Get Your Smart On
A Hegelian primer on masculinity based on Michael S. Kimmel’s essay “Masculinity as Homophobia,” with a little help from Yanis Varoufakis.
In Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis argues that we’re witnessing a power struggle between traditional industrial capitalists and a new elite of tech oligarchs who accumulate wealth by owning digital platforms. I’d like to extend this argument into masculinity studies, with the help of Michael S. Kimmel’s essay “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Because what we are seeing is also a clash between Kimmel’s Marketplace Manhood and a new version of his Genteel Patriarch, two archetypes for masculinity*, *well exemplified by these two:
Kimmel explains that what it means to be masculine has varied and changed over time, but one thing unites all the forms masculinity takes: that it is established (and propped up) in opposition to what it is not, which ends up being primarily women, but can also include racialized Others and sexual minorities.
He explains how in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, two primary models of manhood held sway: the Genteel Patriarch and the Heroic Artisan. The Genteel Patriarch, exemplified by figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, draws his identity from land ownership, and embodies refinement, elegance, and a devotion to being a patriarch by ruling over his estate.
The Heroic Artisan an independent craftsman or farmer who passes his trade onto his son in lieu of property. Exemplified by Paul Revere "at his pewter shop, shirtsleeves rolled up, a leather apron — a man who took pride in his work," he represents physical strength and republican virtues like autonomy and pride in one’s work. These two models coexisted happily, each in their own social class, their ideals complementary and their spheres largely distinct. However, this equilibrium is fundamentally disrupted by the emergence of Marketplace Manhood by the 1830s. This will be the industrialist entrepreneur of the early 20th Century, now an old school capitalist.
Marketplace Manhood radically shifts masculine identity to align exclusively with economic success in a capitalist marketplace. This archetype produces men characterized by restlessness, agitation, and anxiety. Unlike the Genteel Patriarch, this man is often absent from their homes and families, their devotion primarily directed toward their work in an increasingly homosocial, male-centered public sphere where competition with other men is their primary bond.
The emergence of *Marketplace Manhood trumps *the Genteel Patriarch, who now appears as an “anachronistic feminized dandy” by comparison, and the Heroic Artisan appears as a “dispossessed proletarian” or “wage slave” by comparison. (Gender is relational, as my fren noted in a comment below.) Consequently, Marketplace Manhood complicates our ideals of freedom and equality because of the erosion of old fashioned aristocratic liberty embodied by the Patriarch and artisanal equality embodied by the Artisan.
This form of masculinity demands material goods as evidence of success, and perpetually redefines himself through the hard and fast exclusion of women, non-white men, non-native-born men, and homosexual men from the spaces they command. He fears emasculation, and is filled with emotional emptiness and a destructive gendered rage. Marketplace Masculinity is a preeminently US-American form of masculinity, gaining prominence with the rise of the US as a global superpower.
“Manhood means different things at different times to different people. We come to know what it means to be a man in our culture by setting our definitions in opposition to a set of “others”—racial minorities, sexual minorities, and, above all, women.”
There is a meta-masculine form known as Hegemonic Masculinity against which all other masculinities are measured, and are frequently found wanting. Every type of man wants to be the one, hegemonic man, but hegemonic man is an ideal that no man can become. (By contrast, we women get two conflicting ideals, the Madonna and Whore which is… confusing?)
As described by sociologist Erving Goffman, this “one complete, unblushing male” is typically a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual, Protestant father with a college education, fully employed, a good physique, and a sports record (Goffman 128). Failure to meet these criteria can lead to feelings of unworthiness and inferiority.
Kimmel also cites psychologist Robert Brannon (1976) who distills this manhood ideal into four rules that can be used as a test of worthiness:
In sum, appearing effeminate, not being economically successful, showing vulnerability, and failing to play a zero-sum gain where another’s gain necessitates his loss, these are all recognizable markers of masculinity. These rules represent inherently unattainable ideals, yet men are ceaselessly driven to measure up, rendering American masculinity a perpetual source of confusion and pain.
“Masculinity must be proved, and no sooner is it proved than it is again questioned and must be proved again—constant, relentless, unachievable, and ultimately the quest for proof becomes so meaningless that it takes on the characteristic, as Weber said, of a sport. He who has the most toys when he dies wins…”
According to Kimmel’s research, masculinity has been defined as a flight from women and a repudiation of femininity. This formative process yields three significant consequences for boys as they acquire a masculine identity. First, a boy learns to actively distance himself from his his first caretaker, the mother figure. He also distances himself from the nurturing, compassionate, and tender traits embodied by the mother figure. Second, he suppresses these feminine traits within himself, a lifelong endeavor aimed at demonstrating complete separation from the feminine. But this makes masculine identity inherently fragile and tenuous, as it originates from an act of renunciation rather than a positive affirmation.
