Axyl Watts

Professor Pruett

Feminist Theory

12/17/24

Hegemonic Masculinity Accessibility Theory: How Masculinity is Sculpted, Reinforced,

Accessed, and Performed

In order to lay the groundwork for a theory of masculinity, I’m borrowing from Judith

Butler and their theory of Gender Constitution, in which they state, “The body becomes its

gender through a series of acts which are renewed, revisited, and consolidated through

time…acts its part in a culturally restricted corporal space and enacts interpretations within the

confines of already existing directives…[and] is created through sustained social performances”

(523-528). Through a Western and capitalist lens, I evaluate how male-dominated institutions

and power structures influence and coerce the culture of masculinity through three access points

granted to primarily masculine bodies1: capital, visibility, and status. Through these three

constitutive access points, the masculine person develops their personal understanding of three

pillars of masculine accomplishment. This constructs their masculine performance: creation,

mobility, and domination, which are understood as hegemonic masculinity through cultural and

discursive contexts.2 Through interaction or experience with different spaces, identities, or

intersections, masculinity can vary contextually and fluidly.

Firstly, it's important to examine the dominant structures that establish the access points

and pillars of masculinity. Male-dominated positions within creationary fields—such as politics,

1
I use the terms “masculine bodies” and “masculine identities” and any similar terms interchangeably. I will say
“male” or “man” when I mean a masculine identity that has already identified itself within that group of
identifications or when addressing a source.
2
“It is the successful claim to authority…that is the mark of hegemony…” (Connell 77).
religion, science, philosophy, etc.—lead to identity categorizations that award varying levels of

privilege. These privileges operate through a reward system embedded into a political and

institutional structure to benefit bodies that mold to masculine norms. Since this system

reinforces masculine normativity, it aligns itself within the mainstream culture and elevates

masculinity as an idealized status. To start, Harding explains, “Studies of the uses and abuses of

biology, the social sciences, and their technologies have revealed the ways science is used in the

service of sexist, racist, homophobic, and classist social projects” (21). These projects curate

‘correct ’and ‘incorrect’ identity categories through a masculine lens shaped by major influential

institutions. Harding lends this example: “The stigmatization of, discrimination against, and

medical ‘cure’ of homosexuals” (21). Due to the male-instituted diagnosis of homosexuality as

the deviant identity, homosexual men have historically been subjected to “political and cultural

exclusion, cultural abuse…legal violence…street violence…[and] economic discrimination”

(Connell 78). Sexuality and gender are inextricably bound when considering a culture shaped by

male-dominated institutions; as MacKinnon says, “In the concomitant sexual paradigm, the

ruling norms of sexual attractions and expression are fused with gender identity formations and

affirmation…” (131). Using institutions of cultural and intellectual production, the hegemonic

men create deviant masculine identities, reifying a set of expected masculine performatives that

serve the dominant collective. One of the main performances expected of the masculine (and

feminine) person, which is rewarded by commanding institutions, is monogamous heterosexual

marriage; other forms of deviant sexualities, and such deviant gender expression—like

homosexuality—is punished within this system. Through the dominant heterosexual narrative,

institutions solidify the reproduction of normative masculinity through a system of childrearing.

To clarify further, Judith Butler states, “To guarantee the reproduction of a given culture, various
requirements…have instated sexual reproduction within the confines of a heterosexually based

system of marriage, which requires the reproduction of human beings in certain gendered modes

that, in effect, guarantee the eventual reproduction of that kinship system” (524). The

reproduction of normative masculine culture is guaranteed herein through the kinship and

primary heterosexual system that is often rewarded, as de Beauvoir explains, “[men] enjoy a

traditional prestige that the education of children tends in every way to support, for the present

enshrines the past—and in the past all history has been made by men” (20). The male-dominated

institutions curate an ideal masculinity by which normative masculine bodies have access to

certain privileges only they can afford; through this normative masculine body, the masculine

person creates their own personal masculine institution—the family—through which they also

teach traditional gendered education through cultural, interpersonal, and kinship relationships.

