Masculinity as difference

Abstract

Critical studies about masculinity are – especially in Italy – still very scanty. Focussing on ‘male difference’ displays fertile implications about men and about partiality, but it also leads to confront a limit: recognizing a different subjectivity and losing male centrality as a natural assumption. On the other hand, it offers men, too, words and a social path towards a process of transformation; this does not only mean contrasting discrimination of women or sexual minorities, but putting forward a male demand for change. Looking for an expression of masculine experience – not limited to issues of domain or frustration at this assumption of partiality – leads onto almost unexplored ground. How can critical thinking about masculinity interact with the different feminist perspectives? Its peculiar tension between norm and difference requires a perspective that is not limited to inclusivity or coexistence of differences. What is brought out here is the centrality of the body as a controversial element, neither a biological destiny nor a mere linguistic construct. In this process, it becomes crucial to recognize women’s desire both as the experience of a limit that shakes the idea of asymmetry and subjectivity between the sexes, and an opportunity to reinvent the perception of male bodies. On the one hand, the category “crisis of masculinity” represents the breaking up of traditional models in their capacity of giving sense to men’s lives; on the other, it describes change as a threat. Change is also represented through the category of feminization, showing how precarious a social construct virility is. Homophobic discrimination thus appears to be not only stigmatization of those who don’t comply with the dominant norm, but also a means of excluding anything that strays from traditional masculinity. There is an urgent need of finding ways to publicly express men’s desire to change, to reinvent their bodily experience in sexuality, paternity, society, beyond stereotypical representations. 

Key words: masculinities, body, fatherhood.