History 326 Readings Wiki

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The author analyzed three thematic subfields within the history of masculinities: disability and masculinities, transgender masculinities, and Indigenous masculinities. Among them, the connection between disability and masculinity seems to be particularly interesting, as it allows one to trace a potential change in gendered subjectivity. For example, a change in the masculinity of a person who previously embodied martial masculinity, but had to modify or redefine it through injury in a conflict. - Nikolai Kotkov

Fraser's article discuses the history of masculinity in relation to specific historical contexts to highlight how what constitutes masculinity is a performance related to power. The section discussing the military and gendered performance is particularly interesting as.an institution that has excluded women historically. To look at the military are enforcing a specific performance could be seen as a way of challenging the notion of masculinity being any kind of default. -Hannah Covin

Fraser's piece addresses a common argument against the analysis and study of the history of masculinity, being that it brings up a risk of inadvertently recentering the study of history on men. Fraser argues that the study of masculinity is important in order to understand power dynamics, gender norms, and social structure in today's world. -Caroline Cochran

Fraser's article identifies various differences between perceptions of masculinity and uses them to highlight the effects of the study of masculinity and the necessity of it's inclusion in the conversation of Gender Studies alongside studies of the history of femininity to more completely understand the field as a whole. (Jonathan Jardines)

Fraser’s article acknowledges the debates among historians on the practice of masculine history. The idea of historians in favor of studying masculinity is that, as women have been studied as actors affected by their femininity, so too have men. The manifestation of manhood has changed the way men have acted historically, and there is importance in looking into the ways it has changed history. A common criticism levied against this practice is that it pulls attention away from women and puts it back onto men. Feminist and women’s historians have long battled for the visibility of their practice, and to change directions now would halt and threaten it altogether. (Tanner Gillikin)

Fraser goes on to discuss the circumstances outside of scholarship that pushed the study of masculinity forward. Through the 1980s and 1990s, there was an emerging response to second-wave feminism known as the “mythopoetic men’s movement.” These men’s rights activist distinigushed themselves based on their belief in a mythical form of masculinity, one that promotes an unchanging strength in direct opposition to women. These ideas pushed historians (along with other fields of study) to look into the other ways that masculinity has manifested. These ventures have led to a deeper understanding of cultural identities both in the modern day and in certain historical settings, particularly colonial America, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. In all these places and eras, there were different definitions of masculinity, even having multiple at a time. (Tanner Gillikin)

Fraser mentions that by "Determining a society’s culturally acceptable forms of masculinity – perhaps soldiering, intellectual work, fatherhood or any number of shifting identities – allows historians to better see who had access to the most privileged social roles." This relates back to the concepts of hegemonic gender/masculinity and how gender has been used to assert power over people (typically men asserting power over women and hegemonic men over "less ideal" men) in order to have control and maintain power. (Katherine Hamilton)

Fraser also discusses how hegemonic masculinity throughout time has been used not only to foster the patriarchy and sexism but also racism as white men were seen as superior. This then contributed to colonialism which the effects of are still very prevalent today. (Katherine Hamilton)

Similarly, While masculinity and gender vary across cultures, colonialism overrode native ideals of masculinity and demonized what they deemed to be inferior forms of masculinity. Thus, colonized cultures ideals of masculinity then conformed to the colonizers ideals of masculinity. This can make it difficult to study the pre-colonized native ideas of gender as they were not the prevailing ones.(Katherine Hamilton)

Fraser discusses how studying what masculinity looked like in a specific historical context allows for better understanding of who would hold the most power based on the constraints of the time. It easy to acknowledge to that exemplified masculinity allows us to not only see who would benefit the most, but also who did not and how they did not. (Hannah Covin)

Fraser's article does a good job of showing the intersectionality that is present in power dynamics that are related to gender. Especially in the descriptions of how African American men had to contend with a white male exemplified version of masculinity. (Hannah Covin)

Fraser's article examins masculinity as a historically contingent and performed identity shaped by power relations rather than a natural or universal norm. By analyzing subfields such as disability, transgender, and Indigenous masculinities, the author shows how masculinity can be redefined through experiences like injury, marginalization, or colonialism. (Caitlyn Edwards)

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