gender structure bifurcates and stratifies people as women and men
regardless of whether or not they self-identify as such. For example, Pfeffer (2014) writes about how
misrecognition of transmen and their partners as normatively heterosexual renders their queer identities
invisible. Schilt (2011) shows that male privilege is accorded to transmen who pass as men but not to those
who do not. Perhaps transmen men have more in common—in the workplace—with hegemonic men who
do gender in a socially valuable way than with others who display gender nonconformity, even if their

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gender performance doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth. In our research, the young men who broke
gender norms told gut-wrenching stories about being bullied by other boys, and about being sometimes
stigmatized by their own families. Transgender Millennials told such stories but so did boys, gay and
straight, who didn’t “man up,” who rejected team sports for fashion interests, or wanted the freedom to
wear bright colors and makeup. Stigma is experienced by those who reject gender-normative lives,
whether they are transgender, genderqueer, effeminate men, butch women, or anyone else. Patriarchal
dividends are awarded to those who subscribe to gender-normative behavior. We must use theoretical
lenses that enable us to critique the gender structure. Despite the promise of personal freedom, the ability
to choose your gender, from an increasing array of possibilities, as your authentic gender does not free one
from gender inequality.

Ongoing and Future Debates: Where Should We Go from Here?

The landscape of gender identities is growing ever more complicated. Some people enjoy “doing gender,”
especially the aspects that are not inherently stratification markers, such as makeup, pumping iron, and
fashion. Others strongly identify with gender categories distinct from sex assignment at birth, and, for
them, gender is a source of liberation from imprisonment in bodies that do not match their identities. In our
technologically sophisticated society, bodies seem more malleable than selves. There are also now
genderqueer or agender identity people who deny the binary of male/female and occupy the space between
the categories. We have no longitudinal data to know if previous generations had equal numbers of gender
nonconformists hidden in closets or whether this era allows more exploration of all facets of the self. But
we can hypothesize that the cracks in our gender structure (language first offered by Connell and now a
part of our shared theoretical language) have allowed feminist and queer theories to develop, and with
those theories the very possibility of imagining new ways to live across and between the binary has
emerged.
Research is needed to even hazard a guess whether the defiance of assigned gender categories, identities,
and statuses reflects dissatisfaction with the gender structure as we know it or simply dissatisfaction with
one’s own gendered expectations. We see far more divorce in modern societies than in more traditional
ones, but that does not mean that a divorcing spouse rejects marriage as an institution, only that they don’t
like the particular person to whom they are married at the moment. Perhaps for some trans people, gender
is entirely a personal issue, and the gender structure ceases to feel oppressive once they change categories.
In our study of Millennials, however, some transgender and genderqueer youth reject the notion that there
should be gender categories and see their choices in opposition to a binary gender structure. Perhaps the
category of transgender is insufficient for transgender men and women and genderqueer people to coexist
within it. Identity categories are always socially constructed, contested, and historically contingent, and our
research simply illustrates that this is also true for our current crop of gender identities.
In this chapter, we have argued that there has been a neoliberal turn in gender scholarship. This
neoliberal turn is evidenced by all the scholarly attention to individual identities without clear analysis of
the relationship between individuals and the social structure, and the relationship between them. Attention
must still be paid to gender inequality across sex categories and to inequality between gender identities. It
is important to link a focus on the diversity of gender identities and performances back to the gender
structure. If we focus only on identities and individuals’ right to name their own gender, we risk the
unintended consequence of essentializing femininity and masculinity within the body. This returns us to a
view of gender that is primarily about individuals and not about stratification. Within a neoliberal
framework, attention is narrowed to the “choice” of individuals with less attention to the governmental and
other social-structural explanations for social life. Neoliberalism is in the intellectual air we breathe in the
21st century. In a world with increasingly fewer unions or pensions or stable employment contracts, the
individual managing his or her own trajectory has become routine. Individuals are responsible for choosing
everything from religious denominations to health care plans to identities. We suggest this individualist
focus has been imported into the study of gender. This is problematic both as an analytic strategy and for a
collective feminist project to eradicate gender inequalities.

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 We can envision two possible future scenarios as a result of more gender categories. First, we foresee
that those who now “choose” to use male- or female-identified pronouns that align with the sex ascribed to
them at birth will be under more pressure to behave in stereotypically masculine or feminine ways. If male,
to be tough and sturdy, agentic, and emotionally repressed, and, if female, to be empathetic, nurturing, and
avoid being “bossy.” Those who “choose” new gender-neutral pronouns are freed to be who they want to
be. In such a scenario, choosing gender-alternative pronouns creates comfort and a sense of belonging for
those who do so. That is useful, but it is far less radical a solution to gender inequality than a challenge to
the very gender expectations attached to categories themselves. The need to focus on structural inequality
and the social construction of gendered categories may recede if those most oppressed by them have a
personal choice to opt out. A second possible scenario, and our advice to activists, is to use the
proliferation of gender identities to critique the need for categories themselves. Bem (1995) once suggested
that the explosion of sexual identities would eventually lead us to realize that sexuality needn’t be
organized by types of people at all, but by relationships between them. So, too, an explosion of gender
identities should lead to questioning whether we need gender categories and their attendant stereotypes at
all.
What will the future bring? Nothing is inevitable because, as Connell notes, the present moment “is not
a culmination but a point of choice” (279). We worry that interactional expectations, cultural ideology, and
institutional constraints may become nearly invisible in a neoliberal framework that orients us entirely to
the politics of individual choice. If gender is reduced to a quest for authentic identity among individuals,
we have reverted to an essentialist belief about “real” gender essence, even if we expand the conversation
to include people whose “real” gender does not match their assigned sex.
The need for feminist social action is as necessary as ever. Gender inequality between women and men,
and within gender categories, is still rampant. We believe the most radical way forward is to destabilize the
gender structure: to dismantle the binary categories upon which the gender structure is based. Gender
transgressions of all sorts can push toward this goal: genderqueer youth destabilize taken-for-granted
presumptions when they demand gender-neutral pronouns. Transgender community members demanding
equality under the law and in civil society destabilize the presumption that gender must conform to
biological bodies. Male caretakers and female leaders smash stereotypes as well. While expanding the list
of categories that we use to denote gender may help to disrupt the gender structure, it cannot do so if those
categories simply defuse tension for the most oppressed, leaving the categories themselves unchallenged.
We cannot achieve a feminist utopia without more critical research on sexism and gender as a social
structure. We have hardly moved beyond the paradox of gender (Lorber 1994). We must continue to make
gender inequality visible before we can dismantle it. While we support each individual’s right to live with
an authentic identity, we suggest that no one is truly free to do so as long as gender as a social structure
persists.
It is imperative that gender scholars continue to study, and support, those who reject gender norms, who
change their sex category, and genderqueers who reject binary categories entirely. But we cannot do so
with a focus only on individual-level identity politics. As feminist analysts, we must understand gender
rebellion as a response to a repressive gender structure, not merely a desire to live authentically according
to an essential presocial self. We hope this is a transitional moment in history, where new categories help
explode the expectations attached to sex categories, so that masculinity and femininity have little social
meaning, and are not attached to male or female bodies, or to the categories of man and woman. As such,
we can create a bridge to a future with a less oppressive gender structure.
With this chapter, we have attempted to foster a respectful dialogue among gender scholars with
different perspectives but who share the feminist goal that everyone should have freedom to live authentic
lives within, beyond, or between gender categories. We are committed to a feminist vision of a society
with gender equality. As long as people assigned as female at birth face differential expectations compared
to those labeled male at birth, our society will remain gender stratified with inequality embodied at the
individual level, policed at the interactional level, and accepted as cultural logic and official policy at the

185
macro level. Only when the sex category assigned at birth has no more power than the color of one’s eyes
(Okin 1989) will we have gender equality. Perhaps when that time comes, gender can be reconstituted
without inequality. But why would anyone then want to do so?

Notes

1 There is no one definition of neoliberalism. On a broad conceptual level, neoliberal ideology is the injection of market
principles into all aspects of society and its attendant implications for geopolitics across nations, local domestic politics, and
the individual. In this chapter, we focus on the implications of neoliberalism on the individual when it comes to gender. As
Peters (2001) argues, neoliberalism on the individual level represents a shift toward individualizing social problems as
personal responsibilities and choices. Hence solutions to social problems such as gender inequality are now placed on
self-help, self-empowerment, and self-reliance.
2 Barbara J. Risman thanks both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences at Stanford for support during a sabbatical year in 2015–16 during which this article was written.
3 Millennials are a demographic cohort. While there are no precise agreed-upon dates, they range from those born in the early
1980s until the end of the 20th century. The label implies that they came of age in this new millennium.
4 See www.hidaviloria.com.
5 See trans-fusion.blogspot.com.

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 15

Paradoxes of Gender Redux

Multiple Genders and the Persistence of the Binary

Judith Lorber

I have been out as an agender, or genderless, person for about a year now. To me, this simply means having the
freedom to exist as a person without being confined by the limits of the western gender binary. . . . People don’t know
what to make of me when they see me, because they feel my features contradict one another. They see no room for the
curve of my hips to coexist with my facial hair; they desperately want me to be someone they can easily categorise. My
existence causes people to question everything they have been taught about gender, which in turn inspires them to
question what they know about themselves, and that scares them. Strangers are often desperate to figure out what
genitalia I have.
—Tyler Ford, “My Life without Gender”

Within the space of two weeks in 2014, the New York Times published several pieces on multiple genders.
One was on the fiftysome choices of gender identity for Facebook users (Ball 2014; Herbenick and
Baldwin 2014). These could be bigender, agender, gender fluid, variant, questioning, queer, transman,
transwoman, intersex, neutrois, two-spirit, and variations of each. Another article reported that Australia’s
High Court has allowed someone to register their gender officially as “nonspecific” (Baird 2014) and
another that India’s Supreme Court had recognized transgender as a third gender (Varma and Najar 2014).
In 2013, Germany allowed parents of intersexed babies to register them as “indeterminate” (Nandi 2013).
“Queer,” once a radical identity, has almost become the new normal (Wortham 2016). These are
twenty-first-century iterations of going beyond the binary, the strict division of people into two and only
two sexes or genders, a subject I’ve been exploring for twenty years (Lorber 1996, 2001). They are
indicators of multiple personal genders and much more limited official third genders.
Despite the blurring of boundaries in chosen gender identities, there does not seem to be very much
actual, lived erasure of gender displays. At an art exhibit in New York City not long ago, I was struck by
the way the gender of the members of the avant-garde crowd was clearly identifiable as “man” or
“woman.” There were no “nonspecifics,” let alone fifty varieties of gender.
Theoretically, the erosion of gender boundaries should undercut gendered power inequalities and sustain
the thrust toward a gender-equal social order. In the social construction conceptualization of gender,
processes and practices (“doing gender”) that are repeated and ritualized congeal into a structure that
encourages further repetition of gendered practices (Butler 2004; Lorber 2008; West and Zimmerman
1987). These practices create the differences between women and men that justify the inequities of power
and privilege embedded in gender regimes. Personally chosen genders should affect the interactive
processes that sustain social action and that ultimately influence practices in workplaces, families, and
other social institutions. But the multiplicity of genders that supposedly has undermined the gender binary
in Western cultures does not seem to have a positive interactive or structural effect. Rather, gender-variant
appearances incur more opprobrium and violence than those experienced by transgendered people
(Harrison, Grant, and Herman 2011–12; Vaid-Menon 2015). The most benign result seems to be the
increasingly common designation of single-use bathrooms as M/F (Smith 2015) but not the spread of
gender-neutral multiple-use facilities (Molotch and Norén 2010).

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 The gender paradox I explored over twenty years ago focused on the rhetoric of gender equality made
meaningless by a total system that rendered women unequal and exploited (Lorber 1994). Today’s gender
paradox is a rhetoric of gender multiplicity made meaningless by a continuing system of bigendered social
structures that support continued gender inequality. Underneath the seeming erasure of a rigid gender
binary and its discriminatory norms and expectations lurks the persistence of men’s power and privilege
(Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Kent 2015).
The revolutionary acceptance of homosexual and transgender women and men has ended there—with
acceptance but without structural change (Walters 2014). Gays, lesbians, and transgendered people fit right
into the gender binary. Homosexuality does not seem to diminish masculinity anymore (Browne 2014).
Lesbians are women first and foremost; indeed, lesbianism has been defined as a continuum of women’s
emotional gamut (Rich 1980). Transgender men are coached in masculinity (Schilt 2011) and transgender
women in femininity (Rogers 1992); both seek to legitimize bureaucratically and legally their chosen
gender as man or woman (Currah, Juang, and Minter 2006). In short, what seems to be
revolutionary—valorization of coming out as homosexual, same-sex marriage, and open transgender
identity—has not changed the structure of binary gender regimes. Insidiously, these gender regimes, even
those that are seemingly the most gender-equal in resource distribution, political power, and social
privileges, such as those of Scandinavia, often still favor men (Borchorst 2009; Borchorst and Siim 2008).
The problem is that the popular concept of gender currently is what you believe you are and how you
present yourself. It’s not relational, social, structural, or institutional, but purely personal. Throwing gender
back into personal identity ignores what feminists have learned about state gender regimes and the
bureaucratic and legal imposition of binary categories. It also ignores the interactional and behavioral
norms and expectations that validate personal gender identities. Another throwback is the resurgence of
supposedly scientific support for male-female hardwiring of the brain and the subsequent behavior of
immutably patterned children and adults that is often invoked to justify the choice of gender identity and
sexuality (Jordan-Young 2011).
Where is the gender revolution feminists sought? Where is the thrust for a weakening of gender’s
pervasiveness? Interpersonally, “woman” and “man” are still enacted and maintained, and gender
inequality persists.

How Could Multiple Gendering Have a Structural Effect?

At the end of Gender and Power, Raewyn Connell proposes two scenarios for change: abolition of gender
and playing with gender (1987, 286–293). Abolition of gender could be accomplished by relegating sex
differences to physical procreation, so that they are not “a cosmic division or a social fate” (287). Sexual
and emotional binaries would be irrelevant, and masculinity and femininity would be meaningless. Instead,
we would have “open-ended variety.” That sounds like multiple gendering. Connell says that, without
gender, it would be a “seriously impoverished” world (288). A more palatable alternative would be playing
with gender and sexuality, or, as we would put it today, queering them: “Elements of sexual character,
gender practice or sexual ideology are often disconnected and recombined for enjoyment, erotic tension,
subversion or convenience” (289). That also sounds like multiple gendering.
Let’s consider multiple gendering as an opening wedge of gender change, a precursor to abolishing
gender as a binary social institution. Consistent presentation of self as not specifically a man or a woman
would affect interaction, which should then in turn affect gender as a building block of social structure.
There have been many real-life instances of parents raising a Baby X (Green and Friedman 2013) and
many accounts of the liminal phases of gender transitioning, when the person is not easily identifiable as a
man or a woman (Ames 2005). Despite the current climate of transgender acceptance, blurred gender
identities seem to generate hostility and discomfort, especially in body-germane settings, such as
bathrooms (Cavanagh 2010).
I am going to infer some possible effects of nonbinary gendering from research on sexual borderlands
(Callis 2014), Patricia Hill Collins’s analysis of how Black women could become empowered (2000,

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275–290), Cecilia Ridgeway’s discussion of a possible end to the pervasive gender frame (2011, 190–200),
and consequences of nongendered bathrooms (Cavanagh 2010; Molotch and Norén 2010).

Borderlands
Those who are not conventionally gendered live in a borderland between men and women. Drawing on the
borderlands theory of Gloria Anzuldúa (1987) and the work of Pablo Vila (2000), April Scarlette Callis
(2014) explored how people sexually identifying as bisexual, pansexual, queer, and other nonbinaries
inhabit the borderland between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Callis notes that, theoretically,
“borderlands simultaneously develop their own cultures while challenging hegemonic ideology” (68). By
this analogy, those who inhabit sexual borderlands should be creating new forms of being sexual and
eventually open a space for an institutionalized “third sexuality.” What she found was the other way
around: the sexual borderland was created by the structures of heterosexuality and homosexuality. The
thirty-seven people with nonbinary sexualities she interviewed “used 21 different terms or phrases in
multiple combinations to label their sexual identities. Despite the wide array of labels used, all of these
identities were formed as a reaction to the binary of heterosexual/homosexual, and each moved within and
beyond this binary” (78).
Multiple genders, I would argue, exist in a borderland similarly constrained by a powerful binary frame.
Like those with nonbinary sexualities, those who invoke nonstandard gender identities have not developed
a shared identity or culture. They include transpeople who alter their bodies in order to transition and live
as women or men, those with intersexed bodies who want a third gender or X identity, and those with the
bodies they were born with who have adopted alternative gender identities. They are too heterogenous and
too fragmented to challenge the binary hegemony. Transpeople may support the gender binary, but do
people who don’t want to be tied down to hegemonic labels of “man,” “woman,” “male,” “female” want to
destroy it? It is oppressive and it does deprive those who live outside the heteronormative sexual and
gender binary of rights, resources, and social power. Transgendered and intersexual people have generated
substantial activism for rights specific to their physical and social situations, but the advocates of multiple
gendering have not produced a unified standpoint or a revolutionary politics that might more generally
undermine binary gendering.

