MEN, MASCULINITIES, AND THE NATION – HEADING THE FAMILY AND THE

The conceptual apparatus developed for the theorising and investigation of men and masculinities in various social interactions – concisely presented in the previous section – has also been employed in analyses of the nation and nationalist manifestations (cf. Anand, 2007; Bracewell, 2000; Ferber, 2000;

Huysseune, 2000; Nagel, 1998; Norocel, 2010c; Waetjen, 2001; Zivkovic, 2006), and more recently even in the study of radical right populist movements (Geden, 2005). Focusing on the relationship between nations, nationalist ideology, and the construction and performative of masculinities, the research community appears to have acknowledged the usefulness of such a perspective in uncovering the gendered nature of national constructs. Indeed, within the nationalist ideology the two hegemonic forms, that of nationalism and normative masculinity, articulate a symbiotic relationship. More clearly, the cult of the nation emphasises and resonates with cultural themes that praise normative masculinity, and concepts such as ‘honour, patriotism, cowardice, bravery and duty are hard to distinguish as either nationalist or masculinist, since they seem so thoroughly tied to both the nation and manliness’ (Nagel, 1998: 252).

Nevertheless, several feminist researchers have argued for a more nuanced perspective on the place of masculinities within nationalist ideology (cf. Anand, 2008; Bracewell, 2000; Munn, 2008; Norocel, 2010c; Waetjen, 2001). Most importantly, some researchers have appealed for a more complex understanding of the two hegemonic discourses and demonstrated the need to conceptualise them as historically situated, hence dependent upon specific modes of production,

reproduction, and political control. In so doing, they have reiterated and concomitantly refined the criticism voiced by earlier feminist research on masculinities and nationalism, which warned that the theorising of nations and nationalism from a gender perspective runs the risk of treating men and masculinities as stable, undifferentiated categories, and equating male interests with masculinity and nationalism (cf. Bracewell, 2000; Waetjen, 2001). The concept of gender power is one alternative theoretical construct that enables researchers to account for the inherent stratification among men in the allegedly unitary national body, since social cleavages along class lines are an indistinguishable part of the nationalist construct across time (Waetjen, 2001:

124). Consequently, being aware of the internal divisions present among men represents a first step in deconstructing the central position of masculinity in nationalist mythologies.

A similar position is shared by other researchers in the field that have concentrated their scholarly attention either on the post–conflict environments – such as in Kosovo, and interrogated ‘the latent insurrectionary power of nationalist myths and practices as narrative performances of hegemonic masculinity’ (Munn, 2008: 143–144) – or who researched manifestations of

‘porno–nationalism’ – a term which accounts for the centrality of sexualised imagination in Hindu ‘nationalism as an ideology and a lived collective political movement’ (Anand, 2008: 163) – or even on the ambiguous relationship between political power, ‘deviance’, and nativist masculinity performatives – the conflict between effeminate men, masculine women, corrupted aristocracy and foreigners, and the eventually triumphant nativist masculinity engendered by Romanian peasantry (Norocel, 2010c: 9–10). However, it is imperative that the scholars with a gender–sensitive research agenda are aware of the multi–faceted nature of masculinity because it ‘may have for gender theory the same metaphoric value it has for nationalism – an overstated cohesion of interests, forces, and ideologies.’

(Waetjen, 2001: 123)

Importantly, the studies mentioned above have shown that the dominant, steadfast, and heterosexual typology of masculinity represents the epitome of the national community understood in ethnic/‘racial’/religious terms. In nationalist reasoning, the Others are deemed inferior, being assigned a feminised position.

