Not All Migrant Men Embrace Toxic Masculinity, Do They?

From Firenze University Press Journal: Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare — RIEF

Patricia Huion

Muhammet Hakan Ayçiçek, UCLL

1. Gender Roles Past and Present

Gender roles, masculinity and femininity are universal concepts which have been a part of our lives ever since human beings started living together in communities. The perception and acceptance of these roles vary significantly between regions and cultures and these roles are also constantly altering all around the world due to changing living conditions. In addition to all these, many new gender identities have been added to them over time and they all need to understand and accept each other to live in harmony.Ever since the creation of human beings they have been distinguished as men and women. Since hunter and gatherer societies men and women have taken different roles and responsibilities to sustain a life standard and to maintain order within society. Between the 1820s to 1860s, the concepts of “true woman” and “true man” were structured and male and female roles were defined by these (Katz, 1983, 1995). The “true woman” was expected to be pious, pure, submissive, and domestic whereas the “true man” was expected to be devoted to hard work and material success, assertive, humanitarian, have a proper sex life and be an affectionate patriarchal ruler (Katz, 1983).Nowadays, there are many different gender identities in addition to man and woman, including transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none, or a combination of these. The definition of the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality started between 1880–1920: heterosexuality was considered as normal and linked to masculinity whereas homosexuality was accepted as abnormal and linked to femininity (Nelson, 2019). The description of “true man” and masculinity (heter-osexuality) given above was valid until around 1980s but recently masculinity has been defined with attributes like misogyny and homophobia in addition to the above given ones (Mahalik, Good et al., 2003). These concepts play a significant role in understanding masculinity today.

2. Masculinities

There are lots of definitions used for masculinity, but it is generally associated with men and can be defined with a set of characteristics, behaviors, and social roles (Kirby, 2019). Traditional masculinity has frequently been understood as unemotional, emotionally impaired, or somewhat stoic (Sculos, 2017). The definition offered by Hooks (2004), reveals an image of masculinity from a male point of view.The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead, patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem (Reeser, Gottzen, 2018, p. 6). Emotion suppression has been emphasized by different researchers in different wordings. Such as men learning to perceive emotions as signs of weakness and as a threat to their masculinity, try to prevent others from seeing through them and keep their fears secluded (Seidler, 1989; Kimmel, 1994). In western point of view suppressing emotions is mostly emphasized whereas in eastern point of view being the ruler, provider, and controller of the community and of women are more dominant (El Feki, Heilman et al., 2017; Kimmel, 1994; Marcus, 2019; Sculos, 2017; Seidler, 1989).The most crucial part regarding masculinity is that the gender socialization begins at an early age and continues throughout adulthood and an individual shall conform to the gender roles he is assigned if he does not want to be judged harshly and treated as if he is abnormal (Nelson, 2019). The effort to define masculinity from different aspects brings along the necessity of making multiple masculinity descriptions. Although not universally agreed there are some general definitions of masculinity types. One of them is “traditional masculinity” which describes the male as a provider and protector of the family, ready to fight for his values and people he cares about. In addition, while taking care of all these issues he keeps his problems to himself. The second one is “positive masculinity” which generally describes the transformed male attitudes into socially useful behaviors like policemen, fire fighters. The last one is “hegemonic masculinity” which is sometimes named as “toxic masculinity”. Although these two definitions cover the different aspects of masculinity sometimes one is being used in the place of the other (Barry, Walker, et al., 2020). In her work named Masculinities (1995), Connell also highlighted that the gender norms have a negative impact on emotional lives of men (Dognin, Chen, 2018). Connell puts forth a new concept which is called “hegemonic masculinity” where she defines masculinity as a strive for dominance which includes dominance over women (Connell, 1987; Waling, 2019a,b). She conducted a research among Australian high schools in early 1980s investigating the social inequity. The results showed that there was a hierarchical structure between boys, which was rooted in how actively they projected their gender identity and masculinity (Connell, 1983; Kessler, Ashenden et al., 1982). Connell claims that men can choose to strictly attach, deny, or try to resist masculinity (Connell, 1992). According to this choice men access different levels of power and status in society. Those who attach and engage successfully maintain “hegemonic masculinity” (Connell, 1992; Waling, 2019a,b). Hegemonic masculinity is described generally as adherence to strict gender roles and power structures which are built upon the domination of women, devaluation of feminine attributes, establishing a hierarchy of intermale dominance and stigmatization of homosexuality. It also includes a ruthless and highly competitive nature and unwillingness to express emotions or any form of behavior that could be constructed as weak or vulnerable (Brittan, 1989; Kupers, 2005). But in addition to this, hegemonic masculinity also covers a man’s healthy competitive-ness, being a reliable provider or being good at his career and as there is nothing bad in a man’s pride, in his ability to win at sports, to succeed at work and provide for his family, a need for a subtitle arose to define the negative aspects of masculinity and “toxic masculinity” was preferred.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rief-10521

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