Other factors—such as popular culture, peer relationships, location, etc.—can influence temporal

and spatial understandings of masculinity. The creation of the normative masculine body hinges

on the idea of non-normative masculine identities, ensuring access to privileges reserved for

bodies that can conform.

However, this education also later leads to masculine bodies striving for institutional

prowess and power. This leads to a cycle of creation for institutional power; hegemonic

masculinity is continuously creating masculine bodies for its continuous reproduction through

this mode of cultural influence. Access to hegemonic masculinity and masculine power is

granted through the three access points—capital, visibility, and status—which are awarded

variably to different masculine bodies depending on their gender performance in relation to the

established norm. In this analysis, these access points are from a capitalist and western

institutional lens, but I think there could be further possibility to strip these words of western
linguistic diction and attempt to apply them to other masculine cultures. In this western context,

dominant cultures and institutions determine masculine bodies' level of access to hegemonic

masculinity, which in turn shapes their intersectionality and contextual performance in a broader

power structure.

To connect institutions to these three access points, it’s important to look at a commonly

dissected point of contention: the family. In many feminist and other theoretical frameworks, the

family is often considered to be a male-dominated institution. Applying this structure to the

aforementioned ways in which hegemonic masculine identities are created, the family works

both as a place for masculine bodies to access these points and to grant others access. As Kate

Millet says, “Patriarchy’s chief institution is the family. It is both a mirror of and a connection

with the larger society; a patriarchal unit within a patriarchal whole” (33). With this idea of the

male-reflective family, I now introduce the Marxist feminist groundwork that helps develop the

second part of my theory of masculinity: As western institutions rely primarily on capitalistic

means of production and distribution, the family—and henceforth the masculine body—must

also rely on these means of production. These means of production, offered both from dominant

institutions through waged and productive labor, operate simultaneously within the household to

offer different privileges, or varying strengths of access to important modes of accomplishment

that lead to an eventuality of an understanding of a hegemonic masculinity. Through wage and

productive work, different masculine bodies are offered differing abilities and opportunities

based on their gender expression and identity to earn accomplishments that work towards three

main access points—capital, visibility, and status—to a broader dominating masculine ideal.

In order to dissect each access point, I’d like to start with Friedan’s question:

“Why…should men with the capacities of statesmen, anthropologists, physicists, and poets have
to wash dishes and diaper babies on weekday evenings or Saturday mornings when they might

use those extra hours to fulfill larger commitments to their society?” (48). Due to their gender

identity, men were offered the opportunity of significant roles within productive society

considered more significant based on symbolic contributions to society; this is in part because of

the wage and publicity attached to these forms of productive labor in comparison to more

feminized forms of private labor. In short, men didn’t want to wash dishes and diaper babies

because of the status that was afforded to them through their masculine identity in relation to

others; if placed in a position able to reap the rewards of status, the masculine person reaching

for hegemonic masculinity aims not to jeopardize this possibility. While the relationships

between these access points are not linear, Connell highlights one of the reasons how these

access points can relate to one another and the importance of obtaining these privileges: “Men

gain a dividend from patriarchy in terms of honour, prestige…[and] also gain a material

dividend…Men are vastly more likely to control a major block of capital as chief executive of a

major corporation or as direct owner” (82). Through the men’s status position afforded to them

through cultural contexts and institutional influences that define hegemonic modes of

masculinity, they were also able to access significant forms of capital—another highlighted form

of prestige in the capitalistic context. Capital is crucial to identity in the western masculine

model, as it is what the masculine body works and employs for; enough capital accrual

eventually signifies status. Finally, “[Social Visibility] is achieved through the competencies

(skills and attributes), or lack of them, that the individual possesses which are relevant to the

ongoing process of the group” (Clifford 799). Visibility as a point of accessibility that

foregrounds the need of masculine bodies to produce and perform in ways expected by

hegemonic masculinity in order to gain further entry into the dominant model. For example, if
husbands choose to use their free time to wash dishes and diaper babies, they may be seen as less

productive in a society that values productive public labor, which produces capital. If considered

less productive, it could cause a loss of visibility, perhaps in turn losing status that was gained

through publicity in the first place; without the higher status of public labor, there could be less

access to opportunities for capital—monetary, social, and cultural. As a result, this could even

further limit their ability to elevate their status within society. In sum, the three ways in which a

masculine body can further access a hegemonic masculinity—visibility, capital, and status—are

inextricably tied together, formed, and reinforced by coercive cultural and institutional dominant

gender and political performances.

