Cultural masculinity and criminal behavior

Messerschmidt

That the prisons in the United States are bursting at the seams comes as no surprise, considering that more violent crimes occur here than any other industrialized country and incarceration has become the customary way of punishment for a wide range of crimes (INTERPOL). In 2007, 75.8% of all persons arrested were male, 81.8% of persons arrested for violent crime were male, and 66.6% of persons arrested for property crime were male (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). This is nothing new, nor is it unusual for most countries around the world. Perhaps, this is why not many studies have been done on what makes men more crime-oriented. According to Hagedorn (1998), for whatever reason, within the realm of the social sciences, research has analyzed characteristics of women and how they relate to men rather than on the men, themselves. Because men have long been more prone to committing crime, this characteristic has somehow been ignored. Recently, academicians in the field of criminology, such as James Messerschmidt, have questioned the validity of the stereotypes that based on biology where "women are good, men are bad, plain and simple. And it is this essential badness that leads to patriarchy and violence against women" (Messerschmidt, 1993, p. 43). Instead, it is relevant to look also look at cultural factors, where males are socialized very early in their lives into what is culturally deemed masculine and recognize that if they do not conform to this norm, they will be ostracized.

Despite the dearth of studies on masculinity, the subject of what denotes "manliness" has long been addressed throughout human history. The Greek had the term thumos, for example, which was to explain the animal-like spirit of humans that makes them fight back when threatened. All human beings share this essence of thumos regardless of their background.

However, those who are considered manly have a great deal more of it and sometimes to an extreme amount, as noted: "It is the energy and initiative in their nature that may make them uncivilized'." I said; "if you treat it properly it should make them brave, but if you overstrain it turns them tough and uncouth, as you would expect.'" (Republic, ln. 410)

The debate about Nietzsche's underlying belief regarding gender, and women in general, will most likely continue ad infinitum. Was he truly a sexist and misogynist, a product of his German culture, or actually stating many of his anti-feminist comments tongue-in-cheek? Regardless which of these are actually true, in book five of the Gay Science, (2001, p. 227), Nietzche writes about "our faith in the masculinities of Europe" and how the "classic age of war" made "man in Europe to become the master over the businessman and the philistine -- perhaps even over 'woman,' who has been spoiled by Christianity and the enthusiastic spirit of the eighteenth century, and even more by 'modern ideas.'"

The first true advancement toward modern analysis of masculinity was seen in the works of Freudian psychoanalysis, which showed that adult character was not only biological and determined by the body, but also built through emotional relationships to others, in a chaotic growth process. Later, anthropologists, such as Malinowsky and Mead stressed the cultural distinctions and the importance of social norms (Connell, 1994). Similarly, from the viewpoint of role theory, Parsons (1968) called the sex roles of men, "instrumental," and women, "expressive." He also stated that young children learned and internalized these roles, which conveniently continued the established division of labor and the formed societal structure over time.

Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique (1963) is often thought of initiating the women's movement that led the way to not only an emphasis on the females' function in society, but of the subsequent "male studies." Yet, ten years before this, Mira Komarovsky redefined Parsons' theory by instead stressing dysfunction, conflict, and change. She saw how the American woman's role radically changed After World War II. After the support they offered the troops by working in the factories at home and nursing in the battlefields in Europe, the women were immediately ousted away from these jobs and relegated back to the role of wife and mother to live in the suburbs and to wonder "what is wrong with me that home and family are not enough?"(1953, p. 77). As a professor at Barnard College, Komarovsky told all her female students to be prepared for careers. She also supported universally available nursery schools, so women could go back into the job market, and urged men to accept their fair share of domestic work. Ironically, she was still pushing for this last goal in 1985.

It has only been in the past several decades, and especially since the turn of the century, that a significant number of studies have been conducted on men and masculinity, with the social sciences having produced the predominance of research. It was in the 1970s that the topic of masculinity had begun to be seriously studied. It came about as part of the women's movement and the emphasis on breaking away from the confines of the patriarchal society that males had conveniently established to keep females in their defined roles.

With the development of the "Men's Movement," masculinity research began to be seen in greater numbers. Tolson (the Limits of Masculinity, 1976) emphasized that masculinity was not any more uni-dimensional than femininity, and it existed for more reasons beyond the continuation of the patriarchal society. For the first time, it was noted that masculinity should not be recognized as basic essence but a product of cultural and historical force.

