1 Introduction
I come to this topic as a white, middle-aged,
Northern, heterosexual male with multi-layered
structural privileges on most counts. After a
symposium on politicising masculinities some six
years ago together with a stimulating mixture of
international colleagues in Senegal (Esplen and
Greig 2008), I felt that the way forward must
involve moving beyond the homogenised and
individualised framings of development discourse
on gender and men. I also felt that those of us
engaged with gender and men need to think about
masculinities more politically, and in structural-
yet-dynamic terms (Edström 2011). If we are to
get more politically grounded, I now realise more
clearly how many of us need to engage better with
feminist thought, as well as with thinking on
power and the reality of patriarchy as a resilient
and pervasive – if sometimes obscure – ‘order’ in
most societies and structures of power, which also
blinkers our own outlooks.
My proposition is that in order to more helpfully
take the men and masculinities field forward
within international development, we must dig
far deeper into the patriarchal structures of
constraint to gender equality, in fact into the
sub-structural veins and sources of patriarchy
itself. We must also: become more self-aware of
our positions in all of this; recognise that we are
conflicted and limited; and hold ourselves and
each other to account in our daily lives and make
bigger efforts to build a fairer world, alongside
women and others less privileged than ourselves.
It is not enough to see men and boys in ‘diverse
and complex’ terms recognising their own
vulnerability, etc., although that is indeed an
important starting point for any relevant work
with different men and boys. More importantly,
we must see violence, inequality and oppression
as themselves structural and dynamic, with deep
old roots in resilient patriarchal orders and in
our ways of seeing the world, and ways of
interacting within it. This project of undressing
patriarchy has been most clearly advanced and
described by feminist thinkers thus far, by
excavating notions such as the subordination of
women, discrimination against women, the
marginalisation of women’s voices and
perspectives, along with all things feminine and,
indeed, the notion of deep structures of
constraint to gender equality.
In a searching attempt to better follow their
lead, I will frame my approach by drawing on a
few feminist thinkers, as well as writers on
masculinities and on power, in order to propose a
set of considerations which could inform how
111
The Male Order Development
Encounter
Jerker Edström
Abstract In order to more helpfully take the men and masculinities field forward within international
development, we must reveal deep patriarchal structures of constraint to gender equality. This article frames
an approach, by drawing on feminist thinkers, writers on masculinities and thinkers on power, to propose a
set of considerations informing how patriarchy might be analysed in depth. Setting out four dimensions
(representational, material, ideological and epistemological) in which to undress patriarchy, the article
explores male centredness, male privilege, male supremacy and a concept of ‘male order’. The latter provides
both the deep-level syntax and the inbuilt directionality of patriarchal power structures, through diffuse
micro-technologies of gendered knowledge-power. The four dimensions are applied to a characterisation of
recent policy discourse on the role of men in gender equality, to then conclude with priorities for research
and highlighting the need for making the work more explicitly political as well as personal.
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patriarchy might be analysed. I will suggest a
four-dimensional framework for such an analysis
or undressing. I will then go through this
framework, by each proposed dimension, to muse
promiscuously on how it may have started to
become addressed to greater or lesser degrees in
development discourse on the role of men and
boys. In a concluding discussion, I finally reflect
on the potential implications of this way of
analysing patriarchy and on challenges ahead.
2 Framing the analytic gaze for a disrobing
approach
‘Structural approaches’ have become more
popular recently in debates and policy
discussions on gender and development, whether
related to issues of health, economic justice or
gendered violence. What structural approaches
really mean, however, depends partly on what
disciplines and sectors you are dealing with, but
many approaches in development come back to
ecological models of individuals (or households)
as nested in proximal-to-distal levels of context,
through which ‘shocks’ are transmitted to these
units of analysis, usually framed as ‘vulnerable’.