The three access points—visibility, status, and capital—serve a purpose to reach the three

pillars of masculinity—domination, creation, and mobility. The system of punishment and

reward embedded in hegemonic gender performance that grants access as privileges performs a

greater purpose of determining how masculine bodies interact in a greater power structure. In

hegemonic masculinity, normative masculine bodies attempt to attain the ‘correct’ confluence of

the three pillars through the three access points—in doing so they gain entry into the hegemonic

masculinity that curates the aforementioned cycle of gender construction. On a smaller scale, the

familial institution is reflective of this structure; the nuclear family replicates and reinforces the

greater power structures that hegemonic masculine identities control and continually reproduce.

With the added context of the western capitalism analysis, multiple layers of influence coerce

masculine identities towards a hegemonic masculinity through reward systems.

The first example of dominating masculine narratives is given by Gago, who introduces

the pillar of creation through hegemonic masculine institutions:

origin story’ of societies is a fiction made to the measures of men…This fable is part of

the gestation of modern patriarchy, which distinguishes the power that men exercise over

women and feminized bodies, via a form of political right, It is here that the male body is

revealed as a rational and abstract body with a capacity to create order and discourse. (51)

Gago directs our attention to the institutionalized forms of masculine influence, and discusses

how these shape dominant understandings of a masculine body. To dissect, the statement

“Religious, political, mythological stories narrate the origin of things, the civil contract original

story of societies is a fiction made to the measures of men”, is the masculine dominated positions

in creationary fields that institute ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ gender performances. Next, “this fable

is part of the gestation of modern patriarchy, which distinguishes the power that men exercise

over women and feminized bodies, via a form of political right”, is the position in which through

‘correct’ gender performances of masculine identity are awarded access through political

structures set in place by the hegemonic masculinity. Finally, “It is here that the male body is

revealed as a rational and abstract body with a capacity to create order and discourse” is the point

in time that the cyclical and productive nature of hegemonic masculinity becomes

evident—creation of ideologies, norms, and cultural imperatives are both constituted and

realized through hegemonic masculinity frameworks.

To further examine the relationship between the access points and pillars of masculinity,

it's important to further analyze this quote within the western capitalist context we’ve examined

the access points. Gago mentions men exercising power over feminized bodies as a form of

‘political right’; in this case the politics are productive visible labor that gains monetary capital

through the masculine body’s contributive status. However, “[Women] know that our
wagelessness in the home is the primary cause of our weak position on the wage labor market. It

is no accident that we get the lowest paying jobs, and that whenever women enter a male sector,

wages go down ” (Federici 15). Federici underscores the difference between these two narratives,

and how feminine bodies in productive markets do not have access to the same privileges as

masculine identities because of the wage system—which was created by hegemonic masculinity

in order to reward masculine bodies. This illustrates how access points are particularly shaped

for masculine reward, but also work to subjugate different gendered identities. While masculine

bodies can eventually reach an idealized masculinity through these access points, the continual

result of such is a culture of domination.

