Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity

The past 20 years have seen a growing interest in the issues surrounding men and masculinity. This has been driven primarily by the second-wave feminist critique of the legitimacy or hegemony of masculine practice and culture. The hegemony of men in social spheres such as the family, law and the workplace can no longer be taken for granted. This book contributes to contemporary understandings of men and masculinity, presenting a detailed examination of hegemonic masculinity. Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity is an innovative and radical exploration of domination, gender and social justice. Beginning with the work of Antonio Gramsci, Richard Howson develops the full complexity of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, presenting a tripartite model of hegemony. The book also engages with Connell’s models of masculinities, and through extending and elaborating on Connell’s theories, offers new possibilities for social justice. This book will be a valuable resource for students and academics involved in gender and masculinity studies, political sociology and the sociology of law. Richard Howson is a Lecturer in social theory, gender and social policy at the University of Wollongong, Australia.

Routledge advances in sociology This series aims to present cutting-edge developments and debates within the field of sociology. It will provide a broad range of case studies and the latest theoretical perspectives, while covering a variety of topics, theories and issues from around the world. It is not confined to any particular school of thought.

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Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity

Richard Howson

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2006 Richard Howson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-69892-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-35231-2 (Print Edition)

For Robyn and Sara

Contents

Acknowledgements

x

1

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

1

2

Revolutionising the revolution: towards a tripartite model of hegemony

9

3

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’: hegemony in the theory of practice

34

4

The application of hegemony to gender

55

5

Constructing a study of masculinities and family law: history, aims and methodology

80

A critico-historical analysis of masculinities and family law: explorations into heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggression

91

6

7

Radical pluralism

122

8

Radical organic protest in gender

139

9

Conclusion

154

Notes Bibliography Index

165 177 184

Acknowledgements

The research for this book was carried out whilst in receipt of a three-year Teaching Scholarship in the Sociology Program at the University of Wollongong. I would like to warmly thank a number of people who have been part of this journey. In particular, Professor Andrew Wells and Dr Fiona Borthwick with whom the often arduous road to completion of a Doctoral thesis was made a more enjoyable one. I would also like to thank Professor Ernesto Laclau and Professor Alastair Davidson for their insightful comments and encouragement on the finished thesis, and a special thank you to Dr Mike Donaldson for bringing me to Wollongong. I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Bob Connell, whose work has been inspirational, as well as to the work and memory of Antonio Gramsci. I would also like to thank the anonymous Routledge reviewer for their comments and support on the original typescript.

1

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

In recent years there has been a rising interest, even concern, about issues surrounding men and masculinity, which as the Australian sociologist R.W. Connell (1998: 1) argues, now extends worldwide. Nevertheless, it has been in Western cultures, marked by what some have termed post-industrialism,1 that the greatest transformations have occurred in the politics of gender. This is primarily because in these cultures the impact of second-wave feminism has been most acutely felt. For example, the feminist movement opened up and questioned, amongst other things, masculine relations, practices and identities which either directly or indirectly gave rise to various religious and secular based men’s movements, father’s rights and support groups, profeminist and anti-feminist activists, gay and queer movements as well as a plethora of literature, both of an academic and popular nature dealing with issues such as, men’s emotions, relationships, work, parenting, media representations, power and crisis. This nascent enthusiasm and concern about masculinity and its operation in gender relations became evident at the everyday level through the popularity of books such as, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1992) by John Gray, and in Australia, Manhood (1994) by Steve Biddulph. This visible interest and concern in the community about men and masculinity sat in contrast to the more traditional belief that discussing masculine emotionality, work and power, for example, is of little social importance because, for many men, to normatively express their masculinity they simply had to work hard, provide for their family and remain tough through the hard times. However, a paradox emerges within the project of this popular literature in that, even though it encourages a new interest, with respect to men’s issues, within a significant yet, historically dormant section of the community, the bulk of the works that sit under this rubric continue to express traditional interpretations of gender relations and practice, in which biologically based gender delineations and functional reciprocity are sustained as legitimate grounds for knowledge about normative gender behaviour.2 In contrast, the theme of much recent academic research on men is to expose within conceptions of masculinity the problematicity of essentialism and its concomitant rigidity about certain roles and practices. However, the history

2

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

of academic research into men and masculinity, while spanning much of the twentieth century, took as its starting point, in sociology at least, the emergent social problem of boys after the Second World War. This work drew on the existing psychological research and, in particular, role theory. As a result, structural functionalist sex-role theory emerged as the authoritative paradigm through which the correct relations and practices for boys and their transition into men could be explained (Carrigan et al. 1987: 72–73). But it too, in the final analysis, was fettered to traditional principles of gender and gender relations. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the secondwave feminist challenge had begun to expose the problematicity of functionalism (see Millett 1971: 220–233) and opened up new trajectories for knowledge about men, masculinity and gender relations. Thus, the development of research that offers a progressive critique of the operations of masculinity, grounded in social justice, began with the second-wave women’s movement, and continues to be driven by the profound and systematic work of academic feminism. In the past two decades there has been a significant involvement by heterosexual men in the elaboration and extension of this feminist critique (Petersen 1998: 1) which, in turn, reflects a desire by men and women (manifest in the consumption of the popular literature) to get closer to an epistemology about gender relations and practices that influence their way of life and which, until now, has simply been taken for granted. This quantitative and qualitative shift in interest has given rise to important changes in the method of developing critique, primarily by enabling an expansion of the scope of issues and perspectives through which they are now examined. But, most importantly, this broader representative involvement marks an ideological movement within a discursive dispersion that influences all those who seek to understand the issues that surround men. This creates a sense of equivalence, in so far as there is a shared commitment to give those issues surrounding men and masculinity a new importance. The aggregation of interest in issues surrounding masculinity as it developed through academic research has not resulted in the homogenisation of knowledge. Rather, the emerging discourse of masculinity is a diverse field in which differing points of departure produce contrasting epistemological positions (Connell 1995: 3–42). However, through this heterogeneity, some provocative researches have been undertaken, which in turn, have exposed concepts and issues long in need of examination and development. A key contributor to the progressive academic research on men and masculinity is the Australian sociologist, R.W. Connell, whose rejection of the conceptual singularity of masculinity has opened up new possibilities for understanding it as a socially constructed multiplicity. This exposition and development of masculinity represents a significant attempt to provide a theoretical framework in which the concept ‘masculine’ can be constituted in a manner less antithetical to the aims of social justice. However, by viewing masculinity as ‘masculinities’, Connell contends that there exists

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge 3 within the multiplicity of types, a largely symbolic, though legitimate, ideal type of masculinity that imposes upon all other masculinities (and femininities) coherence and meaning about what their own identities and positions within the gender order3 should be. Crucially, though, while this ideal emerges and develops from within the socio-cultural milieu, it becomes essentialised and ultimately, reified as the benchmark against which all men must gauge their success in the gender order. This ideal is hegemonic masculinity. More than fifty books have appeared in the English language in the last decade or so on men and masculinity. What is hegemonic masculinity as it is presented in this growing literature? Hegemonic masculinity, particularly as it appears in the works of Carrigan, Connell and Lee, Chapman, Cockburn, Connell, Lichterman, Messner and Rutherford involves a specific strategy for the subordination of women. In their view, hegemonic masculinity concerns the dread of and flight from women. A culturally idealised form, it is both personal and a collective project, and is the common sense about breadwinning and manhood. It is exclusive, anxiety-provoking, internally and hierarchically differentiated, brutal and violent. It is pseudo-natural, tough, contradictory, crisis-prone, rich and socially sustained. While centrally connected with the institutions of male dominance, not all men practice it, though most benefit from it. Although cross-class, it often excludes working-class, gay and black-men. It is a lived experience, and an economic and cultural force, and dependent on social arrangements. It is constructed through difficult negotiation over a life-time. Fragile it may be, but it constructs the most dangerous things we live with. Resilient, it incorporates its own critiques, but it is, nonetheless, ‘unravelling’. (Donaldson 1993: 645–646) Two aspects of this excellent description of hegemonic masculinity emerge as significant. First, it is possible to see the axiomatic position that hegemonic masculinity has assumed within the literature as both the symbolic representative of the legitimate masculine ideal, as well as the focus for the critique of masculinity. In other words, to understand gender in the contemporary situation, it is imperative to know how hegemonic masculinity operates. Second, hegemonic masculinity is not imposed upon the gender order exogenously but, rather, as emerging from and through the socio-cultural milieu itself. However, as its legitimacy develops, it effectively takes control of the gender order by directing the whole gender polity in line with its own ideality. In effect, the principles that define its nature and ensure its continued existence transcend the concrete everyday life of people and become a dominative force through which the possibilities for social justice in gender are made profoundly problematic. This is based on an understanding of social justice as a progressive aspiration, that is, the moment(s) at

4

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

which closure within a hegemonic situation is subverted so that there is openness about knowledge and practice. However, as Donaldson argues, hegemonic masculinity provides its own form of justice, which is delivered through the adherence, or at least, the desire to adhere, to certain privileged principles that set the benchmark for social order. Therefore, it becomes an imperative of hegemonic masculinity to protect its principles against challenge, which in turn ensures that its justice is always already a system of closure that sits antithetically to social justice. Further, the discussions that follow will show this antithetic positioning is based on hegemonic masculinity’s precarious nexus with its foundational concept: hegemony, as developed in the work of Antonio Gramsci. The etymological roots of hegemony can be traced back to the Ancient Greek etymon hegemonia, which effectively meant, ‘to lead’ (Wickersham 1994). However, more recently the term emerged in the emancipative discourses of the early Russian social democratic movement around the turn of the nineteenth century and, soon after, in the discourse of revolution that underpinned Leninism (Anderson 1976: 15–17). It is from this latter discursive frame that the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, was introduced to the term in a pragmatic sense. However, its development in his writings would not see it assume the same ossified politico-economic meaning. In effect, Gramsci’s employment of the term draws more closely from the Ancient Greek meaning ‘to lead’ and in this context its reconfiguration, beginning in his politico-journalistic writings and extending into his Prison Notebooks (between 1915 and 1935) enabled it to move beyond the conceptual closure of a socio-cultural system fixed to and determined by the dominant group’s fundamental principles. But most importantly, Gramsci’s work, and what might be referred to as his theory of hegemony, saw this politico-economic and dominative understanding as negativity from which the imperative was to develop strategies for its breakdown. This is achieved though selfknowledge, which can only develop and operate within and through culture. This, in turn, would enable a new and progressive aspiration for social justice. Although Gramsci’s thoughts and writings with respect to hegemony were primarily couched in terms of a class-based discourse, the strength of his ideas exist in their ability to allow subsequent thinkers to employ concepts such as historical bloc, war of position and war of movement, moral and intellectual leadership and collective will in other domains of social and political struggle. Specifically for gender politics,4 the importance of the concept hegemony is, as Gottfried (1998: 5–6) argues, as a conceptual tool through which certain configurations of practice can be explored in ways that allow for the dissolution of the static opposition between agency and structure. Thus, structures of power are contingent and constitutive in the sense that they are seen as mobile and organic combinations of cultural and ideological meanings. In other words, the authority of a particular hegemonic group in a post-industrial situation can no longer be seen to emerge from the foundation of economics and politics but, crucially, from the dis-

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge 5 cursive space in which all socio-cultural factors are brought to bear and, through which, civil society is given a new-found importance beside that of political society (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). The concept of hegemonic masculinity, as developed and articulated by Connell, is an attempt to synthesise some of the fundamental ideas from Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, such as the emphasis on socio-cultural and ideological structures and processes, the importance of history as a generative force and recognition of praxis or the nexus between theory and practice, with his own practice-based masculinities theory. However, the result, as will be shown, is the obfuscation of the full complexity of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony through the underdevelopment of hegemony’s aspirational efficacy, which is evident throughout the pre-prison and prison-based writings. This, in turn, works to emphasise the more passive and historically deterministic view of a hegemonic situation. More importantly, a consequence of this obfuscation is that hegemony and social justice are posited as mutually exclusive possibilities because the nature of hegemony is always as one of singularity, homogeneity and closure around the dominant group’s core principles, and where change occurs it does so only in spontaneous and ad hoc movements as a product of history. So, in the final analysis, this type of challenge and change within gender politics, as will be shown, will stifle aspiration for social justice because it fails to produce the holistic sociohistorical critique required and, instead, imposes a systemic ambivalence that shields the core principles. Thus, the masculine hegemonic system that marks current gender politics represents a system of closure and oppression which, of course, reflects precisely the system of patriarchy that was so effectively exposed by second-wave feminism. However, by implying the simplistic, though neat, conceptual imbrication of hegemonic masculinity as the ideal gender type upon a patriarchal system, there is constructed within the masculinities literature a belief that just as the system must be removed, so too, its ideal type because their joint project is to close down any movement towards openness and social justice. As stated earlier, a key objective of Connell’s practice-based masculinities theory is to develop a framework through which to conceive masculinity as less antithetical to the aims of social justice. However, the very nature of its central concept, that is, hegemonic masculinity, makes the realisation of this objective difficult. Thus, to overcome the inherent mutual exclusivity that currently marks gender politics, as understood through masculinities theory, the imperative is to find strategic possibilities from somewhere other than hegemonic processes. This is because hegemony, understood as a singularity, makes problematic the emergence in gender of a hegemonic other that will not, in turn, assume a dominative nature and impose closure upon the sociopolitical system it controls and directs. Thus, both hegemonic masculinity and the hegemonic system must be broken down and removed to make way for an ‘alliance politics’ that will produce a ‘de-gendered world’ where all configurations of practice are set as transparent (Connell 1995: 232–234).

6

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

This ‘de-gendering strategy’ draws from early second-wave feminism and the aspiration for androgyny. But also, it reflects Connell’s determination to ensure that social justice emerges not just from the abstract realm of discourse and knowledge but, rather, from historically driven changes to relations and configurations of practice at the concrete level of social life. Further, through alliance politics, there is no necessity to alter identity at the level of knowledge because such changes will emerge through changes to practice. The aim of this book is to challenge this strategy at both a theoretical and empirical level. In the latter case, by presenting a critico-historical study of family law case law that shows how, through the movement of history, change does occur around certain core principles but in a spontaneous and ad hoc manner and not in a direct and organic way. As a result, the masculine hegemonic system is marked by an ineffective politics producing systemic ambivalence that, in the final analysis, sustains closure within the hegemony. This book argues that alliance politics and de-gendering strategies are fundamentally flawed with respect to producing social justice because they are incapable of identifying and deconstructing the nodal points of closure, which is a crucial task in the development of a progressive organic movement. In other words, complicit identities remain effectively intact and give rise to a situation where alliance is unable to articulate and manage the profound and increasing demands that currently mark gender politics, such as those being projected by gay, lesbian and queer parents, men seeking access to work in the private sphere, black and ethnic women and men, working single parents. Thus, enabling possibilities for a de-gendering strategy will not necessarily construct alliances between these new demands because it cannot produce a sense of equivalent identity. As such, there is no active unity operating. Instead, for a progressive social justice to develop, these active elements must be able to express their particular demands as antagonisms towards the hegemonic ideal. Most importantly, through a process that configures these antagonisms into a progressive equivalential unity, without obliterating the particularity of each identity. This requires not a de-gendering strategy focused on alliances and a partial development of self-knowledge but, rather, a re-gendering strategy that is supportive of an open politics which seeks to develop equivalence through self-knowledge and an extension and deepening of democracy. Further, such a re-gendering strategy must also recognise the relationality of gender with other spheres of life such as work, education, law and the media so that there is always a focus on how particular knowledge is produced as part of the universality of progressive challenge. This, then, requires a strategy for the radicalisation of pluralism, which can best be achieved through the re-instatement of hegemony. However, not hegemony conceived of as an aprioristic, singularly, negative and homogenising force, but through Gramsci’s analysis, as a fully complex system of knowledge that, at the highest point of synthesis, represents a new ethicopolitical system.

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge 7 Thus, this book argues that to confine hegemonic masculinity to a theoretical singularity, that is, as always negativity, will ensure that the politics of gender continues to operate conceptually around the mutual exclusivity of hegemony and social justice. Therefore, it will be impossible to develop and project progressive strategies that do not return to the problematic de-gendering ideas and arguments of second-wave feminism where struggle is dichotomised rather than democratised and change occurs through conjuncture movements. What is required to overcome this strategic retrospective is not the removal but reinstatement of a fully complex hegemony, which will enable the development of a new organic protest within gender politics that is grounded in a radical plural democracy. Crucially, the intellectual basis for the achievement of these three requirements will be shown to currently exist and can be articulated through a careful reading of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, re-working masculinities theory to incorporate a detailed analysis of the femininities bloc and applying to the new protest a radical postMarxist politics. The development of these requirements and their intellectual bases will be the subject of the following chapters. In Chapter 2, ‘Revolutionising the revolution: towards a tripartite model of hegemony’, the aim is to explicate the complexity of the theory of hegemony. A key objective will be to show that the singularity and negativity which has become axiomatic in the masculinities literature is only a partial representation. The resultant analysis produces ‘the tripartite model of hegemony’ whose significance to the argument is in its ability to outline the crucial points of delineation between dominative and aspirational hegemony. In Chapter 3, ‘ “Ascendancy in a play of social forces”: hegemony and social justice in the theory of practice’, the aim is to examine Connell’s theory of practice as the base from which his conception of hegemony develops. Hegemony here will be shown as a means of understanding situations. Thus, the key objective is to explore hegemony’s analytic object – situation – which, in turn, will expose the nature of hegemony, as well as the processes and mechanisms that contribute to its construction and maintenance. In Chapter 4, ‘The application of hegemony to gender’, the aim is to bring Gramsci and Connell’s theoretical work on hegemony into sharper focus by applying it to contemporary gender politics. A key objective here is to show that Connell’s practice-based approach to gender is located within the social constructionist school but, more importantly, through this, gender can be viewed as a multiplicity of gender types, which leads to the conceptualisation of various competing masculinities and femininities. This chapter will also introduce ‘the masculinities schema’, which brings together and elaborates schematically the various gender types introduced by Connell, as well as explicating the systems of relations that operate between them. A crucial feature of this schema is the recognition of protest femininities as a key gender type within the sub-systems of alliance and contestation. Finally, using Connell’s structural models thesis, the key hegemonic principles that define and extend hegemonic masculinity are introduced and developed.