The Politics of Empowerment

Hill Collins (2000, 274) asks, “But how does one develop a politics of empowerment without
understanding how power is organized and operates?” Those invoking multiple genders may see
themselves as rebels, but are they drawing on knowledge of the politics of empowerment to make real
change? According to Hill Collins,

Whether viewed through the lens of a single system of power or through that of intersecting
oppressions, any particular matrix of domination is organized via four interrelated domains
of power, namely, the structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains. . . .
The structural domain organizes oppression, whereas the disciplinary domain manages it.
The hegemonic domain justifies oppression, and the interpersonal domain influences
everyday lived experience and the individual consciousness that ensues. (2000, 276)

Let’s take each domain in turn to see how multiple gendering could be empowered to change it.
Multiple gendering could affect the structure of the gender binary if there were a concerted effort to
either abolish bureaucratic gender identities or to legally and medically recognize the range of sexed
bodies. Despite the biological challenges of intersexed anatomies and anomalous hormonal and
chromosomal development, each body is forced into a procrustean legal gender identity. Ambiguous
infantile genitalia are surgically altered to look “normal” soon after birth (Dreger 1998; Kessler 1998).

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Anomalies continuously plague gender categorization in sports, with forced body changes rather than
challenges to the intensely gendered structure of this powerful and pervasive institution (Dreger 2009;
Karkazis and Jordan-Young 2014).
Hill Collins (2000) notes the conflicts of “outsiders within,” those who have been able to move into
positions of power in dominant institutions, but who are in danger of co-optation to maintain their
positions and who therefore do not use their different perspectives to alter policies and practices.
Transgendered people and homosexuals have made their identities visible and have promulgated
nondiscriminatory laws, legal identity change, and marriage equality, but just adopting a variant gender
identity does not seem consequential or revolutionary. It seems to be a matter of individual
consciousness—not the end point of a process of change, but the beginning. However, after consciousness
of the strictures of the two-gender social structure and the adoption of a gender-variant personal identity,
there does not seem to be a path of rebellion. The two areas that should get shaken up by the open
invocation and adoption of nonbinary gender identities are interpersonal interaction and hegemonic
thinking about gender. Are they?

The Gender Frame

Ridgeway (2011, 190–192) argues that to make gender less powerful as a frame for most interaction,
people would have to stop automatically categorizing everyone as a man or a woman. She feels this is
highly unlikely since it creates too much social confusion and even anxiety in others because it “challenges
the stability and validity of their own identity as a man or woman” (191). Of course, if others’ gender
identity was irrelevant to the interaction, then no one’s gender would be of consequence. For that to
happen, gender status beliefs and relevance would have to alter substantially (193).
If men did more of women’s work and women more of men’s work both in the workforce and at home,
Ridgeway argues, conventional gender beliefs would be challenged and gradually made less relevant. In
actuality, what has happened is that when men do what has been conventionally seen as “women’s work,”
such as nursing or child care, it is reframed in gendered ways: men in nursing do more physical work or
get rapidly promoted to administrative positions, and they do child care in masculine ways—roughhousing,
sports, physical play. Women doing men’s work, such as military combat, going into space, and ruling
countries, are seen as remarkable innovators, but not the norm. Women now dominate in previously
masculine professions, such as Western medicine, and have changed curricula and ways of practice,
turning it into women’s work, but men still predominate in the more lucrative specialties—surgery,
neurology, and sports medicine. Thus, gendered cultural overlays persist, even as practices have shifted.

Bathrooms: Confronting the Material Binary

One of the arenas where gender-variant people have interacted with the conventionally gendered is
multiuse bathrooms. The confrontations do not augur well for cultural change.
The demand for gender-neutral single-use bathrooms and then multiple-use bathrooms used to come
from feminist women tired of waiting in long lines while men’s rooms were empty. It was an integral part
of the fight for gender equality (Edwards and McKie 1996; Molotch 1988). The current demand is coming
from people who are gender-variant as well as from women (Brown 2005; Weiner 2015). In the United
States, the demands for gender-neutral bathrooms are still seen as so radical as to continue to warrant
public comment (Chemaly 2015; Smith 2015) and legal battles (Liptak 2016; Suk Gersen 2016).
Gender-variant users of multiple-use bathrooms visibly confront the binary gender social order. They
violate what is to many people the psychological and biological immutability of their own sex and gender
identity. In Queering Bathrooms, Sheila L. Cavanagh (2010) explored the shocked responses to the use of
conventional bathrooms by people whose gender appearance is problematic or ambiguous. She suggests
that being in a bathroom with someone of a seemingly different gender disrupts the psyche’s carefully
developed gender identity, achieved in great part through toilet training. The confrontation challenges the
expectation that everyone is the same gender since they were born and have bodies congruent with gender

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appearance. Cavanagh interviewed 100 mostly white, able-bodied, middle-to-upper-class graduate students
and others aged 18–59 who identified as transsexual or transgender, as gender queer, and as gay, lesbian,
and bisexual. Three self-identified as intersex. Their experiences were with multiuse Western bathrooms.
Many were activists, so they were able to analyze the reaction to their bathroom use. They reported double
takes, verbal challenges, the calling of security guards, and even arrests.
Thus, conventional users of gendered bathrooms uphold the binary and the clear segregation of women
and men in certain public spaces. Safety is invoked, although women would be safer in bathrooms where
there are several of each gender. The comfort of being with “one’s own” in a private space is also an issue.
There is no official mandate for nongendered, multiuse bathrooms, the way legal racial desegregation and
laws governing access for the disabled altered bathroom use. In “On Not Making History,” Harvey
Molotch (2010) described a unisex bathroom that never got built at New York University’s new facilities
for a Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. He says, “It was a lost opportunity to inscribe social
change into architectural form and to use form to facilitate intellectual growth” (264). But it didn’t have
enough supporters who were willing to fight for it.

The Paradox of Multiple Genders

The idea of multiple sexualities and multiple genders is not a twenty-first century invention. Early in the
last century, Magnus Hirschfeld argued for sexual diversity. According to Alex Ross (2015), reviewing
Robert Beachy’s Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity (2014) in the New Yorker:

The good doctor . . . preached the gorgeousness of difference, of deviations from the norm.
From the beginning, he insisted on the idiosyncrasy of sexual identity, resisting any attempt
to press men and women into fixed categories. To Hirschfeld, gender was an unstable,
fluctuating entity; the male and the female were “abstractions, invented extremes.” He once
calculated that there were 43,046,721 possible combinations of sexual characteristics, then
indicated that the number was probably too small. (77)

But the gay rights movement, then and now, had to present a unified face to fight for an end to
stigmatization and discrimination.
The politics of identity demand that you know who is “us” and who is “them.” As William Connelly
says in Identity/Difference, “Identity requires difference in order to be, and it conveys difference into
otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty” (1991, 94). Joan Wallach Scott calls it an inevitable
feminist paradox that to fight to erase the effects of sex differences, you have to invoke them:

To the extent that it acted for “women,” feminism produced the “sexual difference” it
sought to eliminate. This paradox—the need both to accept and to refuse “sexual
difference”—was the constitutive condition of feminism as a political movement
throughout its history. (Scott 1996, 3–4)

Sometimes differences need to be created to make a place for women. Radical feminists in particular
valorized women’s ways—caring, emotionality—as equal to if not superior to men’s focus on rationality,
objectivity, and physical violence. Maya Maor (2015) found an example of such a practice in martial arts,
where women teachers create their own more relational, emotional, and less brutal style of karate and tae
kwon do to make themselves visible.
Another paradox in the politics of identity is that acceptance and integration often produce what Urvashi
Vaid (1995) calls virtual equality, the erasure of differences without changes in the social structure that

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make it possible to live differently. For the group, however, the marks of differentness may help their
members identify one another as sources of help. As Suzanna Danuta Walters says of the gay and lesbian
community in the United States, “One of the positive ‘fallouts’ of discrimination is the forging of
community and the development of a concern for others, activism, a culture of responsibility. The response
to AIDS is only one example” (2001, 19). However, Jane Ward’s research (2004) on an AIDS service
organization found that Latina lesbian women felt their health-care needs were neglected because most of
the money went to gay Latino men. Obviously, differences must be bracketed off for some political actions
and invoked when it is politically necessary to counter invisibility.
The question is, can “multiple gender” be a unified identity around which to rally to make structural
change? What do those espousing multiple gender identities want? Just the right to call themselves a
nonbinary name? To act it out? To legalize it? The first is a matter of personal identity; the second would
challenge conventional face-to-face interaction; the third would disrupt the structure of the gender binary.
The first and second goals don’t need political unification; the third does. It would, ironically, establish a
new boundary—between those who categorize by gender and those who do not (once a joke of bathroom
identification with a long history).
Those who queer the gender and sexuality binaries rebel against the strictures of two and only two
oppositional and fixed categories (Beemyn and Eliason 1996; Castro-Varela, Dhawan, and Engel 2011;
Elliot 2010). They construct ambiguities and blur borders, but they haven’t undermined the structural or
interactional foundations of gender as a binary institution. Queer theory has argued that change will come
when there are so many sexualities and genders that one cannot be played against the other as normal and
deviant, valued and stigmatized.
The problem is that multiple gender identities exist within the gender binary and are informed by it.
Multiple genders have not been frequently used in face-to-face interaction, although they may be invoked
on the Internet and in bathroom use. To make structural change, people with various nonbinary gender
identifications would have to perform their genders of choice openly, confront conventional others in
interaction, coalesce into a unified force, bring new knowledge to bear on gender issues, and insist on
bureaucratic and legal recognition.
The paradox of multiple gendering is that a politics of identity demands clear boundaries of “us” and
“them.” There may be coalitions and eventual erasure of the boundaries, but, for the purposes of resistance
and rebellion, those insisting on multiple genders would be in the paradoxical position of establishing a
new gender category.

Multiple Genders and Gender Equality

A further question is whether the current blurring of gender identities has the potential of enhancing gender
equality. If we argue that gender as an institution is built on the construction of a gender binary, and that
evident differences between the genders allow for the subsequent hegemony of men and masculinity and
the exploitation of women’s paid work and unpaid domestic labor and sexuality, then the blurring of the
binary should lead to greater equality. If we can’t tell or don’t remark on gender in face-to-face interaction,
women and men should be social equals. I have argued that with that goal in mind, everyone should
practice degendering—consciously act and talk and behave as if everyone had no gender (Lorber 2000,
2005). It should be everyone’s revolution, not just those who deliberately queer gender. But it needs legal
and bureaucratic degendering as well, as in the gender-equal countries, where men and women are
comparably educated, work in comparable occupations and professions for equal pay, have comparable
political power, and share responsibility for the care of children. In short, if gender is irrelevant, not just
multiple, then gender equality should follow.
This argument is testable. My hypothesis is that the more gender boundaries are blurred in attitudes,
interaction, and identity, the greater the actual gender equality. The World Economic Forum’s Global
Gender Gap Index measures gender equality in the relative gaps between women and men in health,
education, economy, and politics. According to the 2015 Global Gender Gap report, educational attainment

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and health and survival are close to parity globally—women and men share equally in whatever resources
are available in a country. The economic participation and opportunity gender gap closed by 59 percent in
the last decade but the political empowerment gap closed by only 23 percent (World Economic Forum
2015). Ranked on a combined index where gender-equal parity is 1, the highest scoring countries in 2015
were Iceland (0.881), Norway and Finland (0.850), Sweden (0.823), and Ireland (0.807). The United States
is 28th with an index of 0.740; it scores well in all respects except political empowerment, where its score
is a dismal 0.162.
How do gender egalitarian values compare with these measures of gender equality? My argument is that
you can predict the extent of structural gender equality from the extent of how egalitarian gender attitudes
are. A recent global survey asked women and men in twenty-four countries to answer ten questions about
gender norms and expectations for men and women; the countries were ranked on the level of progressive
gender attitudes. Matching the index of gender equality, the Nordic countries had the highest level of
progressive gender attitudes (YouGov 2015). In Sweden, there was very little difference between women’s
and men’s attitudes. The United States ranked ninth.
Other correlations of gender equality and progressive gender attitudes could be devised. In the United
States, for instance, corporations could be ranked on the extent of their paid parental leave and the
percentage of women executives. I would expect slippage in the correlations, which could then be explored
in greater depth.

Avoiding Gender Binaries in Research and Practice

Queer studies has been a concerted effort to interrogate sexuality and gender and to deconstruct their
normative assumptions of heterosexuality and binary gender but there has been a concomitant critique that
“desire for gender” reinstates heterosexuality and its normativeness (Jeffreys 1996; Wiegman 2006).
Sociological research has expanded binary genders through intersectionality, where gender is sliced up
by categories of race, ethnicity, social class, place of residence, and so on (McCall 2001). Gender begins as
a binary variable, but it is broken up by the other variables so that the end result is multiple statuses in a
stratified social structure, the equivalent of multiple genders that are not just individual identities. That is,
the comparisons are not global categories of men versus women but categories such as White working
class single mother and Black married woman executive. These are individual and group identities with
behavioral sequelae and material effects. However, initial categorizations of gender in major survey
research instruments are conceptually flawed in that they often do not clearly distinguish sex and gender or
recognize gender variations, nor do they allow for changes in gender over time (Westbrook and Saperstein
2015).
It is possible to do research that does not start with binary gender categories but predicts behavior from
processes and social locations, examining what people do to and with whom and how these processes
construct institutional rules and social structures (Lorber 1996). Gender and other status variables can be
correlated to emergent patterns later in the analysis, rather than beginning with the assumption that these
variables are the starting point for behavior. Among useful methodologies are analysis of positions in a
social network (Knoke and Yang 2008) and grounded theory (Charmaz 2014).
On the level of interactional practices that could undercut the gendering that supports gender-unequal
policies I have proposed degendering focused on sorting people and allocating tasks in work organizations,
schools, small groups, families, and other familiar social groupings (Lorber 2005). Degendered practices
would encourage a gender-neutral division of labor in the home and gender-neutral jobs in workplaces, not
grouping children by gender in schools, confronting gender expectations in face-to-face interaction,
underplaying gender categories in language, and using gender-neutral kinship and relational designations.
Theoretically, degendered practices should feed into degendered official policies and ultimately into
legal and bureaucratic statuses, but without a concerted movement for change, I do not think there will
ever be a gradual progression into a social structure without gender.

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 Conclusion
Multiple genders may seem revolutionary, but they are not. First, they are personal identities, not legal or
bureaucratic statuses. As such, they are not getting built into the structure of gender, which remains binary.
Second, their individualistic rebelliousness does not encourage coalescence into a gender-resistant
movement.
Queer studies, intersectionality, and nongendered research methods provide a basis for a transformation
of sociological research and theorizing on gender. They could give us the data for policies that advance
gender equality by challenging the legal rigidity of gender statuses, their constant use in the allocation of
family work and paid jobs, and the consequent imbalance of economic resources and political power. At
the same time, everyone, not just those who adopt nonbinary gender identities, could challenge the gender
binary by not doing gender. Paradoxically, it’s possible to be gendered and to try as much as possible to
make one’s gender irrelevant.

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 16

The Monogamous Couple, Gender Hegemony, and Polyamory

Mimi Schippers

In Gender and Power, Raewyn Connell (1987) introduces a theory of masculinity and femininity as central
to and constitutive of hegemonic gender relations. Connell focuses on how gender hegemony—the
relationship between a superior and dominant masculinity and a subordinate and complacent
femininity—structures three1 specific areas of social life: the division of labor, power relations, and what
Connell calls “cathexis,” or “relationships organized around one person’s emotional attachment to another”
(112). The relationship between masculinity and femininity structures desire in that “[o]bjects of desire are
generally defined by the dichotomy and opposition of feminine and masculine; and sexual practice is
mainly organized in couple relationships” (112). Connell goes on to write, “Though coupling is often seen
as the basic structure of attachment, the gender dichotomy of desire seems to have some priority. When
couples break up and their members form new attachments, it is almost universal practice for the new
companion to be of the same sex as the old one, whichever that was” (113).
In this chapter, I want to pick up “coupling” and its relationship to the gender dichotomy and gender
hegemony. While Connell suggests that the gender dichotomy is more central to the structure of cathexis
than is the couple, I wish to make the argument that the couple matters. The monogamous couple is a
discursively constructed ideal and an institutionalized and compulsory structure for sexual and emotional
intimacy, and, as such, is a fruitful but oft neglected area for gender theorizing.
I refract gender hegemony through the prism of the monogamous couple for several reasons. First,
feminist critique and theory have, since the first wave of the women’s movement, placed critical focus on
monogamy and its role in male dominance and patriarchy (e.g., De Beauvoir 1949; Firestone 1970;
Kandiyoti 1988; Rich 1983 Robinson 1997). They have done so, however, episodically and, as Jackson
and Scott (2004) lament, not with collective focus since the 1980s. Second, and as I will suggest below, the
monogamous couple as an idealized structure for intimacy is implicated not only in gender inequality
within monogamous relationships, as identified by feminist theorists, but also in broader relations of
domination.2 That is, the monogamous couple has been and continues to be discursively deployed to
legitimate hegemonic constructions of gender difference and hierarchies as well as broader relations of
domination along the lines of global imperialism and white supremacy. Third, consensually
nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships in which partners agree that having sexual relations with people
outside the relationship is acceptable have emerged as not only a viable relationship strategy but also as
emergent subcultures (Coontz 2005; Sheff 2014; Ritchie and Barker 2006). For example, one of these
emergent CNM relationship forms is polyamory, a relationship structure that includes committed or
romantic partnerships, or both, with more than one person and in which all who are involved are aware of
and consent to the arrangement. As I will show below, polyamory is nondyadic, has developed new
languages for intimate and sexual relationships, and stresses gender egalitarianism, yet there is relatively
little empirical research (Barker and Langdridge 2010a is an exception) on these kinds of relationships,
including how they are shaped by and influence gender relations and structures.
Finally, the establishment of collective norms, relationship ethics, and shared meanings attached to
polyamory is dominated by white, middle class, largely heterosexual populations in the U.S., Canada,
Australia, and Western Europe (Sheff 2013) and focus largely on individual autonomy and choice rather
than the social dynamics and political implications of polyamorous relationships (Rambukkana 2015;
Wilkinson 2010). For these reasons, I believe there is far too little, yet much to be done, in terms of

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researching and theorizing the relationships among and between gender, other systems of domination and
inequality, mononormativity, and polyamory.
To begin, my focus is on gender, race, and sexual politics in a global context and how the discursive
construction of the monogamous couple supports, legitimizes, and naturalizes white, middle class, and
Western constructions of gender and intimacy as superior to those of non-Western, nonwhite populations. I
will then turn my attention to polyamory as an emergent subculture to identify a few ways in which
subcultural norms for gender, relationships, and intimacy offer a discursive intervention in the hegemonic
relationship between masculinity and femininity.3 Finally, I suggest that new lines of theory and research
on the structural features of polyamory are necessary for not only understanding but also for shaping
polyamory and its potential effects on broader relations of inequality.

