I'm so tired of discussing this and I figure others are too. So I thought it would be productive to have a thread unpacking this concept so we can just point people towards it.

Lots of drama has exploded from a sociology professor's tweet that white male masculinity is the problem in colleges today. Much of this drama begins from a place where people have no idea what this even means so the assumption is that she is saying she hates white men. Now I don't know her and I can't speak for her. But the idea of white male masculinity being problematic is in and of itself not a racist concept but it takes some unpacking to understand it. So let's try.

First, let's take masculinity. This does not mean men it means cultural concepts of manhood i.e. what it means to be a good or appropriate or respected man. Manhood is a seriously understudied but very important subject that is only recently getting a lot of attention. One aspect that has been discussed in the social sciences is the concept of "toxic masculinity" which references the ways in which men (typically in America) are enculturated into an idea of manhood which is contradictory and problematic. For example, presenting the idea of the stoic strong man as an ideal creates concepts of masculinity that demean a man who cries and talks about his feelings. Presenting the ideal of the womanizer who drinks a lot, parties hard, and never settles down puts men in danger of contracting diseases, hurting their bodies from excess consumption of alcohol, damaging personal relationships, etc. These two ideas together create concepts of manhood that hurt the ability of male victims' attempts to seek justice when they are beaten by significant others or raped. Plus, ideals of masculinity such as being a husband, father, and provider exist in tangent with these other concepts creating tensions because one individual cannot fulfill them all at the same time. This all together creates a toxic concept of manhood for both individual men and their communities. Hence, toxic masculinity.

But manhood isn't understood exactly the same all over the world. While scholars like Gilmore point to certain shared big picture ideas, they are set within cultural constraints and value systems so they are enacted and encouraged or repressed depending on the society. Therefore, it is important to not assume that all men even in America share the same worldview and ideas of masculinity. Instead, we need to look at it through different demographic lenses such as class, religion, region, and race.

White masculinity is important for study for a couple reasons. For one, it is simply a demographic breakdown that lets us look at a significant population group in America. But it usually focuses not just on whiteness but these studies situate white masculinity within the middle class American worldview and values. Lots of previous studies discuss how white middle class values and ways of being (dress, speech, gait, manners, foodways, music, etc.) are considered normal and unmarked. Poor and minority groups can lessen their marked status by imitating white middle class ways of being and thereby gain acceptance. Therefore, white male masculinity is important for understanding not just white men's ideas about manhood and how society expects them to behave (contradictions included.) Rather, it also reveals the ways in which most Americans regardless of race are expected to behave in everyday public and work settings. When black men wearing baggy pants and a gold necklace are told to dress and speak "normal" they are actually being told to dress and speak like a middle class white American man. Masculinity is not just cultural concepts but the discursive practices that position individuals as a man. White masculinity is the ways in which this occurs to position individuals as normative men.

Whiteness as normal is often constructed as an identity in relation to difference. In other words the way you draw borders around normality is by highlighting that which doesn't count. White masculinity is hegemonic masculinity meaning it is the "normal" way to behave as a man and this is continuously reinforced both overtly and covertly and even subconsciously. People buy into it as the natural appropriate way of being even if they don't belong to that category. Now few may actually enact it such that white masculinity may not be normal so much as normative.

Almost all men project masculinity in some form at some point as an identity. Yet, it is also an ideology meaning that only a certain subset of masculinities are culturally acceptable. And that ideology shifts depending on context, actors, and timing. As RW Connell puts it, it is not a fixed character type but occupies a position in a given pattern of gender relations and of course race relations (1995). For white masculinity, this plays out in a variety of ways such as speech, dress, behaviors, friendship relations, romantic relationships, workplace interactions, etc. Black masculinity specifically is demarcated as problematic because of racist concepts of what black masculinity entails (and that which it does not - the importance of being a provider, a good father, going to church, etc. are often left out of larger national discourse on the subject.) Black masculinity is marked as celebrating violence and physicality, which white masculinity does emphasize to an extent but has shifted more towards idealizing rationality and technical expertise.

In college or white collar workplace settings non-white men must code-switch and behave, dress, and speak like middle class white men in order to succeed (poor and ethnic white men must do this as well of course but that isn't the subject I'm trying to discuss.) However, white men can at times put on blackness (and other minority performances) without greatly damaging prestige. In fact, such performance of minority identity label by a white male can increase reputation. This is because adopting AAVE can project the hyper-physicality and danger associated with racist concepts of black masculinity. It momentarily raises status as someone to be feared or respected if done correctly. However, as unmarked members of society the white middle class male can return to their previous status fairly easily by code switching back to white middle class speech and gesture behaviors. Black men, though, must constantly put on white middle class attitudes in these settings and a slip or purposeful code switch can permanently mark them as "dangerous".

Now, Demetriou points out that hegemonic masculinity is not just white masculinity but it is a hybrid of various masculinities that work together both locally and across borders to reinforce patriarchy. Connell agrees that there are multiple masculinities working together at times but also against one another at others. For those curious, you can read their discussion here which summaries both his original formulation of masculinity and newer thoughts on the subject.

White masculinity is then worth talking about in college settings because certain aspects can be toxic. Some scholarship suggests it is part of the reason American male college students drink so much, for example. But it also can make for intolerant spaces for minorities attending colleges even if those universities and academic communities are attempting to embrace minority students. Because the normal is often hard to see due to our ethnocentric blind spots, it can be difficult to understand problems of the other in code switching and maintaining production of white masculinity. There are tons of other issues too, which maybe someone else can bring up. Whether you think it is the problem in colleges is a fair debate, of course. But is it a problem? Sure. And I can't understand why someone familiar with the literature would claim that to be a racist statement. White masculinity hurts white men too.

Sources:

• Bucholtz, Mary. "You da man: Narrating the racial other in the production of white masculinity." Journal of Sociolinguistics 3.4 (1999): 443-460.

• Connell, RW. Masculinities. Univ of California Press, 2005.

• Connell, RW., and James W. Messerschmidt. "Hegemonic masculinity rethinking the concept." Gender & society 19.6 (2005): 829-859.

• Savran, David. Taking it like a man: White masculinity, masochism, and contemporary American culture. Princeton University Press, 1998.

• Demetriou, Demetrakis Z. "Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: A critique." Theory and society 30.3 (2001): 337-361.

• Capraro, Rocco L. "Why college men drink: Alcohol, adventure, and the paradox of masculinity." Journal of American College Health 48.6 (2000): 307-315.

• Locke, Benjamin D., and James R. Mahalik. "Examining Masculinity Norms, Problem Drinking, and Athletic Involvement as Predictors of Sexual Aggression in College Men." Journal of Counseling Psychology 52.3 (2005): 279.

• Peralta, Robert L. "College alcohol use and the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity among European American men." Sex roles 56.11-12 (2007): 741-756.