On the positive side they encourage us to
recognise ‘levels’ or ‘sectors’ relevant to the
work, as well as to recognise that we are all
operating within social systems that need
changing. On the more negative side, most
structural models often fall back on a small set of
composite strategies at different levels or in
different sectors aimed at changing individuals
(cocooned at the centre of these familiar
ecological models). In doing so, they: quickly get
abstract, ahistorical, reductive and linear; deal
poorly with intersectionality (or, multiple axes of
inequity); lend themselves to a sense of
determinism; thus constrict unexpected aspects
of agency; and, finally, leave the observer (or the
benevolent development ‘interlocutor’) out of the
structural dynamic itself.
It is clear that structures and systems shape
people, their habits and development. Equally, it
is clear that it takes people, in particular
constellations and contexts, to create change
together (even if facing resistance), including
change to reform broader systems. The
separation of ‘people’ from ‘the system’ is
therefore somewhat artificial, but still useful to
shift the frame on change beyond the individual
level. More than how individual women and men
are shaped, or change, a structural approach to
gender inequality should focus primarily on how
our systems themselves change, and how we can
influence such change. For thinking structurally
about patriarchy, in particular, I feel it is useful
to see it as a ‘dynamic system’ involving the
exercise of powers, resistance and change.
This is not thinking of structure in some
monolithic or deterministic way, but seeing
patriarchy as evolving historically and being
continuously reshaped through adaptations of
historical processes and logics of contestation,
co-option, domination, resistance, reorganisation
and legitimation. This works over time, across
generations, through multiple levels and scales of
aggregation (from minds and bodies to
communities, classes, nations and supra-national
formations), as well as across multiple disciplinary
domains, or ‘sectors’ (such as law, medicine,
economics, defence, organised religion, art and
culture) and, finally, in multiple dimensions. That
is, in the case of patriarchy, beyond the relatively
visible male-centred cultural dimension of
representation to more material institutional
male privileges and ideologies of male supremacy
down to often virtually invisible epistemological
dimensions of meanings in these dynamics and
interactions. It is against this outlook on the
structural as dynamic system that I want to
explore and undress patriarchy, by drawing ideas
from other writers, in the following sections, to
construct a framework for analysis.
2.1 Fraser’s ‘deep structures’ of inequity and
cooptation in multiple dimensions
In considering the resilience of capitalism and
the mixed fortunes of feminisms’ ‘dangerous
liaisons’ with its neoliberal incarnation over the
last 40 years or so, Nancy Fraser points out that
‘most second-wave feminists – with the notable
exception of liberal-feminists – concurred that
overcoming women’s subordination required
radical transformation of the deep structures of
the social totality’ (Fraser 2009: 104). In referring
to second-wave feminist debates about ‘how best
to characterize… [this] “social totality”’, Fraser
avoids articulations explicitly based on patriarchy
and explains her own view that it was at the time
‘a historically specific, androcentric form of state-
organized capitalist society, structured by three
interpenetrating orders of subordination:
(mal)distribution, (mis)recognition and
(mis)representation’ (ibid.: 104). Moving forward
strategically on this consensus was complicated
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by the fact that ‘the rise of second-wave feminism
coincided with a historical shift in the character
of capitalism, from the state-organized variant…
to neoliberalist’, which essentially ‘proposed to
use markets to tame politics’ (ibid.: 107) rather
than vice versa, as was previously the case. This
forms part of the basis for her analysis, which
very convincingly describes how many current
strands of feminism, whilst meeting with several
opportunities proffered by neoliberalism, have
nevertheless become more or less co-opted under
global capitalism.
Whilst I find this very attractive for analysing the
‘historical moment’ of dual crises in global
capitalism and in contemporary feminism, the
privileging of logics of capitalism as the main
explanation for the ‘deep structures’ to gender
inequities feels slightly unsatisfactory, however.