Compulsory Monogamy, Mononormativity, and the Monogamous Couple

Within a growing scholarly and popular literature on consensual nonmonogamies, researchers and activists
build on the concept of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich 1983) to identify compulsory monogamy as the
institutionalized arrangements that encourage or force people into monogamous, dyadic relationships (see
Mint 2004). Building on queer theory’s critique of sexual normalcy and heteronormativity, a small but
burgeoning academic literature focuses on mononormativity (see Barker and Langdridge 2010b).
Mononormativity refers to institutionalized arrangements and cultural narratives that situate the
monogamous dyad as the only legitimate, natural, or desirable structure for mature, emotionally fulfilling,
intimate relationships (Pieper and Bauer 2005). Like other groups marginalized by their sexual practices or
intimate relationships, those in consensually nonmonogamous and polyamorous relationships are an
invisible sexual minority (Kleinplatz and Diamond 2014). For instance, because there are no laws
outlawing discrimination on the basis of relationship status, polyamorists are usually not “out” about being
poly (a shorthand adjective for “polyamorous” used by polyamorists, as in “I am poly” or “I am currently
in a poly relationship”) because there are real risks for employment and housing discrimination or losing
custody of children. Because of stereotypes about and prejudice toward people practicing CNM (Conley et
al. 2013), managing stigma or experiencing negative or discriminatory treatment, or both, are common
experiences for polyamorists (Pallotta-Chiarolli 2010; Sheff and Hammers 2011; Sheff 2013).
In Pieper and Bauer’s and others’ discussions of mononormativity, the emphasis is not on sexual
identities or practices, but instead on relationship form as variable and central to the operations of social
privilege and disadvantage. Though mononormativity intersects with heteronormativity, institutionalized
dyadic monogamy confers privileges and advantages to people in or perceived to be in long-term,
monogamous couple relationships regardless of the race, gender, or sexual identities of partners. If the
gender binary is the basic structure of cathexis, as Connell suggests, then mononormativity and
compulsory monogamy provide the organizing logic for ensuring dyadic intimacy and prohibiting
plurality.

Deconstructing the Monogamous Couple as Gender Hegemony

What significance do mononormativity and the prohibition on plurality have for gender theory?
Mononormativity is gendered in that the monogamous couple, as a discursively constructed ideal, reflects
and maintains a complementary and hierarchical relationship between masculinity and femininity. As an
organizing rationale for social life, the hegemonic relationship between the masculine and feminine
manifests in culturally specific collective beliefs about erotic and emotional interactions and attachment to
define what is a “good” relationship, who “belongs” together, and what are the behavioral and emotional
expectations for individuals in a “good” relationship. While Connell identifies the gender dichotomy as the
basic structure for cathexis, my focus here is on the gender structure of monogamy specifically to suggest
that mononormativity (as opposed to the practice of monogamy) is constitutive of and reflects hegemonic
gender relations.

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 First, the monogamous couple, as an imagined, glorified, and compulsory relationship form, mirrors and
supports the discursively constructed relationship between hetero-masculinity and hetero-femininity. For
instance, to the extent that it sutures one man and one woman together as “the one-and-only” true love,
mononormativity supports the collective assumption that the monogamous couple is the only “good”
relationship, while also naturalizing and providing cultural legitimacy to the construction of gender
difference as consisting of two and only two, complementary and hierarchical opposites that belong
together. In other words, monogamy as a hegemonic feature of sexual intimacy and relationships closes off
the dyad as a unified and singular unit that both reflects and sustains the idea that the gender binary is
natural and desirable. As I will discuss below, opening up relationships to include more than two people
breaks open the dyad in ways that require new ways of thinking and talking about the relationship between
hegemonic masculinities and femininities, gender and sexual identities, and the structures of intimacy.
In addition to closing off the dyad as a singular unit, monogamy is laced with gender meaning, and, as
such, mirrors culturally specific constructions of hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity. For
example, the paradigmatic theoretical framework for family and kinship structure in evolutionary
anthropology is that humans have evolved to form monogamous, heterosexual pair bonds (Ryan and Jetha
2010; Starkweather and Hames 2012). The theoretical narrative for how humans evolved to be
monogamous relies upon and rearticulates widespread and culturally specific notions of gender difference
as hierarchical and complementary. Specifically, evolutionary anthropologists argue that monogamous
marriage is an evolved adaptation to men’s natural propensity for sexual promiscuity and women’s
evolved desire for long-term protection and provision (see Symons 1979). The theory goes something like
this: because male reproductive fitness lies in copulating with as many females as possible, men have
evolved to be predisposed for nonmonogamy. In contrast, because the survival of a female’s offspring
depends on the father providing resources and protection, women evolved to seek and prefer long-term
monogamy. Because men do not want to invest time, energy, and resources in the survival of another
man’s offspring—no payoff for a big investment—they are sexually jealous and protective of the women
with whom they mate. In exchange for their investment of resources and protection, men demand
monogamy from women and place tight controls on women’s sexual behavior. From this evolutionary
perspective, monogamous marriage is an evolved compromise to compel men to provide for and protect
their mates and offspring and for women to be monogamous. This is the reason, evolutionary
anthropologists hypothesize, that in contemporary society, men crave sexual novelty and are prone to
infidelity while, at the same time, they demand and enforce monogamy from women, and why women
desire emotional connection within the context of dyadic relationships and acquiesce to men’s control.4
As a dominant discourse about monogamy, evolutionary theory establishes a set of complementary,
hierarchical, and relational constructions of masculinity and femininity as also natural and beneficial: men
have evolved to be sexual, possessive, jealous, and controlling. Women have evolved to be relationship
oriented and compliant to men’s control. These expectations for men and women are “coupled” together as
complementary opposites and legitimate men’s dominance through control and women’s subordination
through compliance. In this example, monogamy is the constitutive feature that binds the masculine and
feminine together in a hierarchical and complementary relationship—the definition of hegemonic gender
relations. The gender structure of the theory relies as much on mononormativity as it does on
heteronormativity. While this example deconstructs evolutionary anthropological discourse in particular, it
is the role of gender theorists to unpack how other scientific, literary, economic, historical, or legal theories
and paradigms rely upon mononormative assumptions to mask or legitimate hegemonic notions of gender
difference and inequalities.

Deconstructing the Monogamous Couple as Intersectional Gender Hegemony

To the extent that the monogamous couple is held up as the ideal and only viable relationship structure for
emotionally and sexually intimate relationships, those who violate the norm of monogamy are often

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constructed as immoral or inferior, or both, because of the violation of natural or normal gender relations.
That is, nonmonogamy in the form of polygamy or infidelity is sometimes constructed as a gender failure
in order to secure race, ethnic, or national superiority and to legitimate imperialist and racist policy.
If we look closely at Western or white supremacist discursive constructions of the ethno-sexual abject
other, they often rely upon the monogamous couple as normal, moral, and natural in order to cast imagined
or real sexual practices or kinship structures of nonwhite or non-Western populations as deviant or
immoral. For instance, while much has been written about controlling images of African American women
as the “jezebel” or “mammy” and African American men as sexual predators (Hill Collins 2005),
elsewhere I emphasized the pathologization of African American families and kinship structures as
incapable of long-term, marital monogamy (Schippers 2016). During Jim Crow, for instance, images of
hypersexualized African American masculinities and femininities included representations of “the
acquiescence of the black husband to his wife’s infidelity” (Higgenbotham 1993, 190). Not only did this
stereotype cast African American women as promiscuous and unfaithful to their husbands, it also
emasculated African American husbands in their “acquiescence” to being cuckolded. By attaching
“acquiescence to infidelity” to African American masculinities and promiscuity to African American
femininities, the monogamous couple was established as superior and equated with whiteness and
deployed to render African Americans as immoral or inferior.
The monogamous couple has also served colonial and imperialist Western constructions of polygamous
societies as backwards, primitive, and immoral. James Messerschmidt’s (2010, 2015) concept of “toxic
masculinities” captures this discursive maneuver in the contemporary U.S. context. According to
Messerschmidt, U.S. imperialist militarism depends on constructions of the “enemy” as sexist men who are
brutal to “their” women. For instance, in the U.S., Muslim men are held up as dangerous, backwards,
brutal, and violent toward women for practicing and enforcing polygamy, while American men are
constructed as more enlightened, “civilized,” and just because they embrace dyadic, monogamous, and
supposedly egalitarian relationships with women5 (Puar 2007). In other words, mononormativity intersects
with gender hegemony to play at least some part in the narrative rationale for war and U.S. global
imperialism, but it is not explicitly acknowledged as such. In what other ways and in what contexts is the
monogamous couple as a gender ideal deployed to legitimate racial-ethnic, imperialistic, or other forms of
domination? This is a question best answered by deconstructing the operations of mononormativity in
gendered discourses about racial, ethnic, and national differences and hierarchies in order to develop and
build intersectional theories of domination.
In addition to deconstructing mononormativity as central to gender, racial, and imperial hegemony,
sociologists might turn an empirical lens on polyamory in order to better understand or develop new
conceptual frameworks, or both, for the relationships among and between gender subjectivity, the gender
structure of interpersonal relationships, and intimacy. I turn now to polyamory as a specific structure for
intimate relationships to show how this can be done.

Polyamory and Gender Discourse

The word “polyamory” means multiple loves and refers to emotionally and sometimes sexually intimate
relationships with more than one person. Though we don’t have numbers on the extent of polyamory, 6 it is
estimated that people in consensually nonmonogamous relationships number in the millions (Sheff 2013),
and in one online survey, 3 percent of respondents said they were currently in consensually
nonmonogamous or open relationships and an additional 10 percent said that they had been at one time
(Moore 2015).
Elisabeth Sheff (2014a) suggests that there have been three waves of countercultural subcultures that
emphasize and advocate consensual nonmonogamy. Contemporary polyamory follows and builds upon the
ideals and political philosophies of nineteenth-century transcendentalist communes such as the Oneidas,
and on twentieth-century countercultures associated with the sexual revolution, including the sexual
liberation movement among gay men and lesbians, swinging subcultures, communes, and “free love.”

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 Though polyamorists borrow from and build upon these previous subcultures, the social context in
which polyamory has emerged is quite different in three ways. First, polyamory emerges in the wake of
second and third wave feminist critiques of the nuclear family and politicization of women’s sexual
subjectivity. Second, high rates of divorce and infidelity, serial monogamy, and blended families have
complicated notions of family and lifelong monogamy with one person (Stacey 2011). Third, unlike
previous nonmonogamous subcultures, polyamory has emerged in the digital era. Not only does this make
the subcultural norms, ethics, and practices readily available to anyone who has access to a computer, 7 it
also allows for the development and cultivation of a consensus about those norms and ethics that stretch
across time and space (Sheff 2013).
The confluence of feminism, changes in family structures, and the Internet not only distinguishes
contemporary poly subcultures from previous nonmonogamous communities and subcultures; feminism,
changing family forms including gay and lesbian households, and the Internet also shape the collective
meanings and relationship ethics developed by polyamorists (e.g., Anapol 2010; Easton and Hardy 2009;
Taormino 2008; Veaux and Rickert 2014).
Because mainstream and dominant relationship norms are mononormative, polyamorists have used
online blogs, podcasts, forums, and how-to books to develop their own language and set of shared
meanings and norms for how to do intimate relationships (Ritchie and Barker 2006). As a relationship
structure that requires a new language and a new set of expectations, collective meanings, and practices,
polyamory offers interesting opportunities to resist, challenge, and reconfigure the hegemonic relationship
between masculinity and femininity as they structure and take shape in intimate relationships.
For instance, rejecting mononormativity while embracing gender egalitarianism requires alternative
discourses and understandings of sexual jealousy. “Compersion” in the American and “frubbly” in the
British contexts are words used by polyamorists to refer to feeling pleasure (rather than fear or anger)
when one’s partner experiences sexual pleasure or emotional intimacy with another person. Because poly
subcultural norms insist upon gender egalitarianism, everyone, regardless of gender, is encouraged to
cultivate compersion rather than jealousy and feel frubbly rather than frightened or angry when a partner is
involved with another person. This subcultural understanding of jealousy offers a counternarrative to the
evolutionary anthropological assumptions that sexual jealousy is “natural” or inevitable in men, that men
need to control women’s sexual behavior, and that women should acquiesce to men’s control.
Although there is very little empirical research on the effects of these norms and expectations on how
possessiveness manifests within the everyday, interpersonal lives of polyamorists, one study suggests that
new meanings for and normative expectations about sexual jealousy were experienced by men as a catalyst
for changes in their sense of masculinity. Because they no longer felt entitled to jealous feelings or a need
to maintain control of their partners’ social or sexual lives, these men no longer defined masculinity in
terms of possessive control as constitutive of manliness (Sheff 2006). In the same study, polyamorous
women experienced a shift in their sense of feminine subjectivity. Being relatively freed from men’s
jealousy and control, they reported feeling a sense of agency, autonomy, and entitlement to sexual pleasure
(Sheff 2005). In other words, this research suggests that rejecting the mononormative assumptions that
sexual jealousy is natural, inevitable, and structured by gender challenges and facilitates a rejection of the
hegemonic construction of masculinity as possessive, competitive, and dominant over the possessed,
complaisant feminine object.
Polyamorists also have developed a new language for recognizing and cultivating relationships with
one’s partners’ partners. For example, two people who are in an intimate and committed relationship with
the same person would be considered “metamours.” The label situates a partner’s partner in a recognizable
and legitimate social location in intimate relationships and establishes specific role expectations and
responsibilities. While there is variability in the extent of involvement between metamours (anywhere
from being acquaintances to integrated family members), these role expectations include open lines of
communication and some measure of interpersonal responsibility and accountability between metamours
(see Veaux and Rickert 2014). Again, within the context of subcultural norms for gender egalitarianism,
there are strong expectations that metamours develop lines of communication, if not emotional ties, across
and within gender difference. How might cultivating metamour relationships change men’s relationships

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with each other? How do metamour relationships change women’s relationships to each other as
competitors for the attention of men? These are just two among many questions in need of theory and
research.

Polyamory and Gender Structure

The commitment to gender equality described above, however, is an ideological ideal, not a structural
reality. There is no guarantee that the lived experience of metamour relationships or feeling less entitled to
jealousy and possessiveness translates into ungendered or egalitarian interpersonal interactions and
household practices. If Risman’s (1999) research on feminist families is any indication, a commitment to
gender equality can only go so far when dealing with the everyday constraints, pressures, and institutional
structures of doing intimate relationships and households.
Elisabeth Sheff’s (2013) extensive research on poly families suggests that poly family structure does
have a transforming effect on some, but not all, aspects of gender in her sample of mostly white, middle
class families. For instance, women and men in her sample report feeling a sense of relief from family
responsibilities when there are multiple adults in the household, and children benefit from having several
caretakers.8 At the same time, Sheff finds that a gendered division of labor persists in poly households
despite ideologies of gender equality. For instance, although there might be multiple adults living in a
household, certain tasks like emotional labor and planning often fall on the shoulders of women. Some
dynamics, however, seem to play out differently in poly households compared to two-adult households.
For example, while multiple women in a household might reduce an individual woman’s labor, men in
poly families are relieved from the burdens of household labor even more so than men in monogamous,
heterosexual households. This suggests that opening dyadic relationships to more than two adults might
foster different interpersonal dynamics and challenges when confronting or resisting constraints, pressures,
and structures. Gender theory and research are needed to better understand not just the dynamics and
structures of poly households and practices but also what poly households might teach us about gender
more generally.