Even in machismo, which appears to be an affirmation of masculinity in a kind of bravado, we find a case of “he doth protest too much.” A woman’s laughter can deflate his bravado in no time. The worst thing a woman can do is laugh at the man in the course of asserting his masculinity.
Finally, in an effort to solidify these “achievements,” the boy learns to devalue all women in society, perceiving them as living manifestations of the very traits he has been taught to despise. This is the origin of sexism. This insecurity about gender identity leads to uncertainty and obsessive behaviors, clearly seen in the archetype of the stalker or the school-yard bully, who fixates on someone he perceives as weaker to prove his worth, but whose appetite for superiority remains perpetually unsatisfied.
***“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.” —Oscar Wilde, ***The Importance of Being Earnest
Masculinity is a homosocial enactment, and men are under continuous scrutiny from other men. Other men evaluate their performance, assign their rank, and either grant or withhold their acceptance into the esteemed realm of manhood. Consequently, men boast of their accomplishments and make a display of the markers of manhood—money, power, strength, and even women. In patriarchy, women become a form of currency that men utilize to elevate their standing. As the cultural anthropologist Gayle Rubin shows us in “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex”, the exchange of women as gifts lies at the foundation of patriarchy.
This dynamic reveals what Kimmel identifies as the “great secret” of masculinity: Men are afraid of other men. Masculinity frequently functions as a pervasive defense mechanism, an “exaggerated set of activities” designed to prevent being exposed as a fraud and to suppress deep internal fears. The true fear is not of women — we have little to nothing to do with any this — but of being shamed, humiliated, or laughed at in front of other men.
Homophobia serves as a central organizing principle of masculine manhood, and transcends any simple fear of gay men — the word “faggot” functions as the label of ultimate contempt within male culture. The fear is existentially profound, the fear of being unmasked as inadequate, of being emasculated by other men. It burying a deep shame, which, in turn, results in… silence. This silence allows harmful systems to persist, as men may privately disagree with sexist, racist, or homophobic behaviors but fail to publicly challenge them.
The fear of being perceived as gay is an incredibly powerful catalyst for exaggerated masculine behaviors and attitudes, which in turn propels men to exclude and devalue femininity and women through both speech and behavior. Women and gay men, alongside other historical groups, become designated “others” against whom heterosexual men define their identities, asserting their manhood by actively suppressing these groups. This devaluation is institutionalized in all the things built by and for men, which includes most everything that touches all of our lives. The fear and anxiety is pervasive. This also means that, while the responsibility lies with individuals as the seat of choice and action, any remedy will need to be a collective effort.
“I have argued that homophobia, men’s fear of other men, is the animating condition of the dominant definition of masculinity in America, that the reigning definition of masculinity is a defensive effort to prevent being emasculated… This perspective may help clarify a paradox in men’s lives, a paradox in which men have virtually all the power and yet do not feel powerful.”
This analysis reveals a paradox: while men as a group undeniably hold virtually all societal power in government and corporate institutions, many individual men experience a deep and pervasive sense of powerlessness. This feeling of powerlessness arises from a stark disconnect between the aggregate reality of male power, and the individual psychological experience of not feeling powerful. Masculine manhood is perpetually insecure and deeply threatened by the prospect of equality for women, trans women, and gay men.
Kimmel concludes by arguing that peace of mind and genuine relief will only come from a politics of inclusion, and here he advocates for equality and justice. Kimmel published this in 1994, when the appeal to inclusion still had some teeth. I am not sure the appeal still resonates, but I think his analysis still gives us a useful framework, especially for men who wish to think through how masculinity works.
What is interesting to me now, in re-reading this piece after some years, is that I think there is a new kind of masculinity challenging Marketplace Manhood. I am referring to the libertarian, tech-bro-y, uber-Rationalist, stoic, feudal lord, likely a new version of the Genteel Patriarch. Is the old-school capitalist, our Marketplace Man, making room for the new Patriarch only to keep him closer, like the enemy he is?
For now, it does seem like Marketplace Manhood has won the initial skirmish, but how much longer will MarketMan be able to keep his grip on masculinity, making good on his claim to being the original, authentic one?
And so, the Hegelian dialectic continues…
Brannon, R. “The Male Sex Role—and What It's Done for Us Lately.” The Forty-Nine Percent Majority, edited by R. Brannon and D. David, Addison-Wesley, 1976, pp. 1–40
Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Simon & Schuster, 1963.
Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.” Theorizing Masculinities, edited by Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman, Sage Publications, 1994, pp. 119–141. Available online here: https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2020-05/Kimmel%2C%20Masculinity%20as%20homophobia.pdf.
Rubin, Gayle S. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” Toward an Anthropology of Women, edited by Rayna R. Reiter, Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. 157–210. PDF available at Yale University archive: https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/rubin_the_traffic_in_women.pdf.
Varoufakis, Yanis. Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Melville House, 2023.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Edited by Michael Patrick Gillespie, W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.
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