Someone e-mailed me a really good question… They asked me "what exactly do you mean when you say ‘hegemonic’ masculinities?"

Really quickly I’ll just explain what that basically means. The term hegemony was coined by this fella Antonio Gramsci. It is when a particular social group holds power or dominates another group. In the context I use it in, it is perpetuating stereotypes and constantly reaffirming ones position in society through status, wealth and power. It is constantly pushed by the media and creates a status quo which is always displayed in school, businesses, politics, the military… etc.

The mass media gives the watcher no contorl over "social norms"… the watcher is thus not a citizen, it is a consumer. And that’s all that matters. But this means that people are governed by the rules and principles set forth by the big media organizations whom press these stereotypes or ‘hegemonic characteristics’ into our minds.

This is done with race, very often. A black man is often seen as ‘the other’, because he is a threat to the white mans power and the ‘white mans women’. Ever since the end of slavery there has been a fear of the African Americans taking economic control away from the white guys. So you get these stereotypes that black men are irrational, stupid and only good for basketball and music and that they’re trying to take the white woman away from the white man.

These are all historically rooted in slavery, especially the notion that blacks are less intelligent and more musical than whites. They slaves weren’t taught how to read - so they sang to express their thoughts and feelings. They were basically forced to be stupid and musical - so keeping that characteristic in check today is incredibly racist, but is done to give the white guy superiority and domination over the black man.

Also, porn magazines like Hustler give us the impression that the black man is violently taking away the white woman. Their cartoons sport white women being brutally fucked by black men. The women have bleeding and throbbing cunts, and the black man (usually with very ape like features) has a giant cock that he is throwing around. The white man, on the other hand, is always small and impotent. He has to fuck chickens or buy white women from a black pimp. This is enforcing the idea that the black man is going to take away from the white man something that was perviously his for free. It is instilling fear of the black into the white which helps to enforce stereotypes.

I got a little side tracked, but basically when I say something like "hegemonic masculinities" I mean the dominant stereotypical characteristics that are portrayed around what it takes to be a ‘real man’. White, agressive, non-emotional, rational and knows how to work a gun. If you’re not these things - you are ‘the other’.

So there, a very long clarification for termonology used in posts past.