Conclusion: Polynormativity and Gender Theory

In this chapter, I presented the monogamous couple as an important but neglected subject of gender theory.
I also introduced the polyamory subculture as one example of how opening up relationships to include
more than two might disrupt the hegemonic relationship between masculinities and femininities and offer
opportunities to reconfigure gendered subjectivity and the gender structure of intimate relationships.
While there is some research on the effects of multiadult household structure on the division of labor,
most notably the work of Sheff (2013) and Pallotta-Chiarolli (2010), polyamory is relatively absent from
sociological gender theory and research. We know that polyamory as a subculture emphasizes equality and
open communication, but we know little about how gender structures poly relationships in practice.
Moreover, we know too little about how poly intimacies affect the structure of gendered subjectivities,
interpersonal relationships, and household structures. Polyamory and poly relationships offer an
opportunity to learn about and build new theories of how gender organizes intimate relationships, the
relationship between feminist ideology and gender practice, and how we might do things differently—all
of which are of central concern in gender theory and research.
Finally, I believe polyamory is relevant to gender theory because, unless they are academics or activists,
many polyamorists (like most citizens in a late capitalist, neoliberal, global world) lack both a sociological
self-reflexivity about their own relationships and a social justice understanding or narrative for polyamory
in the broader context of gender, race, class, and national inequalities. In the how-to poly literature and in
mainstream treatments of polyamory, for instance, there is a neoliberal emphasis on polyamory as an

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individual choice and a matter of taste or relationship orientation rather than on the potentially radicalizing
way poly intimacies can transform gender, race, and class relations (see Schippers 2016) or about how it
might lead to rethinking intimacy more generally (see Rambukkana 2015; Wilkinson 2010).
Moreover, public discourse about and community building around poly living are overwhelmingly
dominated by white, middle class, and Western European, Canadian, Australian, and American
polyamorists (Sheff 2013, Sheff and Hammers 2011), and all too frequently these conversations do not
consider or confront racism, classism, global imperialism, or other systems of inequality (Rambukkana
2015). In the mainstream poly literature, for instance, there is little discussion of how race, class, and
gender structure poly relationships and subcultures or how polyamory as a relationship form and
subcultural practice might be forged in ways that do not reproduce but instead undermine or challenge
structural inequalities.
Feminist theorists and sociologists, including Raewyn Connell (1987), fought for and succeeded in
placing the gender structure of sex and intimate relationships squarely inside and relevant to the
sociological study of not just family, kinships, and interpersonal sexual relations but also to broader
relations of inequality and domination at all levels of social organization. Likewise, queer theorists and
sexuality researchers have successfully argued and demonstrated how the study of heteronormativity,
heterosexism, and the lived experiences of LGBTQ individuals, groups, and subcultures enhances not just
our understanding of heterosexist prejudice and discrimination but also how the operations and
institutionalization of heteronormativity have broader implications for relations of domination at all levels
of social organization. Similarly, I believe that the study of mononormativity as an organizing feature of
not just intimate relationships, but also social relations of domination more broadly, can lead to new
gender theory. I also strongly believe that research on polyamory as a nondyadic and emergent structure
for sex and intimate relationships practiced by a silent sexual minority is relevant to gender theory.
Finally, queer theorists point to and warn against “homonormativity” or efforts to normalize Western,
monogamous, middle class, white gay and lesbian families. Likewise, I hope to convince my readers that
studying the dynamics of polynormativity, which refers to the normalization of a particular kind of
polyamory—one that reinforces rather than challenges hegemonic gender relations, racism, class
inequality, heterosexism, and Western imperialism—can open up new understanding and theorizing of
gender as it intersects with other systems of inequality and at multiple levels of social organization.
Without a sociological lens and without queer, critical race, and feminist theory we may miss the
opportunity to not only document but also to shape this poly moment in ways that subvert or disrupt social
inequalities and transform the meaning and structure of intimate relationships.

Notes

1 In later work, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) add a fourth dimension of gender hegemony, specifically cultural
representation.
2 There is some disagreement among feminist theorists and researchers about whether or not monogamy is harmful or
beneficial to women. Just as Adrienne Rich focused on compulsory heterosexuality as an organizing feature of social
structure and not a sexual practice, my focus in this chapter is less on the practice of monogamy, and more on
mononormativity and compulsory monogamy as a broader structure for intimacy. For a conceptual framework for monogamy
as a “patriarchal bargain,” see Kandiyoti 1988.
3 For a definition of gender hegemony that focuses on relationality between the masculine and feminine, see Schippers 2007.
4 For an alternative interpretation of the anthropological data, see Ryan and Jetha 2010 and Starkweather and Hames 2012. For
a more in-depth discussion of the mononormativity of this paradigm, see Schippers 2016.
5 Certainly male dominance correlates with polygyny and reflects and maintains men’s dominance over women in many
cultures (Zeitzen 2008). However, the conflation of monogamy with egalitarianism and plural marriage with male dominance
ignores the ways in which monogamy serves masculine interests, as has been identified by feminists. The mononormative
assumption that plural marriage is, by definition, worse than monogamy for women constructs and oversimplifies the false
binary between Western, feminist monogamy as qualitatively different from and superior to non-Western, patriarchal
polygamy. This reproduces imperialist, colonizing feminist discourses that situate the “Western Woman” as more advanced
or politically savvy compared to the “Third World Woman” (see Mohanty 1984, and, more recently, Pedwell 2008) and

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 ignores the feminist critique of heterosexual monogamy and polygamy by women in non-Western contexts as well as the
existence of nonmonogamous relationship forms in Western contexts. It also renders invisible the ways in which some plural
relationship structures like polyandry (Starkweather and Hames 2012) and polyamory (Sheff 2005, 2006, 2011; Schippers
2016) correlate with more egalitarian gender relations.
6 There is no national level demographic information on the extent or characteristics of people in polyamorous relationships.
Most research relies upon online or snowball sampling recruitment and cannot be generalized to larger populations. At the
time of writing this chapter, there are no national random surveys that include questions with which we can make estimates of
the numbers of polyamorists.
7 Because polyamory subcultures are largely online phenomena, access to a computer would be another stratifying feature of
polyamory and mediated by geography, class, and nation.
8 Although beyond the scope of this chapter, research suggests that there are no significant adverse outcomes for children in
poly households (Pallotta-Chiarolli 2010; Sheff 2013).

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 Conclusion: Reckoning with Gender

Raewyn Connell

At the time this book was being written, the Syrian civil war was deepening and the refugee stream to
Lebanon, Turkey, and Europe was widening. A violent stalemate had arisen between Bashar al-Assad’s
regime, its Shiite backers, its Sunni rebels, and the Islamic State movement. A growing number of the
world’s nuclear powers leaned in: Barack Obama’s United States, Nicolas Sarkozy’s and François
Hollande’s France, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and Xi Jinping’s China.
In the flood of commentary about this terrifying situation, one striking fact went almost unmentioned.
All of the contending parties were headed by groups of men, and almost all the military forces involved
were men. The rhetoric of power, confrontation, combat, victory, dominance, and defeat is coded
masculine. But this is so familiar, so ordinary, that even in this extraordinary situation the fact hardly
registered—except with a few feminist agitators for peace.
Why the outside involvement in a small country’s conflicts? There are religious connections, certainly.
There are some devious geopolitical maneuvers going on. But the main reason is that Syria is next door to
the world’s largest oil province, major new pipelines are planned to go through it, and the transnational
corporate economy utterly depends on oil.
Who holds power in this transnational corporate economy? We have statistics on a key group, the CEOs
of the world’s 500 biggest corporations; and it turns out that 96 percent of them are men. Indeed, wherever
we look among global elites—the transnational managers, the super-rich oligarchs, the dictators, the
neoliberal state elites—there is a similar picture: a predominance of men, and heavily masculinized
organizational cultures.
There is a claim, often made in journalism and politics and even in academia, that “gender doesn’t
matter now.” On this view gender binaries, legal discrimination, and the oppression of women may have
existed in the past, but are fading away. Modern women have equal rights, gender identities have become
fluid, homophobia is fading, and men now change diapers. On this basis there is no more need for
feminism, affirmative action, or gender studies programs.
It’s perfectly true that laws, economies, and cultures have changed. Angela Merkel has Otto von
Bismarck’s job and has been doing it rather well; Hillary Clinton nearly got Teddy Roosevelt’s. Over the
past two generations, enormous investment in schools and adult education in developing countries has
brought literacy to most of the world’s women—perhaps the biggest change in gender patterns in our
lifetime. Globally, women’s participation in the paid labor force has been rising as men’s has been falling.
But evidence of change in gender patterns is a far cry from the disappearance of gender. Change may
mean that gender hierarchy is more emphatically present. The rise of fundamentalist movements in
Christendom and Islam has dramatized gender; indeed the desire to recuperate troubled masculinities is
one of the reasons for current religious and nationalist revivals. A display of exaggerated masculinity is a
feature of new authoritarian politics, from Putin in Russia to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines to Donald
Trump in the United States. Even technological advances may have regressive gender effects. The growth
of the Internet immediately produced a vast surge of sexist pornography—now a main source of sex
education for a whole generation of youth.
If we look into the boring details of economic life, we certainly do not see a genderless world. The usual
assumption of a small and declining “gender gap” is quite wrong. The aggregate income of women as a
group, so far as one can tell from erratic official statistics, is around 60 percent of the aggregate income
globally of men as a group. The neoliberal corporate economy rests on stark gender divisions of labor and

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gendered hierarchies of power, from the clothing factories of Bangladesh and south China to the oil
industries of the Gulf and the Caribbean. Gender division in the economy is by no means confined to old
industries or poor countries. It runs high in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street.
The gender structuring of human life remains an important determinant of people’s experiences and—to
use old-fashioned language—their fates. Situation in the gender order affects people’s access to income;
their likelihood of owning land; their education; their nutrition, health, and illness; their exposure to
violence; the way they are treated by police and by employers. It’s not surprising that gender is so
important in their personal identities, and persistently affirmed, or troubled, by the way they act in
everyday life.
The gender structuring of social life matters not only because of gender differences but also because
gender patterns affect our common fate. Those bombs falling in Aleppo are launched by men following a
masculinized logic of conflict. But once dropped, the bombs don’t discriminate. Media releases complain
of attacks on “women and children,” a clichéd way of saying that civilians were killed. But men are
civilians too. Whole communities are blown away by modern warfare. And whole societies are at risk from
the generals’ nuclear missiles, from the corporate managers’ relentless assault on the environment, and
from the political elite’s ruthless pursuit of power. Gender matters for the survival of human society. The
stakes are as high as that.

Social Science and Gender

That is the reason we have written this book. Social science is an essential tool for understanding gender
questions, but a tool not easy to use. Fifty years ago it did seem easy, when the theory of “sex roles” was
popular. Gender was defined by social norms, children were socialized into those norms, grown men and
women performed the male role or the female role accordingly, and they transmitted the norms to the next
generation. For many scholars and activists this model provided a satisfying alternative to biological
determinism. Gender was socially constructed, and gender inequality could be ended by changing the role
norms.
Sex-role theory has not died. Perhaps it still has a role to play, since the ideology it contested, the belief
in fixed natural sex differences in mentality and behavior, remains alive and well. But role theory never
provided an adequate account of social life. It ignored the contradictions uncovered by psychoanalysis, it
gave no account of the power structures familiar in sociology, and it dealt with the body by the drastic
device of walling it off from the social. Not surprisingly, feminists concerned with emotion, power, or
body politics turned to other resources.
In Anglophone social science, the 1980s were a time of consolidating and rethinking the experience of
the Women’s Liberation movement. Out of this a number of sociological perspectives on gender emerged.
They included Dorothy Smith’s subtle critique of gendered forms of knowledge; Sylvia Walby’s structural
approach to power; and the collective project of Gender & Society, the journal that took a central place in
the field, not least because it promptly published Candace West and Don Zimmerman’s previously
unpublishable paper “Doing Gender.”
Gender and Power was written in 1984 and published in 1987. The first three chapters of Gender
Reckonings (part I above) discuss its theorizing and context. Myra Marx Ferree traces the combination of
historical and structural ideas that went into Gender and Power. She shows, very perceptively I think, how
these reflected the experience of Anglophone feminism up to that time; and then how changed political
circumstances, new intellectual tools, and more global perspectives were reflected in my second attempt at
a general theory. James Messerschmidt and Michael Messner look closely at the most influential passage
in Gender and Power, the sketch of multiple masculinities and femininities, and trace the strange career of
the concept of hegemonic masculinity. They rightly emphasize the structural basis of that concept, and the
need to distinguish between crude domination in gender relations and the idea of hegemony, which is a
much more complex and dynamic concept. They show particularly how to understand the appearance of
new patterns of masculinity.

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 Kristen Schilt’s contribution to part I surprised and delighted me. She has done a Sherlockian job of
decoding the subtext in Gender and Power that gives an account of transsexuality. There were some
quietly anguished sentences about personal experience in the preface to Gender and Power, too well coded
to make much sense at the time. I don’t think being a transsexual woman committed me to any specific
view of gender, but it doubtless made me more aware of the tension and complexity in real-life gender
patterns—which have never been binary. I am grateful to Kristen for showing how the broader approach of
Gender and Power helps a sociological understanding of gender transition.
We can tell the story of gender theory as if the whole thing happened inside a library. In fact all the
attempts at gender theory in the 1980s grew out of the political struggle, and represented attempts to
construct knowledge for social change. Along with academics and students, their audiences included
movement activists, public officials, teachers, counselors, and health workers. Feminist social science in
the 1980s was close to feminist policy work, trying to shape policy and practice in schools and universities,
health services, employment, and legal systems. This work has continued since, though the political scene
has become grimmer. The trajectory of gender theory includes engaged texts such as the splendid 2003
UNESCO report Gender and Education for All.
The social science of gender is also affected by changes in knowledge-making institutions, notably
universities and the state. The last generation has witnessed the dismantling of welfare states in the global
North and autonomous development projects in the global South. Both have been replaced by a neoliberal
world order based on immense unrestricted flows of capital and goods—and more restricted flows of labor.
Universities are increasingly defined as firms competing in a market, subject to managerial control, and
desperate to improve their ranking in competitive league tables. States themselves are increasingly
managed as rival corporations, shedding unprofitable activities like caring for the poor, and outsourcing to
other corporations functions like managing their prisons and their data.
There was a moment when sociology might have allied itself conceptually with the neoliberal order,
borrowing the market-based model of the person. But rational-choice theory, which did this, now looks
like a blind alley. What managers in the new order want is not ideology but data, lots of it, and the result is
a surge of neopositivism in the social sciences. The excited talk about the wonders of “big data” is one sign
of this, quantitative modeling in climate-change impact research is another, the focus on competitive test
outcomes in educational research is yet another. Sixty years after C. Wright Mills’s famous denunciation
of abstracted empiricism, the American Sociological Review remains No. 1 in the sociological league
tables.
This matters for gender analysis, because abstracted empiricism does have a view of gender. I discussed
it in Gender and Power under the name of “categoricalism.” Gender is simply a variable, one among many
ways of categorizing people as data points in a population. Usually it’s a variable with two possible states:
male, coded 1, and female, coded 0—easy to feed into a multivariate analysis. The amount of variance
attributable to being 1 or 0 is calculated; age, race, SES, and religion are partialled out; and presto! we
have a social science of gender. This may sound like a parody. But in truth whole books, and an impressive
number of journal articles and policy documents, have been written using this logic. If little green women
from Mars arrived tomorrow to investigate Planet Earth’s understanding of gender, this is the main model
they would find.
To criticize such impoverished thinking is by no means to reject quantitative methods. Counting
carefully provides crucial evidence about gender inequalities and changes over time, and sometimes
starkly challenges mainstream ideology. The huge psychological literature of “sex difference” research,
more aptly called “sex similarity” research, is a striking example. Surveys and censuses do matter for
gender analysis. But they take their place among other powerful research methods, including historical
documentation, organizational ethnography, textual studies, life-history work, and analysis of discourse—a
number of which are illustrated in this book. Social science works most productively through combined
methods.

The Changing Substance of Gender Analysis

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The dynamism of social science is well shown by changes in the sociology of gender over the last three
decades. Perhaps the most important change is simply the deepening of knowledge across many subfields.
To blow a little fanfare for the March of Science, the collective labor of thousands of researchers has
constructed knowledge about gender relations and processes on a scale, and with a sophistication, never
seen before. This is well shown by the four chapters in part III of this book.
Sexuality was a concern in the Women’s Liberation movement, which opposed abortion laws and
celebrated women’s right to sexual pleasure. Extensive social-science research on sexual practices was
driven by the HIV crisis, much of it funded by prevention campaigns. Tensions developed between
positivist, ethnographic, and queer perspectives on sexuality, which are still unresolved. At much the same
time, feminist activism sparked interest in sexual violence. In her chapter, Stevi Jackson argues for a
full-scale sociological approach to sexual desire, object-choice, and practice. Critiques of
heteronormativity have left only a shadowy idea of what lies behind the norm. In fact, heterosexuality is a
complex and multileveled social reality. I’m convinced Stevi’s argument is right; and to the reasons for
paying attention, I’d add the social significance of that common consequence of heterosexual conduct,
children. More on this, later.
Christine Williams and Megan Tobias Neely bring economic change sharply into focus. Anglophone
gender theory in the 1980s presumed economic stability, but the “new economy” has disposed of that.
Paradoxes abound: gender inequalities take different trajectories in different social classes; the domestic
division of labor remains but the reasons for it change; corporations parade gender diversity but maintain
gender hierarchy. Christine and Megan welcome us to the brave new world of neoliberal capitalism.
Though economic justice has always been a goal of feminist activism, the most influential feminist
theories in the last generation have had a quite different focus. Poststructuralist thought began to have an
impact in the 1980s (Foucault, I notice, scored nine mentions in Gender and Power). From the 1990s
onward, investigations of gender discourses, gendered subject positions, normativity, gender identity, and
gender subversion and deconstruction, multiplied on a grand scale. Some poststructuralist influence is
threaded through most of the newer fields of gender sociology.
So powerful was this movement that many students and journalists came to understand “gender” as
meaning “mutable gender identity” and not much more. In a recent photograph of a right-wing political
demonstration in France, stern-faced demonstrators are carrying a bright red banner reading “NO to the
theory of gender!” They are part of an international fundamentalist campaign against the idea of gender
fluidity.
But poststructuralism has never been the only approach to culture. Barbara Poggio demonstrates this in
her chapter on the world of neoliberal universities, where gender inequalities should not exist, but do.
Barbara delicately demolishes the conventional excuses, in favor of a little realism about the gendered
character of neoliberal restructuring—the long-hours culture at the top, the precarious workforce at the
bottom. She gives a very useful demonstration of how to do a multidimensional structural inventory of
gender in the university system—gender equity officers, please copy!
Yvonne Benschop and Marieke van den Brink address gender in the form of organizational
power—with a subtle twist. They ask about the politics of knowledge about organizational politics. Their
study gives a neat explanation of why academics mostly produce articles that lack practical relevance,
while corporate consultants produce reports that lack depth and bite. So organizations launch one
inclusiveness program after another, which make their CEOs look gravely concerned, but which change
nothing of substance. I have seen the same thing happen in an academic organization close to home, which
shall remain nameless as I would like to keep my library card.
Social research on gender has thus been deepening in all the areas from which the theorists of the 1980s
drew, but it has also been widening into new areas. These include intriguing studies of science, rather grim
research on international relations, close-focus ethnographies of gender in schools, startling work on
biotechnology, and more. Among the new knowledge projects in this period is social research on

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masculinities, which has expanded tremendously, gone international, found many practical applications,
and diversified in method and theory. We invited some of the researchers who are currently reshaping this
field to contribute to this book, and part IV is the result.
Kopano Ratele, starting with the tensions in Nelson Mandela’s relationship to his abaThembu heritage,
explores the idea of tradition in understandings of masculinity. He makes an important correction to the
very common assumption that “traditional masculinity” is fixed, authoritarian, and patriarchal. Kopano
shows that traditions, like contemporary masculinities, are plural, and that they are constantly questioned.
They are especially problematized when parent-child relations are disrupted, which happens on a mass
scale during colonialism and postcolonial transformations. Gul Ozyegin’s chapter pursues the problem of
change through a beautiful case study of the contradictions in a young man’s construction of masculinity in
neoliberal Turkey. Gul argues that we need a concept of patriarchy, not as a fixed universal, but as a tool
for understanding the new forms of gendered power being created now—and for understanding the
troubles encountered by “unpatriarchal desires” for intimacy and recognition.
Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe return us to the global metropole and accounts of changing
masculinities there. They show how the structural model of multiple masculinities can be reshaped by
rethinking the logic of hegemony, developing an analysis of “hybrid masculinities” out of the
multidimensional theory of gender. They show how the mechanisms they call discursive distancing,
strategic borrowing, and the fortifying of social boundaries allow the recuperation of gender privilege (and
other forms of privilege) despite a fine cultural rhetoric of progress. The argument is painful but
convincing.
Through a generation of effort, the promise of women’s and gay liberation that a whole new realm of
knowledge could be opened up has been fulfilled. But the promise of revolutionary change in society has
not. While gender research expanded, so did resistance to reform—from religious fundamentalism, neocon
and alt-Right politics to masculinist gun culture and Internet trolling. The neoliberal regime has created
new forms of gender inequality, weakened the old forms of social mobilization, and disrupted the public
sector institutions through which most gender reforms had been attempted.
In rich countries the politics of gender has taken new forms: feminist NGOs, online activism, corporate
inclusiveness programs, and campaigns for human rights. Queer politics has inherited some of the energy
of the liberation movements, but follows a different logic: it tries to explode out of the gender order rather
than contesting power by mobilizing within it. In changed intellectual, economic, and political
circumstances, the framework of social-scientific theory about gender must come into question. The most
serious challenge has come from outside the world region where most of the institutional development of
gender studies occurred.