8

Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge

In Chapters 5 and 6, that is, ‘Constructing a study of masculinities and family law: history, aims and methodology’ and ‘Analysis of judicial attitudes toward heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness, the aim will be to explore the operationalisation of hegemonic masculinity and, more specifically, its key hegemonic principles through judicial judgments and its ratio decidendi expressed within family law case law. In effect, this chapter shifts the analytic focus from the theoretical and conceptual level to one grounded in empirical analyses and concrete experiences. Law as a field of study in the masculinities literature continues to be under-estimated and under-developed. However, as a key procedural criterion and gender regime, it has a significant influence in determining the legitimacy of certain relations and practices within all other gender regimes across the gender order. In other words, law sets out what will be referred to as the ‘structure of expectations’ through which social justice in gender can be defined. As such, a key objective of this chapter will be to show how, through residency, spousal maintenance and domestic violence case law, the hegemonic principles of heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness, respectively, are being undermined or sustained. This will expose the efficacy of hegemonic masculinity to give continuity to hegemonic principles and, thus, its dominative nature. Most crucially, it will expose the nature of social justice within the law and its impact on the broader community at the concrete, everyday level. In Chapter 7, ‘Radical pluralism’, there begins an examination of the possibilities for moving social justice in gender beyond the dominative hegemonic situation explicated in the preceding chapters. This chapter returns to a more theoretical discussion in which the notion of ‘aspirational hegemony’ is further developed through the postmarxist project of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. A key objective will be to emphasise and develop the two key components of radical pluralism – antagonism and equivalence – in a way that enables their application to radical organic protest in gender. In Chapter 8, ‘Radical organic protest in gender’, the aim is to draw together the analyses and developments presented throughout this book into a project that can enable, at the conceptual level, possibilities for a new radical organic protest in gender. A key objective will be to further develop protest femininities through postmarxist theory and, in particular, to show it as a possible ‘general equivalent’ that enables the re-imposition of hegemony as a fully complex socio-political phenomenon, that gives the aspiration for social justice in gender a new strategic point of departure and trajectory. However, the first task of this conceptual project will be to elaborate the specific principles that this protest must incorporate and then develop its operationality by working through certain paradoxical issues.

2

Revolutionising the revolution Towards a tripartite model of hegemony

The aim of this chapter is to explicate the complexity around the dialectic of consensus/coercion within the theory of hegemony. A key objective will be to show that singularity and negativity, which have become axiomatic in the masculinities literature, are only a partial representation. The resultant analysis produces ‘The tripartite model of hegemony’ whose significance to the nexus hegemony and hegemonic masculinity is in its ability to outline the crucial points of delineation between dominative hegemony and aspirational hegemony.

From dictatorship to hegemony of the proletariat The meaning given to hegemony by Gramsci in the revolutionary politics of the period immediately around the Great War, which is also evident in certain political and intellectual writings prior to 1926, incorporates the notion of domination implied in Lenin’s (see 1967: 14) revolutionary slogan: the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. In a Leninist sense, hegemony is understood as the exercise of command whose objective is to lead the allies and undertake actions (violent if necessary) to overcome hostile groups (Salvadori 1979: 237). Thus, the hegemony–dictatorship nexus, which was central to Lenin’s revolutionary politics, was held to be fundamentally progressive. However, for Gramsci, while domination was important, the hegemony– dictatorship nexus was not dogmatically accepted and, therefore, its consequences were never ideologically simplistic or unidirectional. In effect, to understand something as hegemonic, for Gramsci, is to recognise that there is always the potential for either progressive or regressive action. For example, in a letter to Togliatti, Terracini and others, dated 9 February 1924, Gramsci (1978: 165) makes reference to the ‘hegemonic position [Russia] holds today’ over a pre-revolutionary Western Europe, suggesting a dominant (that is, commanding) and progressive position. In contrast, an article published during October of 1923 includes a statement where Gramsci (1978: 164) refers to the ‘hegemonic positions of the reformists’. These positions relate to the extension of organised unionism that ‘as a matter of principle’ the Turin Communists oppose precisely because they are

10

Revolutionising the revolution

reformist and, therefore, regressive. Earlier in October 1920, Gramsci referred to the ‘hegemonic forces’ of the First World War who exploited Italy for their own advantage (Gramsci 1977: 357). Here the use of hegemony suggests an oppressive domination. The conceptual openness that is evident in Gramsci’s thoughts and writings, at this time, can be seen as a crucial platform from which the complexity of the theory of hegemony would develop in his later Prison Notebooks. The key historical moment that links Gramsci’s pre-prison work with his prison-based writings is the unfinished essay, ‘Some aspects of the Southern Question’.1 Here, Gramsci develops further this progressive regressive complexity by outlining the importance of hegemony for a progressive proletarian strategy but, simultaneously, recognising the reality of regressive alliances, such as between the syndicalists and the bourgeoisie, that become hegemonic. However, it is in his explication of a strategic direction for progressive action that Gramsci introduces some radical and innovative conceptual twists to the concept of hegemony, which, in turn, positions it differently to the understanding it was given in the broad East European social democratic and revolutionary context (see Anderson 1976). For example, he argued that: The Turin Communists posed to themselves concretely the question of the ‘hegemony of the proletariat’, in other words, of the social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and the Worker’s State. The proletariat can become the leading and ruling class to the extent to which it succeeds in creating a system of class alliances which enables it to mobilise the majority of the working population against capitalism and the bourgeois state. (Gramsci 1978: 443) The need for worker unity, which meant alliance between southern peasants and the northern industrial proletariat was, for Gramsci and the Turin Communists, the key to developing a real and effective progressive worker’s movement throughout Italy. But what is evident here is that Gramsci no longer saw the battlefield upon which this unity would be won strictly in terms of political and economic imperatives: The first problem to resolve, for the Turin Communists, was how to modify the political stance and general ideology of the proletariat itself, as a national element which exists within the ensemble of State life and is unconsciously subjected to the influence of bourgeois education, the bourgeois press and bourgeois traditions. (Gramsci 1978: 444; my emphasis) Instead, he recognised the need to extend Marxist doctrine and argued for a broadening of the fight so as to take in superstructural or cultural spheres

Revolutionising the revolution 11 such as education, the media, art, literature and drama, law, and the family, which he considered were under the control of bourgeois ideology.2 This extension of Marxism took as its point of departure Lenin’s notion of dictatorship or, in other words, the Party as an elite centralised and authoritarian vanguard that existed outside of the proletariat, yet had command over proletarian strategy and action for political and economic emancipation. As Cammett (1967: 173) argues, the ‘nature’ of the Party for Gramsci, while crucial, had been a difficult theoretical and practical problem that needed to be addressed, at least since the demise of the communist positions after 1920. Its solution lay in ensuring that the proletariat was guaranteed a ruling function in the Party. In other words, the Party had to lead, but not by an external authoritarian imposition, either before or after the conquest of power. In this sense, hegemony stressed a proletarian leadership that was fundamentally ‘organic’, in that it grew out of, and was always inclusive of, the mass of workers and their interests. But, further, the emphasis for the leadership would be on re-thinking the basis of progressive action so as to recognise the importance of socio-cultural (that is, moral and intellectual) imperatives, as well as political and economic imperatives on the development of leadership in the production of a collective will within an organic alliance that moves as a historic bloc. Therefore, to seriously aspire towards a national and informed progressive alliance within a Gramscian strategic paradigm, the need to extend the fight beyond the politico-economic battlefield and break the dictatorship–hegemony nexus is imperative. But this, in turn, requires the movement to a hegemony–leadership nexus where the elitism and domination inherent to Leninism is set aside and the unorthodox and radical passage to a moment where not even proletarian interests are sacrosanct within alliance is possible. In the Lyons Theses and, in particular, Theses 27 and 29, Gramsci asserted that the Party must be part of the working class. In other words, ‘[t]he working class cannot do without the intellectuals, nor can it ignore the problem of gathering around itself all those elements driven in one way or another to revolt against capitalism’ (Gramsci, quoted in Cammett 1967: 173). This position is revisited in the essay on the Southern Question: The proletariat, in order to become capable as a class of governing, must strip itself of every residue of corporatism, every syndicalist prejudice and incrustation. What does this mean? That, in addition to the need to overcome the distinctions which exist between one trade and another, it is necessary – in order to win the trust and consent of the peasants and of some semi-proletarian urban categories – to overcome certain prejudices and conquer certain forms of egoism which can and do subsist within the working class as such, even when craft particularism has disappeared (Gramsci 1978: 448)

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These arguments represent, within what was a nascent theory of hegemony, the point of departure for a rejection of corporativism, that is, a rejection of a situation in which one group’s principles are dogmatically upheld, thereby ensuring closure of the system and their domination over all others.3 In this way it is possible to see the significant, yet tentative, steps Gramsci takes towards the development of a new framework for leadership whose aspiration is progressive action. Further, this framework enables hegemony to transcend domination in an orthodox Marxist–Leninist sense, where the prize is the politico-economic sphere, and leadership remains disconnected from the mass, as it was in the Russian context. Hegemony, then, can become an organic and historical leadership-based moment.

Some hermeneutical complications in the Prison Notebooks The importance of Gramsci’s prison-based writings was not realised in the non-Italian socio-political literature until the 1960s (Femia 1981: 1). Even then, what little was available, particularly for the English reader, was restricted to small sections of his pre-prison and prison-based writings, such as was found in The Modern Prince and Other Writings, translated by Louis Marks and published in 1957. Nevertheless, today, substantial selections of Gramsci’s work have been translated, with the complete editions of the first few sets of prison notebooks making their way onto English-speaking reading lists. This has been a reaction to the rising interest in the ideas of Gramsci and, in particular, his theory of hegemony, which has produced a concomitant increase in the surrounding secondary literature. The prison conditions under which Gramsci studied had a significant and crucial influence on the overall organisation of his thoughts and their manifestation in the Prison Notebooks. At best, this can be described as fragmentary and seemingly without any definitive ordering of its given parts and, as such, the task of analysing and studying it has been compared to the deciphering of a ‘hieroglyphic’ (Finocchiaro 1988: 1). However, analysis must take account of a further significant hermeneutical problem. In essence, it is impossible to explicate everything in Gramsci’s work at once, and yet each part cannot properly be understood if removed from the whole. Thus, as Nemeth (1980) claims, just as the end presupposes the beginning, so too does the beginning presuppose the end. This hermeneutical circle forces the analyst to mention, sometimes repeatedly, what has gone before as well as what is yet to come. This is what Adamson (1980: 9) calls ‘the extreme interconnectedness of Gramsci’s conceptual universe’, which makes the analysis and discussion of one concept, such as hegemony, particularly difficult without introducing all related and connected concepts at once. These complexities can be offered as a reason for what Nemeth (1980) goes on to claim is a ‘uniform lack of depth’ in much of the ever-increasing secondary literature on Gramsci and his Prison Notebooks.

Revolutionising the revolution 13 More specifically, Femia (1981: 23) argues that the interpretations of hegemony from the Prison Notebooks that have been offered to date are marred by a conceptual vagueness that has resulted in the concept becoming a catchword that describes the politico-cultural domination of one group by another. The inevitable result is that the nuances and potentialities in Gramsci’s work have effectively been obfuscated in the rush to reduce it to a simple conceptual singularity. To overcome this analytical challenge, the following investigation will adopt a methodological approach that produces a systematic and coherent explication of hegemony and its associated concepts and ideas, while being sympathetic to the subtleties in Gramsci’s pre-prison and prison-based work. As such, it will focus on the end as the beginning or, in other words, what is considered here to be the key note on hegemony in the Prison Notebooks, that is, the essay entitled, ‘Analysis of situations: relations of force’, written and revised between 1930 and 1934. The reason for selecting this particular essay is that it represents an intellectual moment that brings together various key ideas, arguments and insights related to hegemony from throughout the notebooks – for example, the basis of historical materialism, crisis, permanent revolution, relation of forces, corporativism and economism, hegemony and catharsis, war of position and civil society – and links them together in a way that sets out not just a new direction for theoretical Marxism but a substantial strategic work for future political, sociological and philosophical research. In addition, though it was not a criterion for selection, this essay, like ‘Some aspects of the Southern Question’ discussed above, represents a moment of intellectual synthesis. Throughout 1934 and 1935, Gramsci’s health had collapsed completely and he was being transferred to various clinics, finally settling in Quisisana in 1936 (Davidson 1977: 266). As a result of the instability of his resident position and ill-health, Gramsci wrote sporadically and when he did it was primarily to his family with little if anything being added to his notebooks after 1935 (Buttigieg 1992: 39). Thus, the revisions to this essay, which were completed by 1934, represent one of the last efforts by Gramsci to add to the Prison Notebooks. Therefore, to begin the hermeneutical process at the end enables the analysis to focus on the elaboration of key elements in the essay by examining the development of these elements in earlier writings, as well as earlier sections of the notebooks.

Historical materialism and the dialectic of knowledge ‘Analysis of situations: relation of forces’ initially began life between 1930 and 1932 in Notebook Four, (note) §, as an essay entitled ‘Relations between structure and superstructures’ (Gramsci 1996: 177–188). Sections of this initial draft were subsequently re-worked between 1933 and 1934 and included in Notebook Thirteen, § and § and Notebook

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Ten, §. These latter notebooks were part of the set that Gramsci referred to as ‘special notebooks’ because each of them was dedicated to a specific topic, for example, Notebook Thirteen referred to ‘Brief notes on the politics of Machiavelli’ and Notebook Ten to ‘The philosophy of Benedetto Croce’ (Buttigieg 1992: 37). It is those re-worked notes, § and § in Notebook Thirteen, that represent the revised version of the essay found in the Nowell Smith and Hoare Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971) edition under the major heading, ‘The modern Prince’, that most English-speaking readers of Gramsci would be familiar with. It should be noted that the revisions in Notebook 13 are relatively insignificant and do not alter the fundamental nature of the ideas and arguments contained within. Therefore, this analysis will make reference to both the initial version from Notebook Five, reproduced in the 1996, Buttigiegtranslated critical edition, as well as the revised version from Notebook Thirteen in the Nowell Smith and Hoare selections edition where appropriate, though the primary reading as well as all quotations will be sourced from the critical edition because of the completeness of the text and clarity of its translation. The problematic of idealism and materialism for knowledge In the critical edition of the Prison Notebooks, it is possible to see that the 1930–1932 version of §, ‘Relations between structure and superstructures’, develops the argument set out in the previous § entitled ‘Idealism–Positivism [objectivity of knowledge]’. The link between these two notes is crucial to understanding what is at issue in §. In fact, Gramsci begins this latter note with the rather abstract claim, ‘[t]his is the crucial problem of historical materialism, in my view’, which leads one to ask, what exactly is the problem? To understand why Gramsci makes this claim in §, analysis must return to §. Here it is argued that neither idealism nor materialism on their own lead to the ‘objectivity’ of knowledge. Idealism negates the objective so as to privilege the ‘monism of Spirit’ while materialism negates the spirit and intellect so as to privilege the ‘monism of matter’. Gramsci then raises the issue of the objectivity of knowledge from the point of view of historical materialism, which must begin with Marx’s claim in the ‘Preface to a contribution to the critique of political economy’ that: In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. (Marx 1975: 426)

Revolutionising the revolution 15 However, this argument by Marx troubled Gramsci, and led him to ask the question of whether ‘this consciousness [is] limited solely to the conflict between the material forces of production and the relations of production – as Marx’s text literally states – or does it apply to all consciousness, that is, to all knowledge?’ (Gramsci 1996: 176). In other words, surely it is not just the social-productive ‘relation of forces’ that underpin all objective knowledge. Although it may very well be the point of departure, it remains an imperative, as understood through ‘the whole ensemble of philosophical theory’, that the value of ‘ideological superstructures’ must be recognised (Gramsci 1996: 176). In further developing his thoughts on this question, Gramsci revisits the issue of religious monism or the acceptance of the existence of God, which he had discussed earlier as being antithetical to both idealism (spirit) and materialism (matter). Instead, objective knowledge, which is crucially linked to self-knowledge, can only be understood in terms of historical materialism, or in other words, through the on-going processes of ‘concrete human activity’ or praxis operating through an awareness of history. Knowledge then is never separated from the material world or nature as the idealists, Croce (1913) included, would argue, and similarly it is not constructed only from material forces, as Bukharin and Preobrazhensky (1966) suggested. It is a dialectical phenomenon that involves precisely nature and man, matter and spirit, structure and superstructure. In this sense, it is precisely the uncovering and understanding of all the relations of forces that mediate the dialectic which is at the heart of objective knowledge and, therefore, self-knowledge leading to emancipation as truth. Crisis in the relations of structure and superstructure The dialectical relations between structure and superstructure – the crucial problem of historical materialism – which opens §, while based on the problematicity of Marx’s reductionism to the base, nevertheless leads Gramsci back to Marx, again, as his point of departure: No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation (Marx 1975: 426) This passage grounds Gramsci’s notion of social dynamics within a historical materialist paradigm because it recognises the dialectical nature of objective

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knowledge as always linked to the history of people’s actions and their environment. In other words, revolutionary change can only ever be understood in terms of the movement of history and only ever possible given the emergence of appropriate conditions at particular historical moments. However, at some mediating point in this interregnum crisis will emerge indicating that incurable contradictions have come to light between the structure and superstructure (Gramsci 1996: 177). In this sense, it is crucial to differentiate between what is a ‘conjunctural’ crisis, that is, occasional, spontaneous, politically based criticism, and what is ‘organic’, that is, permanent, holistic, socio-historically based criticism, because only the latter, in fact, suggests that the conditions for change have matured to a level where they can challenge the old situation. [T]he political forces positively working to preserve the structure itself are nevertheless striving to heal these contradictions, within certain limits. These insistent and persistent efforts (since no social formation ever wants to admit that it has been superseded) form the terrain of the ‘occasional’, wherein one gets the organization of those forces that ‘strive’ to demonstrate (in the final analysis through their own triumph, but in immediate terms through ideological, religious, philosophical, political, juridical, etc., polemics) that ‘the necessary and sufficient conditions already exist to render that accomplishment of certain tasks historically possible and therefore obligatory’. (Gramsci 1996: 177) Of crucial importance here, is the notion that within the occasional or conjunctural terrain exists political knowledge and action and that these are insufficient to produce the conditions, as Marx argued, for the usurpation of power from the old society. Nevertheless, from this terrain lies the potential for the organisation of forces that are able to show that the crisis is permanent and has infiltrated the whole socio-cultural milieu and, therefore, it manifests the conditions necessary and sufficient for organic change. However, for Gramsci to envisage this type of organic change, he had to first re-conceptualise the political society–civil society nexus. Inversion of the political society–civil society nexus Norberto Bobbio (1979: 30) argues that, in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, there is a radical innovation to orthodox Marxist conceptualisations of the nexus political society–civil society. In effect, civil society goes beyond an emphasis on the structural moment and towards an emphasis on the superstructural moment. In other words, the base or economy, which has historically been perceived as located within civil society for both Hegel and Marx, and representing the conditioning moment of history for Marx, is transformed through Gramsci into the conditioned moment. This inversion is

