ANTH 2040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Masculinity, Heteronormativity, Judith Butler
18 Feb 2017
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Brief history the study of men as men = new field. Anthropology = male-centric until feminist turn in the 70s. Initially, men as a category taken for granted as the norm. Initially, presumption of men"s point of view, of unitary maleness, of one way of being a man in given setting (universal men, unitary subject) Disrupt conventional understandings of masculinity (e. g. dualism male/female) Consider masculinity as a dynamic process of historical transformation. Document the multiple meanings associated with being a man in different cultural and historical contexts. Show that men are not equally powerful, that individual men may be powerful in some areas and not in others. Masculinity/maleness = defined in polarized opposition to what is not feminine/female. Gender = socially constructed, which means that we acquire social attributes linked to being a man or woman in uniform way. Heteronormativity: conflation between anatomy (sex), learned behavior (gender) and desire (sexuality) = normal sexual identity = heterosexual.