In the 1980s, Connell (1987) established the term hegemonic masculinity to explain the hierarchical relationship between several masculinities and the way some males make it seem normal and critical that they dominate most women and other men. In the construct of gender relations, hegemonic masculinity is about the actual system and the structure in place that acts to procreate masculine domination. Connell drew many of his insights from feminist researchers who examined how gender relationships mold social structures. His hoped to show not only how some men were able to easily establish their dominant position, but also why other women and men allowed themselves to be oppressed by these individuals and the means by which hegemonic masculinity can be diminished to promote gender equality and improve societal circumstances.

Connell (1985) argued that there is no one overriding form of masculinity or femininity in Western industrialized countries and that these change according to history. Masculinity, despite being a concept related very closely with femininity, is wrongly established as its opposite. Connell identified four separate ways to view the masculinity concept.

Essentialist, where one masculinity characteristic is given more importance, but there is no agreement to that characteristic. (for example, men are aggressive); 2) positivist, founded on what men do as men, but no thought is given to how the cultural context make these different (for instance, male/female psychological testing; 3) Normative, or what men are told they should or should not do, which is built into the symbolic representations about the ideal man (for example, male sport stars); and 4) Semiotic, or what masculinity includes and femininity does not: "The phallus is master-signifier and femininity is symbolically define by lack." (Connell,1985, p.70).

According to Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) this concept of hegemonic masculinity was applied to research in the field of education to better understand the activities taking place in the classroom for such behaviors as resistance and bullying among boys. The hegemonic theory also helped to better understand the curriculum and the problems with gender-neutral pedagogy (Martino 1995), as well as teacher planning. It further provided help in theorizing the relationship among masculinities and a variety of crimes (Messerschmidt, 1993) in addition to research on specific crimes committed by boys and men.

Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) also write of the influence that the hegemonic masculinity theory has had on studying media representations of men, such as the interconnection between sports and war imagery. As a result, media researchers started looking at the relations among representations of different masculinities. "Commercial sports are a focus of media representations of masculinity, and the developing field of sports sociology also found significant use for the concept of hegemonic masculinity" (Messner, 1992). The hegemonic theory was therefore utilized to better understand the popularity of body-contact confrontational sports, such as football and hockey, that function as an continually revived symbol of masculinity. It also helped to better comprehend the violence and homophobia frequently found in sporting milieus. Violence has also been an integral part of movies and television, and, most recently, electronic gaming.

Also in the 1980s and 1990s, social scientists began to extend the understanding of masculinity and femininity in society by looking at the connection between gender and crime. Some of these thoughts were based on Parsons (1968), who argued that masculinity was internalized during adolescence and encouraged boys to participate in more delinquent behavior than girls. Similarly, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) suggested the differential opportunity theory, which proposes that younger gang members acquire both lawful and unlawful conduct from older male role models, such as acting tough and demonstrating dominance. More recently, Miedzian (1991) has studied peer pressure, the socialization process, and military impact that has resulted in violence becoming standard behavior in males, and Thompson (1991) has demonstrated that violent acts are more often performed by males with greater masculine gender orientations.

Another slant on this topic was placed by West and Zimmerman (1987) in "Doing Gender," that looked at gender not in terms of a set of traits that are held by individuals, but rather as something people do together in their social interactions. In this case, gender is basically about social interaction and establishing relationships. It is an integral part of all daily interactions. Where a person's actions in "doing gender" simultaneously produce, reproduce, sustain and legitimate the social meanings accorded to gender. The authors state that gender is a fundamental aspect of all social relationships, in terms that no one can possibly not do gender if wanting to perform accountable actions. These authors also do not agree with the idea that gender is a role or a means of display, for although roles are positional identities, gender is a key identity that slices across many different circumstances. Similarly, display means that something is not basic to human interaction.

According to West and Zimmerman (1987), in order to completely understand how gender is involved with all areas of daily interaction, there exist three separate yet overlapping concepts: sex, sex category and gender. 1) Sex characterizes females or males based on biological criteria. 2) Sex category, while attained through the function of sex criteria, behaves as an alternate for categorization based on sex in day-to-day activities, and therefore is created and sustained by the socially required displays of identification that declare someone's membership in one or another group. It is possible to be a member in a sex category even when someone does not have the necessary traits based on biological sex. 3) Gender are the activities themselves that are appropriate for one's sex category. Whereas, sex categorization is quite cut and dry, gender is a much more complex set of categories. Doing gender reinforces the essential differences between females and males. These gendered activities are not actually as much different expressions of natural genders as they are the very process of acting out these differences. Actually, because gender differences need to appear natural and essential through "doing gender," it is critical in maintaining the status quo of oppression of men over women.

There are traditional and nontraditional forms of "doing gender," to reach the same result (West & Zimmerman, 1987). To attain the status of manhood, a person must have specific qualities that are deemed masculine and manly, including but not limited to being married, having children, providing for the family, and proclaiming an aura of physical and mental strength and dominance. As historically agreed upon by general society, these characteristics allow a man to appropriately display his gender in areas where it will be accepted.