Revolutionising the revolution 17 fundamental to Gramsci’s conceptual system and differs from both the Hegelian and Marxian conceptions in a number of crucial ways. Hegel saw the political state and not civil society as representing the active and positive moment of historical development. The state is the actuality of the ethical idea . . . [and] exists immediately in custom, mediately in individual self-consciousness, knowledge, and activity, while self-consciousness in virtue of its sentiment towards the state, as its essence and the end and product of its activity, its substantive freedom. (Hegel 1952: 155) However, both Marx and Gramsci invert the Hegelian antithesis (political state–civil society) so that civil society comes to represent the active and positive moment, although for Marx civil society was fundamentally structural because ‘the mode of production of material life’ which exists within it ‘conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life’ (Marx 1975: 425). On the other hand, Gramsci saw civil society as fundamentally superstructural. This inversion of Hegel’s civil society by Gramsci would appear to be what ties Gramsci’s theory to that of Marx’s, but in fact, it is what distinguishes him from Marx. The Gramsci–Marx distinction comes about not so much from the priority given to civil society, which both Marx and Gramsci uphold, but, rather, in the way they conceive it: Marx as structural and Gramsci as superstructural. The intriguing feature of Gramsci’s conception of civil society is that, although he inverts the Hegelian nexus, he believed that Hegel’s civil society was superstructural and therefore his position was not contradictory (Bobbio 1979: 31). Thus, the civil society that is developed by Gramsci through Hegel is not the pre-state moment, where contradictions emerge to which the state (in Marx, conditioned by the exigencies of the base) must dogmatically exert control and dominance over. Instead, civil society and not political society is the final moment through which emerges the real possibilities for moral and intellectual organisation of the various cultural interests (corporations) that will provide the foundation for the rise of a new State and its ultimate incorporation into civil society. In effect, it is now possible to see how Gramsci theorised the indissoluble unity of the two key aspects of hegemony, that is, the formation of a collective will and the exercise of political leadership. Both are ineluctably dependent upon a civil society where there exists a strong intellectual and moral leadership. But, in line with the dialectical method, political society and civil society will only become a synthesis through the deliberate and voluntary actions of individual people who are aware of their history and therefore capable of developing a new consciousness. In a sense, moreover the philosophy of praxis is a reform and a development of Hegelianism; it is a philosophy that has been liberated (or is

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Revolutionising the revolution attempting to liberate itself) from any unilateral and fanatical ideological elements; it is consciousness full of contradictions, in which the philosopher himself, understood both individually and as an entire social group, not only grasps the contradictions, but posits himself as an element of the contradiction and elevates this element to a principle of knowledge and therefore of action. ‘Man in general’, in whatever form he presents himself, is denied and all dogmatically ‘unitary’ concepts are spurned and destroyed as expressions of the concept of ‘man in general’ or of ‘human nature’ immanent in every man (Gramsci 1971: 404–405)

Three moments in the relation of forces The dialectical mediation of the ‘appropriate conditions’ with ‘historical change’, as set out in the passage from Marx and which opens §, is argued by Gramsci (1996: 178) to be analogous to the concept of ‘permanent revolution’ within which exists the problem of understanding the ‘relation of forces’. However, Gramsci’s use of the term ‘permanent revolution’ is in contradistinction to Trotsky’s conception, which is more aligned to a strategy for direct frontal offensives. Given Gramsci’s experiences during the bienno rosso and the failure of spontaneous strategic action, he now saw no value in privileging this latter ahistorical method (Gramsci 1971: 238–239). The ability to grasp the importance of permanent revolution requires an understanding of its historical nature, which in turn must be explained through the various moments in the relation of social, military and political forces. Relation of social forces The relation of social forces is linked to structure and represents an objective relation, a natural fact that comes about independently of individual human will and, as such, can be measured and studied with the precision of the natural sciences. The material forces of production are representative of these forces (Gramsci 1996: 179). The various social groups are constituted and positioned within the socio-cultural milieu on the basis of the level of development of these production forces. Therefore, by analysing the alignment of the social forces at the level of production, it is possible to determine if the necessary and appropriate conditions exist in a society for its transformation. In this context, Gramsci has simply outlined the orthodox Marxist position for the emergence of social groups. It is not until he begins to explain the historical nature of these relations of forces that Gramsci makes his own unique contribution to Marxism.

Revolutionising the revolution 19 Relation of military forces The relations of military forces bifurcate into the ‘military’ level, which incorporates the actual machinery, personnel and war strategies, and the ‘politico-military’ level that synthesises the broad national political agenda with military action and force (Gramsci 1996: 181). The key point here is that, at this moment, and, specifically, at the latter level, political society has become an imperative to power. Gramsci (1996: 181) offers the example of a situation where a dominant group has won the battle for land and people and now subordinates all the social groups of this other nation through an oppressive and exploitative regime. The relation between dominant and subordinate is now no longer just military, that is, based on a strategy of pure violence and force, but politico-military. This raises the issue of the distinction between war of movement (direct violence and force) and war of position (tactical struggle). Closure of the purely military moment occurs when there is, or at least enough to show the potential for, the ‘destruction of the enemy’s army and the occupation of its territory’ (Gramsci 1992: 218). At this point, the oppressed groups who struggle for emancipation from the invading force cannot exert direct force, but must exercise action that is fundamentally politico-military, understood as a war of position, which will become a war of movement at particular times (and/or an underground war at others) (Gramsci 1992: 219). The importance of this tactical siege-based struggle is that it enables the opposition forces to break down the dominating group’s socio-cultural influence and, simultaneously, work to disperse their military strength, thus giving the opposition the spatial and temporal conditions to develop a collective consciousness and a determined will to construct and employ their own strikeforce (Gramsci 1996: 181). Thus, in politics: The war of movement subsists so long as it is a question of winning positions, which are not decisive, so that all the resources of the State’s hegemony cannot be mobilised. But when, for one reason or another, these positions have lost their value and only the decisive positions are at stake, then one passes over to siege warfare [war of position]; this is concentrated, difficult and requires exceptional qualities of patience and inventiveness. (Gramsci 1971: 239) In this historical moment where the relations of militaristic and political forces predominate, the nature of civil society will be immature; and whose ‘superstructural elements will inevitably be few in number, and [although it will] have a character of foresight and of struggle, [there will be] . . . few “planned” elements’ (Gramsci 1971: 263). Further, the intellectual direction within the socio-cultural milieu will produce knowledge that initially is fundamentally negative and aimed at

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critique of the history that gave the people a State whose predominance has enabled it to subsume the distinction between political society and civil society and hold back the emancipation of the latter. Thus, the State is defined and understood in terms of the equation ‘State = political society + civil society’, but most importantly, the struggle of the subaltern groups is often confused and aimed only at breaking down the State’s momentary superiority, which is protected by the armour of coercion (Gramsci 1971: 263). However, historically, this tactic found success only in the East where civil society was ‘primordial and gelatinous’ and the State ‘was everything’. In the West, where civil society is effectively a ‘powerful system of fortresses and earthworks’ that stands behind the State as the ‘outer ditch’ (Gramsci 1971: 238), such a strategy has little effect. In this latter situation, only historical, tactical struggle, such as war of position, will succeed. In other words, the decisive struggle for State power can only be won where there has taken place the crucial shift in the balance of forces in civil society. Historically, though, socio-political action has oscillated between the social (productive) relations of force and the military (State-based) relations of force, mediated by the political relations of force (Gramsci 1996: 180). However, it is within the latter relation of forces that there exists the crucial moment through which Gramsci’s historical materialism, in terms of the reconfigurations of the relation of forces, the dialectical nature of knowledge and the aspirations inherent to war of position, as well as the concomitant predominance of civil society, becomes fully exposed. Relation of political forces As with the military relation of forces, the moment marked by the political relation of forces is also differentiated. More specifically, three levels are delineated by the degree of homogeneity of consciousness attained by various social groups in their political development, with the highest level being hegemony. The first level attained is referred to by Gramsci as ‘economic– corporative’ and represents a situation where consciousness is distinct and raised strictly along craft or professional lines, such as between all bricklayers or all boilermakers. At this point there is no understanding or expression of broader collective socio-cultural interests. Thus each group dogmatically seeks to promote their own interests ahead of all others. At the next or ‘politico-juridical’ level, consciousness becomes collective. In other words, bricklayers and boilermakers now begin to understand that they share similar socio-political interests (Gramsci 1996: 179) through the recognition of a similarity of positions within the social (productive) relation of forces. However, this knowledge is being expressed primarily within a framework where the State is predominant. Therefore, the aggregation of all subaltern interests remains subordinated to the interests of the dominant social group who, in turn, control the State and its mechanisms of coercion.

Revolutionising the revolution 21 Thus, efforts by the subaltern social groups to claim priority for the advancement of their interests can only be effected within the existing constraints of the State-based economic, political and juridical frameworks. In other words, the nascent progressiveness of the new subaltern alliance is unable to develop beyond the fetters set by the dominant social group through its State organisation. Thus, at this level there is a inability to initiate action that would re-configure both the social relations of force and the politico-military relations of force, which, in turn, underpin the broad sociopolitical system of power. The third level in the political relation of forces is hegemony. At this level there is awareness of both the individual and collective interests but, most importantly, that these interests have moved beyond the immaturity that marks the economic–corporatist and politico-economic levels, to produce a new level of consciousness through which people become aware: of the fact that one’s own ‘corporate’ interests, in their present and future development, go beyond the ‘corporate’ confines – that is, they go beyond the confines of the economic group – and they can and must become the interests of other subordinate groups. This is the most patently ‘political’ phase, which marks the clear-cut transition from the structure to complex superstructures; it is the phase in which previously germinated ideologies come into contact and confrontation with one another, until only one of them – or at least a single combination of them – tends to prevail, to dominate, to spread across the entire field, bringing about, in addition to economic and political unity, intellectual and moral unity, not on a corporate but on a universal level: the hegemony of a fundamental social group over the subordinate groups. (Gramsci 1996: 179–180) However, to attain this consciousness and produce hegemony, a space must open through which people can collectively and simultaneously develop awareness of the broad community of interests and the location and interrelationships of these interests historically. Gramsci refers to this process as ‘catharsis’: the passage from ‘objective to subjective’ and from ‘necessity to freedom’. Structure ceases to be an external force which crushes man, assimilates him to itself and makes him passive; and is transformed into a means of freedom, an instrument to create a new ethico-political form and a source of new initiatives. (Gramsci 1971: 366–367) Thus, catharsis is the synthesis of the dialectical process itself (Gramsci 1995: 343). So reaching the cathartic moment represents a transcendence of objective knowledge that develops from the purely political and economic

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terrain to knowledge emerging from the terrain of ethics and politics. In other words, there is transition from the terrain of corporativism and domination to the ‘moment of hegemony, of political leadership, of consent in the life and activities of the state and civil society’ (Gramsci 1985: 104). This produces the highest level of political consciousness through the reaching of synthesis in the dialectic of knowledge and marks the moment when the State is no longer omnipotent and able to subordinate civil society and ethical life but, rather, is subordinated to the latter (Bobbio 1979: 34). It is the moment in the relation between structure and superstructure where ethico-politics4 is given full recognition. Thus, catharsis represents an elaboration of Marxist doctrine that challenges the inexorable reduction into historical ‘fatalism’. This means that the synthesis of structure and superstructure can now be considered from the perspective of the active subject of history who has recognised their own individual self-autonomy and agency and are able to objectively understand and change their historical location within the relation of forces (Adamson 1980: 153).

National–popular energy in the historic bloc Within the struggle to control catharsis, the use of force is often inevitable. However, Gramsci (quoted in Femia 1981: 158) did not view force simply as the exercise of a regressive function used to ‘restrain the living forces of history and to maintain an out-dated, anti-historical legality that has become an empty shell’. Force is also progressive, particularly when it attempts to ‘keep the dispossessed reactionary forces within the bounds of legality and to raise the masses to the level of a new legality’. Thus, the type of force that predominates through politics will have a direct and profound influence on the nature of the social relations within a situation. However, only progressive force is able to develop a socio-political situation in which there is enabled an ethico-political emphasis and ensure that: The state-government is seen as a group’s own organism for creating the favourable terrain for the maximum expansion of the group itself. But this development and this expansion are also viewed concretely as universal; that is, they are viewed as being tied to the interests of the subordinate groups, as a development of unstable equilibriums between the interests of the fundamental groups and the interests of the subordinate groups in which the interests of the fundamental group prevail – but only up to a point; that is, without going quite as far as corporate economic selfishness. (Gramsci 1996: 180) Here hegemony is the consequence of an active, progressive and revolutionary force that is ethico-political precisely because it has rejected the corporativism that underpins crude economism and recognises, always, the

Revolutionising the revolution 23 possibilities for the dialectic of knowledge as an integral component of its leading group’s hegemonic principles. These principles represent the decisive positions or ideological nodal points that, first, define and describe the nature of the hegemony and, second, act as the ‘motor force’ that drives and expands the interests and energies within a historical bloc. Once installed, hegemonic principles require a war of position to effect change.5 Nevertheless, the new progressive consciousness that permeates throughout hegemony, pushing it towards the highest synthesis, produces not just a system of alliances but an energy that expresses a ‘national–popular collective will’.6 This form of consciousness and identification marks the moment of ‘unity between nature and spirit, structure and superstructure and the unity of opposites and of distincts’ (Gramsci 1971: 137). However, in Italy, the failure of the Factory Council movement, which indicated a failure of the political left to unite, imbricated with an already weak liberal bourgeois State, as evidenced by economic failures and a collapse of law and order, created a Caesarist situation where the fundamental socio-political energies of progressiveness and regressiveness had balanced each other out in such a catastrophic way as to enable a new third force to emerge that could subjugate both ineffective forces. This alternative force was fascism. To evade fascist scrutiny in prison, Gramsci referred to the historical example of the situation following Lorenzo il Magnifico’s death during the Italian Renaissance as an example of a Caesarist moment. However, the direct applicability of this historical moment to fascist Italy remains obvious. Nevertheless, even here, Gramsci did not see Caesarism as a necessarily regressive force but, also, as one able to exert a progressive energy. Whatever the specific manifest nature and source of Caesarism in a particular situation, the aim is always to strengthen itself by building up the level of ethico-politics (hegemony) to match that of its politico-economic domination.7 Thus, in this way it renders the latter less evident and less necessary (Adamson 1980: 200). So, to determine its source and nature will require analysis of the situation in terms of the revolution/restoration dialectic, where a tendency towards revolution would indicate a progressive Caesarism. In this context, the principles of repression and violence advocated by Italian fascism underpinned the broad political aim to restore capitalism. As Joll (1977: 57) argues, Gramsci saw fascism as the only way in which the capitalists could restore and preserve their economic system, which had been strained by the war and the politics of the left. However, this is perhaps too simplistic a conclusion because recognition must be given to the effect that the defeat of the Left in the bienno rosso had on both the capitalists and the Giolitti government. The disarticulation of the revolutionary movement that began at this time enabled the capitalist and State forces to emphasise restoration by shifting their ideological and practical approach to the persistent worker agitation from the ‘velvet glove’ to the ‘iron fist’ through the fascist squads.

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Thus, the rise of fascism exemplified the historically dynamic nature of socio-political power through which hegemony is produced from a path antithetical to the cathartic passage. This regression took hold in Italy, at this time, through the unity of a State whose weak capitalist politicoeconomics needed the ideological force of fascism to overcome crisis. Out of this Caesarism, the resultant hegemony produces a historical bloc, but while its hegemonic principles might achieve infiltration throughout the broader culture, it is unable to represent an effective national–popular collective will because it exists fundamentally ‘on the terrain of the identification of State and government – an identification which is precisely a representation of the economic–corporate form, in other words, of the confusion between civil society and political society’ (Gramsci 1971: 262). Hegemony in this context is incapable of coordinating concretely with the subaltern interests to develop a national–popular historical bloc from which can develop a revolutionary ethico-political State. This is because the hegemonic group must ultimately enforce its own fundamentally regressive economic–corporate principles in order to maintain its superordinate position. As fascism showed, in the final analysis, the key hegemonic mechanism in the imposition of regression is the legitimate exercise of coercion and violence. In other words, the fascists as the dominant social group require access to the State and its coercive armour as a means of ensuring there is no cathartic progression that would jeopardise its dominative structure. The crisis of authority and the constitution of the intellectuals Gramsci wrote: If the ruling class has lost its consensus, that is, is no longer ‘leading’ but only ‘dominant’, exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies . . . The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born . . . (Gramsci 1971: 276) In other words, the crisis of authority represents the expression of system closure in the interregnum, which in turn, exposes the distinction between: regression and progression; restoration and revolution; the hegemony of traditional and organic ideologies; of structure and superstructure. It is a moment, as shown earlier, that bifurcates into occasional or conjunctural crisis, which is political and emphasises restoration; and permanent or organic crisis, which is critical, socio-historical and emphasises revolution. Thus, the development of hegemony, underpinned by the definition and operation of its hegemonic principles, takes its point of departure as the crisis of authority but, most importantly, the intellectual activity that acts upon this crisis.

Revolutionising the revolution 25 In the broadest context, intellectual activity is fundamentally a human practice and, therefore, it is impossible to speak of non-intellectuals: The problem of creating a new stratum of intellectuals consists therefore in the critical elaboration of the intellectual activity that exists in everyone at a certain degree of development, modifying its relationship with the muscular-nervous effort towards a new equilibrium . . . (Gramsci 1971: 9) In this sense, Gramsci is critical of the previously held criteria for defining intellectual activity as based solely on the level of ‘intellectual–cerebral elaboration’. The traditional and vulgarised type of the intellectual is given by the man of letters, the philosopher, the artist. Therefore journalists, who claim to be men of letters, philosophers, artists, also regard themselves as the ‘true’ intellectuals. In the modern world, technical education, closely bound to industrial labour even at the most primitive and unqualified level, must form the basis of the new type of intellectual. (Gramsci 1971: 9) Thus, a more precise and productive method of classification must unite both the mental and physical aspects of intellectual work and locate this within the social milieu. In other words, intellectual activity relates to those who have the ‘function of intellectuals’ (Gramsci 1971: 9) as their specific social function within the social (productive) relation of forces. The objective of this social function is to develop and maintain concretely a level of ideological unity through raising self-consciousness and organisation within the various particular social groups to which the intellectuals are aligned (Gramsci 1971: 5). Unity is attained primarily through the development and transmission of ideology (or, as fascism showed, through violent ideology), within which is contained and operate the set of fundamental hegemonic principles that define and expand hegemony as progressive or regressive (Gramsci 1971: 182). In history those who exercise the intellectual function can be bifurcated into ‘traditional intellectuals’ and ‘organic intellectuals’ (Gramsci 1971: 6). Traditional intellectuals are allied to the existing hegemonic group and their function, while it includes ideological homogenisation in times of crisis, takes on a restorative emphasis. In other words, their task is to ensure that the legitimacy of the traditional hegemony is maintained even though the authority of the traditional ruling group is dying. In this situation ideological manipulation is not enough and the State is called upon to sanction the exercise of coercion and violence to uphold the status quo, or what is effectively a regressive politico-economically based hegemony.

26

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On the other hand, organic intellectuals emerge alongside the new progressive class and their task, while it includes organisation and education of the masses, must be to involve themselves in initiating and directing the revolutionary movement to ultimately secure a fully ethico-political hegemony (Gramsci 1971: 5–9). The organic intellectuals are, in effect, the source of the progressive force and, as such, they must ensure that, before power is acquired, the new progressive ruling alliance has established the political, economic, cultural and ethical credentials for leadership. In this way the new ruling class is able to produce a worldview or historical bloc that has developed through the principles of openness where consensus and inclusivity rather than corporativism and dogmatism prevail. This ideal is central to Gramsci’s dialectic method but is also evident in his thought as far back as his pre-prison writings on culture and the Factory Council movement where he stressed education as a means to developing objective knowledge as self-consciousness because a class, like an individual, who does not have an awareness of self within the broader community and in history cannot exercise praxis and, thereby, change history.

