Gender performance and interlocking theory in media representations

Gender

When Unraveling Is the Best Approach

Everything is connected. Pull one thread as gently as possible in any attempt to explain the fundamentals of any society and this is abundantly clear, for in trying to unravel any of the important concepts or practices upon which society and culture are built and one finds that everything else begins to unravel as well. While "unraveling" might initially seem to be something that one would not want to do, in fact in terms of sociological analysis it is highly advisable. Especially when one is attempting to understand one's own culture, where familiarity with structures and norms can sometimes make it difficult to see clearly, one has often to take things apart in order to understand the dynamics of how the social world works.

Not only is everything connected to everything else, but analyzing one part of a system tends to cause changes in the rest of the system. An interlocked theory in sociological discourse is thus affected by factors like those in the physical world according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: We cannot know for certain anything about one part of the system so long as any other part of the system is in question. Since interlocking theory requires constant such motion, a researcher pursuing such a strategy must be willing to put up with a certain amount of uncertainty, a certain amount of messiness.

This paper uses interlocking theory to examine the ways in which gender is "performed" in our society and specifically how interlocking theories can be applied to media representations of both femininity and masculinity. Given that constructions of gender undergird nearly every aspect of our society, such an unpacking of the ideas of how gender is constructed must also touch on the ways in which normalcy and abnormalcy (paralleling concepts of ability and disability) are determined in public and private discourse, becoming further institutionalized in social practice and thus allowing for discourse to shape reality. The mass media are certainly a part of the public discourse: Indeed, this is a fundamental part of the way in which we define them. But one of the major points made by the authors cited in this paper is that the mass media are also a part of the private discourses carried on inside the heads of each one of us who lives in a modern Western society.

The performance of gender is rather like a long-running show that starts in the provinces and then eventually makes its way to Broadway before shuffling off to national tours where the actors can practically sleepwalk through their lines because they have become so familiar with their roles. Gender identity is not a single act of creation (or discovery). Rather it is a constant series of repeated actions that help create and sustain beliefs about identity, adequacy, and normalcy through a series of more-or-less private rehearsals that become increasingly routinized and public until they are ready to be debuted. After a while, both the players (which is to say all of us, each of us holding the role of a public actor) and the audiences forget that they have constructed the identity to begin with and believe that what they are enacting (and having constantly reinforced through the media) is natural and normal.

When one takes such an approach to the study of society, one sees that there are interlocking relationships not only between and among different constructed concepts in society (such as gender or ability) but also that as a researcher into social phenomena one must be careful to attend to the ways in which methodology and theory are related to each other (Long, 1992, p. 16). There is a conventional within most schools of social research that methodology and theory are distinct and independent from each other, allowing the observer of and researcher about society to pick any one or more methodological approach from behind Door A and any one or more theoretical approach from behind Door B.

However, an interlocking theory approach to social analysis strongly suggests that this is not so. The idea that everything is connected requires that certain common concepts underscore both theory and method, primarily the concept that the two focus not on the kind of objective reality that can be accurately measured and calculated through quantitative means such as statistical analyses. Rather, both theory and method must be able to incorporate the concept that much of what we generally and rather carelessly refer to as reality while ignoring the fact that much of what seems to be real and reified is in fact socially constructed (Long, 1992, p. 13).

Difference and Power: Difference is Not Power

A logical consequence of the idea that important social concepts are defined and understood in oppositional terms is the idea that (as briefly noted above) that such definitions tend to be one-sided at least in terms of power. If A is defined as being different from B, then A is also defined as being better than or less than B. The above reductionist syllogism, of course, does not have to obtain. There are a number of other possible ways to construct the relationships between the above "A" and "B" in purely logical terms. But in actual practice, the ways in which gender is constructed in our society ensures that the different pairings are not construed equally: Femininity (and femaleness, not the same thing) and masculinity (and maleness) along with homosexuality and heterosexuality are thus seen within society as a way of validating one over the other, with straight men at the top of a social hierarchy that is constantly reconfirmed by various aspects of social relationships.

One of the most important aspects of the above dynamic (in which gender is constructed not in parallel but in hierarchical terms) is that men (because of their greater social power and thus their greater power to define social concepts such as gender itself) have the power to define themselves as -- often without any irony -- as disempowered. We can see this in a number of different arenas, from the truly ironic in which white Protestant men construct themselves as victims of a Protestant-dominated society that somehow persecutes Christians.

Less ironically, one sees much more legitimate claims to men's being persecuted because of individuals' construction of their own masculinity, when the subjects constructing that masculinity are gay. Indeed, such a construction lay at the heart of the early gay liberation movement (which is to say, the first serious coordinated attempt for gay men to take control of the social construction of their own internalized sense of masculinity and maleness) was fundamentally important.

Connell & Messerschmidt (2005) write that early gay activists were able to create "sophisticated analyses" of both "the oppression by men and the oppression of men." This lead to the concept of "a hierarchy of masculinities" that was based on the experience of disapproval (amounting at times to hate and violence) of straight men to gay men (p. 576). That gay men should define their gender in opposition to other social constructions of gender is not surprising. What has made the particular social (and psychological) strategy that many gay men have taken so threatening to so many straight men is that these gay men have defined their sense of gendered self not vis-a-vis women (either gay or straight) but in opposition to men.