Patriarchal logics of capitalism were clearly built
on earlier modalities of ‘social totalities’ (which
may always be ‘relative’ at any rate), be they
agrarian, mercantile, feudal, imperial or city-state
slave economies, etc. back in history to some
obscure distant point in the past. More useful for
my purposes, however, are three particular aspects
to her analysis: first, simultaneously looking at
gender justice in multiple dimensions (in her case:
economic, cultural and political – focusing on
‘redistribution’, ‘recognition’ and ‘representation’);
second, appealing to the ‘deep structures’ driving
this injustice; and, third, exploring the notion of
resilient power structures essentially ‘co-opting’
contesting progressive agendas.
2.2 Butler on ‘gender performativity’ and
‘phallogocentrism’ of the gender-binary
Another key influence in this, for me, comes from
a more queering strand of feminism, namely
Judith Butler’s (1990) inversion of the sex/gender
problem. This helped to clarify the role of
relational performativity or habitual and
structured practices in the social constructions of
gender (rather than sex explaining the patterns
of our habits and performances), as also discussed
by Karioris in the case of men’s ‘homosocial’
relations (this IDS Bulletin). This has been
essential to thinking differently about our
relationship to context and breaking away from
too binary a view of gender, which sticks together
with the more general tendency of reading the
world in binaries (or one dimensional scales), as I
noted and grappled with in an earlier exploration
of ‘sticky binaries’ whilst looking at masculinities
in HIV (Edström 2011). Following Jacques
Derrida, Butler also helpfully combines the two
concepts ‘phallocentrism’ and ‘logocentrism’ into
‘phallogocentrism’, to deconstruct a positivistic
and dualistic logic to reading the world in
binaries, whilst applying it to the problem of that
world being mainly identified through a male gaze.
2.3 Connell and others on ‘masculinities’ and
‘hegemonic masculinity’
Another strand of important inspiration comes
from the field of masculinities research and
theory, for its explorations of performed
‘masculinities’, as multiple/diverse, social,
contradictory and contesting, interlinked in
hierarchical relationships, as well as dynamic and
changing, most influentially presented by Connell
(1995). A rich diversity of ethnographic work and
publication came out in the late 1980s to mid-
1990s, charting different masculinities in diverse
and comparative settings. As argued forcefully by
Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (1994)
such evidence shows how men must be dislocated
from any singular notion of masculinity and that
particular forms of masculinity can disempower
both men and women. Whilst also having
encountered various forms of critique, Raewyn
Connell and James Messerschmidt’s (2005)
defence of the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’
feels very helpful to an exploration of patriarchy,
especially through its combination of attention to
contesting hierarchical power relations amongst
men and masculinities, combined with an
interesting use of the Gramscian concept of
‘hegemony’. The authors point to extensive
ethnographic ‘evidence of the active struggle for
dominance that is implicit in the Gramscian
concept of hegemony…’ and that, in this evidence,
hegemony ‘did not mean violence… [primarily]…;
it meant ascendancy achieved through culture,
institutions, and persuasion’ (ibid.: 832). They also
point out that ‘challenges to hegemony are
common, and so are adjustments in the face of
these challenges’ (ibid.: 835) and that the
Gramscian idea of hegemony is one ‘that embeds
certain notions of consent and participation by the
subaltern groups’ (ibid.: 841). This fits well with
the co-option of women’s empowerment agendas
in individualised and commoditised forms under
neoliberalism, observed by Fraser (2009).