A tripartite model of hegemony The conception of hegemony that has emerged from the previous analyses shows it as an elaboration and extension of ideas formed in Gramsci’s preprison politics and philosophy and whose point of departure in the Prison Notebooks is the crucial problem of historical materialism, that is, the dynamic and dialectical complex of relations between structures and superstructures. In an attempt to draw out the effect of these dynamic relations on hegemony, the notion of objective knowledge and self-consciousness in terms of the dialectic of knowledge emerged as key. In other words, to aspire towards hegemony as the highest synthesis requires more than just an awareness of self-interest understood in a politico-corporate sense. It must instead struggle towards the ethico-political, which involves recognition of the moral and intellectual imperatives of the present through a critical understanding of the practices of the past and their impact upon the future. What should be discarded is that which the present has ‘intrinsically’ criticised and that part of ourselves which corresponds to it. What does this mean? That we must have an exact consciousness of this real criticism and express it not only theoretically but politically. In other words, we must stick closer to the present, which we ourselves have helped create, while conscious of the past and its continuation (and revival). (Gramsci 1992: 234; original emphasis) Therefore, hegemony is always dialectical and cognisant of critique and change, innovation and conservation, revolution and restoration. Hegemony is unstable equilibria. However, if the leading group is no longer able to

Revolutionising the revolution 27 lead but only dominate, in other words, it needs to invoke the coercive and violent potential of the State to ensure closure about its hegemony, then the traditional intellectuals will struggle to sustain ideological legitimacy. Here the hegemonic principles that underpin the national–popular historical bloc have become friable. This crisis situation gives rise to conditions that require the progressive forces to undertake a war of position and challenge the closure about the traditional hegemonic principles by putting forward a critique of the existing worldview, seizing authority and bringing to life a new hegemony. Out of the complex of this scenario it is possible to see three types of hegemony emerge. They are referred to here as ‘detached hegemony’, ‘dominative hegemony’ and ‘aspirational hegemony’. Each is a product of the social-political-military configuration of relations of forces being expressed at that particular historical moment. Figure 2.1 diagrammatically introduces what will be referred to as ‘The tripartite model of hegemony’. It begins by showing the movement from the traditional hegemony to crisis and the bifurcation of possibilities into regressive and progressive force. Through the former force, two types of hegemony emerge, but both are linked to a restorative process. The latter force produces hegemony that is marked by unstable equilibria and which depends on moral and intellectual leadership to maintain the principles of openness and change. Figure 2.1 also presents a comparative outline of each type of hegemony, showing the basis upon which it emerges, the key (or inevitable) mechanism in its development and maintenance, and the outcome produced. Following Figure 2.1, Traditional hegemony

Crisis

Regressive

Progressive

Type

Detatched

Dominative

Aspirational

Basis

Elitism

Domination

Leadership

Mechanism

Absorption

Coercion

Produces

Disconnection

Inequality

Consensus

Crisis

Figure 2.1 The tripartite model of hegemony.

Unstable equilibria

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a more detailed analysis and discussion of each individual type of hegemony, including analysis of its hegemonic principles, will be offered. The claim that Gramsci moves beyond conceiving of hegemony as a politico-economic singularity is not necessarily unique. Adamson (1980: 170–171) argues that, within the Prison Notebooks, there are two related definitions of hegemony, while Femia (1981: 46–48) goes one step further and outlines three different levels of hegemony. Regardless of the differing approaches, the immediate objective here is not recognition that a number of definitions, levels or types of hegemony exist but, rather, to emphasise that each type of hegemony is a product of the socio-cultural milieu and, therefore, exists as a historically momentary phenomenon. In other words, the particular configuration of relations of forces that mark a historical moment, and its historic bloc, create and sustain certain hegemonic principles which, as will be shown below, are the unique and key influences on the possibilities for a fully ethico-political hegemony and social justice. Detached hegemony or revolution without revolution Detached hegemony is best exemplified by the political situation that marked the moment in Italian history known as the Risorgimento (Gramsci 1971: 58). Given Gramsci’s interest in hegemony and the functioning of the intellectuals, it is inevitable that his interpretation of the Risorgimento, which began in the mid-nineteenth century, would be centred on the political leadership of the various social groups (Cammett 1967: 213). The leadership potential of the Risorgimento was effectively restricted to two parties: the Moderates, who took their support from the bourgeoisie, the nobility and most of the upper intelligentsia, thereby producing a relatively homogenous party ideology, and the opposition Action Party, who took their support from the radical petty bourgeoisie and the nascent urban proletariat, which produced a far more heterogeneous approach to politics. The hegemony that marked the politics of this period is characterised by the success of the Moderates in imposing their ideological agenda upon the Italian polity. Its foundation was the passive acceptance by the people of political monism as a hegemonic principle, which saw legitimacy given to the project for gradual and continuous absorption of all antagonistic and opposing interests, such as those of the opposition Action Party. This type of hegemony, where the intellectual force is subsumed into a singularity and the intellectual–mass nexus becomes disconnected, results in the increasing inability of people, in this case represented by the Action Party, to mobilise and put forward their interests and demands. As such, the crisis of authority is obfuscated behind an ever-more-powerful political regime that has, and continues to, subsume and negate all progressive elements so that the resultant hegemony emerges as a product of a revolution without revolution or a passive revolution. Civil society in this situation is controlled by an ever-more-extensive, elitist and distant political ruling class

Revolutionising the revolution 29 located under a single ideological rubric that is able to effectively subsume and control the community and impose their corporativistic interests unilaterally (Gramsci 1971: 59). Detached hegemony then, is a ‘bastardised’ form of hegemony (Mouffe 1979: 182) that emerges from the period of revolution/restoration where revolution is marked by passivity of the mass, where organic critique is impossible because there is a failure within the collective will to produce a self-conscious and organised people. This passivity sustains the political elites (whether allied or antagonistic to the politically dominant group) whose project is to increase their own power, which, in turn, makes the masses simply a group detached from power and, thus, helpless observers of their own political domination. Dominative hegemony or reactionary politico-economics Crisis of authority has been discussed earlier as the realisation of closure about the hegemonic principles, which as a consequence exposes the crucial moment between politico-economic hegemony and its ethico-political alternative. Assuming that this crisis is of sufficient duration and intensity or, in other words, permanent and organic in nature, then it precisely represents a historical moment when the ruling group’s power and legitimacy has become tenuous. In this situation the social conditions have matured appropriately to allow for movement towards a re-configuration of the relations of force where success, in the form of a new hegemony, relies on the progressive force initiating war of position as a means of overcoming the regressive force’s reactionary protective strategies. Unlike the path of regression towards detached hegemony, where there is an underlying mass passivity that produces revolution without revolution, dominative hegemony is marked by a situation where there is a more active, self-conscious and organised mass. However, articulating this crisis and challenging the hegemony is particularly difficult because, amongst other things, the organisational capacities of the traditional ruling group are well developed and effective, as Gramsci outlines: The traditional ruling class, which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programmes and, with greater speed than is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping from its grasp. Perhaps it may make sacrifices, and expose itself to an uncertain future by demagogic promises; but it retains power, reinforces it for the time being, and uses it to crush its adversary and disperse his leading cadres . . . (Gramsci 1971: 210–211) Thus, the overcoming of the crisis of authority and the re-imposition of the traditional ruling group’s hegemony as a restorative task represents the

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confirmation that the underlying hegemonic principles are being sustained by a dogmatic politico-corporatist regime of control and domination, which ultimately must call upon the State’s coercive and violent mechanisms. This traditional or dominative hegemony is exemplified in the crisis of authority that befell Italian liberal-capitalism in the immediate post-1917 period. At this time, the crisis had produced a socio-political environment in Italy that encouraged the rise of progressive actions such as those of the Factory Council movement. However, as has been shown, this did not lead to a progressive or organic solution but, rather, to a Caesarist moment marked by a charismatic leader and the fascist regime. In effect, the fascist–capitalist alliance that emerged out the crisis imposed a particularly virulent form of dominative hegemony grounded in a dogmatic nationalism which, in turn, was underpinned by an equally excessive and elitist industrial capitalism that was unwilling to coordinate morally, intellectually or concretely with the broad socio-cultural interests and demands because to do so would put in jeopardy its hegemonic principles and, ultimately, its domination. So, in the final analysis, the imperative of a dominative hegemony, as exemplified by the Italian fascist regime, is to ensure the continuing safety of its narrow corporate interests and, as a concomitant, the ruling dominant alliance. This form of hegemony does not seek to unite and grow an obese, elitist political society that is able to passively dominate civil society, as in detached hegemony. Rather, it must develop its hegemony through the mobilisation of State institutional mechanisms, through which its will is enforced as the collective will. The State becomes the authoritarian protector of the hegemonic principles through which domination as hegemony is defined and can be expanded throughout the historic bloc. Therefore, dominative hegemony fails to incorporate a moral and intellectual aspect to the complex organisation of the superstructures that is not simply an illogically imposed hypostasis. In this context, hegemony can only ever become an asymmetrical relation between State and community where the former holds veto over every aspect of the latter. Thus, subaltern groups have little recourse to express and agitate for their interests to be heard and respected, and must accept the hegemonic principles as the ultimate good and right. To successfully implement and sustain a dominative hegemony, the functioning of the traditional intellectuals is crucial and, unlike detached hegemony, where the intellectual–mass nexus is weak and of a simple nature, here the connection is more obvious but problematic and complex. The task of the traditional intellectual, while it involves ensuring ideological legitimacy across the historic bloc, must also be seen to be encouraging at various decisive ideological points the incorporation of a strategy for the amelioration of difficulties felt by the mass. However, because the hegemony in which it operates is closed at particular nodal points, making it corporativistic and dogmatic, the real interests and demands of the people can only be accepted up to the point where the fundamental hegemonic principles are

Revolutionising the revolution 31 not being concretely jeopardised. So, in the final analysis, the project of the traditional intellectuals must be to ensure legitimacy of the hegemonic principles by continually obfuscating the cathartic passage, thereby constraining the progressive agency of individuals and groups. This inevitably restores the power of State-based coercive and violent institutional mechanisms to maintain domination. Aspirational hegemony as ethico-political leadership In contradistinction to dominative hegemony is aspirational hegemony, which represents the highest level of consciousness achieved in the political relations of force. This type of hegemony is the consequence of progressive organic action precisely because it incorporates a set of hegemonic principles that underpins a worldview, which eschews the corporativism, dogmatism and ahistoricity that marks both detached and dominative hegemonies. In other words, aspirational hegemony involves moral and intellectual leadership whose task is not to neutralise and close down demands and interests but, rather, to link them within an ethico-political collective will underpinned by openness, national–popular sentiment and unstable equilibria. The construction of an aspirational hegemony, as shown in the tripartite model, requires a path in complete opposition to that taken by dominative hegemony. It is a path which leads to the overcoming of political society by civil society, through the dialectic of knowledge whose synthesis represents the transformation of people’s consciousness in a way that incorporates both a conception of their place within the community and the community within history. This transformed self-consciousness is part of the slow and painstaking work of the organic intellectuals who must open up the cathartic passage through a war of position. Thus, aspirational hegemony as a revolutionary outcome is never achieved immediately but rather, as a programme of profound and continual critique, education and action. This is in striking contrast to Lenin’s revolutionary victory in Russia where, because the relation between structure and superstructure or political society and civil society was not fully developed, the war of movement was possible and effective. However, in situations where the political society–civil society nexus is more developed and complex, such strategic frontal assaults, as Gramsci (1971: 238) explains, would fail to infiltrate the vast and powerful ideological ‘fortresses and earthworks’ of civil society, which underpin political society. In this context, the usurpation of power from the traditional ruling groups requires profound patience on behalf of the people, the development of tactics by the organic intellectuals that could bring about critique and its infiltration into the traditional ideology, setting the platform for the construction of a consensus-based and unified identificatory alliance of all subaltern groups. As such, the whole process of constructing an aspirational hegemony is fundamentally underpinned by the nature of the intellectual–mass nexus,

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which, unlike dominative hegemony, is not marked by obfuscation and closure but, rather, assumes a unique form, in that: [T]he relationship between intellectuals and people-nation, between leaders and led, the rulers and ruled, is provided by an organic cohesion in which feeling-passion becomes understanding and thence knowledge (not mechanically but in a way that is alive), then and only then is the relationship one of representation. Only then can there take place an exchange of individual elements between the rulers and the ruled, leaders and led, and can shared life be realised which alone is a social force – with the creation of the ‘historical bloc’. (Gramsci 1971: 418) In the resultant historical bloc, the key feature as Joll (1977: 102) notes is mobility between the leading group as Party and the masses. In other words, it is imperative that to achieve aspirational hegemony there is always an open passage between the two groups, which allows for the transmission of expressions of interest and subsequent action upon these interests. In this sense, it is possible to see the significance of the Gramscian elaboration of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the contradistinctive moment to the hegemony of the proletariat. In the latter, the emphasis is on the importance of leadership, from beginning to end, as organic, that is, as always connected to and part of the mass. In other words, it emerges with the mass, is a key element of the mass consciousness and is never disconnected from the mass, as in the case of detached hegemony, or exploitative to the mass as is the case in dominative hegemony.

Beginning at the end: domination or leadership? By the time Gramsci had resigned himself to the clinic in Quisisana, he had embarked on and travelled extensively into the theoretical process of significantly re-configuring or revolutionising the revolution, and at its core was a new conception of hegemony. Its point of departure was the essay he wrote on the Southern Question in 1926 just prior to his arrest, in which he began to pull together the substantial intellectual and political threads from more than a decade of profound reflection and action to delineate, albeit partially and often implicitly, the crucial elements of this radical theoretical reconfiguration. In the Prison Notebooks that would follow, the elaboration and extension of these points is centred on the re-conceptualisation of hegemony, not simply as a proletarian means–end process that implied direct and immediate results but as a complex, dialectical and historical relation between the various socio-cultural forces. This new conceptualisation enabled a greater insight into the construction and application of power and allowed for a new tactical and strategic programme to develop that would extend revolutionary success beyond a simple alternative domination. In the

Revolutionising the revolution 33 first notebook, §, Gramsci indicates precisely the fundamental condition for hegemony: The politico-historical criterion on which our own inquiries must be grounded is this: that a class is dominant in two ways, namely it is ‘leading’ and ‘dominant’. It leads the allied classes, it dominates the opposing classes. Therefore, a class can (and must) ‘lead’ even before assuming power; when it is in power it becomes dominant, but it also continues to ‘lead’. (Gramsci 1992: 136–137) Thus, in beginning the hermeneutical project of the Prison Notebooks at the end, it is now possible to see that at the beginning Gramsci had already conceived of the fundamental complexity of hegemony. Thus, although hegemony can exist where domination negates leadership, for hegemony to attain its highest synthesis or aspirational form, leadership as fully ethico-political must always be the fundamental quality rather than just a chimera.

3

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ Hegemony in the theory of practice

The application of the concept hegemony in the work of R.W. Connell is best known in his work on gender. However, hegemony has been a significant theme throughout the corpus of Connell’s work, the point of departure is the theory of practice. Specifically, this chapter explicates the theory of practice by analysing its key concept – situation – and showing how hegemony operates upon it to produce a particular understanding of power. The latter part of this chapter will explore the mechanisms that impose and maintain hegemony in the theory of practice and the influence of crisis upon the situation–hegemony nexus.

Situational thematic: a basis for hegemony In Gender and Power (1987) and Masculinities (1995), Connell showed that, despite the upheavals to the hegemony that mark the current gender order, there remains a hierarchical organisation that holds masculinity and, thereby, men-in-general as fundamentally dominant over femininity and women-in-general. The issues that have arisen from the gender debate over the last three decades of the twentieth century, particularly the critique of masculinity, are explosive and so the chances of getting simplistic answers to complex questions are a very real possibility. Nevertheless, the need to enter this debate and address the issues that emerge by connecting social scientific research and knowledge to strategies for change within a social justice framework is important. This requires a social theory able to challenge the intractable hierarchicisation of gender by recognising the full complexity of the nature of social reality. In other words, that the treatment of women and gay people, for example, should not be seen as an exigency of nature but as a product of human practice through history. The practice–history nexus is central to the theory of practice, which remains a crucial part of Connell’s social theory, particularly in his work on gender. Therefore, the most pressing problem to be addressed by the project for social justice in gender is not to deal spontaneously with the crisis that many commentators argue afflicts gender relations and its organisation of power, which in turn threatens traditional social stability. Rather, it is to

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 35 stress the need to lend a voice and ideas to an organic project for developing social justice, which at its centre involves a rethink of the traditional organisation of power around masculinity and its ability to exert a moral and intellectual leadership over the various interest groups within the gender order. In this context, the work of Connell is an important and excellent point of departure, because it attempts to show that gender and, in particular, masculinity, as with other social phenomena,1 is not an autonomous, static and ossified practice but, instead, is always a product of the complex and generative social milieu in which change is always possible. In developing knowledge about the practice–history nexus, Connell gives epistemological emphasis to two key and inter-related concepts. The first is ‘situation’, which represents the milieu of relations and practices that make up the social at a particular moment in history, and the second is ‘hegemony’, which at this initial stage can be described as the organisation of authority within a situation. The application of hegemony to the theory of practice is primarily as a means of analysing situations (Connell 1983: 156). Further, because the theory of practice emphasises the interconnections between structure and practice, or the way people act based on the nature of the social relations they live in at a historical moment (Connell 1987: 62–63), it derives primarily from an extension of orthodox Marxism (Connell 1987: x). Thus, it is crucial that before hegemony can be examined in detail and its application to gender through masculinity analysed, it is first necessary to understand hegemony’s analytic object: situation. Situation The concept of situation is a key aspect in Connell’s social theory. At its simplest, it is used to represent a ‘moment in history’ (Connell 1977: 206). However, at a deeper level of analysis it is possible to describe Connell’s concept of situation as a framing concept in which can be identified the thematic operation of relationality, onto-formativity and historicity. This system will be referred to here as the ‘situational thematic’. In broad descriptive terms, situation represents the structuring of social relations at both the personal and collective levels of reality to produce configurations of practice, which in turn organise human action and consciousness across time and space. However, the crucial feature of situation is its generativity, which emerges from, amongst other things, the tension that is always already present and becomes manifest in crisis tendencies.2 It is these crisis tendencies that act as the catalysts for change within a situation and which places the theory of practice in opposition to the orthodox Marxist argument that the central dynamic within an historical epoch is the replication of current arrangements into the future. In Marxist theory, these processes of replication, which operate at the level of society (Kozlov 1977: 274), are contained within the concept of ‘social reproduction’ (Waters 1990: 96). Although it is not possible to discuss the operation of social

