Christine Delphy’s work is based on the analysis of a number of propositions and processes. She considers the reconstitution of the mode of domestic production based on the following anti-naturalist premise: that women do domestic work and that they do so for free has nothing to do with nature. Other themes of her work include oppression as a social construction, the rejection of sex as a category that preexists gender, the centrality of patriarchy as a concept to be used to outline the contours of the historic and cultural of oppression of women that is seen as universal and especially an idea that serves as a constant thread: society is the sole author of the hierarchies in the categories of sex, race, and class. It is a role that it has concealed through appeals to a pernicious naturalist ideology that absolves society of any responsibility for what is, but also for inventing what will be.

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The title of this collection is the best description of Nicole-Claude Mathieu’s scientific work over these last twenty years, namely the patient demonstration that sex is social, an ideological product of the concrete social and political relations of our societies, and that it must be treated not as a given, as biologically obvious, but as a sociological category. […] What feminist has not been found short of arguments when confronted with biologising or functionalist discourses, accusations of ethnocentrism or the denial of the oppression of women under the pretext that they derive some “benefits” from their situation? In addition, while right-wing forces resume with renewed vigor their struggle against abortion, there is currently a disturbing pendulum swing in the opposite direction as some feminists have come to adopt essentialist positions, to claim a difference, or, in other words, to adopt the same ideological foundation as their oppressors, the ideology that was the target of the initial struggles and of the first theoretical feminist studies in the 1960s.

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Of what have been called "theories of society", all have been and are the intellectual representations of specific social relationships. According to the author, the incursion of a minority group into the theoretical field produces an upset in perspectives - a subversion. The first theoretical texts produced by minority groups are always disqualified and presented as "political" representations, pamphlets, or terrorist positions. They end up, however, by being integrated into theory. The absence of women in the social sciences was, thus, one of the effects of social sexual relationships. Becoming an object of theory was the necessary consequence for women of becoming a subject of history. The author demonstrates in this text how studies by women have already had important and visible theoretical consequences, and will have others which will become evident with time.

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[...] because of the immediate concordance between social structures, as expressed, for example, in the organization of space and time or in the sexual division of labour, and mental structures, or, more precisely, the principles of vision and division inscribed in bodies and minds, the male order imposes itself in the mode of self-evidence, as being perfectly natural. Dominated social categories -in this case, women- perceive every aspect of the world, and in particular the relationship of domination in which they are caught and the persons through whom this relationship is realized, and therefore also their own persons, through unthought schemes of thought […] construct that relationship from the point of view of the dominant category and present it as natural.

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The early decades of the eighteenth century saw the multiplication of clubs […]. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the term ‘club’ referred to any association or society in which men gathered with a common aim and met on a regular basis in a precise location according to certain rules, in order to maintain social relationship and a spirit of cooperation. […] A clubman’s education comprised the acquisition of learning (referring to the knowledge gained through schooling and mainly book study), but also politeness through conversation and sociability. These were essential steps to become an accomplished gentleman and to be recognized as such by one’s peers.

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When the family home became too frantic or too busy, the club could function as a sanctuary away from the stresses of life. In one Punch cartoon titled “Getting Out of It” [1887], a husband uses the ruse of business at his club as a means to escape the chaos of his brood of children as they prepare for a holiday. While his wife and the female servants struggle with six children, a mountain of luggage, and even a barking dog, the husband tells his fretful wife: “Don’t trouble about me—I’ll get down by a later train, in time for supper.” With his hand on the door, the husband is clearly making an escape. In this case surely the home is not providing a center of rest and comfort for anyone. Instead, the club was to be the husband's recourse for quiet.

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These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent ‒and terrifying‒ portrait of society that he was patiently compiling. For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives."

For more than three decades, the women's movement and its scholars have exhaustively studied women's complex history, roles, and struggles. In Manhood in America, Third Edition, author Michael Kimmel argues that it is time for men to rediscover their own evolution. Drawing on a myriad of sources, he demonstrates that American men have been eternally frustrated by their efforts to keep up with constantly changing standards. Kimmel contends that men must follow the lead of the women's movement; it is only by mining their past for its best qualities and worst excesses that men will free themselves from the constraints of the masculine ideal.

Masculine domination is so anchored in our social practices and our unconscious that we hardly perceive it; it is so much in line with our expectations that we find it difficult to call into question. […] Bourdieu analyzes masculine domination as a prime example of symbolic violence—the kind of gentle, invisible, pervasive violence exercised through the everyday practices of social life. To understand this form of domination we must also analyze the social mechanisms and institutions—family, school, church, and state—that transform history into nature and eternalize the arbitrary. Only in this way can we open up the possibilities for a kind of political action that can put history in motion again by neutralizing the mechanisms that have naturalized and dehistoricized the relations between the sexes.

Translation of: « Gender as Seriality », Signs, 19,3, Spring 1994 : 703-738.

Taking into consideration critiques from women of color or lesbians on the white ethnocentric and heterosexist character of a large part of feminist theorizing, I try to conceptualize the category “women” while avoiding both essentialism and totalisation. For this purpose, I propose to use the Sartrian concept of seriality in order to think about women as a social group, without implying that all women share a set of social attributes. This allows me to adopt a conception of feminism that does not proceed from the category “women” as a whole, but stems out of the partial practices that politicize various aspects of “women’s condition”. Thus, one can define feminism as a theory and a political practice that is not exclusive to the domain of “women”, but rather draw on various coalitions that challenge the power relation between men and women in some respect.