Connell and Messerschmidt elaborate on the
concept, discussing Demetrakis Demetriou’s
(2001) distinction between internalised and
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external (more systemic) hegemony and describe
how hegemonic masculinity is itself made up of
multiple and interlinking masculinities in a
dominant ‘hegemonic masculine bloc’. This does
far more than adapt to changing conditions, but
is rather a form of hybridisation actively
appropriating diverse or opposing elements,
making it ‘capable of reconfiguring itself and
adapting to the specificities of new historical
conjunctures’ (Demetriou 2001: 355, cited in
Connell and Messerschmidt 2005: 845). This is
illustrated by the increasing visibility of gay
masculinity in the West, which enables some
heterosexual men to appropriate certain
inflections of gay culture in hybrid practices,
blurring gender differences, yet not necessarily
challenging or undermining patriarchy. An
extension of this kind of argument could be
Patrick Welsh’s (this IDS Bulletin) argument
about the co-option of some progressive sexual
rights leaders’ management styles into
patriarchal orders. If we then look at women and
feminism, also recognising the possibility of
women ‘performing masculinity’, it becomes
easier to see how dominant masculinities can
appropriate both women’s and men’s agendas,
which may appear very progressive, feminist or
pro-feminist without necessarily undermining
patriarchy in any deep sense. The exact workings
of such patriarchal co-option into new forms of
power needs further study, but it is certainly
possible that such changes may open up
possibilities for gradual shifts.
2.4 Greig on the ‘masculinity of hegemony’ in anxious
states of power
In a deeply thoughtful chapter on ‘states of
anxiety’ in contemporary gendered power orders,
Alan Greig (2011) explores how shifts in the
political economy of gender are causing anxieties
amongst those most privileged by existing
patriarchal arrangements, at the level of Fraser’s
(2009) ‘deep structural connections’. He argues
that gender shifts have the potential to
‘destabilize a fundamental tenet of patriarchal
ideology, whose masculine/feminine binary serves
to naturalize social inequalities… [and]… secure
consent to hierarchical social relations’ (Greig
2011: 220). Also picking up on the concept of
hegemony, Greig appears to reverse ‘hegemonic
masculinity’ and argues that hegemony itself
appears very masculine in character and that
power and authority are both deeply
masculinised, explaining: ‘It is this masculinity
of hegemony that changes in the gender order
threaten to undermine’ (ibid.: 220). He then
performs a deft analysis – not unlike Fraser
(2009) does on the co-option of feminism – and
argues that ‘the evolution of the “men and
masculinities” field, in work on issues of
violence and sexual health, must be understood
not only in the context of, but also as complicit
with, these crisis management efforts of
anxious states’ (Greig 2011: 220) and that,
ultimately, ‘investing hope in “kinder, gentler
expressions of masculinity” as a way to bring
about changes in the social order has proved
illusory’ (ibid.: 233).
2.5 Other analyses of power as relational,
multidimensional and epistemological
Whilst a fuller treatment of the topic of power, is
well beyond my own powers here, I would like to
borrow loosely from a few recent thinkers on this
old topic. The twentieth century political
scientist Robert Dhal famously defined ‘power’
in rather reductive behaviourist terms, such that
‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get
B to do something which B would otherwise not
do’ (Dahl 1957: 202–3). I find it more useful to
follow Lisa VeneKlasen and Valerie Miller
(2002), who construct a framing of power by
drawing from a range of different thinkers to
suggest four different ‘kinds’ of power, namely:
power over (related to Dahl’s vision of power
relations); power to (focused more on agency and
capacity); power with (suggesting power as also
social and collective); and, power within
(speaking to deeper sources of internalised
energy and inspiration). As Robert Chambers
discusses in an article on transforming power
away from a zero-sum perspective (2006), seeing
different kinds of power in this way enables us to
see it in more dynamic ways and at different
levels. In a project with various colleagues on
mobilising men to challenge sexual and gender-
based violence in institutional settings (see e.g.
Otieno or Das and Singh, this IDS Bulletin) Greig
suggested a similar focus on ‘levels’ to analyse
gendered power, arguing that we can see the
‘gender-sexuality system, and the violence that
comes from it and helps to maintain it, as
working at four levels… in the 4I’s Framework’
(Greig 2012: 46), which encompasses internal
(personal), interpersonal, institutional and
ideological levels. Whilst also related to the way
we internalise gender assumptions, our own
roles, identities, etc., the ideological level or
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dimension becomes crucial in patriarchy, for
naturalising male supremacy.
