Des/orienterade maskuliniteter. Kroppar, känslor och rädsla

Abstract

This article, "Dis/located masculinities. Bodies, fears and emotional life", departs from the critical situation in international politics after the l l t h of september 2001, where different global masculinities are confronting each other. The war in Iraq underlines that issues related to men and masculinities have assumed a particular global significance. The essay explores the significance of differences between masculinities in different cultures and generations, as well as central aspects in the history of western masculinities. Attention is specifically paid to the historical development of a close connection between manliness, reason and authority, accompanied by a disclaime of nature, the human body, sexuality, emotions and "weakness". The latter aspects where instead connected to women and femaleness to which a patriarchal white middle-class masculinity has risen above in a relation of dominace, as well as men of other ethnic origin, inside and outside the Western world. Men's studies is discussed in relation to early and postmodern feminist theory. Particularly Robert Connells influental theory of hegemonic masculinity iscritically discussed. Although the theory of Connell has contributed to an understanding of the relation between different masculinities, his theory remains caught in a theorethical and metodological framework that limits our possibilites to understand different masculine cultures and men's often ambivalent experiences of gender in a postmodern world. The theory of hegemonic masculinity, with its implicit univerialism, is trapped in a rationalistic framework that reduces men to issues of power. Even if questions of power remain vital in gender studies, attention has also to be paid to men's emotions, fears and other personal experiencies, which exist in more complex relationsto powerthan assumed in the theory of Connell.