Feminisation, it is worth noting further, can be manifested at a symbolic level – domination exercised by a competing masculinity that acquires a hegemonic position – or at a more physical level – the most radical being the act of rape of either the group’s women or even of the subordinated men themselves. Such feminisation of the Other, or the threat of feminisation by a competing community, is of global recurrence in nationalist thinking (cf. Anand, 2007; 2008;

Bracewell, 2000; Huysseune, 2000; Munn, 2008; Zivkovic, 2006). For example, in the separatist debates of the Northern League (Lega Nord, LN) – a regionalist and radical right populist party in Italy – a recurring exclusionary practise is

feminising the geographic and political Other (Huysseune, 2000). More clearly, the LN portrayed ‘Padania’ (a region in northern Italy, roughly overlapping the contours of the river Po basin) in opposition to both a corrupt and ‘politicianist’

centre (Rome), and a backward and dormant south. As such, ‘southern Italian effeminacy’ was presented as a threat to the masculine straightforwardness and righteousness of ‘Padanians’, as the southerners’ ‘feminine nature’ enabled them to be skilful manipulators (Huysseune, 2000: 603). Making use of a traditionalist interpretation of the hierarchical gender binary, the LN claimed not only a higher moral standing, but also the subsequent subordination of the south to the superiority of the north (Huysseune, 2000: 604–605). The party has in other words construed a normative hierarchy inasmuch as it separated along geographical lines between northern masculine superiority and domination, and southern submissiveness. In so doing, the LN discourse espoused its ideological affinity with the ‘colonialist vision of the North–South relation of earlier discourse of nation–building’ (Huysseune, 2000: 607).

Other feminist scholars have in turn uncovered the close interaction between purist conceptions of heteronormative masculinity and racist ideology (cf. Ferber, 2000; McClintock, 1995). A closer investigation of two seemingly unconnected social movements, in the US, the white supremacy and the mythopoetic men’s movements, shows that both gather disenfranchised white males and ‘blame the losses of white men on women and minorities’ (Ferber, 2000: 32). Even more so, these movements appear to share a common sense of insecurity and the need to uphold their hegemonic position within the society. Because ‘both racial and gender identities are increasingly revealed to be unstable, that those who have the most invested in these categories and their hierarchical construction react by reasserting their unwavering foundations’ (Ferber, 2000: 40). In doing so, the two movements proclaim the essential nature of these identity constructs, and as such envisage a re–masculinisation of the hierarchical gender binary – put simply, a restoration of an allegedly glorious past in which the ‘white race’ and heteronormative masculinity constructions were unchallenged.

Nationalist ideology, however, does not seem to be exclusively concerned with the ethnically/‘racially’ different outside Other. Within the national body there are contesting definitions of masculinity, and how gender relations should be envisaged and reproduced. These too are subject to a process of normative evaluation and policing. Through these practices, the nationalist ideology underlines the desired masculinity performative and proclaims its hegemonic status. In so doing, it also defines the ‘abomination’ falling off the normative spectrum – the non–heteronormative masculinity (cf. Kulpa, 2011; Mosse, 1996;

Norocel, 2010c; Stevens, 1999). As Connell has aptly noted, there is no other conception of masculinity more destabilizing than that of homosexuality. Indeed, within the dynamics of hegemony of masculinity in the Western world, ‘the relationship between heterosexual and homosexual men is central, carrying a

heavy symbolic freight. To many people homosexuality is a negation of masculinity, and homosexual men must be effeminate’ (Connell, 1992: 736).

A case in point here is the emergence of political homophobia. As I have evidenced elsewhere, homosexuality has oftentimes been depicted as a disease on the otherwise healthy national body, and regarded as a possible threat to the dominating heterosexual masculinity performative, since the possibility of the latter being corrupted into homosexuality can never be excluded thereby undermining the whole national project (Norocel, 2010c). The only feasible option in such a situation has been to banish homosexuality extra muros, separating the

‘true’ masculine embodiments of the nation from its ‘weak’ and ‘perverted’

manifestations portrayed by homosexual desire and its corresponding masculinity performative¹⁸. To sum up, what I make use of in the present study is a conceptual symbiosis between the normative masculinity performative and nationalist ideology – particularly the main means to operate a separation between the various groups of men and their different masculinity performatives, with an emphasis on the reproductive heteronormative masculinity performative of the ethnic majority as the apex of the nation construct, and the various means it is afforded to dismiss and control competing masculinity performatives.

3.2 FOR GENDER–SENSITIVE RESEARCH OF RADICAL RIGHT