One form of domination as a pillar of masculinity is the concentration of hegemonic

masculine power across prominent institutions that ensures an exclusion or subjugation of

non-normative identities. This exclusion is limited access to status, capital, and visibility within

the dominant masculine system, ranging anywhere from restriction to violence. As Millett

details, “If one recalls that the military, industry, technology, universities, science, political

office, and finance—in short, every avenue of power within the society, including the coercive

force of the police, is entirely in male hands” (25). As previously highlighted, through these

institutions, hegemonic masculinity can create and coerce a normative masculinity through a set

of penalties and punishments for deviant performance. (Butler 528). Because access to capital,

status, and visibility is culturally and politically contextual, these punishments and restrictions

also ensure that non-normative forms of masculinity cannot reach hegemonic masculinity. Since

they don’t have an entry to the same structure of masculinity, deviant identities come to

understand access within a different cultural model, which shapes different masculinities

regarding the hegemonic. Connell demonstrates this in the The Social Organization of
Masculinity: “The level of violence among black men in the United States can only be

understood through the changing place of the black labour force in American capitalism and the

violent means to control it. Massive unemployment and urban poverty interact with institutional

racism in the shaping of black masculinity” (80). Because black masculinity is not included in

the model of hegemonic masculinity, violent punishments and structures of exclusion are placed

in order to restrict access to normative forms of capital, status, and visibility. Through the pillar

of domination, hegemonic masculinity works to strengthen its own position while also working

to reproduce only normative masculine bodies. Specifically in American capitalism, black

masculinities are withheld from the dominant form of masculine access

accrual—employment—which causes a construction of black masculine bodies not only

concerning dominant structures, but a reworking of how they relate to one another under a

different power structure. In this framework, subjugated gender performers not only understand

the pillars of masculinity in a different cultural light than normative masculine bodies, but they

must also recontextualize how to access and navigate those pillars through systems of capital,

visibility, and status that the hegemonic masculine system created. Thus, domination as a pillar

of masculinity serves not only to reproduce normative masculinity through institutions of power,

but also to protect hegemonic masculinity from non-normative gender performers. This is part of

an idealized form of hegemony as it serves in the greater cyclical motion of reproductive

normativity.

The third pillar, mobility, highlights the hegemonic masculine ability to navigate and

expand one’s access to power and resources across social, economic, spatial, and institutional

spheres. They obtain this capability through the creation of masculine performance normativities,

which inherently grant easier access to dominant masculine bodies to greater power positions. As
Harding highlights, “Equity studies have documented the massive historical resistance to

women’s getting the education, credentials, and jobs available to similarly talented men” (21).

Harding emphasizes mobility as she discusses entry into access points and historically masculine

dominated institutions as conditional on gender and how non-normative groups are not afforded

the same admissions. Therefore, access to mobility within hegemonic masculine directives hinge

on normative gender performance. Furthermore, placement in stronger positions of institutional

power stations masculine identities in a position to further reproduce hegemonic ideals of

masculine bodies, since these positions of power are what eventually create those norms.

Overall, subscription to normative masculine performatives grants privileges and rewards

through three access points—visibility, capital, and status—which are constitutive of the three

pillars of masculinity—domination, mobility, and creation. The process of access into hegemonic

masculinity is a cyclical framework that serves to reproduce a cycle of normativity through the

creation of ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ masculine bodies, the mobility of ‘correct’ identities, and

domination of ‘incorrect’ identities. Punishment, subjugation, and domination of ‘incorrect’ or

‘deviant’ masculine bodies ensures the heterogeneity of hegemonic masculinity, leaving

‘incorrect’ masculine identities to reinterpret the three access points and three pillars within a

new cultural context in relation to their subjugation.

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and

Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, Dec., 1988, Vol. 40, No. 4(Dec., 1988), pp. 523-528.

de Beauvoir, Simone. Introduction. The Second Sex. Oxford University Press, 1949, p. 20.

Clifford, Edward. “Social Visibility.” Child Development, Sep., 1963, Vol 34, No. 3(Seb., 1963),

p. 799.

Connell, R.W., The Social Organization of Masculinity. University of California Press, 1995.

Federici, Silvia. Patriarchy of the Wage: Notes on Marx, Gender, and Feminism. Pm Press, 2021.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. London, England, Penguin Classics, 2010.

Gago,Verrónica. Feminist International: How to Change Everything. London; New York, Verso,

2020.

Harding, S. The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press, 1986.

MacKinnon, Catherine. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Harvard University Press, 1989.

Millett, Kate. Sexual Politics. Columbia University Press, 1969.