Changing the Episteme

Knowledge about gender not only has a politics, it also has a geopolitics; and this geopolitics has a history.
Global North predominance in feminism was questioned at the first UN World Conference on Women, in
Ciudad México, in 1975, and at all the following conferences. In the 1980s some expatriate feminists
sharply criticized Northern feminism’s image of “third world women” and feminist aid work that assumed
development meant becoming more like the North.
In the United States this critique was at first understood as a critique of racism, parallel to Latina and
Black women’s critiques of White feminism. This interpretation located the problem within US political
and intellectual life, and saw a solution in rejecting racism and adopting multiculturalism, border thinking,
or intersectionality. A literature on these themes soon developed, and still continues.
But this was not a complete solution, because the problem was not internal to the global North. Feminist
thought, and for that matter gay liberation and queer thought, are embedded in a global economy of
knowledge. A worldwide division of labor treats the global periphery as a vast data mine, while the global
metropole produces and imports information, processes it in institutions such as research universities, and

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exports the result in the form of sciences, technologies, and trained professionals. In this economy of
knowledge the metropole is the privileged site of theory. There is a structural reason why Simone de
Beauvoir, Christine Delphy, Michel Foucault, Joan Scott, Judith Butler, and friends are read all over the
world, and concepts created out of Northern experience or needs, even very confused ones like “LGBT,”
are adopted globally.
It is deeply important, then, to recognize that the colonized and postcolonial world does produce
theory—concepts, methods, interpretations—and does so from a social experience different from that of
the metropole. Since colonization was a strongly gendered process, and colonial power remade gender
orders in drastic and often violent ways (mass rape, seizing of land, forced migration, missionary control of
culture), the intellectual response to colonialism includes many analyses of gender. Southern feminism has
as long a history as Northern feminism. Its analyses will be closer to the experience of the majority of the
world’s population.
There is, now, increasing pressure to decolonize social science and gender studies. This book has
contributors from six continents, and part II concerns how to understand gender dynamics in a postimperial
world. Raka Ray directly addresses the problem, noting how mainstream gender theory (Gender and
Power included) failed to recognize the relations between metropole and periphery, and so was limited by
an inadequate framework for knowledge. She is right, and is able to show the long-term effects of imperial
and colonial history—such as patriarchal policing of the gender order as an assertion of postcolonial
difference. Raka is optimistic that gender analysis can change, and her account of the contrasting lives of
Gauri and Jagdish provides a vivid illustration of how it can be done.
So does Mara Viveros Vigoya’s account of social struggles in Colombia, and the way revolutionary
strategies in Latin America were obliged to confront difference. Mara’s narrative of the development of
feminism in the region will be of interest on other continents, but I would urge readers to pay particular
attention to her discussion of the political trajectories of indigenous women and Black women in
Colombia. This is a striking demonstration of the way solidarity among women is shaped, not by an
abstract category of “race,” but by the specific, deeply embedded racial dynamics of colonization and the
social violence of postcolonial regimes and economies.
The main way Anglophone feminist sociology has addressed race is by taking up the model of
intersectionality, the subject of Joya Misra’s chapter. I have been skeptical of this concept as an updated
categoricalism, a static cross-classification of “race, class, and gender.” Joya shows that there are multiple
types of intersectional research, and that the approach does give a grip on questions of power and social
change. Gender theory needs a concern with social justice, and this is a contemporary way of doing it.
Northern feminist thought in the last generation went far into the terrain of discourse, identity, and
representation; feminism in the colonial and postcolonial South has been grittier. Confronting realities that
include mass poverty, epidemics, population struggles, rapid urbanization, coercive labor systems, state
violence, and femicide, Southern feminist movements have been obliged to think about embodiment on a
society-wide scale. That includes issues about sexual reproduction. An important current of thought in
Africa and the African diaspora has emphasized lines of descent, seniority, and motherhood in thinking
about women’s status. Questions can be raised about some of these formulations, but they do underline the
point that conception, birth, and childrearing really matter for understanding gender.
Let me make a large claim. In an ontological sense, gender is the way human reproductive bodies enter
history, and the way social process, unfolding through time, deals with biological continuity. To say this is
not to fall into biological determinism; gender is a social process, a dynamic of change quite different from
biological evolution. Nor is it to fall into heteronormativity; biological continuity on a societal scale in no
sense requires that all women should be married mothers nor all men respectable fathers with mortgages
and lawnmowers. Humans have an enormous range of possibilities in relationship and pleasure. What our
biological continuity does require, above all, is social arrangements for child care. Children and history are
the crux of gender analysis. When states bomb children, economies starve them, adults infect them, or
power holders stunt their education, we can legitimately fear for the long-term future of humanity.
Ethnomethodology and poststructuralism made us familiar with the idea that gender is performative,

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brought into existence as people act in ways accountable in terms of gender norms. But the concept of
performativity is one of citation and repetition, not creation; it contains no dynamic of change. Gender
theory needs the dimension of history. It needs to understand the downstream, the consequences of
gender-being-brought-into-existence.
Beyond the concept of performativity, then, we need theories that recognize the ontoformativity of
gender—the way gender practices bring social reality into existence though time, transforming their
starting-points in the historical process that we call society. The postcolonial research in this book is only
one demonstration of this fundamental feature of gender. Life-history research, studies of institutional
change, studies of social movements, and studies of violence and its effects provide others. They all
require us to think about the future being brought into existence now.

Questions for the Near Future

Our revels are not ended. The real pageant of the world goes on; and if theory is to be more than a
cloud-capped vision melting into thin air, it must help us to see paths forward.
Where sociological gender analysis and strategies for gender justice should be heading now is the
question we all want answered. The chapters in part V address this question most directly. Barbara
Risman, Kristen Myers, and Ray Sin argue that the turn to identity and performance in gender theory needs
to be balanced with a return to structure. Otherwise we arrive at an individual-choice view of gender,
which suits neoliberalism, and curiously produces a new essentialism—as illustrated by the trans/cis binary
that has regrettably become popular in recent transgender activism.
Judith Lorber takes up the theme of the multiplication of gender identity categories, and similarly argues
that this does not challenge structural inequalities. It does not even demolish the masculine-feminine
polarity that persists in most such identities. Judith argues, as she long has, for degendering practices in
everyday life as the reliable way to move toward the abolition of gender. Another strategy for degendering
is suggested in Mimi Schippers’s chapter on monogamy and polyamory. Mimi argues that gender analysis
has paid too little attention to the monogamous couple as a hegemonic social form, which embeds an
image of gender polarity. This hegemony can be deconstructed conceptually by intersectional research, and
is contested practically by subcultures of polyamory, which experiment in new patterns of relationship.
I think it is illuminating to relate these ideas to the strategies of change examined earlier in the book: for
instance, the grassroots movements considered by Mara Viveros Vigoya, the projects of personal change
documented by Gul Ozyegin and Raka Ray, or the organizational change agendas explored by Yvonne
Benschop and Marieke van den Brink.
Indeed, most of the chapters in this book have implications for strategies of change. It was something I
tried to address in the final seven pages of Gender and Power—which, I will confess now that it can do no
harm, were modeled on a memorable passage by John Maynard Keynes. I learnt then how difficult the job
of strategist was, but how necessary. It still is. Before I breake my staffe and drowne my booke, deeper
then did ever Plummet sound, I will add my thoughts about the future of gender theory as a project of
change.
Much of the debate on strategy has concerned new forms of struggle and new agencies of change.
Gender politics has mutated in the last generation, as it has before. For me, a poignant moment was the
recent ending of the annual International Women’s Day march through central Sydney. Instead of
marching, we were invited to purchase a corporate table at a fundraising event run by an NGO. Sydney’s
Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade still attracts very big crowds. But the arrests of gay activists at the
first Sydney Mardi Gras are a distant memory; police now march in the parade, and the public is
entertained rather than challenged. In Australia, a certain kind of embodied mobilization has lost its grip.
It seems that models of gender politics that anticipated a direct confrontation of broad social forces are
not very helpful. That seems to be confirmed by studies in this book. Yet struggle goes on—lotta continua
—and that also is shown in this book. In our Twitter and Facebook feeds we hear of strikes for equal pay,

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court cases over harassment, sexist trolling, elections won and lost, femicide, wars, attempts to destroy
abortion rights (yet again!), campaigns for marriage equality, closure of gender studies programs,
censorship, laws against transgender access to toilets (good grief!), police action against burqinis (good
grief, in spades!), and more.
It’s easier now to see gender and sexual politics in terms of multiple projects, both emancipatory and
repressive, that often interweave and often go down separate tracks. Even concepts like “diversity” and
“intersectionality” seem too limited for this. Postmodern incoherence? Chaos theory? Yet I can’t help
thinking it’s the business of theory to find intelligible connections between diverse realities. As long as the
Twitter feed includes equal pay struggles, femicide, and political homophobia, the concept of enduring
structure, complex structure, in gender relations still has value—and this book shows ways it can be
developed.
We urgently need to understand the new geographies of gender relations. That’s not just a metaphor for
social relations on the Web, or in sexual life. The creation of a world neoliberal economy with its constant
movement of goods and capital has literally reshaped the geography of global power, and posed major
problems for social theory.
The coloniality of power has continued, and global privilege still attaches to the metropole—Western
Europe and North America—in the twenty-first century. But the institutions delivering that privilege have
mutated, with the decline of state-centered imperial economies and the rise of transnational corporations.
With the financialization of corporate structures and the weird merging of masculinized corporate
management with computer systems, the global metropole-apparatus with its strongly marked gender order
is moving gradually offshore, connecting up the accumulation processes around the world. Major wealth
has moved into transnational spaces of a historically new kind—touching ground from time to time at
Davos. To understand the pinnacles of social power we have to look in new places that do not even look
like places, such as the intranets of transnational corporations.
The neoliberal economy and state system place more restrictions on the movement of labor than on
movement of money and goods, but there are still huge migrations of people going on. There are
rural-to-urban tides, the long-distance travel of domestic and oil workers, and the refugee flows creating so
much political turbulence now. These movements are gendered and are reshaping gender orders
continuously. Indeed, they call into question the paradigm of a singular gender order in a particular
nation-state or region. We need new theoretical models for these transformations too.
States have always been important in gender politics; the rethinking of global change needs to pay
attention to the international state. The United Nations has had a Commission on the Status of Women
since 1947—an important legacy from an earlier generation of feminists. A number of UN agencies make
interventions on gender and sexuality: UNESCO, WHO, UNAIDS, the organizations now grouped as UN
Women, even the World Bank. The World Conferences on Women were a highlight of international
policymaking for gender equality. But they ended with the Beijing Conference in 1995; in the following
years more member governments turned against gender reform. As shown in sexual abuse by peacekeeping
forces, and the role of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in structural adjustment, UN
activities are not always on the side of sweetness and light.
New social actors have appeared, such as indigenous women’s movements and men’s groups
campaigning against gender-based violence. Such actors appear in transnational spaces. DAWN, a
well-known feminist network in development politics, dates from the 1980s. The MenEngage Alliance of
NGOs, which currently has 600–700 member organizations, dates from 2004. The International
Sociological Association has a research committee (RC 32) for Women in Society that circulates
information and organizes conference sessions—please join!
Maintaining international connection is now easier through the Internet, skewed as the Internet is in
social terms. Feminist and gay rights groups have created a considerable online presence; so have their
opponents. Even the idea of a “social actor” with collective purposes comes into question, when we think
of the complicated dispersal of ideas through electronic as well as flesh-and-blood pathways. There is great
scope for bold theoretical work informing new forms of activism.

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 The social science of gender has come a long way in a short time. Theory will keep changing, as
intellectuals and activists grapple with these new realities and use new tools. I can’t predict what the
long-term direction will be, though I’ve tried to point in some promising directions. Making knowledge is
a complex, worldwide social process, which is far from automatic. Its trajectory is, as the statisticians say,
nonmonotonic; it goes in surges and troughs. We make errors as well as breakthroughs; we can learn from
both.
In this book we have reflected on major issues in building social-scientific theory about gender in the
conditions we live in now. We believe that social theory is a powerful resource for social action—but only
if it is constantly regenerated by debate, empirical research, and new construction. That’s what books like
this are for. We hope the thinking here provides good starting points for the coming surge of research and
activism.

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 About the Contributors

Yvonne Benschop is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Institute for Management Research at
Radboud University, the Netherlands. Inspired by feminist organization studies and critical management
studies, she studies informal organization processes that produce gender inequalities and the ways to
change these processes and inequalities. She is co-editor in chief of Organization.

Tristan Bridges is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His
research addresses contemporary transformations in masculinity and gender and sexual inequality. He has
studied these dynamics among bodybuilders, bar regulars, profeminist men, fathers’ rights activists, and
couples with “man caves” in their homes. With C. J. Pascoe, Bridges co-edited Exploring Masculinities:
Identity, Inequality, Continuity, and Change.

Raewyn Connell is a sociologist, now Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney and Life Member of
the National Tertiary Education Union. Her books include Southern Theory and Gender: In World
Perspective. She has worked for labor, peace, and women’s movements, and for democracy in education.

Myra Marx Ferree is Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where
she also serves as Joint Governance Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies. Her work is focused on
gender politics in families, organizations, and social movements. Her most recent book is Varieties of
Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective.

Stevi Jackson is Professor of Women’s Studies and Sociology at the University of York, UK. Her
long-term research interests are in the fields of feminist theory, sexuality, and family and intimate
relationships. She has authored or edited several books, including East Asian Sexualities, with Jieyu Liu
and Juyhun Woo, and Theorizing Sexuality, with Sue Scott.

Judith Lorber is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center and
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is the author of numerous publications on
gender, including Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change, Gender Inequality: Feminist
Theories and Politics, and Paradoxes of Gender. She was the founding editor of Gender & Society, official
publication of Sociologists for Women in Society.

Patricia Yancey Martin is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Florida State University. Her interests are
gender as practice, mobilizing masculinity/ies, feminist bureaucracies, and rape/sexual assault on college
campuses. Publications include Handbook of Gender, Work and Organization, Rape Work: Victims,
Gender, and Emotions in Organizations and Community Context, and Feminist Organizations: Harvest of
the New Women’s Movement.

James W. Messerschmidt is Professor of Sociology/Criminology at the University of Southern Maine. His

research has covered such diverse areas as gender and crime/violence, genderqueers, intersectionality, and
global political masculinities. Messerschmidt is the author of a number of books, including Gender,
Heterosexuality, and Youth Violence: The Struggle for Recognition, and, most recently, Masculinities in
the Making: From the Local to the Global.

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Michael A. Messner is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.
His research focuses on gender and sport, men and feminism, and war veterans’ peace activism. Messner is
the author of several books, most recently Some Men: Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence
against Women, with Max Greenberg and Tal Peretz.

Joya Misra is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her
recent research focuses primarily on labor market inequalities by race, gender, nationality, citizenship,
education, and parenthood status. She has published dozens of articles in many of the top journals in
sociology and is a former editor of Gender & Society.

Kristen Myers is Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center for the Study of Women, Gender,
& Sexuality at Northern Illinois University. She studies gender and heteronormativity among
preadolescent children, breadwinning ideals in neotraditional families, and strategies for undoing gender.