To present a positive masculine image, a man will rely on learned cultural definitions of masculinity. In the United States, this includes physical strength, aggressiveness, and visible proof of achievement (Messerschmidt, 1993). Masculine identity is consistent with acting tough and being courageous. Most research finds that men take greater risks than women, and these risk-taking actions are another feature of masculinity. Regardless if the actions that demonstrate masculinity is legal or not, the critical aspect is that it is fully shown. The use of criminal masculine assertion is especially probable when a man's masculinity is questioned or threatened. Masculine gender is not something that a person is, but something that this person does -- and does at all times. Thus, if traditional, non-criminal capability is not available, alternative avenues, even ones that are criminal, will be used to accomplish demonstrations of masculine gender. (Messerschmidt, 1993).

In Masculinities and Crime, Messerschmidt (1993) combined the theoretical work of Connell (1987) and West and Zimmerman (1987) to attain a viewpoint that stressed both the meaningful aspects of individuals and the structured features of social environments. Following West and Zimmerman (1987), Messerschmidt argued that gender is a situated, social and interactional accomplishment that develops from social activities in particular settings and acts to inform these activities in reciprocal relation. In other words, people coordinate their activities to "do" gender in situational ways. Critical to this gender concept is West and Zimmerman's (1987) idea of accountability. Since people recognize they may be held accountable to other individuals for their actions, they construct and organize their behavior in terms of the way that these may be understood by others in that specific social context in which they are going to take place. Within situations of social interaction, therefore, people make the job of accountability easier by proving they are male or female by demonstrating often contrived actions that may be interpreted appropriately.

Thus, people do gender differently based on the particular social setting faced. Doing gender, therefore, forces people to be accountable for their social actions in terms of attitudes and actions that are appropriate to one's sex in the particular social setting in which one performs (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Yet, doing gender does not necessarily mean acting in a vacuum, but is affected by the social constraints confronted. "Social structures are regular and patterned forms of interaction over time that constrain and enable behavior in specific ways; therefore, social structures 'exist as the reproduced conduct of situated actors" (Giddens as quoted in Messerschmidt, 2005).

Based on Connell (1987) and Giddens (1976), Messerschmidt noted that such social structures are not external to the participants or just constraining. Instead, the structure is recognized only by social behavior, and social behavior necessitates structure. As individuals do gender, they copy and even may change the social structure. Gender relations connect one person to another in a commonality. They share structural space. As a result, these shared times of gendered knowledge evolve through interaction where particular gender ideals and activities play a part. By these means, comes the institutionalization of masculinity, which gives men the permission to draw on existing, but earlier established masculine ways of thinking and acting to construct a form of masculinity for each setting. Therefore, men are in different positions throughout society, and power is historically based on class, race, and sexual orientation. In some settings, some men have more power than do others, and thus masculinity is relative. Connell's (1987) theory of hegemonic masculinity is critical to understanding these power relations among men, since it is the culturally idealized form of masculinity in a particular historical and social setting.

Based on this foundation, Messerschmidt (1993) theorized masculinity and crime in a new way that would allow criminologists to find in what ways and in what respect masculinity is constituted in specific settings and how that relates to crime. One important way, but not the only way, to understand men making crime is to analyze these doing of masculinities.

Because of factors of race, class, age and gender, different crimes are elected as a means for doing masculinity and for separating masculinities from one another in varying social settings. In other words, Messerschmidt's (1993) works did not only negate traditional criminological theory, but also explained class and race distinctions in male adolescent crimes and in myriad adult crimes, from domestic violence to corporate crime.

Messerschmidt (1993) demonstrated how the predispositions to violence and nonviolence occur due to the simultaneous interconnection of home, school, and street, as well as the opportunities and pressures placed on those interconnections. Specifically, for example, teenage boys and girls, in relation to their bodies, socialization experience and alternate constructions of femininity, adopt violent or nonviolent behaviors while doing different types of gender. For example, Messerschmidt (2005, p.118) wrote of two males, Lenny and Perry, who were both gender conformists. However, at the same time, they produced in settings, specific but different types of masculine practices by using different forms of assaultive evidence and nonviolence. Both Lenny and Perry had complicit, yet subordinate masculinities at home. Yet, because Lenny did not experience masculinity challenges in this setting like Perry, he constructed a nonviolent masculine self, whereas Perry eventually became a violent masculine self in this environment. Outside their separate home environments, different types of masculinities by Lenny and Perry emerged from practices that similarly reflected different social circumstances and bodily resources.