Masculinities in local contexts: structural, individual and cultural interdependencies

Deposited with permission of the author. © 2006 Dr. Dean Stewart LusherKnowledge of the terms sex and gender has important political, health and equity considerations. This thesis investigates the macrostructural assertions of Connell’s social theory of gender which is fundamentally concerned with demonstrating the relational and hierarchical nature of gender. A major criticism of the theory has been its lack of account of the individual and the ways in which gender is performed in local settings. Therefore, investigation primarily concerns whether Connell’s macrostructural theory is explicable in local social contexts. A theoretical critique and reframing of the theory lead to articulating the interdependency between structural, cultural and individual factors. By explicitly stating Connell’s implicit assertions, what becomes evident is that people’s gendered relations are interrelated with beliefs which are held personally and shared culturally. Specifically, a major theoretical impasse is overcome when recognising that the “ideology of supremacy” of a dominative masculinity is necessarily interdependent with the structural relations of power. From here I have suggested that there are particular patterns of these structures and beliefs which can be seen in macrostructural terms, but also in local settings. These hypotheses are reframed into social network terms for an empirical investigation of Connell’s theory in local contexts. To determine whether the predicted hypotheses for Connell’s theory occur at greater than chance levels, a particular type of statistical model for social networks, called exponential random graph (p*) models, is employed. Importantly, such models utilize a methodological approach which specifically acknowledges the interdependency of structural, individual and cultural factors, thus aligning Connell’s theory with the method of investigation. Primarily, Connell’s theory is concerned with differing configurations of masculinity, and for this reason my focus is predominantly on males and their relations with one another. To this end, two general local settings were chosen to explore these issues – secondary schools and all-male elite-level (AFL) sporting teams. Social network models were used to examine the relations between masculinities in six schools and four AFL clubs. Importantly, Connell has suggested that local contexts are likely to differ from one another in the degree to which they support gendered relations of power. Results for schools and clubs vary considerably from one another in the ways in which they provide local level support for Connell’s theory. Significantly though, there are some contexts which do show support for Connell’s theory. That such evidence can be found to endorse specifically defined local-level predictions for Connell’s theory, even when controlling for complex micro-level social structures, and also for other individual level effects, and still produce statistically significant effects supporting these predictions suggests that support is not trivial. There is strong evidence that attitudes towards masculinity can be an important organising principle in the emergence of hierarchy, not universally, but in some contexts. It can be concluded that gender relations tend to operate in ways predicted by Connell’s theory, though local context is particularly important. The specific findings from local social contexts do have wider implications for Connell’s theory, including how hierarchy in gender can be tied to other structures of power, where femininities fit into the theory, a more precise account of hegemony and an exploration of the impact culture has in local settings