Megan Tobias Neely is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at
Austin. Her research focuses on gender, race, and class inequality in the workplaces of political and
economic elites.

Gul Ozyegin is Margaret L. Hamilton Professor of Sociology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
at the College of William and Mary. Her most recent books are New Desires, New Selves: Sex, Love, and
Piety among Turkish Youth and Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Cultures (ed.). Her current research is on
intersections of gender, generation, and (un)belonging among different generations of Turks in Germany.

C. J. Pascoe is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on
youth, masculinity, sexuality, and new media. The author of several books, Pascoe recently co-edited
Exploring Masculinities: Identity, Inequality, Continuity and Change with Tristan Bridges.

Barbara Poggio is Vice Rector for Equality and Diversity at the University of Trento (Italy), where she
coordinates the Center for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Her research interests include the social
construction of gender in organizations, gender and science, and gender and entrepreneurship. She is the
author of several articles and books, among them Gendertelling in Organizations: Narratives from
Male-Dominated Environments.

Kopano Ratele is Professor at the University of South Africa (Unisa) and researcher at the South African
Medical Research Council—Unisa’s Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit. Ratele’s research,
teaching, social-political activism, and community mobilization focuses on the overlaps among violence,
tradition, class, sexuality, race, and gender. His books include There Was This Goat, with Antjie Krog and
Nosisi Mpolweni, and Liberating Masculinities.

Raka Ray is Professor of Sociology and South and Southeast Asia Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley. Her areas of specialization are gender and feminist theory, postcolonial sociology, inequality,
and the emerging middle classes. Publications include Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India,
Cultures of Servitude: Modernity, Domesticity and Class in India (with Seemin Qayum), and The
Handbook of Gender.

Barbara J. Risman is Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has
focused on developing a theory of gender as a social structure. Risman is President of the Board of
Directors of the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit whose mission is to bring social science
research and clinical expertise to public conversation. She is the author of several books, most recently
Where Will the Millennials Take Us: Transforming the Gender Structure?

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Kristen Schilt is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Her work focuses on the
cultural processes that maintain gender and sexual inequalities. She is the author of Just One of the Guys?
Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality.

Mimi Schippers is Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Tulane
University. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race as they take shape in
cultural practices and representations. She is author of Beyond Monogamy: Polyamory and the Future of
Polyqueer Sexualities and Rockin’ Out of the Box: Gender Maneuvering in Alternative Hard Rock.

Ray Sin straddles academia and industry. At Morningstar, Inc., he is an associate behavioral researcher
who leverages big data and randomly controlled trials to better understand investing behavior. And he is
a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Marieke van den Brink is Professor of Gender and Diversity at the Radboud Institute for Social and
Cultural Research, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on ways gender and other inequalities are
produced and countered in organizations, especially in recruitment and selection. She is a member of the
Young Academy of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mara Viveros Vigoya is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at the Universidad Nacional de
Colombia. Her research focuses on the relationship between social differences and inequalities, and the
intersections of gender, sexuality, class, race, and ethnicity in the social dynamics of Latin American
societies. Viveros Vigoya is the author and co-author of several books.

Christine L. Williams is Professor of Sociology and the Elsie and Stanley E. Adams, Sr. Centennial
Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, where she conducts research on gender
discrimination and sexual harassment in a wide variety of workplace settings. Her publications include
Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality.

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 Index

Acker, Joan, 196

action research, 205
Afghanistan, 80–81, 86–87
Africa, 211, 216. See also Côte d’Ivoire; Mozambique; Nigeria; South Africa
African masculinities, 218
African American: intersectionality and Black feminism/African American women, 17, 19, 25, 114, 122, 250;
masculinity and, 120, 271, 320; sexual stereotypes, 319–320
Afro-Colombian women, politics and rights of, 99–105
agency. See structure/structures
agender identity, 283, 288, 297
Agnes (case study), 61
Altman, Dennis, 60, 68
Anzaldua, Gloria, 19, 300
apartheid, 137, 218, 226–227
Appadurai, Arjun, 84
Arroyo, Leyla Andrea, 100
Arxer, Steven, 265
aspiration, gendering of, 84–85, 87
Australia: Australian feminism, 2, 16, 19; context for Gender and Power, 2, 74, 156–157; gender identity, legal
dimensions of, 297; global position of, 21; social movements and, 343–344; transgender and, 65; women and
leadership in, 157, 201

Barber, Kristen, 48
Barnes, Riché J. Daniel, 119, 123
bathrooms, 298, 300, 303–304
Bauer, Robin, 317
Beachy, Robert, 305
Beasley, Christine, 35
Becker, Howard, 59
Beijing World Conference on Women, 18, 22, 93, 345
Bem, Sandra, 278, 290
Benschop, Yvonne, 8, 132, 338, 343
Bhambra, Gurminder, 76
bias training. See organizations
Billings, Dwight, 60
binary. See categories; gender binary
biological determinism: gender binary and, 305; gender identity and, 285, 287, 289–290; homosexuality and, 285,
287; monogamy and evolution, 318–319; reproduction of gender inequality and, 57, 65–66; persistence of, 333;
political efficacy of, 285, 305; sex role theory in relation to, 57, 333; social embodiment as alternative to, 57;
transgender and, 285, 287; women and, 305
Bird, Sharon R., 265
bodies. See embodiment
Bologna Declaration, 178

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borderlands, 300–301
Bourdieu, Pierre, 16, 77
breadwinner, male, 85, 179
Bridges, Tristan, 7, 48–50, 212, 265, 338–339
Britain. See United Kingdom
bro, the, 255, 261, 268
Burchard, Ernst, 283
Bush, George W., 46
butch women. See women
Butler, Judith, 21, 118, 146, 340

Callis, April Scarlette, 300

Canada, 315
capitalism: capitalist extraction (see mining); feminist engagement with, 20, 120; global capitalism, 105, 139, 141;
golden age of, 158–159; men’s domination and advanced capitalism, 174; patriarchy and, 17; romance of
capitalism, 82. See also economy; neoliberalism
carework: feminism and, 166; intersectional approach to, 167; outsourcing of, 167; working women/mothers and,
161–162, 166, 177, 179, 186
Carlson, Jennifer, 83
Catalyst, 195, 197, 200, 202–203. See also expertise; organizations
categoricalism/categorical theory, 62–63, 335–336
categories: activism and, 285, 305–307; binary construction of, 62, 100, 112, 136, 139–140, 277, 282–287, 290, 301
, 306–307, 343; change/dynamism and, 115–116, 118, 123; gender frames and categorization process, 303:
heterosexuality and gender categories, 135, 138–140; opting out, 283, 290; power and, 116–117; simplification
and, 275; as socially constructed, 117, 124, 283; structural feminist research and, 118, 287–288; survey research
and, 309; universalism and, 77–78, 90, 111, 124, 235. See also categories in intersectional research theory;
cisgender; gender binary; gender identity; intersectionality; multiple genders; women
categories in intersectional research theory, 72, 90–91, 111–118, 308–309, 341; anticategorical approach, 119,
122–123; intercategorical approach, 119–123; intracategorical approach, 119–120, 123
cathexis, 20, 314, 317
Cavanagh, Sheila L., 304
change, theories of, 18, 29, 36, 38, 57, 63, 157–158, 167, 169, 193–197, 257, 268, 290, 299–300, 306–307, 343,
346
Chang Kyung-Sup, 141
childcare. See carework
children, stakes of gender theory and, 342
Choo, Hae Yeon, 122
Cimarron National Movement, 100, 102
cisgender, 100, 275, 283; emergence of term, 9, 283–284; identities subsumed under, 286; intersex and, 283;
limitations of term, 284, 286–288; as new binary, 277, 284–287, 290, 343
citizenship: as intersectional dimension, 48, 111–112, 118; sexual citizenship, 137; universities and, 184
class: class analysis, impact on gender theory, 15–18; as feminist concern, 15, 17, 24, 111; gender as secondary to,
15, 92; global South and, 74, 91, 235; as intersectional dimension, 7, 8, 11, 13, 16–17, 24–28, 51, 111–119, 121,
193, 250; masculinity and, 38, 40, 45, 48–49, 51, 75, 83, 258, 262–263, 266; Marxist theory and, 15 (see also
Marxism: feminism and); masculinity and, 38, 40, 45, 48–49, 51, 75, 83, 258, 262–263, 266; men, class
advantage/disadvantage among, 75, 83–85, 132, 159, 222–223, 263, 265–266; race, class as marker of, 122;
sexuality and, 142, 315–316, 319–320, 325–327, 343; women and class, 80, 84–85, 92, 116, 120–121, 142, 160,
235, 282. See also feminist/feminisms: Marxism and
Colombia: armed conflict in, 102, 104; Colombian feminisms, 71, 90–97, 99–103, 341; ethnic/racial groups in,
95–97, 99–104; land rights in, 101; multiculturalism in, 103; slavery in, 99; social movements in, 91, 93,
100–103; women and Colombian politics, 92
colonialism: colonial power, 75–76, 104; definition of, 215; feminist engagement with, 19; global sisterhood and,
79; impacts on gender relations, 78–79, 81–82, 85–86, 279; indigenous peoples and, 96; knowledge production

225
 and, 76–77, 79, 82, 91; legacies of, 79, 84, 104; masculinities and, 45, 47, 78–79; theories of gender and, 76, 216,
227; women’s oppression as justification for, 81, 87, 222, 236, 320
coloniality, 216; definition of, 215; power relations and, 344
Combahee River Collective, 19
Connell, Raewyn: and categorical theory, critique of, 62–63, 335; change, theoretical contributions to, 18, 29, 36,
38, 57, 63, 157–158, 167, 169, 194, 257, 268, 290, 299–300; on education, 173–174; on femininities, 38,
245–246; on feminist politics, 24; on gender order and regimes, 36, 46, 138 (see also Connell, Raewyn, and
gender theory); global North/South, 21, 30, 220, 234; intersectionality, 13;on knowledge, 47, 174, 220, 234; on
masculinities, 38, 47, 214; on masculinity, hegemonic, 35, 37, 39–40, 200; on men’s interests, 271; on
neoliberalism, 26, 174; positionality of, 19, 21; on power, 75, 138, 157; on social embodiment, 61, 66; on
structure and agency, 18, 24, 29, 36, 57, 140–141; on theory, 13, 248; transgender theory/scholarship and, 57–58,
61–67
Connell, Raewyn, and gender theory: historical basis of, 279; intellectual context for, 15; macro/structural
dimensions of, 26, 29, 36–37, 57, 63, 138, 140–141, 156–157, 257, 314; structure and practice in, 15, 134–135,
216, 277, 280–281
Connelly, William, 305
Côte d’Ivoire, 83
Cottom, Tressie McMillan, 27
counterculture, 321
crisis tendencies, gender and, 2, 36, 48, 157–158, 257, 268
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 17, 19, 117
culture: cultural turn, poststructuralism and, 134, 337; discourse and, 76, 145; dominance and culture, 268; gender
theory and, 138, 145, 216–217, 220–221, 228, 279; masculinity and culture, 206, 223, 228, 255, 259–260, 264;
racial/ethnic minorities and, 96, 211, 216, 223, 228, 264; sexuality and culture, 259–260, 264–265, 300–301, 322
, 324–325, 327; as structure, 16; tradition and, 214; work/organizations and culture, 163, 168, 177, 194–198, 206,
331, 337
Curiel, Ochy, 104

Davis, Kathy, 251

de Beauvoir, Simone, 340
de Casanova, Erynn Masi, 264
decoloniality, 104, 340–341
Defosse, Dana Leland, 283
degendering, 275, 291–292, 307–309, 343
Delphy, Christine, 340
Demetriou, Demetrakis Z., 259, 265
desire, gender dichotomy of, 314
development, gender and, 3, 22, 80, 101. See also United Nations
De Vries, Jennifer A., 201, 203
Diefendorf, Sarah, 267
Dill, Bonnie Thornton, 17, 115
discourse: and categories, 115; as feminist politics, 20; gender binary and, 45; gender knowledge and, 23; gender
regimes and, 187; global North/South and, 80, 83, 341; power and, 80; sexuality and, 63, 145; structure and, 21,
72, 76, 86; subject creation, 115
discursive colonization, 80, 83, 105
discursive distancing, 260–263, 270
diversity: business case for, 164; diversity management, 25; diversity networks, 200; diversity programs, 163;
leadership/top management and, 199; neoliberalism and, 179, 275; organizational/workplace change, 163, 196,
199–200, 203, 338; state and diversity politics, 25
doing gender: collective action/structural change and, 306–307; definition of, 61, 279, 298; emergence of concept,
61; intersectional inequalities and interactions, 122; limitations of concept, 281–282, 298–299, 342; pleasure and,
288; transgender and gender crossing experiences, 61
domestic violence. See violence

226
domestic labor. See work
domination: colonial/imperialist, 75, 222, 249, 315; gender, 233, 239, 246, 250; hegemony and, 245, 259, 334;
intersectional theories of, 320, 325–326; matrix of, 17, 114, 302; men’s domination of women, 47, 82, 95, 103,
135, 156–158, 162–163, 167–168, 174, 233, 239–241, 244; structural aspects of, 152, 156–157, 167. See also
masculinities; men; power
double consciousness, 116
Dworkin, Shari, 50–51
DuBois, W. E. B., 116
Durkheim, Emile, 77
Duterte, Rodrigo, 332

East Asia, 141. See also Hong Kong; South Korea

economy: new, 160, 168; men and transnational corporate, 331, 344; postcolonial neoliberal, 82. See also
knowledge; work
education/higher education: eurocentrism and, 99; European gender policies, 180–183, 188–189; feminism and the
academy, 94, 103–105; gender education gap, 159–160, 332; gender policy and, 8, 179–183, 186, 188; gender
regimes/relations and, 8, 132, 173, 175, 184, 187–188, 337; gender segregation in, 176–177, 184; inequality,
reproduction of, 16, 132, 173, 222; intersectional approach to, 16, 27–28; managerialism/restructuring and higher
education, 27–28, 132, 179, 182, 184, 187; masculinities and, 41–42, 121, 187; neoliberalism and, 174, 178–179,
182–186, 188, 335–337. See also knowledge; organizations; STEM
Elias, Juanita, 35
El Salvador, 30
Ely, Robin, J., 196
embodiment: female masculinities and, 44–45; gender and, 57; hegemonic masculinity and, 39; materiality of, 66;
social embodiment, 61, 66, 68; structural approaches to, 66, 341
emotional relations: as dimension of gender, 15, 20, 131, 134, 138, 173, 257; gender roles/stereotypes and, 290, 305
, 324; hybrid masculinities and, 258, 264–265, 268; men, emotional bonds between, 255, 270; new fathering and,
267; relationships and, 314, 316–317, 319, 321–322; restricted emotionality and masculinity, 224; sexuality and,
138, 157, 183. See also cathexis
emphasized femininity, 37, 38, 245
empowerment: bodies and, 282; global South and women’s empowerment, 50, 80; intersectional dimensions of, 27;
men’s disempowerment, 51; neoliberal approaches to, 26, 83, 164–166, 292; politics of, 301–302
environment, indigenous perspectives on, 98, 104
epistemology: feminist epistemologies of the South, 91, 104–105, 234, 249; standpoint epistemology, 116–117
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs, 279
equality. See gender equality; organizations: gender inequalities in
erotic capital, 144
Espinosa, Yuderkys, 104
Europe: as colonizing force, 216; modernity and, 77; universities and gender politics in, 175–178, 181, 188. See
also Finland; France; Germany; global North/South; Iceland; Ireland; Italy; Netherlands; Nordic countries;
Norway
European Commission, 175, 180–181, 185; European Union, 28, 182
evolutionary theory, 318–319
expertise: feminism and, 94, 193; gender and, 22, 29; gender consultants, 132, 194–195, 197–198, 200, 202,
204–205. See also knowledge; organizations

Facebook, 297
family: African American families, stereotypical constructions of, 319–320; colonialism and, 227; heterosexuality
and, 148–151; intersectionality and, 161; polyamorous, 324, 327; work-family balance, 164, 167; see also
carework; fathering, new; gendered division of labor; mothers/motherhood; wages
Fanon, Frantz, 79
fathering, new, 267
Feinbloom, Deborah, 59

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female masculinities, 44–45
femininity/femininities: African American femininity, 320; beauty/body standards and, 281–282; conceptualization
of, 3, 37–38; gender hegemony and, 314; gender relationality and, 245; heterosexuality and, 145; as identity and
practice, 246–247; as intersectional, 121–123; new femininity, 247–248; patriarchy, relation to, 245, 247;
sexuality and, 145; traditional femininity, 65, 217; typologies, limitations of, 246. See also emphasized
femininity
feminism/feminisms: autonomous, 94; capitalism and, 20, 105; choice feminism, 277; global North/South and, 19,
21, 80–82, 90, 92, 95, 99, 216, 339–340; intersectional, 27; institutional, 19–20, 23, 25, 29, 92–94, 97, 103, 237;
lesbian, 135–136; liberal, 164; Marxism and, 16; neoliberal, 164–166; radical, 16, 305; second wave, 135, 278;
socialist, 164; tensions between/within, 92, 94–95, 98, 100, 103; 164, 193–194, 198, 204–205, 216, 235, 339–340
; transnational, 90, 105, 164, 345; universalizing tendencies of, 100, 111
feminist epistemologies of the South. See epistemology
feminist movements: Afro-Colombian, 71, 99–103, 341; crisis tendencies as opportunities for, 158; double
militancy, 71, 92; indigenous feminism, 95–99, 103, 341, 345; and institutional/state engagement, 19–20, 23, 25,
29, 92–94, 97, 103, 237; shifting political terrain of, 13, 92–93, 343; transnational exchange and, 72, 92
feminist politics as knowledge politics, 20, 22–23, 30; divide between research and activism/practice, 193–194, 198
, 204–205, 334–335; new models of, 343–344; political agendas/strategies, 92–93, 98–99, 103
feminist solidarity, 90, 105, 341
feminist theory: academic, critiques of, 104, 133, 193–194, 198–199, 204–205, 239; change, feminist theories of,
193–197, 202, 203, 205–206, 343, 346; definition of, 14; global North/South and, 19, 21, 30, 104, 216, 234, 239;
in historical context, 14; intersectional critiques of, 116, 235; patriarchy in, 235, 239, 248; political struggle and,
334–335; structural, 111–112, 118. See also gender theory; intersectionality; knowledge; structure/structures
feminization, 159, 175, 182
femocrat, 19
Ferree, Myra Marx, 7, 11, 25, 122, 188, 334
Finland, 308
Fisher, Melissa, 165
flexibility policies, 164–165, 182
Flippens, Chenoa, 121, 123
Florez-Florez, Juliana, 101
Foucault, Michel, 136, 223, 337, 340
frames, framing, 24, 303
France, 78, 337
Fraser, Nancy, 83, 166