In addition to different types of power, or
proximal-to-distal levels, other writers point to
various other spaces and forms of power for
influence and change, such as John Gaventa’s
(2006) power analysis of open, invited and closed
spaces alongside visible, hidden and invisible
forms of power. I propose to think about how
hidden and invisible powers may operate in
terms of patriarchal gender orders, beyond the
representational sphere (where a centring on
masculinities and male perspectives may ‘hide’
women’s concerns) down to deeper levels of
possibilities of visibility at all, rooted in
epistemology and constructions of meaning and
realities. Michel Foucault’s (1978) ideas of
knowledge-power as diffuse networks of
disciplinary micro-technologies giving rise,
visibility and reality to new concepts and
constructs, such as the very idea of sexuality,
become appealing for these purposes. In terms of
a patriarchal dimension to such diffuse systems
of knowledge-power, I would also appeal to
Butler’s focus on ‘phallogocentrism’ as a
particularly gendering form of reductive binary
thinking starting with the male.
A final piece of inspiration in this comes from
the American sociologist Alan Johnson, who
describes patriarchy in analogous terms to a
resilient life-form, likened to a tree, with four
essential roots into ‘deep structures’. He
describes these roots as male dominance, male
centredness, male identification and an
‘obsession with control and order’ (Johnson
1997). Whilst not described exactly in these
terms by Johnson, I connect his last ‘root’ with
Connell’s and Messerschmidt’s ideas of the
hegemonic bloc (of masculinities) actively
struggling to maintain hegemony, as well as with
Greig’s notion that hegemony itself is
masculinised, through a particularly strong and
old connection between a reductive binary way of
thinking and the supremacy – or ‘standard’ – of
the male as power, automatically ‘othering’
alternative possibilities. This, I propose to call
‘male order’, borrowing a term used by a number
of writers on masculinities and feminism (e.g.
Chapman and Rutherford 1988; Seidler 1994).
So, I propose that an analysis of patriarchy needs
to do several things, namely:
z explore the ‘deep structures’ of gender
inequity and cooptation in multiple
dimensions, co-evolving historically;
z recognise gender as socially constructed
through ‘performativity’;
z dislocate men from masculinity and women
from femininity as a way to understand the
vast diversity in lived lives;
z link gendering structures and practices of
power to multiple ‘masculinities’ in
constellations of ‘hegemonic masculinity’;
z explore the masculinity of hegemony itself; and
z see power as relational, dynamic,
multidimensional and epistemologically
generated, with a reductive ‘phallogocentrism’
of the gender-binary as central to its more
generally reductive logic in its patriarchal form.
3 Four male dimensions to patriarchy
It is against this background, then, that I
propose an adapted version of Johnson’s four
roots of patriarchy, by suggesting we explore it in
four dimensions (representational, institutional,
ideological and epistemological), with clear
relevance to key feminist insights about gender
injustice. What I call ‘the four Ms of patriarchy’
should help us to see that:
z ‘Male centredness’ (in a representational
dimension) must be exposed and dislocated to
shine a light on the marginalisation of women
and subordinate groups’ perspectives.
z ‘Male privilege’ needs to be mapped and
rooted out (in an institutional dimension),
with its multiple forms of individual and
collective discrimination against women and
other disadvantaged subjects.
z ‘Male supremacy’ (in an ideological
dimension) must be taken far more seriously,
reflectively and honestly in our long, deep and
dark – but changing – history of subordination
of women, linked to misogyny, racism,
nationalism and heterosexism.
z ‘Male order’ (in an epistemological
dimension) must be deciphered, hacked and
disrupted, as it provides the deep-level syntax
of patriarchal systems of knowledge-power,
with their underlying binary-code operating
systems, and active obfuscation of potential
alternative constructions of sense and
meaning as nonsense.
The first three of these dimensions are related to
(if somewhat different from) Fraser’s three
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