Gay men not only demanded that their definitions of masculinity be given legitimacy, but they also (if only incidentally much of the time) demanded of other members of society (as well as of themselves) that gender not be constructed in binary terms. Both of these demands were radical. For socially constructed roles that are defined in multilateral ways (or in "multivocal" ways to invoke the language of postmodern criticism) require the kind of interlocking perspective that is being argued for in this paper.

Binary oppositions are more easily extracted from society as a whole to be analyzed. Once one acknowledges that all social constructions, all social truths, and all social roles, are multivalent, one is also acknowledging that both sociological methods and theories must be complex and embedded in the whole. The fight by gay men to be able to have control of the definition of their own masculinity requires a theoretical approach that explicitly acknowledges that social actors (which is to say all of us) are actively engaged in the process of determining who they are. This is true not only for those at the top of social hierarchies but also those in the middle, and even the bottom.

It is also true that when one of two assumed-to-be-binary terms is reconstructed as being far from homogeneous, it may be done so through the process of insisting that the other of the two terms/concepts is in fact simple, even to the point of homogeneity. Nayak & Kehily (2006) outline this process:

Because masculinity is .structured through contradiction' it is always unachievable, inevitably ungraspable, ever incomplete. The repetition of homophobic sequences suggest the impossibility of acquiring a unified self. The continual rehearsal of these performances are indicative of the psychic rhythms of a dislocated masculinity constituted through a 'lack'. The artificiality of gender is then given momentary meaning through socially recognisable sequences -- the 'stylized repetition of acts' & #8230; That certain young men feel 'compelled to replicate a hyper-masculine stylized performance ensures that homophobic practices are rife. By focusing on the interconnections between masculinities and homophobias our work problematises oppressive heterosexualities which are styled as against "others" and gays. Although other repetitive routes for gender construction are available, the attraction of homophobia, and its connections with traducing femininity, continue to make it a particular style of manufacturing of a particular white, working class masculinity in English schools. (p. 556)

Their naming of such social construction of heterosexuality as a series of homophobic performances as a traducing of femininity is both trenchant and accurate. For when men fight among themselves to create hierarchies of masculinity, it may well be it is women who are the losers.

Power, Difference, and Normalcy

This creation of a hierarchy of masculinity, in which some forms of masculinity are "better" than others (which is to say that they are more widely accepted and accrue more social power) is intimately linked to the idea of normalcy. Concepts of masculinity that are not at the top of the social hierarchy are defined not simply as being different, or even lesser in terms of power accorded to them, but also as deviant and abnormal (Gill, 1989, p. 14). Connell & Messerschmidt (2005) note that for gay men, this social construction of abnormality on their part ranges from the name-calling and bullying suffered by school boys perceived by their peers to be insufficiently masculine to the criminalization of homosexual conduct (p. 579).

One of the most important and oft-repeated tropes in social constructions of normalcy are claims made to what is "natural" and therefore "normal" set in opposition to what is "unnatural" and therefore abnormal (Easthope, 1990, p. 19). In this regard, it is important to note how often the term "abnormal" is applied to gay men and lesbians and to homosexual acts. This has persisted to the current day, of course, despite a growing body of evidence that points to the fact that sexual orientation is a biological fact rather than a "lifestyle choice." If sexual orientation is either genetic or biological (current research suggests that sexual orientation may be affected by intrauterine conditions rather than genetics), then it is by definition natural.

Nayak & Kehily (2006) argue that performance of hegemonic masculinity in regards to social actor claims to heterosexuality speaks to the ways in which social identity must be continually reenacted. This too serves as a reminder that social identities such as gender must be seen and understood in highly embedded and interconnected terms. They discuss "the performativity of 'playing it straight'.

Our research indicates that homophobic repetitions are an act of self production, an exhibition of the 'natural' that is ultimately flawed. For many of the young men who engage in these oppressive actions, heterosexual masculinities are consolidated through display. The performance provides a fantasy of masculinity which can only be sustained through repetition, yet always resonates the echo of uncertainty. We felt the young men in our research were engaged in an endless struggle with the self, a struggle which affects the lives of young women, subordinate masculinities, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and those unsure of their sexual identities. The constant need to perform also suggests the hollowness of the masculine ideal, where bodies can only approximate the illusion of substance in desperate exhibitions. The over-dramatisation of the homophobic performance is then revealing of the need for parody, simulation and repetition in the lives of young men attempting to replicate a desired masculinity where the very act of performance inevitably underscores the whole gender project. (p. 556)

The researchers make a convincing case that concepts of masculinity must be repeatedly performed by boys and men precisely because such concepts are not natural. Things that are truly natural about humans -- such as eye color or the need to breathe oxygen -- do not need repeated practice.

The mass media in our society -- from commercials to YouTube to Justin Bieber -- create social constructions of gender that the rest of us can either emulate or reject. But while many of us (indeed, arguably nearly most of us) would like to believe that we have the power to define ourselves and our own sense of identity, we are all deeply influenced by depictions of who we are supposed to be that come to us by the thousands through the mass media.

Gender identity is created through performance, and performances are based on rehearsal. That rehearsal of gender identity is not something that takes place in private, disconnected from the most powerful social institutions such as the mass media. Rather, it is rehearsed at the guidance of social institutions, with media depictions of gender serving as constant reminders and corrections on what masculinity and femininity are supposed -- and allowed -- to be.