Читать книгу Violent Manhood - J. E. Sumerau - Страница 9

As noted throughout this introduction, manhood, as well as gender more broadly, may be constructed, defined, and performed in a wide variety of ways. At the same time, people hold many different beliefs about what it means to be a member of a given gender group. I thus utilize chapter 2 to contextualize the gender beliefs and attitudes of my interview subjects. Specifically, I explore their own definitions of what it means to be a man as well as what it means to be “other men” or a member of another gender group. In so doing, the chapter allows readers to understand the gender beliefs and attitudes of my subjects to provide a foundation for the chapters on specific aspects of violence and manhood to follow.

After contextualizing the gendered and other beliefs and attitudes of my respondents, chapter 3 turns to the ways they react to and explain violence in contemporary U.S. society. Specifically, I examine how they make sense of violence in their own lives and society through mobilizing excuses for such activities. In so doing, I outline how they both define violence as inevitable and, at the same time, draw a symbolic line between intentional, real violence other men do and accidents that just happen as part of life. I further note how their excuses rely upon societal and personal convictions concerning appropriate expectations and behavior for men in society. Finally, I explore how their efforts to excuse violence allow them to both claim they are not the problem and avoid taking responsibility for changing patterns of violence in the United States.

Especially as gun violence has become a regular and prominent component of U.S. media in recent decades, chapter 4 turns to discussions of this phenomenon. Specifically, I examine how my respondents interpret guns in the United States and the role guns play in their construction of what it means to be a man. To this end, I outline the ways they construct guns as a symbolic demonstration of power, control, and aggression necessary for real manhood. Then, I examine how both media depictions and my respondents’ explanation of reasons for mass shootings and other gun violence mirror components of their definitions of manhood and the compensatory manhood acts people may engage in to repair threatened masculinity. Finally, I outline how their reliance on symbolic notions of guns as a signifier of power and control influence their opinions on gun control and other gun-related policies in the United States.

In chapter 5, I continue looking at specific topics by examining the ways my respondents conceptualized and made sense of sexual violence in society. Specifically, the chapter addresses how they define and construct heterosexuality itself as a form of potential violence. As such, I outline the ways their interpretations of sexualities represent a game wherein heterosexual potential equates to confirmation of manhood and the ways their own sexual activities, stories, and opinions represent compensatory actions by which they seek to avoid feeling insecure about their status as men by dominating or otherwise sexually controlling others. Finally, I discuss how these beliefs define sexual activities in terms that justify the enactment of rape, sexual violence more broadly, and relationships predicated upon domestic violence. In so doing, I demonstrate how their opinions on such topics mirror their own definitions of these topics as part of normal masculine sexual behavior.

Considering the rise of movements and campaigns seeking to combat men’s violence in recent years, chapter 6 turns to the ways in which men respond to such efforts. Specifically, I detail how my respondents interpret movements for gendered, sexual, and/or racial justice in the United States. First, I outline how they defined #MeToo as an attack on manhood and argued that it was the real source of gender problems in today’s United States. Further, I examine how they negotiate whiteness in their reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement. Specifically, they argue each of these movements are threats to what it means to be a man and how men and other groups are supposed to act in society. Finally, I discuss the ways their conceptualizations of these movements suggest they may see any minority movement as threats that call for them to protect themselves, and manhood itself, over time.

Taken together, these chapters demonstrate the ways violence has been embedded in definitions of what it means to be a man and the ways men respond to movements seeking to curb or lessen violence in the United States. In the final chapter, I outline the ways my respondents’ constructions of manhood, violence, and challenges to either reveal how violence operates as a way for men to compensate for perceived slights or threats to their identity claims and privileges as a social group. As such, I argue that fostering less violence and more equitable social relations requires unpacking and transforming what it means to be a man and the ways violence has become part of that definition. In closing, I outline some ways groups seeking more equitable social relations can interrogate and respond to the construction and enactment of violent manhood by problematizing definitions of what it means to be a man in U.S. society.