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Masculinities in Theory is a clear, concise, and comprehensive introduction to the field of masculinity studies from a humanities perspective. [It] serves as a much-needed introduction to the field for students and scholars of cultural studies, literature, art, film, communication, history, and gender studies; includes discussions of gay/queer, feminist, and gender studies in relation to masculinity; covers the key theoretical approaches to the study of masculinity, and introduces new models; explores the question: what is masculinity and how does it work; looks at language, discourse, signification, power, cross-dressing, female, queer and transsexual masculinity, race and masculinity, nation and masculinity, interracial masculinities, and masculinities in history.

A white heterosexual male's engagement with feminism might begin by acknowledging that He (the white heterosexual male) is the norm. Mankind. The baseline. He is our reference. We are all defined with Him in mind. We are the same as or different from Him. […] Yet men are taught to be unaware of their engendered lives. We are taught to be unaware of the baseline privileges of gender. […] We accept present-day social gender arrangements, and ideologies about gender as necessary, prepolitical, and inevitable.

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The period between 1902 and 1914 witnessed a flourishing of interest in military matters in Ontario. Military activity in the province centred primarily on the Canadian Militia, a part-time citizen army in which thousands of young men participated. Contemporary advocates of military service saw the Militia as a "school of manliness" which would instill a variety of civic virtues in its members. This paper examines the question of working-class participation in the Militia, looking in particular at how the concept of "masculinity" interacted with issues of class in an industrial-capitalist society. It identifies a number of attractions which Militia service held for working-class recruits; it also points to important contradictions between gendered social ideals and class-based reality. In particular, the difficult relationship between the Militia and organized labour, and the incompatibility of the "rough culture" of the working classes with middle-class ideals of "manliness," are discussed in depth. On a theoretical level, it suggests that while "masculinity" provides a vital basis for understanding the history of the Militia in Ontario, it cannot be seen in isolation from other factors, most notably class relations.

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For men, feminist studies constitute an inescapable fact, the production of crucial knowledge and know-how that question the order of social relationships. Feminist studies address the problem of the normativity of discourse on the genders and the relationships between the sexes, that is to say that they question who has the right to speak and in what terms. We examine the three categories of attitudes most frequently adopted by men vis-a-vis feminist studies. The first category sees feminism and feminist studies as threatening and thus to be rejected; the second treats them as attractive and objects of envy; the third as a challenging invitation to a difficult relationship.

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In order to better understand the relations of domination, this article aims to present a critical reflection of the masculinity studies from the intersectionality approach. As a main projects of social justice the feminist and masculinity studies have traditionally challenged not only masculine domination but other forms of social oppression as well. Emphasizing on the central role played by the power relations over knowledge construction regarding the relations of domination, we seek to explore the points of convergence and tension in the processes of comprehension regarding social inclusion and exclusion. Alternatively we present some examples of knowledge contributions constructed from the margins, and taking into account the diversity and the excluded.

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Today, the “crisis of masculinity” discourse is a “cliché”. But this alleged crisis occurs while men still hold more power and privileges than women. It is therefore important to critically investigate the rhetoric about the “crisis of masculinity” and assess its political meaning. In order to do so, we begin by looking at Western history and show that men have been claiming to be in crisis for the last five centuries. After discussing more specifically three historical periods (England in the seventeenth century, France during the 1789 Revolution, and the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century), we pay special attention to contemporary discourse. The analysis confirms that the rhetoric about “crisis of masculinity” carries a critique of feminism and a rejection of gender equality. This discourse also justifies the (re)affirmation of conventional masculinity.

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Black males face pressures to adopt dominant social roles in relationships based on expectations from family, peers, and teachers. Many stereotypes define their perceived masculinities in coeducational schools, such as different definitions of masculinity received from peers and adults. Enrollment in all-male, majority-Black schools changes nothing. This dissertation discusses how Black males who attend the Pebbles School—an urban all-male public combined middle and high school—constructed, perceived, and negotiated their masculine identities and perceptions of brotherhood. […] [It] draws upon studies in Progressive Black Masculinity to challenge restrictive definitions of masculinity constructions shared among some Black males, who tend to view masculinity exclusively through a heterosexual lens, which limits discussions of diversity in brotherhood and sexual orientation.

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This paper traces the historical context of queer activism and black activism from the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. in order to show the deep rift between blackness and queerness that comes into full force in a supposedly colorblind nation that more than once claimed that “gay is the new black.” This is not only a dangerous analogy that lacks profound grounding, it also leads to a discourse that draws a clear boundary between two separate communities and movements—one black, one queer. […] The analysis of Nneka Onourah’s documentary The Same Difference provides further insight into the complex array of power that affect the lived experiences at the intersection of queerness, blackness, and gender. The documentary generates points of departure through which queerness finds validity as a tool for critical thinking, a way of active resistance, and a basis for community action. Placing the documentary in context, this article reconstructs a paradigm for radical queer politics in the force-field of traditional notions of black masculinity and femininity and queerness as a destabilizer of both, bringing queerness back into a marginal position from which it can be critical of the state.

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