According to this author, "masculinities scholarship can be understood as providing the basis for a critique of feminist legal theory. This approach begins with the allegation that feminist legal theory generally and incorrectly treats men as a monolithic group when there is in fact a multiplicity of male identities. Masculinities scholarship, in this framing, could be categorized as the male-focused companion to critiques that have been made over the past thirty years that feminist legal theory is excluding and essentializing. It is this understanding of the significance of masculinities to feminist legal theory that prompted this Essay."
Interesting article, though it's on the geeky gender theory side of things.
Full Citation:
Fineman, MA. (2013) Feminism, Masculinities, and Multiple Identities (2013). Nevada Law Journal, Vol. 13, No. 101; Emory Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-238. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2255182
You can download the whole paper from the link above.Feminism, Masculinities, and Multiple Identities
Emory University School of Law2013
Abstract:
Masculinities scholarship could be seen as distinct from and complementary to feminist theory — an independent and parallel companion theory, developed by men. In this regard, from a feminist’s perspective masculinities scholarship might be thought of as ethnography, helpfully providing insights into the operations and assumptions of a distinct masculine culture. This approach would seem to validate the notion that there are significant differences between men’s and women’s experiences and perspectives, and consideration of both is necessary to form a complete legal theory picture. Feminist legal theory and masculinities theory are thus seen as both contrasting and complementary in nature.
On the other hand, masculinities scholarship can be understood as providing the basis for a critique of feminist legal theory. This approach begins with the allegation that feminist legal theory generally and incorrectly treats men as a monolithic group when there is in fact a multiplicity of male identities. Masculinities scholarship, in this framing, could be categorized as the male-focused companion to critiques that have been made over the past thirty years that feminist legal theory is excluding and essentializing. It is this understanding of the significance of masculinities to feminist legal theory that prompted this Essay.
I. INTRODUCTION
It has been suggested that feminist legal theorists might productively use the scholarship on masculinities that has been developed over the past decade. There are several ways in which masculinities scholarship might interact with feminist legal theory. Masculinities scholarship could be seen as distinct from and complementary to feminist theory—an independent and parallel companion theory, developed by men. In this regard, from a feminist’s perspective masculinities scholarship might be thought of as ethnography, helpfully providing insights into the operations and assumptions of a distinct masculine culture. This approach would seem to validate the notion that there are significant differences between men’s and women’s experiences and perspectives, and consider-ation of both is necessary to form a complete legal theory picture. Feminist legal theory and masculinities theory are thus seen as both contrasting and complementary in nature.
On the other hand, masculinities scholarship can be understood as providing the basis for a critique of feminist legal theory. This approach begins with the allegation that feminist legal theory generally and incorrectly treats men as a monolithic group when there is in fact a multiplicity of male identities. Masculinities scholarship, in this framing, could be categorized as the male-focused companion to critiques that have been made over the past thirty years that feminist legal theory is excluding and essentializing. It is this understanding of the significance of masculinities to feminist legal theory that prompted this Essay.
I begin with summarizing some of the recent work on masculinities and reflect on the relevance of masculinities scholarship to feminist legal theorists. Specifically, I am concerned with the role of identity-based approaches in critical legal theory (feminist or otherwise critical), particularly how they often result in unnecessarily vigorous, overly broad, and ill-conceived accusations about exclusion and silencing that have otherwise similarly oriented individuals at odds with each other. That form of academic criticism may build individual careers, but it also negatively channels energy and resources away from a comprehensive critical legal project in which the demand for social justice is a universal one.
This objective of universality is important. When we deal with the law and the relationship between legal institutions and the structuring of power and authority, as well as their allocation among the individual, the state, and societal institutions, we employ a system dependent on the process of classification, generalization, and universal applicability. My reservations about masculinities theories, and other identity-focused approaches to law, reflect my belief that the most important task for those interested in a social justice project at this particular time in legal history in the United States is to construct a legal subject with which to replace the abstract liberal subject with its accompanying and unrealistic constructs of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and independence. This new legal subject must be based on an appreciation of the human condition in order to effectively displace the rhetoric of personal responsibility, small government, and condemnation of state intervention. The liberal subject is a universal construct and, so, must be its alternative. This is not an argument that discrimination on the basis of categories such as race, gender, or sexual orientation is no longer a problem in the United States. Nor do I suggest that stronger remedies for discrimination are needed. My question is, as interesting as the deconstruction of traditional legal categories such as “woman” and “man” might be, how does the fragmented multiplicity of modified legal subjects that remain after such deconstruction aid a legal theorist in constructing an approach within the confines of our imperfect system to address problems, such as poverty and lack of social mobility, that transcend those fragmented identities?
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