Gagnon, John H., 147

Garfinkel, Harold, 61
geek masculinities, 255
gender: abolition of, 299–300; biology and, 285, 287–288, 341–342; as changing/dynamic, 2, 11, 13, 63–64;
definition of, 139; as historically/culturally specific, 17, 63, 86, 97, 238–239, 255–256, 279; institutionalization
of, 93–94, 279; multidimensional approach to, 138, 189; sex in relation to, 285, 287–288, 341–342; sexuality in
relation to, 131, 134–136, 139–140, 143–144, 147–148, 152; as socially constructed, 61, 285, 289, 298, 333;
structure/practice and, 13, 111, 134, 143, 173, 255, 275, 277–278. See also doing gender
Gender: context of, 13, 18–20, 22; discourse, approach to, 20–21; gender theory, contributions to, 13; political
strategy in, 20, 23; postcolonialism and, 21; transnational gender politics of, 19, 22–23
Gender and Power: change, two scenarios of, 299–300; context of, 1–3, 156; embodiment in, 57; femininity and
masculinity in, 3, 35, 37, 314; role theory, critique of, 14, 57; theory, treatment of, 13, 220; transgender,
discussion of, 58, 61, 65–67, 334. See also Gender and Power, contributions to gender theory
Gender and Power, contributions to gender theory: crisis tendencies, 36; gender as historical, 279; gender order; 2,
36; gender regimes, 2, 36; power, labor, cathexis as structures of gender, 2, 74–75, 156; structure and
practice/agency, 2–3, 13, 16, 18, 36, 57, 65, 134, 169, 277; intersectional limitations of, 16, 75, 340
Gender & Society, 334
gender binary: biological/essentialist assumptions and, 45, 305; challenges to, 9, 298, 306–307; definition of, 298;

228
 intersectionality and, 308; monogamy and, 317–319; nonbinary gendering, 300–301; persistence of, 298–299,
301, 303, 306; socialization and, 176; as social pathology, 9, 59–60; survey research and, 309
gender division of labor: feminism and, 164; household/family and, 161–162, 186, 309, 324; neoliberalism and, 185
; organizational change and, 206
gender domination, 233, 239–240, 242–243, 245–247, 250
gender equality: attitudes and, 308; business case for, 182; men’s role in, 201–202, 261–262; neoliberalism and,
182, 184, 188; in organizations, 206; policies for, 28, 179, 180–184, 186, 188, 201, 237, 270; trickle-down
approach to, 165; workplace and, 193. See also gender inequality, resilience of; gender mainstreaming;
organizations; work
gender fluidity, 5, 123, 147, 284, 337
gender hegemony, 270, 314, 326
gender identity: social change and, 306–307, 309; divorce from structure, 280–281, 290–291, 302, 306, 309;
Facebook and, 297; non-binary, 44, 288
gender inequality, resilience of, 254, 257–258, 261–262, 265–266, 268–269, 291–292, 339
gender mainstreaming, 22, 179, 183–184, 188–189; diversity politics and, 25; neoliberalism and, 188
gender order, 2, 36, 138, 333; change in, 256; colonialism and, 86; global, 46, 84, 280, 345; men/masculinities and,
46–47, 83–85, 202
gender paradoxes, 275, 298–299, 306–307
gender politics: global context of, 22–23; new models of, 343–344
genderqueer. See LGBT/Q/I
gender regimes: binary, 299; crisis tendencies and, 36; definition of, 2, 36; educational institutions and, 173,
182–184, 188; four dimensions of, 173, 185–186, 257; hegemonic masculinities and, 40, 43, 261; organizations
and, 193, 205
gender relationality, 245–247, 250
gender relations: colonialism and, 85; as dynamic, 11, 36, 255–257; four dimensions of, 257;
masculinity/femininity and, 50, 314, 319; new geographies of, 344; power and, 13, 17, 38, 111, 279
gender structures: binary, 291, 310; change/dynamism and, 280, 289, 291; labor, power, and cathexis as, 2, 74–75,
156, 158, 314;
gender studies, 5
gender theory: biology, place of, 341–342; change, 2, 20, 67–68, 256, 268–269; children as stakes of, 342; culture
and, 216, 220; everyday and, 137, 143; global dynamics of, 75, 78, 234, 238, 250, 340–341; identity and
individual in (see gender theory, identity and individual in); neoliberal turn in, 277, 280–282, 287–290;
patriarchy in, 211, 233–234, 243, 250; political struggle and, 334–335; post-structural approaches to, 5;
relational, 50–51; structural, 57, 113, 131, 156, 256–257, 275, 278–279, 281, 287–289, 341–342. See also
feminist theory; intersectionality; structure and agency
gender theory, identity and individual in: choice models and, 282–283, 289, 342; limitations of, 280–281, 290–291,
299; neoliberalism, relationship to, 281–282, 289, 342–343
gender vertigo, 268, 271
Germany: German feminism, 24; education, gender politics of, 27–28; gender identity in, 297
Giddens, Anthony, 113
Gimlin, Debra, 281
glass barriers, escalator, 120
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 17, 114, 125, 167
globalization: and aspiration, gender dynamics of, 84–85; definition of, 46; feminism and, 22, 90; gendered impacts
of, 84–85; financial crisis, 30; gender order and, 46–47; intersectional politics of, 23, 26; masculinities and, 45,
47, 159; neoliberalism and, 8, 23, 83, 90, 93, 247; work and, 159
global North/South: as metaphor, 91; modern/traditional, 77, 80; gendered power and, 85; inequalities between, 79,
80, 344; impact on gender relations, 81–82; feminism and, 19, 21, 80–82, 90, 92, 95, 99, 216, 339–340;
interconnectedness/interdependence of, 75, 82, 105; knowledge politics of, 3, 72, 76, 80, 90–91, 105, 215,
339–340; patriarchy as marker of difference, 233, 236, 249–250. See also feminism/feminisms; masculinities;
knowledge
Go, Julian, 78
Goffman, Erving, 59

229
Grazian, David, 265
Great Britain. See United Kingdom
Grewpal, Inderpal, 233, 236
Groes-Green, Christian, 50
Grueso, Libia, 100
guns, masculinity and, 83

Hacker, Helen, 255

Halberstam, Jack, 44
Harvey, David, 251
Harvey Wingfield, Adia, 120, 123
Haywood, Chris, 45
Hearn, Jeff, 47
Heath, Melanie, 267
hegemonic masculinity: challenges to/crisis of, 158, 238; Connell’s original conceptualization of, 35, 37; Connell’s
reformulation of, 11, 39–40, 43; as context specific, 35, 38, 41, 43, 48; debates over/critiques of, 35, 39, 259;
definitions of, 41, 51, 220, 245, 259, 270; gender inequality and, 35, 37, 49; global dynamics of, 41, 43, 46;
intersectionality and, 39, 43; legitimation effects of, 37–38, 41, 43; patriarchy, role in, 244–245; race and, 45–46;
rationality, science and knowledge in, 174, 184, 187; as relational, 37, 39, 42–43; resilience and reproduction of,
41, 259; scales of, 40, 43–44. See also hybrid masculinities; masculinities: dominant/dominating
hegemony: Connell versus Gramsci, 259; cultural and institutional dimensions of, 245; hegemonic gender relations,
245, 314, 319, 334
heteronormativity, 5, 134, 136–137, 144, 267; feminism and, 95; definition of, 153; everyday life and reproduction
of, 144, 146; institutions and, 95, 150; gendered and sexual meanings, 145; resilience of, 137, 139
heterosexuality; cathexis and, 157; compulsory, 134–135; conceptualizations of, 134, 138; discourse and, 145–146;
economic inequalities and, 142; family and, 148–151; femininities/masculinities and, 145, 265, 267, 270; gender
relations and, 134–136, 138–140, 143–144, 147–148, 152; institutionalization of, 136–137, 139–142, 149–151;
nationalism and, 146; as structure and practice, 135–138, 140–141, 144, 152; symbolic significance of, 138;
variation within, 137, 148
Hindu nationalism, 85
hipster, the, 254, 268
Hirschfeld, Magnus, 305
HIV/AIDS: masculinity and, 50–51; violence and, 51
homophobia, 138
homosexuality: biological determinism and, 285; historical emergence of, 63; law and, 151
homosociality, 255
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, 48, 222, 263
Hong Kong, 131, 149–151
Hountondji, Paulin, 215–216
humanities, 182, 185
hybrid masculinities: cultural appropriation/incorporation of the Other, 258, 260, 263–267, 271; definition of, 48,
256, 258, 270; inequalities, reproduction of, 212, 258, 260–263, 265–267, 269, 338–339; hegemonic masculinity,
reconfiguration of, 49, 260–261, 265, 267, 338–339; obscuring effects of, 256, 258–259, 264, 267–269; origins
of concept, 259; new fathering practices and, 267. See also crisis tendencies; gender vertigo; hybrid
masculinities, three dimensions of
hybrid masculinities, three dimensions of: discursive distancing, 260–263, 270; fortifying boundaries, 259–260,
266–268, 270; strategic borrowing, 259, 263–265, 270

Ibson, John, 270

Iceland, 308
identity politics, 285, 305–307
imperialism: cultural, 215–216; domination, imperialist, 75, 315; gender order and, 79, 340; intimate relationships

230
 and, 315, 319–320, 326–327; knowledge/social theory and, 77, 215–216; power, 75, 77, 340; violence and, 79,
320, 340–341
India: British colonial rule and gender in, 81; contemporary context for gender relations, 73–74, 84–85; masculinity
and colonialism in, 78; transgender recognition, 297
indigenous issues: cosmic visions, 98–99; gender in language and culture, 97; feminism and indigenous women, 90,
95–99, 103; environment, 98; social movements, women in, 96–98, 104. See also colonialism; feminist
movements
inequality, relational approach to, 114–115, 124–125
institutions, 57, 95, 279. See also feminism/feminisms; feminist movements; heterosexuality; intersectionality;
structure/structures; transgender/transgender people
institutional feminism, 19–20, 23, 25, 29, 92–94, 97, 103, 237
interactionist approach to gender. See doing gender
Internet, gender and, 332, 345
intersectionality: Black feminism and, 17, 19, 114, 122, 250; categories, approach to, 72, 90–91, 111–118, 308–309
, 341; conceptual debates over, 25; as historically/context specific, 14, 27, 30, 113, 115, 118, 121–122; definition
of, 250–251; emergence of concept/theory, 7, 19, 111, 235, 280; feminism, relationship to and use of, 25, 29, 95,
116, 124, 131, 169, 235, 341; and gender/gender theory, 51, 112, 124, 131, 308, 341; imprisonment and, 122, 161
; institutions and, 16, 30, 115–116, 142; neoliberalism and, 26–27, 112–113; post-structuralism and, 111, 115,
117, 124; relationality and, 114–115, 122, 124–125; social movements and, 124; sociological approaches to,
112–114, 118–119, 124; structural/macro approaches to, 14, 24, 26, 29–30, 111–113, 115, 117–118, 124, 158
intersex: awareness of, 297; binary gender categories and, 283, 287; medical interventions and infants, 302; sport
and, 302
intimacy: inequalities and, 316, 325; masculinities and, 240, 261, 270, 338; relationship forms and, 314–315,
317–318, 321, 326; practices of, 143, 149. See also cathexis; monogamy; polyamory
Ireland, 308
Italy, 82
Islam, 237

Jackson, Stevi, 9, 131, 336

Jorgensen, Christine, 68
Jones, Nikki, 122

Kandiyoti, Deniz, 269, 326

Kando, Thomas, 59
Kang, Miliann, 120
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 279
Kessler, Suzanne, 61
Khan, Shamus, 285
Kim, Allen, 281
knowledge: academic/practitioner divide, 91, 132, 193–194, 197–199, 203–205, 334–335; cross-fertilization, 234,
250; feminist approaches to, 116; feminist organizational change and, 193–194, 199–200; feminist knowledges,
91; gendering/feminization of, 173–174, 182; global North/South and, 47, 215, 234, 339–340; knowledge
transfer and social movements, 72, 105; from marginalized/peripheral positions, 72, 105, 116, 125, 340;
neoliberalism and, 132, 178, 182, 215, 335; of organizational change, 196–202, 204, 338. See also colonialism;
education/higher education; epistemology; gender mainstreaming; global North/South; organizations; situated
knowledge; STEM
Korea. See South Korea
Kulik, Carol T., 204

labor. See work

Laclau, Ernesto, 86
Latin America, 90–93, 95, 216, 341. See also Colombia
Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter, 92, 94

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Latino/a, 119, 121, 124, 306
leadership: gendering of, 201, 279; organizational change and, 199–201, 203, 206; quotas and women leaders, 201.
See also knowledge; organizations
LGBT/Q/I: biological determinism and, 285; emergence of term, 5; gender binary and, 299, 301; genderqueer,
287–289, 291, 297, 300; gender transgressions, 291, 298–300, 302, 306–307; global dynamics of, 142, 340;
institutions and, 141; intersectionality and, 120, 306. See also intersex; queer theory; transgender/transgender
people
Lopata, Helena Z., 278–279
Lopez, Florina, 97
Lorber, Judith, 9, 275, 280, 343

Mac an Ghaill, Máirtín, 45

Making the Difference, 173
Malcolm X, 271
Mama, Amina, 78
Mandela, Nelson, 211, 213, 215, 217–221, 227–229
management. See leadership; organizations
managerialism. See education/higher education; masculinities
manufacturing. See work
Maor, Maya, 305
Martin, Pat, 35
Marx, Karl, 77, 169
Marxism: feminism and, 15, 17; Latin American, 91, 97
Masculinities: empirical focus of, 36–37; hegemonic masculinity in, 37; intersectionality and masculinity, 75
masculinities: Black men’s, 120, 320; class and, 38, 40, 45, 48–49, 51, 75, 83, 258, 262–263, 266; colonialism and,
45, 47, 78, 211; definition of, 3, 214; dominant/dominating, 35, 41–43; entrepreneurship of the self and, 239–240
; field, emergence of, 7; gender hegemony and, 314; global dimensions of, 45, 47, 50, 75, 83–84, 211, 238; as
identity and practice, 247, 258–259; inclusive, 256, 259; intersectional dimensions of, 48, 51, 75, 120–122, 125,
263; intimacy and, 261, 270; neoliberalism and, 179, 187, 238, 247; non-hegemonic, 38–39, 41, 43; patriarchy
and, 234, 236, 240; protest, 38; rationality, science, knowledge and, 174, 184, 187; relations between, 246, 314;
religion and, 237, 267–268, 320; sexuality and, 145, 254, 265–267; terrorism and, 83–84; traditional/tradition
and, 211, 214–215, 217, 219–224, 227–228, 338; transgender and, 299; typologies, limitations of, 246. See also
colonialism; education/higher education; guns; hegemonic masculinity; hybrid masculinities; nationalism; power;
work
Matlon, Jordanna, 83
Mayo, Katherine, 81, 87
Mbembe, Achille, 227
McCall, Leslie, 119–123
McKenna, Wendy, 61
McKinsey, 195, 197, 200, 202. See also expertise; organizations
Mead, George Herbert, 147
men: bias training and, 198; community, ties to, 211; effeminate, 286–288; engagement of, feminist/gender politics
and, 201–203, 206, 261–262; as disadvantaged, 83–85, 132, 202, 206; men’s interests, 271; recognition, men’s
desire for, 240
men, power of, 75; changes under neoliberal globalization, 83–85; crisis tendencies and change in, 158;
masculinities/femininities and, 35, 38–40, 42–43, 48–50, 221, 245, 248, 256, 258, 261–262, 265–266, 268–269,
331; sites of men’s power, 75, 83, 156–157
Merkel, Angela, 332
Messerschmidt, James W., 7, 11, 39, 41, 43–44, 46, 214, 271, 280, 320, 334
Messner, Michael, 7, 11, 48–49, 222, 263, 334
mestizaje, 95
metropole (global), 23, 30, 78, 340, 344

