Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Disembodiment, Embodiment and the Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity

  • Chapter
Political Economy, Power and the Body

Part of the book series: International Political Economy Series ((IPES))

Abstract

IPE is very much a material discipline. At its heart are questions about the social and political distribution of resources and the fulfilment of material needs including, at the most basic level, the physical requirements of the body (food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care and so on). It is, therefore, supremely ironic that such a discipline should be built around a depiction of humanity which appears both physically disembodied and socially disembedded: namely the abstract ‘rational actor model’.1 Of course, the reason it has been built around this model is that in its atomistic, individualistic, self-interested, market-oriented perspective, it represents ‘homo economicus’ (Hollis and Smith 1990), a subjectivity which is central to the ‘social epistemology’2 of capitalist modernity. Among other criticisms of a ubiquitous model that promotes and reflects a capitalist sensibility, it is now a commonplace observation in feminist circles that it is both masculinist and ethnocentric (see, for example, Tickner 1992; Peterson 1992; Nicholson 1990). The notion that a universal model of humanity can be divorced and abstracted from issues of embodiment and social context has been shown to be false.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Ashley, R. K. (1989) ‘Living on Border Lines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War’, in J. Der Derian and M. Shapiro (eds) International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics ( Lexington, MA: Lexington Books ), pp. 259–321.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benhabib, S. (1992) Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics ( Cambridge: Polity).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bly, R. (1990) Iron John (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordo, S. (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body ( London: University of California Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Braidotti, R. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory ( New York: Columbia University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Brod, H. and M. Kaufman (eds) (1994) Theorizing Masculinities ( London: Sage ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1990) ‘Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory and Psychoanalytic Discourse’, in L. J. Nicholson (ed.) Feminism/Postmodernism ( London: Routledge ), pp. 324–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, R. and J. Rutherford (eds) (1988) Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity ( London: Lawrence and Wishart ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cocks, J. (1989) The Oppositional Imagination: Feminism, Critique and Political Theory ( London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohn, C. (1993) ‘Wars, Wimps and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War’, in M. Cooke and A. Woolacott (eds) Gendering War Talk ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press ), pp. 227–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (1987) Gender and Power ( Oxford: Polity/Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (1993) ‘The Big Picture: Masculinities in Recent World History’, Theory and Society, 22, pp. 579–623.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (1995) Masculinities ( Cambridge: Polity).

    Google Scholar 

  • Coole, D. (1993) Women in Political Theory, 2nd edn ( Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cornwall, A. and N. Lindisfarne (1994) ‘Dislocating Masculinity: Gender, Power and Anthropology’, in A. Cornwall and N. Lindisfarne (eds) Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies ( London: Routledge ), pp. 11–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deibert, R. J. (1996) ‘Typographica: the Medium and the Medieval-to-Modern Transformation’, Review of International Studies, 22 (1), pp. 29–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duroche, L. (1990) ‘Male Perception as Social Construct’, in J. Hearn and D. Morgan (eds) Men, Masculinities and Social Theory ( London: Unwin Hyman ), pp. 170–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, D. T. (1993) Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities ( London: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson, K. E. (1993) The Man Question: Visions of Subjectivity in Feminist Theory ( Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Geertz, C. (1993) Local Knowledge ( London: Fontana).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. J. (1991) Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature ( London: Free Association Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Haraway, D. J. (1997) Modest Witness@Second_ Millennium. FemaleMan„_Meets_ OncoMouse%o: Feminism and Technoscience ( London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harcourt, W. (1998) Women@Internet ( London: Zed).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity ( London: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollis, M. and S. Smith (1990) Explaining and Understanding International Relations ( Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooper, C. (1997) ‘Masculinist Practices and Gender Politics: the Operation of Multiple Masculinities in International Relations’, in M. Zalewski and J. Parpart (eds) The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations ( Boulder, CO: Westview ), pp. 28–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooper, C. (1998) ‘Hegemonic Masculinities in Transition: the Case of Globalization’, in M. Marchand and A. Sisson Runyan (eds) Gender and Global Restructuring ( London: Routledge ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Inayatullah, N. and D. Blaney (1995) ‘Realizing Sovereignty’, Review of International Studies, 21 (1), pp. 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, D. (1990) Unmasking Masculinity ( London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimmel, M. S. and M. Kaufman (1994) ‘Weekend Warriors: the New Men’s Movement’, in H. Brod and M. Kaufman (eds) Theorizing Masculinities ( London: Sage ), pp. 259–88.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lash, S. and J. Urry (1994) Economies of Signs and Space ( London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mercer, K. and I. Julien (1988) ‘Race, Sexual Politics and Black Masculinity: a Dossier’, in R. Chapman and J. Rutherford (eds) Male Order: Unwrapping Mas-culinity ( London: Lawrence and Wishart ), pp. 97–164.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metcalf, A. and M. Humphries (eds) (1985) The Sexuality of Men ( London: Pluto ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Middleton, P. (1992) The Inward Gaze: Masculinity and Subjectivity in Modern Culture ( London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Modelski, G. and K. Poznanski (1996) ‘Evolutionary Paradigms in the Social Sciences’, International Studies Quarterly, 40 (3), pp. 315–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mort, F. (1988) ‘Boy’s Own? Masculinity, Style and Popular Culture’, in R. Chapman and J. Rutherford (eds) Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity ( London: Lawrence and Wishart ), pp. 193–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, L. J. (ed.) (1990) Feminism/Postmodemism ( London: Routledge ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Pateman, C. (1988) The Sexual Contract ( Cambridge: Polity).

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, V. S. (1992) ‘Introduction’, in V. S. Peterson (ed.) Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions of International Relations Theory ( Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner ), pp. 1–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramazanoglu, C. and J. Holland (1993) ‘Women’s Sexuality and Men’s Appropriation of Desire’, in C. Ramazanoglu (ed.) Up against Foucault: Explorations of Some Tensions between Foucault and Feminism ( London: Routledge ), pp. 239–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rose, G. (1993) ‘Spaces of the Future’, in J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Puttnam, G. Robertson and L. Tickner (eds) Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change ( London: Routledge ), pp. 70–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidler, V. J. (1987) ‘Reason, Desire and Male Sexuality’, in P. Caplan (ed.) The Cultural Construction of Sexuality ( London: Tavistock ), pp. 82–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidler, V. J. (1988) ‘Fathering, Authority and Masculinity’, in R. Chapman and J. Rutherford (eds) Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity ( London: Lawrence and Wishart ), pp. 272–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidler, V. J. (1989) Rediscovering Masculinity: Reason, Language and Sexuality ( London: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, A. R. (1996) The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age ( Cambridge, MA: MIT )

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: the Making of Modern Identity ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Theweleit, K. (1987) Male Fantasies Volume 1 ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tickner, J. A. (1992) Gender in International Relations ( Oxford: Columbia University Press).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Charlotte Hooper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, UK

    Gillian Youngs (Lecturer) (Lecturer)

Copyright information

© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hooper, C. (2000). Disembodiment, Embodiment and the Construction of Hegemonic Masculinity. In: Youngs, G. (eds) Political Economy, Power and the Body. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333983904_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation