Tag Archives: Hegemonic masculinity

Dutton stigmatises CEOs as no better than women. Wow.

20 Mar

 

 

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton inexplicably stepped out of his portfolio last week to make commentary on CEOs with an opinion on marriage equality that does not coincide with his own.

Dutton singled out Qantas CEO Alan Joyce for particular attention, presumably because Mr Joyce is gay.

In a final flourish, Dutton advised CEOs to “stick with their knitting” and in so doing revealed the putrid depths of his masculinist contempt not only for gay men and marriage equality advocates, but also for women.

Knitting is largely (though not entirely) a female occupation. It has long been the practice of hegemonic masculinity to “feminise” and therefore devalue gay men through the conflation of homosexuality with effeminacy.

Heterosexual masculinists such as Dutton work to denigrate homosexuals and their CEO supporters as undesirably  “female” by suggesting that their expertise is not in the world of business, opinion and commentary, but rather in a confined domestic environment where they are powerless, voiceless, and, knitting.

The denigration works only if Dutton (and heterosexual masculinists of both genders who agree with his point of view) believes women are inferior, and uses the recommendation to “stick to your knitting” as a profoundly unpleasant, homophobic and sexist insult.

The Minister is actually saying: you have no place and no power in the world of “real” men like me, because if you are a man who supports marriage equality you are inevitably effeminate.

Dutton devalues the male CEOs by attributing to them the “feminine” activity of knitting, and simultaneously devalues women. Our real place is not, in his opinion, in the public space advocating marriage equality, but in a domestic life removed from concerns best left to masculinist politicians.

In Dutton’s view, gay men and male supporters lack masculinity, evidenced by their subversive refusal to unquestioningly support the hegemonic masculinity Dutton represents.

Indeed, Dutton’s masculinity is, like the Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton, defined by his heterosexuality. I recall Shelton’s plaintive tweet that if we allow marriage equality, no one will know he is straight.

Feminising gay men and supporters, stigmatising them as no better and no more relevant in the world than women, is an abject attempt to differentiate the heterosexual masculinist from his greatest perceived threat: a man who loves another man and in so doing becomes, oh dear god no, feminised.

In the world of heterosexual masculinists opposites attract, therefore, if you’re a man who loves a man, you must be a woman.

That this is employed as an insult by Dutton should give us significant pause.

Knitting is generally regarded as a harmless occupation, however, Dutton should note that knitters are not necessarily quite so bland. Madame Defarge, for example, knits contentedly on through the Revolution as the despised ruling heads of France fall one by one into the basket under the guillotine, their names stitched into her patterns.

Dutton has managed, in one short phrase, to cast a thoroughly offensive slur upon gay men and all women. Actually, there aren’t many human beings Dutton likes. This nasty piece of work does not belong in our government. Let’s hope his electorate see it that way.

 

 

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Henderson, Marr and the privileging of “rational” thought

22 Feb

 

Feels

 

Watching this exchange between David Marr and Gerard Henderson on ABC TV Insiders yesterday, I was struck by how Henderson, at first a rather uneasy, black-clad fidgeting figure, suddenly discovered strength and energy in contemptuously accusing Marr of “emoting.”

Marr is vocalising his anger at the Turnbull government’s refusal to allow refugees in off-shore detention to be settled anywhere other than the most difficult country imaginable, having refused New Zealand’s repeated offers to accept them. Obviously, if refugees are permitted to resettle in a first world country the boats will start again, is the government’s rationale for this refusal.

There’s a long-held psychological theory that what we profess to most despise actually contains the seeds of what we most desire. This theory is often used to explain homophobia, for example, and I think it can be applied to the Henderson-like figures who use another’s expressions of feeling as a weapon with which to bludgeon them into irrelevance. Their opinions are invalid, this argument goes, because they are “emoting.”

Emotion is a normal human response to situations, and the more appalling the situation, the more appropriate it is to feel distress. The privileging of thinking over feeling, and the moral bifurcation of the two equal capacities has created an atmosphere of shame around the expression of emotion, as if there is a moral value in denial and restraint. Henderson clearly believes he embodies this moral value while Marr, in Henderson’s opinion, does not, therefore his views are to be dismissed as emotive and unworthy of serious consideration.

I don’t want to demonise poor Henderson, for whom I feel considerable pity, however, he does strike me as an outstanding example of a man who deeply, if unconsciously, desires what he publicly claims to despise: the ability to feel and to express that feeling.

Being a woman, I’ve grown up in a society only too ready to dismiss me as emotive and that old favourite, hysterical, if I express emotion. Indeed, it often seems to be the task of my sex to both carry and express all the feelings hegemonic masculinity determines inappropriate for men. Ascribe them to the feminine, whether a woman or what that version of masculinity perceives as a feminised man, and those individuals and groups are immediately framed as irrational, and unworthy of serious consideration.

The reality is, we are capable of thought, feeling, and action. There is no inherent moral value in any of these capacities. The privileging of thought over feeling has for centuries been demanded by those who cannot feel, are uncomfortable with feeling, or afraid of what seems to be the uncontrollability of feeling. So we have insults hurled at those who express feeling: bleeding hearts, hysterics, lynch mobs, losers…the list is long.

In those few moments of television this entire conflict between those who express feeling and those who despise them for that expression was played out. Henderson found his energy in condemning Marr’s emotion, if you watch carefully you can see him perking up and finding his feet when he remembers that in denigration there is an illusion of strength. Marr, very used to such attacks, states clearly that he is not emoting, he is disgusted, calling Henderson on his framing of emotional expression as a disqualifier in debate.

Using “emotive” as an insult derails the discussion, as is the intention, and is designed to invalidate the “emoter’s” argument. It is only successful because as a society we consciously or unconsciously accept the privileged moral values ascribed to “rational thought,” rational having been cast as oppositional to emotional.

I’m willing to bet Henderson’s contempt of Marr’s ability to emote conceals a deep envy that springs from lack: Henderson has learned, probably in a hard way, that to “emote” is to disgrace oneself. No one can learn this without carrying a sense of profound loss, and anger towards those who can do what he or she cannot.

We develop in a society addicted to binaries, dominated by either or. Currently, we appear to be governed by groups who are adverse to feeling and its expression to a pathological degree. People like Marr insist on feeling and its expression, as well as the splendid thought he is also capable of, and the actions he takes in utilising both in the service of his values. Feeling, thought, action. Humans can’t do well without any one of them. Just look at Gerard.

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