Masculinity and Crime - Messerschmidt
- Created by: HLOldham
- Created on: 28-03-16 13:39
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- Masculinity and Crime -Messerschmidt
- "Masculinity is accomplished, it is not something done to men or settled beforehand... it is never static, never a finished product. Rather, men construct masculinities in specific social situations"
- Rejects 'biological' theory
- Rejects 'sex role theory'
- Types of Masculinity
- Hegemonic Masculinities: dominant type of masculinity, highly valued
- Subordinated Masculinities: less powerful, low status
- e.g. Homosexuals, African American masculinity
- Hegemonic Masculinity
- Generally based on the subordination of women
- Benefit from their power over women
- "Criminal behaviour is really a resource for asserting masculinity when other resources are unavailable"
- Middle Class White Boys
- Experience school as emasculating (socially rendering males as less of a man)
- Engage in 'repressed characteristics' outside of school, e.g. minor acts pf criminality, vandalism, drinking, shoplifting etc
- Due to affluent background - able to avoid negative labelling
- Adopt an accommodating masculinity - "a controlled rational gender strategy for institutional success"
- Outside school - adopt an oppositional masculinity to assert the patterns of hegemonic masculinity they are denied within school
- Working Class White Boys
- Experience school as emasculating
- Less chance of academic success - denied success route to hegemonic masculinity
- Construct masculinity around physical aggression/ violence
- Important to be seen as tough and oppose authority
- Use violence against those who they perceive fail to match their perception of 'masculinity'
- Use an oppositional masculinity both in and out of school
- Use violence against those who they perceive fail to match their perception of 'masculinity'
- Important to be seen as tough and oppose authority
- Construct masculinity around physical aggression/ violence
- Ethnic Minority Boys
- Experience more problems finding secure and reasonably paid employment
- Less likely to express masculinity as breadwiners
- Increased risk of poverty = less likely to gain status via material goods
- Tend to express masculinity in 'the street' via violence and crime
- Use robbery/ violence to make themselves more masculine than their victims
- Less likely to express masculinity as breadwiners
- Use robbery/ violence to make themselves more masculine than their victims
- Tend to express masculinity in 'the street' via violence and crime
- Gangs and 'turf wars' are really attempts to assert masculine control
- **** is also used as a method of control - helps strengthen the fiction of masculine power
- e.g. Central Park Jogger **** case
- **** is also used as a method of control - helps strengthen the fiction of masculine power
- Ethnic males 'do masculinity' within the limits of social structures which constrains them
- Experience more problems finding secure and reasonably paid employment
- "Masculinity is accomplished, it is not something done to men or settled beforehand... it is never static, never a finished product. Rather, men construct masculinities in specific social situations"
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