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‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’

reproduction in any real detail here, it is important to point out Connell’s concerns about it in terms of his conceptualisation of situation. The contemporary theorisation of reproduction did not arise as an abstract necessity of social theory but, rather, as an intellectual response shaped by a particular sociological tradition to a specific problem (Connell 1983: 141–142). Thus, the broad Marxist project has employed reproduction in an attempt to theoretically grapple with important issues such as: how an oppressive and exploitative social system or mode of production is stabilised; what holds it together in the face of the resistance it produces; and its own irrationality and incoherence. The result, however, is that their theoretical emphases stress a methodology that effectively fences-off history (Connell 1983: 143–148) and moves theory, through the concept of reproduction, inexorably towards structuralism and ahistoricity where both the agency of people within structure and history within a situation are constrained. A situation, though, is always about people and recognising that, although they are constructed (recognition of relationality), they are also constructive (recognition of onto-formativity and historicity), and it is precisely this aspect of situation that always presupposes structure (Connell 1987: 96). Therefore, to be effective, reproduction must also necessitate the replication of the milieu of people, their actions and consciousness, which is central to the social relations and practice that underlie the structure. Both Althusser (1994) and Poulantzas (1973: 225) recognised and linked the importance of ideology, operating through the repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) and ideological state apparatuses (ISAs), with reproduction. Thus, for Poulantzas, the reproduction of classes as ensembles of economic agents cannot simply be reduced to purely economic factors. Some consideration must be given to the influence of RSAs and ISAs within the process. However, such recognition is qualified through recognition that the reproduction of social agents is a secondary and subordinate aspect of the reproduction of classes (Jessop 1985: 166–168), which is determined in the last instance by the reproduction of the economic relations (Jessop 1985: 168). This, for Connell (1983: 155), is fundamentally problematic because domination is itself as much a product of social reproduction as it is dependent on the fragmentation and disruption of subaltern consciousness. In gender politics this is exemplified in the existence of a particular accepting and compliant femininity with respect to the demands of its ideal masculinity, alongside a critical protest-based femininity (this example will be elaborated on in the next chapter). The fragmentation of the subaltern group and, therefore, of challenge to the hierarchical system is what Connell terms ‘disarticulation’ of social groups (and will be discussed in some detail later in this chapter). Further, it sustains the argument that the social reproduction of situation is a chimera; it cannot exist where the efficacy of the situational thematic is given full recognition (Connell 1983: 149). Situation, then, is a concept that sits problematically with the more

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 37 orthodox Marxist doctrine, in which social reproduction is a key feature. Nevertheless, its significance to hegemony is that it offers a framework within which a more profound understanding of the nexus between ‘power and liberation’ can be initiated (Connell 1983: viii). Specifically, it provides a way of understanding the often-tenuous balance between these antithetically positioned forces in which it is not so much the structure of relations that are being reproduced as much as situations. And they are not so much being reproduced as generated from the situations that preceded them. In this sense, reproduction analyses can be recomposed so that the focus is on: a world where some kinds of possibilities are constantly being opened up, others closed down; where some kinds of practice lead into unexpected traps, and others to unexpected transformation; in sum, where structural mutation is the rule rather than the exception. (Connell 1983: 157) In this sense, the theory of practice extends and elaborates reproduction theory in that it views history not simply as an add-on but as active within the theory. As such, the power–liberation nexus becomes constantly constituted, rather than constantly reproduced. However, this only makes sense if the theory of practice acknowledges the constant possibility that structure will be constituted in a different way. Though groups who hold power do try to reproduce the socio-cultural mechanisms and structure that will sustain their power, it is always open as to whether and how they succeed (Connell 1987: 44). The following discussion offers analyses of the three component themes that constitute the situational thematic, which in turn offers insight into the nature of the generativity of situation and hegemony in the theory of practice. Relationality The term ‘relationality’ refers to the interconnectedness of phenomena in a social milieu. In other words, it emphasises the social relations that exist between and within phenomena. However, relationality is more than just an interconnectedness of social relations. Relationality is premised on a balancing of social interests, which gives rise to certain configurations of practice through which identities are constructed. This complex operation is emphasised in the opening chapter to Gender and Power (1987: 1–6) where Connell introduces the reader to the Prince Family and the youngest of the three children, Delia. Although Delia is described as ‘just a normal kid’ by her mother Rae, the key question for Connell in attempting to understand this normality is: where does it come from? Throughout this chapter Connell begins to peel back the facade of Delia’s life to expose a normality that is being shaped within a milieu of tension-laden relations. For example,

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the traditional division of labour and structuring of power within the family directly influences Delia’s parents’ attitude towards her education and career. These personal attitudes are connected with the institutionalised attitudes of teachers in the education system on issues such as female education and careers. Both the efficacy of the education system and Delia’s family are in turn connected with her own personal and social life, where the interests of her boyfriend also become influential. Thus, the construction of Delia’s identity, which can also be defined by her own desires, aspirations and needs, are inexorably caught up in the relationality of her life. In these terms, relationality operates at two levels of fact: at the level of personal life, for example Delia’s immediate relationships, and at the level of collective social arrangements, for example her family, her peer group and the school system that Delia must interact with. For Connell (1987: 16–17) these two levels are linked in a fundamental and constitutive way so that it makes no sense to theorise one without the other. In this way, it is possible to recognise the constitution of large-scale structures through their interaction at the level of personal fact, while maintaining that the personal does not float free but is always responding to and constrained by the structure it helps develop. Thus relationality allows Connell to show a hierarchical structuring within relations without having it slide inevitably into determinism, essentialism and, ultimately, functionalism. In Delia’s case, the construction of her identity is always already part of a process involving her interconnectedness and interaction with people living their everyday lives within the constraints of larger institutional collectives. Thus, her reality is continually being influenced by the reality of others, or in other words, that her interests are always being influenced by the interests of others. The constitution of interests is the crucial moment in the social dynamics of politics (Connell 1987: 262–263) and can take the form of ‘relational interests’ where the emphasis is on balancing competing claims, or ‘egocentric interests’ where a claim is dogmatically upheld or rejected (Connell 1987: 285). Thus, if interests mark the crucial moment in the social dynamic of politics, then relationality, which has inherent a balancing of various interests, assumes an important role in politics at the everyday level of life. This is so because relationality recognises both agency and structure and their inter-relatedness. So that whether the emphasis is on balancing interests or a dogmatic rejection/acceptance of them, there is always the possibility for tension, and it is this tension that Delia is required to navigate. In contradistinction to relationality is essentialism, or the notion that interests are relatively stable and produced autonomously of the outcomes of people’s interactions (Petersen 1998: 6). As Connell (1995: 72) argues, the whole issue of gender becomes a scandal and an outrage in the face of essentialism because the existence of an individual’s gender identity, for example, is simply determined in and of itself, disconnected from social relations and the complexity of this reality. Thus, in the theory of practice where gender

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 39 is understood as constructed from particular interests developed relationally, essentialism has no place. Onto-formativity The idea that people and their relations to other people and things are at the core of the construction of social phenomena such as masculinity and femininity leads directly to the concept of onto-formativity. Originally developed by the philosopher Karel Kosìk (1976) in his essay Dialectics of the Concrete: a Study on Problems of Man and World, he argued that man is exposed as ‘an onto-formative being’ through praxis. In Gramsci the process of praxis was described as concrete human activity operating through an awareness of history. Similarly, Kosìk (1976: 1) views praxis as the development and systemisation of practical knowledge or knowledge gained by the manipulation of things through theoretical knowledge. Thus, onto-formativity refers to man ‘as a being that forms the (socio-human) reality and therefore, also grasps and interprets it (that is, reality both human and extra-human, reality in its totality)’ (Kosìk 1976: 137). Using less cumbersome language, Connell (1995: 65) has interpreted Kosìk’s notion of onto-formativity and describes it as the continuous shaping of everyday reality through practice. To speak in terms of practice is to emphasise that actions have a rationale and historical meaning, but this is not to say that they are always rational. Sexual violence perpetrated by men, such as rape, cannot be said to be rational; but also, it is not a meaningless explosion of inner rage and hypermasculinity. Rather, it can be understood by recognising the power relations that give legitimacy to, or are seen to give legitimacy to, certain violent configurations of practice. So the idea of practice for Connell (1996: 2) places the emphasis firmly on what people actually do and not on expected or imagined behaviours and actions, such as in some conceptions of role-theory (a good example is Ruth Hartley’s 1959 paper, ‘Sex-role pressures and the socialisation of the male child’). However, to understand configurations of practice such as rape, misogyny, childbirth and child-care, paid labour, unpaid labour, basketball and painting, requires some recognition of their constitution within and through the social relations in which people live. In this way a theory of practice moves analysis of the social beyond a type of essentialism that constrains the personal within the collective (all husbands are wife-beaters; all wife-beaters are males; all males practice violence). But neither does it reduce analysis to voluntarism because it recognises that practice is always grounded in the complex structuring of social relations (Connell 1987: 62). In recognising the onto-formativity of social reality there must also be a realisation that practice is a trans-formative and determining process, which involves the appropriation of the natural (or at least elements of it) for reconfiguration in the social sphere (Connell 1987: 78). This process produces what Kosìk describes as a socio-human reality. For example, child-care

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produces a socio-human reality through the appropriation of the sexed-child and its incorporation into configurations of practice that lead to its transformation into a gendered human being. However, configurations of practice never develop and operate in a vacuum, as was revealed in the analysis of Delia Prince and her family. So that, just as praxis in Kosìk’s terms recognises the crucial nexus between knowledge as ideas and knowledge as action, continually constituting reality through history, so too, the practice of people is viewed by Connell (1987: 262–265) to articulate real interests that are always changing. In this way, interests give practice a socio-political consciousness through which onto-formativity becomes the expression of possibilities for people to construct, re-construct and de-construct the sociohuman reality of interests. However, consciousness of one’s own interests does not necessarily produce a clear understanding of the influence of these interests on oneself and others (Connell 1987: 285–286). At this base level of self-consciousness, as Gramsci argued, knowledge operates at the corporativistic and conjunctural level and, as such, fails to incorporate awareness of history in any real sense. In this context, there will always be an underlying tension to the process of onto-formativity. Historicity As the foregoing discussion of relationality and onto-formativity suggest, this underlying tension ensures a continuing possibility for change. But it is given a generative form through the concept of ‘historicity’. Historicity implies a historical process, a social dynamic that subsumes social phenomena and infers on them a generative nature that is manifest through the relations and practices of people (Connell 1983: 60; 1987: 144). The idea of historicity is about change produced by human practice, about people being inside the process . . . [It is a] sense that things ‘can never be the same again’, that new possibilities have opened and old patterns closed off, [this] is exactly what historicity of gender relations is about. (Connell 1987: 143–144; original emphasis) Historicity, then, takes on a significantly more powerful meaning than the idea of ‘social change’ (Connell 1987: 143), which incorporates mechanistic and external influences – for example, change produced as a result of purely mechanistic effects internal to the individual, such as the attendance to psychodynamic instincts emergent from the unconscious and represented by the pleasure principle (see Marcuse 1966: 12). Also, change as a product of external influences, such as fire, plague or even a meteor shower upon a society eschew any notion of social dynamic as based on the interaction between practice and relations. Thus, social change in this sense is unable to account for the efficacy of people or the idea that their location in space and

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 41 time is always already momentary and susceptible to continuous movements from old to new. If historicity is about recognising that people and their relations and practices are operating inside the process of interaction, then the process is never simply a unilinear progression. In other words, the form a social phenomenon takes is never simply the manifest elaboration of previous historical moments. Thus, historicity rejects the idea that the interactive process is a truth inducing meta-narrative with a ‘core’, ‘key’ or ‘central’ relation that organises and gives direction to all others (Connell 1983: 56). There is no logocentric force given by Enlightenment logic or inevitability as a result of historical materialism, for example, that will lead people inexorably to some utopic position. Rather, there is only ever the (im)possibilities of change at the everyday level of existence produced from the continual disruption to the current historical moment, which is described by Kosìk in the following way: The clash of the everyday with History results in upheaval. History (war) disrupts the everyday, but the everyday overpowers History – for everything has its everyday. In this clash, the separation of the everyday from history interpenetrate. Intertwined, their supposed or apparent character changes: the everyday no longer is that for which routine consciousness takes it, in the same way as History is not that as what it appears to routine consciousness. Naive consciousness considers the everyday to be a natural atmosphere or a familiar reality, whereas History appears as a transcendental reality occurring behind its back and bursting into the everyday in the form of a catastrophe into which an individual is thrown as ‘fatally’ as cattle are driven to the slaughterhouse. The cleavage of life between the everyday and History exists for this consciousness as fate. While the everyday appears as confidence, familiarity, proximity, as ‘home’, History appears as the derailment, the disruption of the everyday, as the exceptional and the strange. This cleavage simultaneously splits reality into the historicity of History and the ahistoricity of the everyday. History changes, the everyday remains. The everyday is the pedestal, the raw material of History. It supports and nourishes history but is itself devoid of history and outside history. (Kosìk 1976: 44; original emphasis) Historicity, then, is a way of recognising the generative nature of social phenomena through the efficacy of people in their everyday lives, and in synthesis with the themes of relationality and onto-formativity it offers a way of describing and understanding the practice–history nexus that ensures the constant coming-into-being, transformation and supersession of social phenomena.

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The problem of hegemony In the theory of practice overcoming the problem of hegemony, or in other words achieving a balance between power and liberation, is the attainment of social justice (Connell 1978: 11–12; 1995: 229). Therefore, social justice emphasises the importance of an interactive, practice-based and historical understanding of structure. Thus, it is not a utopian situation whose pathway is revealed in advance of its attainment but, rather, a continuing historical process (Connell 1978: 11) through which the situational thematic operates upon the interests of people. For example, social justice demands that politics recognises and includes the needs of both the disadvantaged as well as the advantaged as part of a movement beyond the dogmatism and determinism that is emphasised from a purely politico-corporatist regime.3 However, to achieve this movement requires a way of conceiving the balance between power and liberation as always already situational and, therefore, changeable. It is in this context that Connell introduces hegemony as a concept that permits a way of exposing the power–liberation nexus as well as the socio-cultural mechanisms that construct and re-construct authority within situations. Threading domination through a hegemonic situation Nailing down a precise understanding of hegemony in Connell’s work is tricky. This is largely because throughout the corpus of writings there are various subtle descriptive shifts employed. For example, he describes hegemony variously as a situation, or a moment in history where control is effectively being exercised (Connell 1977: 206), or more specifically, as a situation where the daily life of the subaltern class is created by, and made consistent with, the interests of the dominant class (Connell 1980: 22). It is also defined as the successful fragmentation of the collective subaltern consciousness and its potential to offer resistance (Connell 1978: 15) or in other words, as a way of containing crisis tendencies (Connell and Irving 1980: 19; Connell 1983: 47). More recently, there has been a shift, particularly in his writings on gender where hegemony has moved away from the earlier practice-based conceptualisations to an emphasis on control. This has produced a more relations-based conceptualisation where the emphasis is on positioning within a hierarchical model. In this latter context, hegemony is described as a social ascendancy achieved in a play of social forces (Connell 1987: 184); as a question of the relations of cultural dominance (Connell 1993: 610) or as the cultural dynamic by which a leading position is claimed and sustained by a group. Further, as signifying a position of cultural authority and leadership, but not total domination (Connell 1995: 77). Notwithstanding the various descriptional shifts, the theme that persists and is, in effect, threaded through the understanding of hegemony in the theory of practice is domination.

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 43 The social theory of Max Weber, particularly, on power and domination, is instructive to understanding hegemony in the theory of practice. In Economy and Society, domination is defined as ‘the probability that a command with a specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons’ (Weber 1978: 53). However, Weber goes on to qualify this definition by situating it in the context of his definition of power4 and the importance of the notion of command. It is this latter point that is of key importance to understanding domination in terms of hegemony, because domination can only be said to operate where there is a probability that a command will be followed.5 Therefore domination is not a taken-for-grantedness operating within an ossified structure but, rather, an organisation of power always contingent on the efficacy of the mechanisms put in place to ensure that commands will be followed. In other words, domination is always open to the possibility of change and, as such, must continue to suppress the social reality of interests and desires expressed by other social groups so as to ensure that commands will be followed and that authority operates at a high level of intensity. In a hegemonic sense, this is achieved through sociocultural control underpinned by power determining liberation and structure closing down agency at the collective or institutional level of fact. At this level, it is possible to take control of both the structural and superstructural development of values and norms that effect the everyday relations and practices of individual members of the society. This is precisely the consequence of the understanding of hegemony articulated in the various descriptions presented above, where the powerful group must impose homogenisation through fragmentation and absorption upon others in an effort to control and take ascendancy or command within a hierarchical order. In this sense, hegemonic domination is not necessarily produced through pure violence, though violence can and is often used to enforce hegemony (Connell 1987: 184). The examples of Nazism and Fascism prior to the Second World War; the bombing of Sarajevo by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); the Indonesian military-backed militia attacks in East Timor, and, more recently, the war to remove the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, are stark reminders of the ever present and destructive potential of the domination–violence nexus. Nevertheless, hegemony as domination in the theory of practice operates predominantly as authority through non-violent cultural institutions such as religion, politics, law, media, education and the marketplace where certain beliefs and values are packaged and disseminated (Connell 1987: 184). Through control of these cultural institutions, as Gramsci stressed, a group is able to infiltrate the self-consciousness of subaltern groups at the collective and individual level with its version of knowledge as truth and, in so doing, construct a dominative hegemony. The theme of domination that runs through Connell’s interpretation of hegemony enables the following definition to be posited as applicable in the

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theory of practice. Hegemony is a moment in history where one set of social actors has gained a position of cultural dominance that enables them to sustain a profound control and discipline over the interests, desires and actions of other social actors. Further, this enables the dominating set of social actors to protect their interests and desires and actions against challenge by transforming them into the cultural ideal. This definition represents, clearly, an outline of dominative hegemony as articulated in Chapter 2, which when set within the context of an aspiration for social justice, expresses itself, as Connell recognises, as a ‘problem’. However, unlike detached hegemony, dominative hegemony must deal with a level of self-consciousness and organisation within the community that goes beyond passivity. Also, because dominative hegemony is constructed primarily through culture and, therefore, will appear ubiquitous, it should not be assumed that it is also total. In other words, in line with the presentation and discussion of dominative hegemony in the Tripartite Model of Hegemony, its project cannot achieve the complete obliteration all other anti-hegemonic beliefs, values, norms, desires and aspirations. Instead it can only achieve obfuscation of these oppressed positions behind strategies of amelioration that, in turn, give legitimacy to certain principles and their operation across the community. This inevitably produces tension and instability because the process is always operating upon a balance of relations of force that are always situational (Connell’s 1987: 184), but also closed. Thus, although the theory of practice through the situational thematic recognises the possibilities for challenge and change, the operation of dominative hegemony must produce domination as natural, thereby blurring the complexity of the cultural framework and negating the possibilities for challenge that can lead to a new social justice.