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metrosexual, 254, 264–265, 268
Mexico, 82
Meyerson, Debra E., 196
microfinance, 83
Middle East, 83
migration: gendered experiences of, 74; gender order and, 345; neoliberalism and, 345
military. See war
millennials, 286–288, 292
Misra, Joya, 7, 72, 341
Mitchell, Juliet, 17, 256
mining, 101–102, 105
Mohamed, Kharnita, 227
Mohanty, Chandra, 19, 80
Moller, Michael, 248
monogamy: evolutionary theory and, 318–319; gender hegemony, 275, 314, 317, 319, 326; hegemonic functions of,
343; imperial hegemony, 315, 319–320, 327; intersectional dimensions of, 315–316, 319–320; male dominance
and, 314–315, 327; monogamous couple; as ideal and structure, 314–315, 320, 343; masculinity and femininity
and, 317, 319, 343; mononormativity, 316–317, 319–320, 326–27; racial-ethnic hegemony, 315, 319–320. See
also coupling; polyamory
Moore, Mignon, 120
Morrell, Robert, 45
mothers/motherhood: daughters and, 149–151; neoliberalism and, 174; single, 161; welfare and, 161. See also
carework; work
Mouffe, Chantal, 86
Mozambique, 50
Mujeres Creando, 97
multiculturalism, 95, 103
multiple genders: gender binary and, 301–302, 306, 343; gender relations and, 275, 298, 300, 302, 306–307, 309;
multiple gendering, 298; social change and, 275, 297–298, 305
Musto, Michela, 40
Myers, Kristen, 9, 275, 342

Narayan, Uma, 19
nation: global gender order and, 48, 78, 82, 143, 345; as intersectional dimension, 7, 21–24, 26, 40, 75, 112, 121;
postcolonial national identity, 85–86, 90, 148
nationalism: African, 220; anticolonial struggle and, 79; cultural, 216; feminist theory and, 21; globalization and, 13
, 29, 85; masculinities and, 85, 332; role of gender in, 79, 85
Native American, 44
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo, 216
Neely, Megan Tobias, 8, 131–132, 337
Netherlands, 78
neoconservatism, 237, 249, 251
neoliberalism: conceptualization of, 26, 86, 112, 174, 251, 292; gender and, 76, 174, 179, 204, 236–237, 344;
gender scholarship, neoliberal turn in, 277–278, 281–282, 187–290; feminism and, 83, 90, 94, 102, 104;
intersectional approaches to, 26–27, 112–113; masculinity and, 238, 247; politics of, 27–28, 91, 105, 141, 275;
relationship to colonialism, 76, 83; structural adjustment programs, 82, 345. See also education/higher education;
empowerment; globalization; neoliberalism, academia under; new economy; STEM; work
neoliberalism, academia under, 132, 178, 184–187, 337; scientization and, 182, 335–336; university governance
and, 179, 182, 335
new economy, 160, 168; diversity and, 132, 163; men as disadvantaged in, 202, 332; paradoxes of, 337; welfare
and, 163; work-family balance and, 164, 167, 177, 179; workplace practices in, 162–164

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new masculinities, 48–50, 248; gender hegemony and, 49; intersectional inequalities and, 262–264, 266; meanings
of, 255–256, 268–269; three configurations of, 254–255, 268
Nigeria, 78
Nordic countries, 308
North America, 141
Norway, 308

Obama, Barack, 46
objectivity, 116
oppression, women’s: change over time, 157; global South and, 81; influence of colonialism, 81. See also
domination; war
organizational change: academic accounts of, 196–199, 201–202, 204, 279; bias training, 198; feminist theory and
organizational change, 193, 205–206; gender consultants’ account of, 197–198, 200, 202, 204; gender quotas
and, 201; inclusion and; 196–199; knowledge and, 132, 193–196, 199–200, 204–206; leadership/top management
and, 199–200, 206; men’s role in, 201–203, 206; organizational processes and change, 197–198; policy and
organizational change, 181–183; power and, 200, 206; three issues of gendered organizational change; 132, 194.
See also education/higher education; knowledge; STEM; work
organizations: action research and, 205; gendered, 185–187, 193, 196, 198, 279; gender equality in, 206; gender
inequalities in, 8, 177, 193; inclusive organizations, 197–199; intersectional inequalities and, 193; opting out,
women and, 120, 123, 161, 177. See also STEM; work
Ozyegin, Gul, 7–8, 211, 338, 343

Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria, 324

Pancho, Avelina, 97
Paredes, Julieta, 97
Pascoe, C. J., 7, 48–50, 121, 212, 338–339
paternalism: protective, 240; state, 237, 249
Patil, Vrushali, 236
patriarchal bargain, 269, 326
patriarchal dividend, 245
patriarchy: capitalism and patriarchy, 17; desire for recognition and, 240, 242–244; discourse and, 80; feminist
theory and, 235, 239, 248; gender theory and, 234, 239, 248, 338; intimate relationships and, 243, 247; lost
legitimacy of, 257; masculinity-patriarchy nexus, 234, 236, 240; neoliberalism/neoconservatism and, 236–237,
249; new modes of, 211, 242–243; Northern abandonment/denial of, 233, 236, 249–250; power and, 17, 233;
radical feminism and, 16; reconfiguration of, 236, 242–243; transnational dynamics of, 47, 236, 249;
unpatriarchal male identities, 240–241, 243–244, 246–249
Pearse, Rebecca, 138, 145
Penner, Andrew M., 122, 124
performativity of gender, 5, 298; emergence of concept, 5; limitations of concept, 342. See also doing gender
Perkins, Roberta, 65–66
Pfeffer, Carla A., 288
Philippines, 82
Pieper, Marianne, 317
Poggio, Barbara, 8, 132, 337
polyamory: definition of, 276, 321; dynamics of, 321–322; families, 324, 327; femininity/masculinity under,
322–323; gender relations and structures under, 276, 315, 318–319, 322–326; intersectional dimensions of, 315,
325–327, 343; neoliberalism and, 325; sociological approach to, 325–326
pornography, internet and, 332
postcolonial: feminism, 81–82; neoliberal economy, 82; theory and scholarship, 8, 75–77, 227–228, 340–342
post-masculinities, 45
poststructuralism: approach to categories, 115–117, 123; gender and, 5, 337, 342; intersectionality and, 111–113,
116–117, 124; limitations of, 5, 342; queer theory and, 134; structuralism, compared with, 72, 115, 118, 136–137
. See also doing gender; performativity of gender

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power: colonialism/imperialism and; 8, 75–79, 104, 215–216, 228, 340–341, 344; discourse and, 80; global
dimensions, 23, 29, 75, 80, 85, 105, 332, 344; intersectionality and, 95, 112–113, 116, 122–124, 260, 266, 302;
knowledge and, 23, 77, 174, 188, 198, 204, 338; patriarchy as system of, 17, 245, 249, 338 (see also power of
men); queer theory and, 152, 339; substructure of gender, 2, 20, 24, 74–75, 131, 138, 156–157, 173, 185, 257,
314. See also power relations
power of men: industrialized societies and, 75; masculinities/femininities and, 35, 38–40, 42–43, 48–50, 221, 245,
248, 256, 258, 261–262, 265–266, 268–269, 331; sites of, 75, 83, 156–157
power relations: change and, 158, 197, 206, 257; gendered, 13, 17, 38, 50–51, 79, 111, 177, 279; structure/agency
and, 15, 279, 333–334
practice: as connection between micro/macro, 15; interactions and, 143; structure and, 173, 277, 279–280. See also
feminist theory; gender; gender theory; structure/structures
Prince, Delia (case study), 74, 156
privilege: and hybrid masculinities, 264, 269; as relational, 114–115, 125. See also cisgender; intersectionality
Prügl, Elizabeth, 26
psychology, 3, 58, 65, 278, 336
Putin, Vladmir, 332
Pyke, Karen, 281

queer. See LGBT/Q/I

queer theory, 5, 134–136, 308, 339; absence of structure in, 152, 306; change according to, 306; feminist theory
and, 136

racism, international and feminist debates on, 19

rape: campaigns against, 261–262; “corrective rape” of lesbians, 137; Delhi rape, 87
Ratele, Kopano, 7–8, 50, 211, 227, 338
Ray, Raka, 7, 71, 340–341, 343
Raymond, Janice, 60
religion, 237, 267–268, 320, 332; evangelical Christians, 267. See also Islam
Rich, Adrienne, 326
Ridgeway, Cecilia, 300
Risman, Barbara, 9, 113, 271, 275, 323, 342
role. See sex role theory
Rollins, Judith, 17
Romero, Mary, 17
Ross, Alex, 305
Rotundo, E. Anthony, 270
Rowbotham, Sheila, 17
rural. See urban/rural

Saperstein, Aliya, 122, 124

Saudi Arabia, 82
Schilt, Kristen, 9, 12, 123, 284–285, 334
Schippers, Mimi, 9, 35, 275–276, 326, 343
school. See education/higher education
science. See STEM
Scott, Joan Wallach, 17, 117, 305, 340
self/selfhood: gender attribution and, 147–148; reflexive, 140, 146, 148–149, 151; relational, 146, 151; social, 146
sex (in relation to gender), 285, 287–288, 341–342
sex differences, 175–176, 285; feminism and, 305; sex similarity, 336
sex role theory, 15, 57, 278–279, 333
sexuality/sexualities: discourse and, 145–146; as field of research, 8, 152; gender and, 134, 136, 139–140, 143–144,

235
 147–148, 152; inequalities and, 142; intersectionality and, 142, 306; multiple, 305; as practice, 143–144; as
socially constructed, 134, 285–286; sociological approach to, 336; structure and, 141–142, 149, 152; women’s
liberation and, 336. See also heteronormativity; heterosexuality; LGBT/Q/I
sexual politics, new models of, 343–344
sex work, global dynamics of 142–143
Sheff, Elisabeth, 321, 324
Sherman, Jennifer, 83
Shils, Edward, 223
Siegal, Reva, 269
Simon, William, 147
Sin, Ray, 9, 275, 342
Sinha, Mrinalini, 87
situated knowledge, 116, 205
Smith, Dorothy, 334
socialization: as gender equality solution, 278, 333; gender essentialism and, 176; institutions and, 16, 176
social movements: Black women’s politics and social movements, 99–101; change over time in, 343; civil rights
movements, 100; neoliberal globalization and, 93; sexuality and, 134; place of women and gender in, 96–98,
102–104. See also indigenous issues
sociology: global dimensions/inequalities of, 76–79; feminism and, 77; neoliberalism and, 182, 335–336;
objectivity and, 116; universalism and, 77–78. See also education/higher education; knowledge
South Africa, 43, 45, 50, 78, 137, 213, 218, 226–227
Southern Theory: colonialism, conceptualization of, 75; as critique of sociology, 76; discursive power and, 80
South Korea, 141, 281
Speice, Travis D., 264
sport, gender binary and, 302
Stacey, Judith, 77
standpoint epistemology. See epistemology
state, the: feminist engagement with, 19–20, 29, 92–94, 237; international, 345; masculinity and, 86, 332;
neoliberalism and, 251, 335; organizational change and, 201; religion and, 237; sexuality and, 137, 141; violence
and, 86, 156
Stein, Arlene, 267
STEM: gendering of, 174–176, 179, 185–187; gender gap in, 175–176, 180–182, 184; global North/South and, 340;
ideal worker in, 176–177, 179, 183–186; neoliberalism and, 178–180, 182, 184, 187–188, 335. See also
education/higher education; gender equality; knowledge; organizations; work
Stone, Pamela, 119
structure/structures: feminist structural theory/analysis, 18, 111–112, 118; intersectionality, structural dimensions
of, 111–112, 115, 117–118, 124, 158; structural theories of gender, 57, 113, 156, 275, 278–279, 281, 289,
341–342; substructures/dimensions of gender, 2, 74–76, 86, 111, 131, 156, 158, 257, 305–307, 309, 314. See also
structure/structures, agency and
structure/structures, agency and, 2–3, 5, 18, 21, 24, 36, 57, 61–62, 74, 113, 117, 142, 152, 280; as constrained
choice, 15, 57, 65, 113, 141–142; gender as structure and agency/practice, 2, 36, 277, 279–280; intersectionality
and, 24, 117, 142; reflexivity and, 140, 146, 148–149, 151; social change and, 57, 113, 117, 123; transgender
and, 61–62, 65
subordinate masculinities, 37, 220, 245–246, 256, 258–259
surrogacy, global dynamics of, 82
symbols/symbolism: education/knowledge and gendered symbolism, 173, 187; heterosexuality, symbolic
significance of, 138; hybrid masculinity and, 212, 256, 258, 261, 264–268, 270; symbolic constitution of gender,
44; symbols/symbolization as structure of gender, 131, 138, 145, 185, 268
Syria, 331, 333

Taliban, 81
technology. See internet, gender and; STEM

236
terrorism, 83–84
theory: change, theories of, 18, 29, 36, 38, 57, 63, 157–158, 167, 169, 193–197, 257, 268, 290, 299–300, 306–307,
343, 346; classical theory, critique of, 14; as feminist practice, 14; marginal perspectives and, 116, 125; political
aspects of, 13, 15, 20, 29, 346; purpose of theory building, 4, 249, 344; as social knowledge formation, 248
third world women, discourses of, 80–81, 83, 339
Thorne, Barrie, 77, 278–279
tradition: colonialism and, 226–228, 338; cultural traditions and men/masculinities, 213–214, 218–220, 227, 338;
definition of concept, 217, 224–225; dynamism of, 219, 221; group belonging and, 214, 228; intergenerational
role, 225–226, 228; in studies of masculinity, 222–223, 227–229; Western othering/marginalization of, 215–216,
222–224
transgender/transgender people: activism; 285; approaches to studying, 57–58, 60–61, 65–66; binaries and, 9, 277,
284–287, 290, 299, 301, 343; feminist exclusion of, 60; heterogeneity of, 287, 289; historical emergence of, 5, 64
, 284; institutions and, 67; intersectionality and, 123; legal changes and, 297; lived experiences/subjectivity of,
58–59, 61, 65–67, 334; men, transgender, 288, 299; transgender studies, 9, 67. See also cisgender; LGBT/Q/I
Trump, Donald, 229
Turkey: gender relations in, 211, 234, 246–247; gender terminology, 238; Islamist government in, 237; masculinity
in, 234, 236, 238, 246–247; neoliberalism in, 251; patriarchy in, 236; state paternalism, changes in, 237

unions: change over time in, 156–157; corporate opposition to, 166; gender equality, contributions to, 168–169, 200
; race relations and, 159; women and labor organizing, 166
United Kingdom: as colonial power, 78; India, relations with, 81, 87; LGBTQ, attitudes towards, 137; women’s
sexuality, 144, 150–151
United Nations, 22, 345; UNESCO, 335; UN World Conference on Women, 339
United States: American sociology, 76, 78; changing family structure, 161, 168; gender and the academy/higher
education, 8, 27, 180; gender attitudes in, 308; gender-neutral bathrooms, 304; labor dynamics/politics in,
158–159, 166, 168; men/masculinities and, 83; neoliberalism in, 27–28; race politics in, 24, 115–116; rural
America, 83; war in Afghanistan, 80–81; Wisconsin, 30; women’s political empowerment in, 308
universalism, 7, 18, 26, 30, 77–78, 90, 100, 111–112, 116, 118, 124, 167, 245, 249–250, 338
universities. See education/higher education; knowledge; STEM
Urban, Thomas, 60
urban/rural, 73–74, 83–84, 215

Vaid, Urvashi, 306

van den Brink, Marieke, 8, 132, 199, 338, 343
Vigoya, Mara Viveros, 7, 71–72, 341, 343
Vila, Pablo, 300
violence: campaigns against, 261–262; colonialism/imperialism and, 79–80, 96, 101–102, 104–105, 320, 340–341;
economic change and, 84; feminist activism and, 102, 193, 305, 336, 345; gender-based violence, 49–50, 79;
institutionalized violence, men’s power and, 75, 85, 156–157; masculinity and, 39, 42, 49–51, 85, 222, 261–262;
men’s disempowerment and, 51; sexuality and, 137, 336

wages: dual-earner families, 161; family wage, 158–159; gender wage gap, 124–125, 159–160, 332; minimum
wage, 168
Walby, Sylvia, 24, 334
Walters, Suzanna Danuta, 306
war: Afghanistan, 80–81, 86–87; gender justification for, 80–81, 86–87, 236; masculinity/men and, 42, 46, 238, 320
, 331, 333; as stakes of gender politics, 333; women in the military, 157
Ward, Jane, 266–267, 270, 306
Weber, Max, 77
welfare: academic workplace and, 176, 183; intersectional dynamics of, 122, 161; motherhood and, 161; welfare
queen, 115; welfare reform, gendered impacts of, 161–163, 237, 335; welfare state, 2, 335
West, Candace, 279, 334
Westbrook, Laurel, 284–285, 288

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Wetzel, Emily E., 264
whiteness, 95
Williams, Christine, 8, 120, 131–132, 337
Williams, Raymond, 16
Wittig, Monique, 135
women: Afro-Colombian, 100–101, 103; alliances with men, 202, 206; as aspirational subject, 84–85; assumed
heterosexuality of, 144; beauty standards and, 144, 282; Black women’s experiences, 17, 19, 25, 100–101, 114,
233, 250; butch women, 286–288; domestic sphere and, 85, 161–162, 177; executives, 160, 165; in
male-dominated jobs, 160, 165; scientific careers and, 174–176, 179–184, 186; tensions among, 90–91, 95, 100,
103, 111, 116, 124, 158, 167, 235; Wall Street and, 165; women’s centers, 93. See also work
women’s studies. See gender studies
work: body labor, 120–121; domestic labor/work, 82, 166–167; division of, 161–162; gendered occupational
segregation, 160, 332; global economy, 75, 82, 84–85, 159–160, 332; ideal worker, 176–177, 183, 186;
intersectionality and work, 119–121, 123, 131–132, 159–161, 167; labor force participation, 82, 160–162;
motherhood and work, 119, 161–162, 167; opting out, 120, 123, 161, 177; precarious, 85, 159–160, 166,
182–184; workplace politics & policies, 164–167, 182. See also education/higher education; organizations;
STEM; women
World Bank, 80, 345
World Economic Forum, 307
Wright Mills, C., 335

Zimmerman, Don H., 279, 334

Zinn, Baca, 115
Zippel, Kathrin, 188
Zuma, Jacob, 214, 218, 229

238