Chapter 2: Theories of men, masculinities, and men’s violence against women
2.2 Understanding the phenomenon of men’s violence against women
2.2.2 Situating violence and abuse within patriarchy
In order to make sense of men’s violence against women then, it is important to recognise its situatedness within unequal, oppressive, patriarchal gender orders across the globe. Walby (1989: 214) defines patriarchy as “a system of social structures, and practices in which men
dominate, oppress and exploit women”. The concept has been criticised for being overly
monolithic or deterministic, and for failing to capture the diversity of women and men’s experiences and practices across society. However, others such as Hunnicutt (2009), Pease (2010), and Hearn (2015a) have shown that it remains a highly valuable model to encapsulate the systemic dominance of men and subordination of women across the institutions of
society, whilst recognising that patriarchy takes diverse, nuanced, and shifting forms in different social contexts. For this reason, it is more accurate to speak of patriarchies, operating in different settings, regions, and cultures (Hunnicutt, 2009; Pease, 2010; Hearn, 2015a). Connell’s (2009) distinction between gender orders (the overall gender arrangement of a society), gender regimes (gender arrangements within social institutions such as the family and the workplace), and gender relations (gender arrangements between individuals) provides a particularly useful framework for understanding the different, interconnected yet diverse levels and dynamics of patriarchal systems (Kelly, 2011).
We can understand violence and abuse as constituting a social structure of its own within such systems (Hearn, 1998). Walby (1990) argues that men’s violence forms one of the six partially interdependent social structures that are central to the constitution of patriarchy, together with patriarchal relations in paid employment; the state; sexuality; cultural
institutions; and the mode of production. Together with these other structures, men’s violence plays a fundamental role in upholding the individual and collective relations of patriarchy, which privilege men and constrain the freedom of women (Walby, 1990). For example, men's use of violence against women and children simultaneously maintains male power and
control within heterosexual relationships, the family, and in society as a whole.
Walby (1990) contends that there has been a transition from ‘private’ to ‘public’ patriarchy in the UK in recent decades, with the main sites of women’s oppression moving from the
private sphere (e.g. the household) to the public sphere (e.g. employment and the state). This does not mean that the private sphere has ceased to be an arena for women’s oppression (such as through the ongoing pervasiveness of partner abuse). However, the increasing significance of ‘public’ forms of men’s violence towards women, such as street harassment and online
20 abuse, and the influence of pornography on many aspects of popular culture in England, suggest that Walby’s arguments may have some relevance to contemporary manifestations of men’s violence. She indicates that whilst women may no longer be excluded from the public sphere, this also means that their subordination and exploitation now permeates throughout society, and not only in the private realm.
For Walby (1989: 220-221) social structures can be understood as being “institutionalised
features of society which stretch across time and space, which involve the dual aspects of reflexive human action and of their continuity over and above the individuals involved in any one instant”. She argues that the different structures of patriarchy are closely interconnected
and often mutually reinforcing. This means that an analysis of violence against women must take into account not only why some men choose to use violence, but why it is that the patriarchal state fails to tackle it, for example (Walby, 1990). Walby argues that whilst men’s violence against women is a form of violence which is decentralised, it is nevertheless
condoned by the state through its inaction. She contends that conceptualising patriarchy as a system of social structures enables us to reject notions of biological determinism, and to move beyond the idea that each individual man is always in a position of dominance, and all women are always in a position of subordination. As such, Walby emphasises the need to recognise the complex ways in which other systems of power and inequality, such as capitalism and racism, interact and intersect with patriarchy in different terrains (Crenshaw, 1991; Walby, 1990). This has much relevance to men’s violence, where factors such as social class, ethnicity, disability, and age can have major impacts on women’s experiences of abuse, and the resources that men can deploy in their use of violence.
2.3 (Pro-)Feminist theorisations of men and masculinities
Preventing violence against women thus necessitates understanding why it is that men choose to enact abuse, and come to believe that it is acceptable and desirable to do so. Because men’s violence against women is a gendered social phenomenon, this requires scrutinising the gendered position of men in society. Many feminists have long argued that, if men’s violence against women is a cause and consequence of a patriarchal gender order, then we need to look at what it means to be a man, in terms of the construction of masculinity, in that social context. Yet, as noted by Hearn and Pringle (2006), gender has traditionally been equated solely with women, in contrast to the 'genderless' (or 'gender-neutral') male norm,
21 with men’s invisible 'ungenderedness' naturalised. They point out that, within academia, androcentrism has meant that men have simultaneously been everywhere and nowhere within social research - men’s perspectives and practices are taken to be the default, yet at the same time rarely explicitly placed in the spotlight, and scrutinised through a gendered lens. Hearn and Pringle therefore argue that ‘naming men as men’ and investigating the relationships between men, masculinities, and public policy for example, remains vital within social science, particularly in relation to men’s violence against women.
Similarly, Messerschmidt (2004) argues that scrutinising the social construction of
masculinities is a vital task for criminology. He notes that it is necessary to ‘look upwards’ and study the powerful within any structure of power, and to analyse both the ways in which the privileged act to reproduce their power, and what interest they may have in changing. Yet despite the fact that the vast majority of crimes are perpetrated by men, the role of men and masculinities in crime has often been minimised or hidden within mainstream criminology. Messerschmidt therefore argues that we must do much more to analyse the making of masculinities, in order to understand the making of crime by men.
Masculinity can be understood as the assemblage of socially constituted meanings attached to the social category of men. It is not something which is innate or eternal; it is socially and culturally manufactured and historically shifting, and Kimmel1 (2001) argues that recognising this gives men agency, the ability to act, and the capacity to change. These conceptions, which originated from feminist theories of gender, have been taken up among others by men who support feminism and seek to adopt and develop an ‘anti-sexist’ or ‘pro-feminist’ approach. Within academia, some such men have sought to critically reflect upon their own position in society, and the actions and experiences of men more broadly in relation to women, gender, and patriarchy. They, together with feminist women, have contributed to a research agenda referred to as critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM) (Hearn, 1998), and it is this approach which this research project has sought to root itself in.
1 It is important to note here that shortly before the completion of this thesis, the prominent men and
masculinities scholar Michael Kimmel has been accused of perpetrating sexual harassment against women (see Flood, 2018). After some reflection, I have decided to leave the citations of his work in this document, but this should be taken into account when considering references to his writing - not least in underlining that any man can enact violence against women, and that pro-feminist men’s work should by no means be assumed to be free from patriarchal inequities and abuses.
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