Mechanisms of hegemony Tension and instability that produce challenge and change are managed in a dominative hegemony by the mobilisation and operation of certain mechanisms that are used to convince the community that adherence to the hegemonic principles produces social order. This has been evident throughout history where, as Langman (1998: 218–219) argues, power and privilege are often concentrated in the hands of the few while the vast majority of the impoverished are either oblivious or seem to ignore this arrangement. Since the Enlightenment, this structural contradiction has been expressed through various distinctive, culturally based regimes of domination such as despotism, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy and globalisation. In turn, these regimes have attracted the attention of various progressive thinkers who share a common desire to understand the basis of this contradiction and provide ideas that will lead to change. However, a significant dilemma that must be overcome in the promotion of these progressive ideas was, and still

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 45 remains, the subordinate groups’ own values, understandings and identities, which have effectively constrained them from consciousness about and actions promoting their own interests (Langman 1998: 219). The tools that produce and maintain a dominative hegemony also provide the means through which the vast majority of people accept their position within the community and will be referred to as the dominative ‘mechanisms of hegemony’. However, they do more than simply produce a passive assent by the mass of people. In effect, they actively seek and gain their assistance in the construction of a hegemonic situation that will ensure their own subjugation. In Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narratives and Argument, a collaborative effort with T.H. Irving, Connell (1980: 23) describes in class terms these hegemonic mechanisms as ‘anything that serves to disorganise the working class, to disrupt class solidarity, or to contain or deflect the actions of the working class groups, will then be a mechanism of hegemony’ (Connell and Irving 1980: 23). Although the theory of practice does not specifically articulate the types and operations of hegemonic mechanisms, based on the emphasis given to disorganisation and disruption of subaltern unity in the above description it is argued here that three key and inter-related culturally based mechanisms can be identified within the theory of practice that operate to produce and sustain dominative hegemony: cultural disarticulation, legitimation and the functioning of ‘traditional’ intellectuals. Cultural disarticulation The principal mechanism for constructing and maintaining dominative hegemony is precisely this ability to disrupt the processes of subaltern unity, which Connell (1983: 182) refers to as ‘cultural disarticulation’. This mechanism operates predominantly at the level of ideology and consciousness: not so much by suppressing or obliterating the culture of the oppressed, which is probably impossible to do anyway; rather by fragmenting it, by preventing the crystallisation of a coherent cultural base for resistance. What counts most, it would seem, is not getting a world ruling class organised, but keeping the world’s workers safely separated. (Connell 1983: 182; my emphasis) Thus, its aim is to prevent the development within the various subaltern groups of a collective understanding of their own experiences, desires, needs and aspirations. In other words, to undermine self-consciousness and organisation, which will produce a schism in the subaltern group’s cultural milieu, or more specifically, in the potential unification of their interests, which becomes manifest as the disconnection between the exigencies of their

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everyday lives and their ability to meet certain cultural expectations and aspirations. Two crucial issues emerge here. The first is that it is the dominant group that produces and enforces many of the expectations and aspirations that are seen as valuable by the subaltern groups. Donaldson (1991) illustrates this in his discussion of how the working class and, in particular, working class men, struggle to develop a consciousness of their masculinity through the relationality that occurs between the traditional family and workplace spheres. In seeking to sustain masculinity, which is at least as much undermined in the workplace as created there, labouring men develop an intense emotional dependency on the family-household . . . In neither place, however, are the various elements which make up a man able to be experienced as anything other than fragmented and contradictory. Instead, a masculinity undermined at work is assuaged at home, and a masculinity slipping at home is bolstered at work. (Donaldson 1991: 99) Here Donaldson suggests that, for the working-class labouring man, consciousness of himself as a man exists in a state of fragmentation and contradiction between the expectations and aspirations within the family-household and work environments. For the working-class man, hard work is a crucial component of masculinity, yet the workplace is a scene where the desire to work and achieve is mixed with such things as subordination to the bosses, persistent authority (Donaldson 1991: 11–13). The uncritical and taken-for-granted acceptance of their position is imperative to the successful disarticulation of working-class men’s own self-consciousness and, as a result, the reality of their culture. This leads to the second crucial issue, that is the idea that cultural disarticulation does not produce the complete destruction of the subaltern group’s culture. For example, it is not the objective of the bosses in Donaldson’s story to completely obliterate in men a sense of achievement and the desire to be breadwinners for their families. These are central principles of the capitalist working-class ethic. Instead, it is to ensure that the workers’ aspirations and desires are grounded in a notion of achievement that is continually being framed by criteria set by the bosses. The bosses’ objective is to continually construct and re-construct situations within which the workers’ primary energies are being expended on achieving what is effectively the unachievable. In Class Structure in Australian History, Connell and Irving (1980) outline how this process of cultural disarticulation operated on the subaltern groups in the first few decades after the Second World War in Australia. The nascent hegemonic groups immediately following the war began to put in place an ideology that, among other things, encouraged the ethic of hard

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 47 work, which led to the ultimate reward: consumerism. The ideology of home ownership set the benchmark for cultural success which, in turn, effectively obfuscated the reality of its pitfalls, including the confinement of families to large mortgages and the ever-increasing pressure to consume for the home. The notion of home as the centre of social and emotional life (see Parsons and Bales 1956; Zaretsky 1976) supported this ideology but, further, positioned workers into ever increasing suburban sprawls that temporally and spatially constrained them to strict exogenously imposed routines of travel, exercise, entertainment and so on. In addition to this new suburban milieu, the expansive economic and social development programmes that were being put in place led to massive inflows of predominantly unskilled migrant workers, which left those in the suburbs to become part of the ever-increasing non-manual sector where the doctrine of higher knowledge via education justifies higher privilege. All this further exacerbated the isolation and fracturing of groups who, in effect, shared similar cultural experiences. Notwithstanding the effects of this cultural disarticulation on the subaltern groups in the Australian post-war environment (recalling that it is never total), these groups did engage in various organised struggles against the nascent post-war hegemony, which was marked by a growing manufacturing-based capitalism and the continuation of a strong masculinism. For example, the significance of the trade union movement in labour politics and second-wave feminism in gender politics represent the outcomes of crisis tendencies in these key socio-political realms that, in turn, led to challenge and change in the post-war situation. However, while the concomitant struggles had the effect of developing, to a degree, a sense of collective energy, its nascent organicity was always already in the process of being disarticulated. Legitimation In previous epochs, mythology, mysticism and religion represented the principal systems through which a sense of meaning could be given to the contradictions inherent to the everyday lives of the mass of people (Segal 1989: 117–118). However, in contrast to these traditional systems of legitimacy with their theodic promises of transcendental salvation, contemporary Western societies adopt a more secular-based system of legitimacy that makes no promises of protection by omnipotent gods or the possibility for transcendence to a greater glory in a life beyond itself. Legitimacy in this situation is promoted through salvation grounded in the instantaneous gratification of the individual at the level of the everyday. This argument has a resonance with Adorno and Horkheimer’s conception of the ‘culture industry’ developed in their work Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944: 121–167). For them, salvation is effectively attained through the multiplicity of products and services that are continuously and at speed being presented to the

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individual by the culture industry. The result is the complete bedazzling of all those who witness its show, so that everything can and is made to seem acceptable, like fantasy and ‘indistinguishable from the movies’. It is possible to criticise the notion of the culture industry by arguing that Adorno and Horkheimer’s thesis positions people as no more than unknowing puppets dangling at the end of the culture industry’s strings, which in turn are controlled by some unknown yet powerful group of puppeteers. Further, this position reflects a deep pessimism in the ability of the masses to exercise any real agency. However, as Agger (1992: 20) argues, this pessimism is misunderstood if, as the orthodox Marxists contend, it emerges simply from Adorno and Horkheimer’s rejection of a belief in the potential for class unity among the masses. In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer were along with, the other Frankfurt School thinkers, careful political sociologists whose description of the situation immediately following the Second World War took on a pessimistic tone strictly as a result of the evidence they found (Agger 1992: 20–21). Notwithstanding the possibility for critique, the importance of the culture industry thesis is that it exposes a taken-for-grantedness, not so much as unknowingness or some cognitive blockage in the masses but as the product of a manipulated self-consciousness. Thus, the vision of reality held by the subaltern groups is in fact that of the dominant hegemonic group’s worldview, which results in their acceptance of the continual rhythms as set by these puppeteers. As such, the criteria that produces Langman’s dilemma concerning the contradictoriness of the subaltern group’s values and beliefs are more clearly explicated through Adorno and Horkheimer’s culture industry thesis; where of course, the reality of a dominative hegemony is central. Cognisance of the hegemonic situation by the subaltern groups does not necessarily result in organic resistance against domination. In effect, without self-consciousness and organisation, as Gramsci argued, cognisance becomes the acceptance of domination manifest as legitimate authority, produced and sustained on the basis of the latter’s assumed truth-value. As such, legitimation is equated with truth and relies on the positive establishment of a normative or naturalised order, which is grounded in the validation of its legality (Habermas 1975: 98). However, the legality of any order is premised on the acceptance by the masses of the processes that produce its rules and values, or in Habermas’ (1975: 98) terms, ‘the formal procedural criteria’ of legitimation. Without the ability to organise and critique these formal procedural criteria, the framework within which legitimacy is produced and sustained is more easily manipulated. For example, within the contemporary version of liberal-democracy, the formal procedural criteria that manipulates capitalist ethics so as to reify the right of all individuals to accumulate profits also establishes a particular androcentric gender order that oversees the production and allocation of the ‘patriarchal dividend’6 (Connell 1995: 79) to men. Thus, the nexus manipulation-legality within

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 49 the legitimation process operates interactively with cultural disarticulation, as well as the functioning of intellectuals, which represents the third hegemonic mechanism in the theory of practice, and whose project is to ensure the successful closure of the hegemony around certain principles. The function of intellectuals Gramsci argued that the functioning of intellectuals is bifurcated into traditional intellectual activities, which ensure the legitimacy of the existing hegemonic principles, and organic intellectual activities, which educate and organise the subaltern groups. However, while reference to Gramsci is made explicitly by Connell, with respect to intellectuals and their function, there is no delineation evident between the two groups in the theory of practice, and reference is only made to organic intellectuals. Further, at a prima facie level, the interpretation of organic intellectual functioning appears consistent with Gramsci, that is ‘[as] those people who perform an intellectual function within a class, giving it self-definition and helping it to mobilise as a political and social force’ (Connell 1987: 255). However, careful investigation reveals that the organic intellectual Connell refers to (1987: 257) includes priests, journalists, advertisers, politicians, novelists, film producers and academics. This aggregation of intellectuality, in fact, points to a significant shift from the Gramscian context because what is being described as organic activity is, in effect, a fusion of traditional and organic functionality. Most crucially, though, by ignoring the delineation of intellectual functioning, the theory of practice is less able to focus on the possibilities of change through war of position but is more able to emphasise the maintenance of key principles that sustain a dominative hegemony. This blurring of function becomes more evident in Connell’s (1987: 255) claim that intellectual activity can be organised around three broad categories:7 the regulation and management of regimes of power; the articulation of experiences, fantasies and perspectives characteristic of particular groups within these regimes; and the theorisation of relations within these power structures. A particularly important example of a contemporary organic intellectual group, as understood through the theory of practice and with specific application to gender, is The Promise Keepers. This is a Christian men’s movement founded by the former American-football coach Bill McCartney (Silverstein et al. 1999: 2), whose intellectual functioning falls into the category that emphasises the regulation of regimes of power and the theorisation of gender relations. Specifically, their objective is to re-define and re-impose manhood by re-claiming the authority of fatherhood. This can only be achieved through the religio-political mobilisation of men to confront and reverse what is seen to be the downward spiral of the contemporary family and, through it, broader community morality. As a movement,8 the Promise Keepers represent a leading edge in the reassertion

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of antifeminist, homophobic and essentialist views on gender difference and, thereby, gender roles and functions (Messner 1997: 27). Their epistemology is organised and articulated through strict adherence to spiritual doctrine and principles. It stresses that, for men, the immediate ‘reclamation’ of the father’s respect, appreciation and legal authority in the family is the only means of attaining true manhood (Silverstein et al. 1999: 2). Thus, the legitimacy of its claim emerges from the ability of its leaders to fuse convincingly the a priori truth of the scriptures with the a posteriori experience of men in the everyday struggles of contemporary life. Its project does not simply seek ultimate salvation and transcendental glory for men, husbands and fathers. Rather, it represents a direct and immediate strategy for the amelioration of contemporary conditions being experienced by men in the everyday. These include the effects of a post-cold-war economic strategy of rationalisation and re-structuring that have led to mass unemployment, as well as the day-to-day burdens experienced in the domestic environment where profound changes in gender relations and practices have become an entrenched feature of the isolated nuclear family home (Faludi 1999: 226–227). The Promise Keepers offer a cure to these contemporary social ills that are being inflicted upon men through the re-legitimising of manhood on the basis of traditional and fundamentally patriarchal notions of fatherhood as the highest spirit and authority. They seek to put men as fathers and, thereby, potentially all men, in a position where they are able to take back or assume this control and dominative authority, which is their right within the familial regime initially, and ultimately, in the broader culture. In this way, while the Promise Keepers fit the description of organic intellectual given by Connell, their project is more specifically regressive rather than progressive and restorative rather than revolutionary. Further, this partial interpretation of the intellectual function exemplifies the inability of the theory of practice to develop the active and progressive potential of hegemony.

Crisis tendencies The concept of situation with its tripartite thematic of relationality, onto-formativity and historicity grounds the generative nature of the power– liberation nexus or hegemony. In this sense, the theory of practice has moved understanding of social change beyond the paradigmatic closure of social reproduction theory and its continuation of the status quo. Further, the theory of practice gives a greater emphasis to the reality of interests and the possibilities of social tension and struggle. Gramsci argued that where the hegemonic group dominates, then leadership is weak and the system must put in place mechanisms and strategies that stifle any progressive movement if it is to maintain its self. But the theory of practice shows that, even in a dominative situation, structure is never ossified within a simply reproductive cycle. Therefore, no hegemony can be seen as completely stable.

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 51 This hegemonic instability is exemplified in the recognition (see Kimmel 1987) of a historical instability in the power–liberation nexus that operates throughout the gender order. This questioning of gender relations and configurations of practice challenge the authority of the traditional discourses in which social power is written essentialistically in the physical genes of people and groups or in the a priori fact of society and culture. For example, even at the personal level of interaction, the shapes of human desire that are felt and expressed in the bodily senses of masculinity and femininity, which mark gender emotionality within any situation, are historically constructed and grounded in the continual struggle to take control of defining configurations of practice such as conception, birth and childcare (Connell 1983: 38). The efficacy of control or, in other words, the possibilities and impossibilities that define the conditions of operation of such practices, represents a structural imposition. To understand its existence and operation within a situation, the focus must be on understanding the operation of the situational thematic and the ineluctability of their force to produce tendencies towards ‘crisis’ (Connell 1983: 38). Crisis? What crisis? Connell (1983: 38) argues, following Habermas in Legitimation Crisis, that the concept of ‘crisis’ is a particularly slippery one and not always easily distinguishable in social scientific analyses from system adaptation or social change. A social system has lost its identity as soon as later generations no longer recognise themselves within the once-constitutive tradition. Of course this idealistic concept of crisis also has its difficulties. At the very least, a rupture in tradition is an inexact criterion, since the media of tradition and the forms of consciousness of historical continuity themselves change historically. Moreover, a contemporary consciousness of crisis often turns out afterwards to be misleading. A society does not plunge into crisis when, and only when, its members so identify the situation. How could we distinguish such crisis ideologies from valid experiences of crisis if social crises could be determined only on the basis of conscious phenomena? (Habermas 1975: 4) Through the theory of practice, Connell (1983: 38) argues, the problematic nature of crisis sets up the potential for it to become a ‘thoroughly debased term’. For example, if any significant change occurs to tradition, this is immediately understood to herald in a crisis, such as the ‘crisis of the family’, the ‘economic crisis’, the ‘crisis of masculinity’ and so on. Thus, the concept of crisis and its tendencies need to be distinguished from its more colloquial usage where there is an a priori belief in the pre-existence of a

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coherent system of structures, which have been destroyed or are in the process of being restored following a crisis. Connell (1983: 38–39) is critical of Habermas on precisely this issue. The concept of crisis in Legitimation Crisis (1975: 17–24) implies both a periodisation of history and a reduction into essentialism. In Habermas’ ‘social principles of organization’ model, the three historical periods or social formations9 discussed are shown to be marked by their own unique ‘principle of organization’, which sets up the possibilities for social evolution and a particular type of crisis to emerge. Notwithstanding the sophistication of Habermas’ model, its periodisation leads inevitably to an essentialist notion of structure because it is assumed that, within each distinct and autonomous social formation, there is a unique ‘something’ at its core (in other words, its principle of organisation), which defines its fundamental character (Connell 1983: 38–39). For example, in primitive societies the principle of organisation is based on age and sex roles. While in traditional and liberal–capitalist societies the principles of organisation are class domination and the relationship of wage labour and capital, respectively. Crisis emerges for a society located in any of these three socio-historical periods when its particular principle of organisation is unable to be reproduced or, at least, it will exhibit crisis tendencies when its reproduction comes into question (Habermas 1975: 18–24). The objection to Habermas’ notion of crisis, and for that matter the treatment of crisis in most socialist discussions of socio-economic upheavals, as indicated in the analysis of social reproduction above, is that one is required to postulate the unity and systematicity of a set of social relations while disregarding the mediating efficacy of history (Connell 1983: 38–39; 1987: 159). The notion of crisis, because it is always about the structure of the whole (Connell 1983: 61) is, therefore, always concerned with the possibilities and constraints that condition the patterns of relations and configurations of practice. Or, as Connell states: The notion of crisis then refers to developments in practice – not logically of a different order from any others – that as a matter of fact alter the conditions of many particular practices by bringing about alterations in the whole field. The notion of a ‘mutation’ of practice may be a useful label for this. Since it is deciphered at the level of practice, the concept of crisis does not require an a priori characterization of the field (as is the case with Habermas’ approach to the problem). (Connell 1983: 39) Throughout the analysis of Connell’s interpretation and application of hegemony offered in this chapter, the discussion has been centred on moving the understanding of social phenomena beyond ahistorical or historically periodised contexts and beyond essentialistic and, thereby, ossified notions of

‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’ 53 structure and system. It has shown how social phenomena are located within situations, which are always historically contingent. For example, masculinity as a social phenomenon does not represent a coherent unified system that is simply reproducible across time and space. Rather, masculinity is defined by configurations of practice within a system of gender relations and, therefore, it is not logical to speak of a crisis of a configuration. Rather, what can be spoken of is the disruption to, or the transformation of, masculinity as part of a crisis of the gender order as a whole and, also, the tendencies of this order towards crisis (Connell 1995: 84). The concept of crisis can be applied to a historically composed gender order provided it is possible to distinguish historical developments, which call into question the properties of the gender order as a whole from those that can be contained locally. (Connell 1987: 159) So, for example, the emergence globally of a number of female political leaders does not imply crisis tendencies or, for that matter, crisis in terms of the overall structuring of masculine domination because it does not impact upon the gender order as a whole. In fact, in some cases, such as in Britain during the period of Margaret Thatcher’s government, the conditions for women were actually worsened (Connell 1987: 159). In exploring the crisis tendencies of the gender order, particularly within the rich capitalist countries, Connell (1987: 159) takes as his starting point the identification of four major structural features produced through history. First is the gendered separation of domestic life from the money economy and the political world. Second is the emergence of heavily masculinised core institutions and a more open textured periphery. The third is the institutionalisation of heterosexuality and the repression of homosexuality. These patterns lead to the fourth structural feature: the pattern of sexual politics marked by the overall subordination of women by men. Thus, as Connell goes on to state, if these features are broadly accurate, analysis of crisis tendencies becomes a question of identifying the dynamics that have the potential of disrupting or transforming these four features and thus the conditions of future social practice. What is crucial about crisis tendencies is that, once mobilised, they are irreversible and the impacted structure is unable to revert to the status quo ante, it must deal with this heightened level of tension incoherence and struggle (Connell 1983: 61). A crucially important aspect of the treatment of crisis within the theory of practice is that the conceptual emphasis is placed on crisis tendencies rather than crisis. In this context, the aspiration for social justice must recognise that change will be determined by ad hoc challenges to the system driven spontaneously by history. Thus, the groups initiating and engaging in crisis tendencies, while emerging from the socio-cultural milieu, will lack

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a coherent unity of identity because, in line with Gramsci, crisis tendencies are fundamentally conjunctural movements. In the following chapter the interpretation of hegemony as developed in the theory of practice will be shown to extend into gender politics but, most importantly, crystallises its constraining effect on the development of strategies for social justice.

4

The application of hegemony to gender

This chapter brings the theoretical work on hegemony presented in the previous chapters into sharper focus by showing the application of dominative hegemony to contemporary gender politics. The chapter is organised into three sections. The first, ‘Conceptualising gender multiplicity’, takes its point of departure as the bifurcation of knowledge about gender into sociobiological and social constructionist schools. From here, Connell’s practicebased approach to gender will be shown as located within the latter school but, more importantly, that from this location gender multiplicity and, therefore, the conceptualisation of masculinities and femininities is made possible. The second section, entitled ‘The masculinities schema: organizing gender in a dominative hegemony’, presents an examination and elaboration of gender multiplicity and focuses on the patterning and nature of the political system in Connell’s masculinities theory. In the final section, ‘The hegemonic principles of a masculine hegemony’, the key hegemonic principles imperative for hegemonic masculinity’s dominative project will be introduced.

Conceptualising gender multiplicity Like other sociological phenomena such as the family (Robertson Elliot 1986: 15–33), religion (Roberts 1995: 7–10) and culture (Harris 1979), it is problematic to think about gender as representing a coherent social object, underpinned by a specific knowledge offering a precise and complete explanation. Even at the highest level of generality, knowledge of gender can be bifurcated into socio-biological and social constructionist schools. In 1975, Edward Wilson (quoted in Edley and Wetherell 1995: 25) defined the discipline of socio-biology as ‘the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviour’. In the contemporary situation, the explosion of interest in human genetics has sustained an interest in the socio-biology of gendered behaviour. Specifically, this new direction takes human genetic structuring as underpinning all socio-biological processes, which in turn offers predictability to human behaviour (Vaughan and Hogg 1995: 290–291). Socio-biologists, however, do acknowledge the influence of

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culture on the development of human practice (Edley and Wetherell 1995: 35), but biology and culture are always held as separate factors and, more importantly, as measurable and comparable. This in turn enables the determination of a dominance of one over the other, and has led ultimately to a dichotomic structuring of knowledge that has grounded studies of sex difference throughout modern social science in the form of the nature–nurture debate. The sociological position taken historically in this debate, and one that more contemporarily has been questioned by critical theories, is best exemplified by the structural functionalist interpretation of sex-role theory.1 Here human practice is viewed as predictable because it is organised around biological reproductive characteristics, which assign a ‘presumptive primacy’, in the first instance, to the allocation of expressiveness as a function of the female sex-role, ensuring that the male assumes the instrumental role (Parsons and Bales 1956: 46). On this basis, the practices that underpin the roles of masculinity and femininity are perceived as normative and their maintenance ensures order, both in collective as well as personal social relations. Socio-biological approaches to gender also incorporate what Connell (1983: 57; 1987: 54–61) has referred to as ‘categoricalism’, which, in the context of gender, expresses the view that the social order is constructed around two major sex-based categories. Most importantly, it is only when these categories have been identified and their nature defined that individuals can be allocated to them and certain sex-roles assigned. Thus, in terms of masculinity, categorical approaches posit a single systematic cause for the allocation of men to their social position and the adoption of their social roles, whether this is based on biology, the organisation of sexual reproduction, capitalism or the organisation of family life. On this basis, there is an assumption that the categories of masculinity and femininity can be viewed as autonomous and homogenous social groupings (Edley and Wetherell 1995: 127–128). In contradistinction, social constructionist perspectives reject the view that gender emerges from a single determining force, and crucially, as exogenous to the human body (Vance 1995: 42). This is most impressively explicated in Gayle Rubin’s (1975) classic essay, ‘The traffic in women: notes on the “political economy” of sex’, in which she begins to develop an argument for the importance of situation and social relations in the construction of gender by drawing on and extending Marx. Marx once asked: ‘What is a Negro slave? A man of the black race. The one explanation is as good as the other. A Negro is a Negro. He only becomes a slave in certain relations. A cotton spinning jenny is a machine for spinning cotton. It becomes capital only in certain relations. Torn from these relationships it is no more capital than gold in itself is money or sugar is the price of sugar’. One might paraphrase: What is a domesticated woman? A female of the species. The one explanation is as

The application of hegemony to gender 57 good as the other. A woman is a woman. She only becomes a domestic, a wife, a chattel, a playboy bunny, a prostitute, or a human dictaphone in certain relations. Torn from these relationships, she is no more the helpmate of man than gold in itself is money . . . (Rubin 1975: 158) In this passage Rubin shows the profound nature of Marx’s critique of capitalist relations in which the definition or value of some thing is shown as never determined simply by understanding its immanent value. So, in analogy, the inherent blackness of the black man says nothing about that man, other than he is in fact black. To understand the black man, or for that matter the white, the homosexual and the fat man requires knowledge of the social relations in which they are located, causing them to assume certain configurations of practice and develop certain identities. Gender multiplicity through practice It is through a similar recognition by Connell of the importance of social relations upon practice that masculinity, which is a form of practice, can be conceived as multiplicity. This argument sits at the core of masculinities theory whose theoretical underpinnings are given by the theory of practice’s inter-related concepts of situation and hegemony, which also emphasise its dynamic and hierarchical nature. Thus, gender at any particular historical moment can only represent the configurations of practice emergent from the milieu of social relations that incorporate and organise power. As such, it is defined as ‘[the] place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture’ (Connell 1995: 71). However, gendered practice also reflects bodily experiences or a biological aspect that is referred to by Connell (1995: 71) as the ‘reproductive arena’. Here the body and its biological underpinnings are not rejected out of hand but neither are they privileged with primacy and upheld as the essential determinant. Instead, biological sex is interpreted as a historically contingent point of reference for the process of gender construction that takes the nexus between the body and gender practice as never immanently determined. As such, the existence of masculinities conceptually is made possible precisely to the extent that biological sex is not seen as the determining force in social practice (Connell 1995: 71). Thus, gender is no longer viewed as two autonomously homogenous categories but, rather, as configurations of practice within social relations that operate, not just between men, but also between men and women and between women and women at any one historical moment. In other words, gender is relational (see also Kimmel 1987: 122) and, as such, it cannot assume a certain practice from which its interests and identity develop, except in contrast to some other (Connell 1995: 68). However, as will be

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shown in the next section of this chapter, it is too simplistic and even contradictory to posit that this contradistinctive other is, for masculinity, only femininity (and, for femininity, only masculinity) because once the ahistorical and essentialist or categoricalist underpinnings are removed by recognition of situation and hegemony, the construction of a masculinity contrasted to a femininity becomes problematic. Instead, the process of gender construction is seen to operate within the complex social milieu at various levels, such as the collective and institutional, as well as personal face-to-face and in sexual contexts (Connell 2000: 29). This produces the multiplicity of gender understood as masculinities and femininities and not their singularity expressed as masculinity and femininity. When this complex of relations is taken as a whole, it forms an analytic object that represents a situation-specific patterning of gender termed, in line with Connell (1987: 98–99), a ‘structural inventory’. Within an inventory, the complex of relations that delineate and describe the various gender types are in turn organised into specific collectivities and institutions such as a family, a legal system, a workplace and a education system, which represent lower-level analytic objects referred to as ‘gender regimes’ (Connell 1987: 99). However, the influence of the situational thematic ensures that a structural inventory and its regimes are never stable but always fluid and thus open to crisis tendencies, which ensure that the gender types to emerge are, similarly, never stable. Nevertheless, key features of a structural inventory are the historically persistent structures formed under the rubrics of power, labour, cathexis (Connell 1987: 98–99) and symbols (Connell 2000: 208) that are referred to as ‘structural models’2 (Connell 1987: 91). These models have the crucial analytic task of historical comparison or, in other words, enabling past inventories to be called upon and related to the present which, in turn, exposes potentials that can lead to the development of strategies to meet aspirations into the future. In this way, Connell’s analytic strategy is in line with Gramsci’s emphasis on the importance of a praxisbased approach to understanding concrete everyday reality, which becomes an always already unstable quality. In contradistinction, a gender theory that comes from a socio-biological standpoint, which accepts the atavistic projection of masculinity as a singularity across history, will ineluctably fail to recognise that the construction of gender, understood through the analysis of structural models, transcends the ahistoricity of the sexed-body. More precisely, the socio-biological standpoint fails to grasp what Gramsci had called the crucial problem of historical materialism. In other words, it fails to see the importance of recognising the existence of a dialectical relation between structure–materialbody and superstructure–values–culture in the construction of gender.

The application of hegemony to gender 59

The masculinities schema: organising gender in a dominative hegemony In the above analyses, Connell’s masculinities theory is shown to present gender as a practice that is underpinned by situation and hegemony to reveal a contemporary gender ordering that manifests both a multiple and hierarchical, as well as unstable yet persistent nature. This view of gender is represented here as ‘The Masculinities schema’ (see Figure 4.1). At a prima facie level, this schematic presentation shows the inclusion of various key gender types as enclosed entities, which seemingly implies a sense of autonomy and homogenisation, or in other words, categoricalism. However, the theory of practice that underpins this schema pushes it beyond categoricalism by emphasising that the masculinities and femininities presented exist always within relations with others and, therefore, not simply as independent objects of inquiry. In this way, ‘The Masculinities schema’ presents an explication of not just the intra-relationality of key masculinities but, also the intra-relationality of key femininities as well as the interrelationality of these masculinities and femininities. This latter work, that is, exploring the intra-relationality of femininities and the inter-relationality of these femininities with masculinities, has been under-emphasised in

Power

Cathexis

Production

Symbolisation Hegemonic masculinity

Complicit masculinities (protest masculinities)

Emphasised femininity

Marginalised masculinities

Ambivalent femininities

Subordinate masculinities

Protest femininities Key Relation of domination Relation of contestation Relation of alliance

Figure 4.1 The masculinities schema.

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masculinities theory. The following discussion offers a detailed examination and elaboration of the gender types presented, as well as their position and operation in ‘The Masculinities schema’.3 The focus will then shift to an analysis of the operation of the relations of domination, contestation and/or alliance in which they are located, and to explore their patterning by determining the power symmetry or asymmetry4 within the system. Masculinities: the movers and shakers of a dominative hegemony In Gramsci’s political relations of force, it is argued that only from a fundamental social group can hegemony develop and, as such, in his class-based economic theorisations, only bourgeoisie or proletariat can be hegemonic. The application of hegemony to gender in masculinities theory does not suggest a similar scenario. Hegemony can only emanate from masculinity and continue to be expressed through masculinity. In this sense, both Gramsci and Connell view hegemony as having an exclusionary nature. However, the complexity of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, as illustrated in the ‘Tripartite model of hegemony’, shows that exclusion operates only in the regressive forms of detached and dominative hegemony. In the theory of practice, where hegemony is interpreted and articulated simply in its dominative form, the regressive cycle predominates and ensures that the hegemonic group, in the final analysis, dominates all other groups. But the ‘Tripartite model’ also shows that hegemony can be conceptualised in a progressive or aspirational form. As such, it is produced and sustained in situations where the dominant social group also leads by aligning itself ideologically to the broader community of interests and identities. Thus, hegemony becomes exclusionary only when this leadership in crisis becomes domination. Hegemonic masculinity In the contemporary Western gender order, hegemonic masculinity dominates all other gender types. The point of departure for this domination is that it is viewed as an ‘ideal’. In other words, its defining characteristics, which include whiteness, location in the middle class, heterosexuality, independence, rationality and educated, a competitive spirit, the desire and the ability to achieve, controlled and directed aggression, as well as mental and physical toughness are all highly honoured and desired in the community and must be protected. However, although hegemonic masculinity can be seen to represent the benchmark for gender, its defining characteristics are not always the most common and certainly not the most comfortable for men (or for women) to assume and identify with at the concrete everyday level (Connell 2000: 11; 1987: 183). Therefore, its expansionary project must ensure that, notwithstanding these difficulties, the idealised characteristics remain legitimate and desired. Thus, what the existence of hegemonic

The application of hegemony to gender 61 masculinity indicates, with respect to gender politics, is an underlying struggle in which these hegemonic characteristics must continue to be privileged over all others. Through this, hegemonic masculinity becomes central to the cultural legitimacy of hierarchy as presented in ‘The masculinities schema’ which, in turn, protects the balance of power in favour of men. In effect, hegemonic masculinity is the central feature of what can now be understood as a dominative masculine hegemony and operates, as Connell (1995: 77) describes, as ‘the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women.’ Two aspects of Connell’s definition of hegemonic masculinity sustain this dominative nature. The first is based on the claim that hegemonic masculinity ‘guarantees (or is taken to guarantee)’ the ascendant position of men over women. However, as has been pointed out, not all men will feel comfortable with, or will want to act in accordance with, the hegemonic masculine ideal. For example, men who reject or protest against heterosexuality and men who are racially or ethnically marginalised from the white Western mainstream will struggle to have their realities aligned to the realities of a hegemonic heterosexuality or the authority that comes with whiteness. This suggests that having the sex of male does not automatically confer ‘guarantees’ (in an a posteriori sense) upon all men that they can and will achieve the hegemonic benchmark. Rather, for the vast majority of men, their ascendancy in the gender order can only be ‘taken as guaranteed’ (effectively in an a priori sense). The second marker of importance is contained within the claim that hegemonic masculinity expresses the ‘currently accepted’ answers to the guarantees given by the dominative masculine hegemony. In other words, it is through the hegemonic principles that the current answers to the continuation of the ascendancy of men operate. However, if it is only the current answer, then there is implied a situational quality. Crucially, though, the situationality of the hegemonic principles is only one of sorts because, to guarantee men’s dominance within the politics of gender, they must continually address the ‘problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy’, that is, ensure the continuation of a system of oppression where economic, political as well as a moral and intellectual androcentricity prevails. The imperative to ensure this focus on all things masculine as the basis of the current gender worldview means that the nature of power, which must be cultivated within the complex of gender relations, needs to emphasise a restorative and, therefore, dominative rather than revolutionary and aspirational function. In other words, traditionally accepted practices such as heterosexual marriage, men as public paid workers, men as family providers, and the cultural acceptance of men’s non-emotive and often aggressive positions within cathectic relations, must be continually upheld as key defining principles within the hegemonic masculine characteristics, which are organised so as to ensure

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the continuation of the dominative masculine hegemony. Thus, the crisis tendencies that will inevitably emerge in the current situation are managed through hegemonic mechanisms that can control and even negate their political or conjunctural nature. In this way, the hegemonic principles upon which the hegemonic masculine ideal is defined and expanded remain protected within and through the various gender regimes and, thus, across the structural inventory as a whole. This stifles any organic critique and aspiration for a new social justice in gender. Subordinate and marginalised masculinities The positioning within ‘The masculinities schema’ of hegemonic masculinity as the ascendant and dominant form of masculinity obviates the presence of its subaltern other; the primary forms of which are ‘subordinate’ and ‘marginalised’ masculinities. The delineation of these subaltern forms from hegemonic masculinity within masculinities theory is based on their relation with other culturally formed structures such as sexuality, race, ethnicity and class (Connell 1995: 80). Subordinate masculinities emerge as a product of a particular relation some men have within the structure of sexuality that inverts the hegemonic cathectic focus towards the feminine (as heterosexuality) back upon the masculine (as homosexuality). The hegemonic conception of homosexuality emphasises gender differences more so than the actual difference in sexual orientation. In other words, the characteristics inherent to the practice of homosexuality mark these men with a visible form of non-masculinity or effeminacy that blurs the required clear-cut gender delineations (Connell 1995: 79). So, for example, dress sense, speech and demeanour, as well as overt sexuality, are the manifest symbols that contain such characteristics as expressiveness and emotiveness, passivity and domesticity, weakness and lack of authority that are anathema to the dominative masculine hegemony. The cultural appropriation by Western society of heterosexual practices as normative began during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries where the scientific, bureaucratic and professional developments that underpinned early industrial capitalism also influenced the broader complex of social relations (Foucault 1978: 101). However, crucially, heterosexuality was preceded by the construction of the homosexual category, first within the pseudo-scientific disciplines of forensic psychiatry and sex psychology, and then in sexology as a form of congenital inversion (Kinsman 1993: 9). The categoricalism that underpinned the construction of homosexuality effectively marked all men who were located in these cathectic relations, and once identified, their practices were labelled as deviant and set apart from normative sexual practice that could now be understood and constructed within the category of heterosexuality. So the configurations of practice that describe subordinate masculinities are antithetical to hegemonic masculinity because they effectively represent the repository of all that has been expelled.

The application of hegemony to gender 63 However, it is not just homosexual men who express subordinate masculinities. Some heterosexual men, too, blur the masculine–feminine divide through their appearance, mannerisms and even their work (Connell 1995: 79). The key to their subordination in the gender order is, again, the visible presence of effeminacy and weakness that makes the clear-cut divisions required by hegemonic masculinity and demanded by its dominative masculine hegemony difficult to uphold. The distinction between subordinate masculinities and marginalised masculinities is based on the difference between the social relations that define them. Subordinate masculinities are linked uniquely to cathectic relations structured around sex. These relations, while fundamentally internal to the gender structure, have been labelled as deviant and, thereby, expelled from the hegemonic worldview. On the other hand, marginalised masculinities develop within and through other social relations, such as those structured around the concepts of race, class and ethnicity.5 These relations exist and operate exogenously to the gender structure but are, nevertheless, always already interacting with gender (Connell 1995: 80). While these structures are not necessarily seen as holistically deviant and, as a result, rejected outright by the dominative masculine hegemony, in some contexts the masculinities of certain groups of men are de-privileged where they do not conform. This point is made by Messner (1997: 7) in the claim that, although men as a group enjoy institutional privileges at the expense of women, as a group, men share very unequally in the advantages these privileges provide. For example, the marginalisation of working-class masculinity in the current situation was driven by changes in technology, education and work practices that gave rise to middle-class and professional masculinities which, in turn, emphasised career and status achievements, intellectual ability, determination for success, fatherhood and breadwinning, as well as a new emphasis on fashion, grooming and appearance (Wernick 1994: 51). The effect of re-configuring the traditional hegemonic ideal based on hard work, toughness, and/or a carefree homosocial existence was that for many traditional working-class men the new emphasis left them confused and in a tenuous position with regards to their own sense of identity and place. The subordination and marginalisation of men is always a product of their relations to those men (or at least the symbols that represent those men) who operate in close proximity to the hegemonic ideal. However, as shown in Chapter 3, a dominative hegemony does not seek the complete destruction of all opposing forces and, as such, there will always be configurations of practice and relations that, while challenging the existing hegemony, are nevertheless allowed to exist. Their operation, though, is always underpinned by ‘authorization’6 given by the dominative masculine hegemony. In other words, the dominative masculine hegemony accepts the operation of identities and configurations of practice which would otherwise be problematic for it, while rejecting or proscribing others (Connell 1995:

64 The application of hegemony to gender 81). This has the effect of momentarily normalising the identities and configurations of practice that these subaltern masculinities will express. So, in this context, authorisation might be understood as a ‘release valve’ that controls the expression and mobilisations of challenge at the collective and individual level. However, in the final analysis, such a valve is always controlled so as not to allow the hegemonic principles to be placed in jeopardy. The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ infiltration into the mainstream cultural calendar of Sydney is a prime example of this type of authorisation. This event displays and celebrates subordinate as well as marginalised masculinities (and femininities). However, the protest effects of this event are constrained spatially and temporally, as well as ideologically. In other words, the regressive/restorative imperative of the dominative masculine hegemony ensures that the potential of this event to unite and initiate an organic critique that could significantly challenge the hegemony remains immature and, thus, ineffective. Beyond the Mardi Gras’ boundaries,7 the normative view of these subaltern masculine identities and practices remains economically, politically and culturally deviant and pushed into covert operations and sites. In effect, the traditional intellectuals, which include politicians, priests and business-people, have authorised the operationalisation of the Mardi Gras as a hegemonic mechanism producing cultural disarticulation so that, rather than an event that works against the current dominative masculine hegemony, it sustains it. Cultural disarticulation in this context is premised on the authorisation given for the identity of queer to be displayed but on the basis of a construction that produces a novelty identity rather than a normative expression of gender. In a broader Gramscian sense, the efficacy of the Mardi Gras was as a war of movement. However, this form of challenge was unable to overcome the regressive/restorative forces at that time and, as it became subsumed by the hegemony, its inability to push gender politics towards the construction of a new progressive critique and protest became increasingly weak. This failure to produce crisis rather than crisis tendencies and socio-historic change rather than conjunctural movements reflects the point Connell (1995: 81) makes in his argument on authorisation. That is, authorised challenge does not necessarily lead to a ‘trickle-down effect’. In other words, the Mardi Gras does not produce broad cultural acceptance of queer identities just as other subordinate and marginalised men who have broken away from the cycle of powerlessness through such things as sporting achievements and/or media or pop star status, which allows them to enjoy power as well as extreme fame and wealth, does not mark the point of departure for the empowerment of similarly located masculinities within the broader cultural mainstream. Instead, these instances simply represent conjunctural or spontaneous and disconnected moments of emancipation and not the beginnings of an organic or collective and progressive unity.

The application of hegemony to gender 65 Complicit masculinities The vast mass of men have little or no direct connection with either hegemonic, subordinate or marginalised masculinities, that is, they cannot or do not actively seek to embody these ideals into their gender practice. Nevertheless, this same mass of men gain advantage and privilege by accepting, albeit a priori, the existence of a benchmark against which they can position themselves in relation to its symbolised ideals. The nature of this relation is contained in the idea of complicity. Complicit masculinities are often seen as lesser versions of the hegemonic ideal because their advantage is never as clear-cut, and is often made without the tensions or risks that being on the frontline of the system brings (Connell 1995: 79). Nevertheless, this acceptance, which also causes a problematic identification with the benchmark, forms a crucial part of the project to overcome the concern of legitimacy that was shown earlier to be a key feature of hegemonic masculinity’s project for continuation. This is because, by maintaining an alliance with the mass of men (and a not insignificant number of women), a strategic unity is constructed, albeit ambiguous and ambivalent in practice, whose consequence is the legitimation of the hegemonic principles and, thereby, the maintenance of the current gender order. Therefore, in contrast to subordinate and marginalised masculinities, the potential for complicit masculinities to challenge the principles expressed in hegemonic masculinity, even at the level of conjuncture or politics, is much weaker than other subaltern masculinities. However, because complicit masculinities do not always adopt the full hegemonic masculine ideal, there is always the possibility that they will assume certain characteristics that diminish the purity of the dominative hegemonic project, particularly at the level of personality, and the manifestation of this is contained in what Connell (1995: 109–112) refers to as ‘protest masculinities’. Protest masculinities, while being structurally complicit at the personal level, challenge the defining hegemonic principles by expressing behaviours such as deep affection for children, egalitarian attitudes towards the sexes and a sense of personal hygiene and fashion that, traditionally, was attached to subordinate masculinities and femininities (Connell 1995: 112). In effect, protest masculinities construct a relation of alliance between complicit and the other subaltern masculinities and femininities. Notwithstanding the existence of protest masculinities, for many men who would identify with complicit forms of masculinity, the idea of challenging the hegemonic principles is often replaced by a tendency to compromise aspects of their relations with both men and women (Connell 1995: 79). As such, within a structural inventory it is possible to examine particular gender regimes such as marriage and family, law, as well as the workplace, and find extensive compromises being exercised by individuals on issues such as housework, childcare, leisure and work routines. Therefore,

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the idea that, through hegemonic masculinity, complicit masculinities will always be able to exercise naked domination and uncontested authority symmetrically with hegemonic masculinity is not part of the complicit reality. Unpacking the femininities bloc Through the theory of practice and masculinities theory, a consistent and key theme is that the relationality between masculinities and femininities, in other words, that one’s behaviour and practice cannot be understood without knowledge of the other, has become axiomatic. However, in Connell’s masculinities theory there is no elaboration of the operation of hegemony on femininities and how this influences knowledge of masculinities and, more importantly, social justice in gender. Further, because the aim of this study is to examine the hegemonic masculinity–social justice nexus, the importance of focusing on the intra- and inter-relationality of gender types presented in ‘The masculinities schema’ is of crucial importance. For this reason the following discussion offers an elaboration and extension of masculinities theory into what I have termed the ‘femininities bloc’. In masculinities theory the internal hierarchical system evident with respect to masculinities shows a dominant form with the criteria for construction of other subaltern masculinities as always premised on the relations that exist between them. This situation does not operate for femininities. In other words, the masculinities type of internal relationality is not similarly productive because the key influence on intra-feminine relations is the holistic subordination of women to men, and it is here that Connell (1987: 183–184) argues the basis for the tripartite delineation of femininities exists. The starting point for conceptualising femininities, then, is with ‘emphasised femininities’, whose compliance and accommodation of hegemonic masculinity’s hegemonic principles positions it as the ideal but, also, ensures a strong and well-defined relation of alliance. Thus, not only does ‘The masculinities schema’ express two idealised gender types but, also, an idealised relation, and it is in comparison to this relation that all other femininities are delineated. Having made this initial identification and articulated a brief elaboration of the conception of emphasised femininity, masculinities theory fails to elaborate the other two femininities. A possible reason for the lack of development is that these other femininities are considered to be of lesser importance to the definition of hegemonic masculinity and its project in the expansion of the dominative masculine hegemony. This insignificance, in turn, can be explained because they fail to express a clear-cut relation of alliance. Nevertheless, recognition of the ‘interplay’ between femininities is argued to represent ‘a major part of the dynamics of change in the gender order as a whole’ (Connell 1987: 187). However, it will be shown that the relations of contestation identified in ‘The masculinities schema’, which are crucial for change to a new social justice in gender, are a key part of the fem-

The application of hegemony to gender 67 ininities that have been ignored in masculinities theory. Therefore, it is precisely the femininities that masculinities theory has ignored, referred to here as ambivalent femininities and protest femininities, which hold the key to moving beyond conjunctural gender politics and towards the construction of a war of position that is able to open the possibilities of moving beyond domination and towards aspirational hegemony. Emphasised femininity Emphasised femininity, like hegemonic masculinity, is a cultural construction with a very public face, even though its content is specifically grounded in the private realms of the house and the bedroom (Connell 1987: 187). As Germaine Greer wrote in the Whole Woman: No sooner had I caught sight of the whole woman then western marketing came blaring down upon her with its vast panoply of spectacular effects, strutting and trumpeting the highly seductive gospel of salvation according to hipless, wombless, hard-titted Barbie. (Greer 1999: 5) Here Greer, in her own inimitable style and within a context of attacking contemporary Western feminism – in particular, its fickleness in maintaining the challenge against hegemonic masculinity – exposes a key aspect of emphasised femininity: publicly objectified beauty. But while feminine beauty is a very public issue, the patterning of relations and practices that it produces impacts on the private sphere where the demand is not just for beauty but a soft and docile personality that expresses such things as sociability rather than technical competence, fragility in mating scenes, compliance with men’s desires for titillation and ego-stroking, as well as acceptance of marriage and childcare (Connell 1987: 187). In other words, this patterning expresses a complete compliance and accommodation of the hegemonic principles. Historically, the emphasis for femininity has been, as Freud described it, on the broad themes of sexual receptivity in relation to younger women and motherhood in relation to older women. It is also possible that in such an event one would not be justified in mourning the passing away of the most delightful thing the world can offer us – our ideal womanhood. I believe that all reforming action in law and in education would break down in front of the fact that, long before the age at which a man can earn a position in society, nature has determined woman’s destiny through beauty, charm and sweetness. Law and custom have much to give women that has been withheld from them, but the position of women will surely be what it is: in youth an adored darling and in mature years a loved wife. (Freud, quoted in Jones 1953: 168)

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Of course, not much has changed in the current situation since Freud’s remarks and, in effect, they highlight the Victorian influence in contemporary conceptions of perfect feminine subordination within a domestic heterosexual cathexis. Here the family emerges as the key gender regime for the normalisation of compliance and accommodation. In effect, the family emphasises and hardens the past ideals and serves them up as present pleasures (Mitchell 1971: 156). However, this process does not emerge independently of other cultural influences (Connell 1987: 187–188), so that, effectively, the home and the bedroom are continually being re-presented through such operations as the media and marketing, political philosophy and workplace policies, as the natural locations for the performance of this subordination and on a scale that far exceeds the attention given to any other form of femininity or masculinity. A femininity constructed through a perfectly compliant and accommodating relation, in the final analysis, is in no position to establish its own hegemony over other types of femininity (Connell 1987: 188). Further, the ideality it expresses is always a product of its desirability and normativity to hegemonic masculinity, which exceeds other femininities but is never symmetrically negotiated. Notwithstanding the asymmetry of the power– liberation nexus, and the exploited position this leads emphasised femininity into, it does have a crucial role in the construction and maintenance of alliances between the other femininities and masculinities. In particular, emphasised femininities give the traditional intellectuals a platform from which to produce the disarticulation and de-legitimation of other feminine interests required to challenge the dominative hegemonic project. This in turn leads, as is shown in ‘The masculinities schema’, to the negation of an organic and unified protest against the system of domination, thus bolstering the coherence and legitimacy of the dominative masculine hegemony. Ambivalent femininities If emphasised femininity was about normalising the subordination of femininities to masculinities, then the project around which ambivalent femininities are gathered gives more emphasis to the questioning of this normalcy. This arises because just as complicit masculinities was shown to represent the mass of men within gender politics, so, too, ambivalent femininities represent the mass of women who can neither accept nor reject holistically the current dominative hegemonic principles and, more importantly, the position they construct for women. As such, ambivalent femininities always incorporate complex and strategic combinations of compliance, resistance and cooperation (Connell 1987: 184) to produce a broad heterogeneous gender type. As a result, its resistances, when they occur, operate at the conjunctural level of protest and are focused on ameliorative solutions to the crisis tendencies that mark the everyday lives of women. The project of ambivalent femininities is epitomised in the second-wave

The application of hegemony to gender 69 feminist movement. In particular, the attempts by liberal feminists to challenge and change the concrete everyday experiences and conditions of women through the existing androcentric material and ideological infrastructure in a way that did not negate or de-prioritise the reality of women’s lives (Tong 1989: 12). Their solutions developed out of a negotiated balance between economic, cultural, biological and personal exigencies. In contrast, early radical feminists pushed this task even further by bringing to the centre the forgotten woman; the woman who does not fit in; the woman who despises and rejects the feminine stereotype; and who is never a ‘true woman’ (Joreen, quoted in Roszak and Roszak 1969: 275). Its most potent weapon of protest, though, was its stress on the imperative for women to actively violate all pre-conceptions of proper feminine sex-role behaviour. In effect, the aim was to blur what had been, up to that point, a clear delineation between traditional feminine and masculine characteristics and, thereby, equalise gender identification and practice. However, once activated, the only option available for women was to adopt masculine characteristics in the production of an androgenous identity. It was not long before radical feminism recognised the importance of emphasising that a distinct feminine reality existed from that of men’s and that its reality was of crucial importance. This was first taken up by Shulamith Firestone (1971) whose work, The Dialectic of Sex, in many ways located a unique and radical feminine-based social challenge within a formal materialist and academic discourse. Firestone’s thesis posited that the ‘means of reproduction’, or in other words, childbirth and childcare, fundamentally differentiated femininity from masculinity. This effectively positioned the body as the point of departure from which the criteria for gender differentiation emerged (Firestone 1971: 192) and, as a result, it is the body that must be the starting point for any strategy that seeks to challenge and change the hegemonic oppression of women by men. More contemporary radical feminists such as Catherine Mackinnon (1982) similarly focused on the body. However, this was not so much a questioning of the allocation of the means of reproduction to the female but, rather, on the nexus between male power, sexuality and the objectification of the feminine body. Mackinnon (1982: 529) offers a radical critique of heterosexuality arguing that feminism is fundamentally about identifying ‘sexuality as the primary social sphere of male power’. Heterosexual relations were exposed as representing a particular eroticisation of a sexuality-based cathectic system that sustains the legitimacy of an aggressive masculine dominance and passive feminine subordination. So that the process of becoming a woman in a psychosexual sense enforces an emphasis on learning to exist (sexually) for men, or to become what Greer (1999: 27) refers to as ‘man-made women’. In contrast, socialist feminism, which attempts to synthesise Marxist and feminist theories, rejected aspects of the popular liberal and radical feminist arguments. However, socialist feminism also questioned the advantage of seeking equality for women as citizens without seriously challenging the

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dominant liberal model of politics (Mouffe 1993: 79), as well as the radical feminist emphasis on the body and the configurations of practice that surround it as key to women’s oppression. Rather, the materiality of difference was seen instead as a politico-economic contingency that became manifest in the levels of health, wealth, leisure and lifestyle that could be achieved (Grant 1993: 45). But even these cultural achievements had a clear and significant influence on bodies and their operation (Connell 1983: 59–60; Weedon 1999: 131). Thus, it was becoming apparent that feminism without a theory about economics (capitalism) and the body produces a critique that is ineffective in developing knowledge that addresses issues such as why women have been systematically oppressed across cultures and throughout time. Through the work of Juliet Mitchell (1971), which represents a comprehensive and significant socialist feminist theory, we are led to the view that Marxism without (radical) feminism remains an un-gendered and, therefore, abstract socialism, while (radical) feminism without Marxism tends to overemphasise the primacy of the body and biology in women’s oppression (Mitchell 1971: 94–95). Mitchell accepted, albeit in a qualified way, the radical feminist’s use of women’s biological exigencies and everyday experiences in understanding difference. However, both the biologically based and Marxist-based theories fail to de-structure and thus differentiate the separate elements that produce and maintain, situationally, the condition of women’s concrete oppression. In attempting to theoretically counter these failures, Mitchell (1971: 100–101) argued that there must first be a rejection of the idea that women’s condition can be reduced to simply being an epiphenomena of the base (Engels) and thus equated symbolically with social production (early Marx). Next, there must be recognition of the different elements or ‘key structures of woman’s situation’, which were identified as production, reproduction, sexuality and the socialisation of children. These structures, for Mitchell, were able to construct autonomously their own reality and thus able to reach a different level of development at any given historical moment so that, when synthesised with the others, they formed a complex and interactive unity. This unity ultimately grounds women’s existence and explains the nature of their situation. In particular, it expands the idea of struggle and moves it towards strategies that go beyond a political and thus corporativistic focus.8 Notwithstanding that Mitchell’s argument develops within the project of ambivalent femininities, it has the ability to show that feminist and Marxist positions, together, give a new social and historical depth to management of the woman question and to detach these positions from protest would be ineffective and wrong. Thus, it gives recognition to the importance of synthesising social and historical knowledge as a platform from which a unified set of tactics can develop and challenge the dominative masculine hegemony. However, as shown through ‘The masculinities schema’, the form of protest that is expressed through its relation of contestation with hegemonic mas-

The application of hegemony to gender 71 culinity emphasises a fragmented unity that produces idiosyncratic and conjunctural strategies only. As a result, while this leads to the spontaneous emancipation of women from certain oppressive conditions in particular regimes such as the family, the paid workplace and the media, the overall project of ambivalent femininities does not enable the development of an organic protest capable of directly and comprehensively challenging the dominative masculine hegemonic principles. Protest femininities In The German Ideology, Marx (2002) affirmed that the whole idea of communism was not to represent a ‘state of affairs’ or an ‘ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself’ but rather a ‘real movement that abolishes the present state of things’ and most importantly ‘whose conditions result from premises now in existence’ (my emphasis). In this context, a materialist or practice-based project should not seek to impose a socio-political fait accompli but, rather, give life to a movement whose nature is inherently progressive. While ambivalent femininities offered a beginning to a social democracy that, as Smart (1983: 45) argues, represents the initiating phase of a progressive movement, it too must be transcended. As will be argued here, the gender type of protest femininities enables this transcendence because, unlike ambivalent femininities, it represents gender knowledge and practice not specifically concerned with the woman question but social justice in gender. In effect, it represents a complex and progressive project that has inherent to it the fundamental characteristics capable of elaborating and pushing beyond the level of politics to a new protest, critique and hegemony. The notion of protest femininities sits in contradistinction to both emphasised femininity and ambivalent femininities in that its aspiration is to challenge the foundations of both intra-relations between femininities and inter-relations between femininities and masculinities and, more specifically, to expose and question the taken-for-grantedness associated with the emphasised feminine characteristics of compliance and accommodation. In effect, the project of protest femininities can be understood as ideologically disconnected from hegemonic masculinity and, more, as its full exclusion. This is a crucial point because, as shown in ‘The masculinities schema’, unlike other femininities and masculinities, protest femininities as a project does not maintain and, therefore, is not constrained within relations of alliance with hegemonic masculinity. However, if the principles of its project were to operate autonomously, that is, only in terms of its own interests, then it would be little removed from ambivalent femininities, which, in the final analysis, is a corporativistic and conjuncturally acting other. Further, any challenges would always be political and remain constrained within the structure of the existing dominative masculine hegemony.

72 The application of hegemony to gender So, for a new social justice in gender to be attained, protest femininities must move beyond the ambivalence of protest. To do this it must develop an aspiration based on three key processes for change. The first is the process of producing synthesis within the dialectic of knowledge of gender that will, in turn, produce a new socio-historic self-awareness among the broad community. The point of departure for this knowledge was with the second-wave feminist force and the initial attempts by socialist feminists to recognise the importance of both the body and culture for gender, which in turn has influenced later conceptualisations of feminine and masculine practice (for example, Connell 1995). This initial synergetic movement has been able to initiate knowledge of gender that pushes beyond its expression through essentialist, universal and ahistorical categories and towards a new situational conception of masculinities and femininities. However, ‘The masculinities schema’ takes this development further by recognising protest femininities and its supplemental relation to hegemonic masculinity, which gives it a radical position within protest. On this basis, the second outcome is enabled, that is, the ideological movement beyond a simplistic dichotomic corporativism.9 In other words, while there is a need to recognise this fundamental delineation within protest, there is also a need to elaborate critique at the level of intra- and inter-relationalities so that the emergent struggle is not constructed as a battle between two internally homogenous enemy camps – men and women – to the exclusion of all others. In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler begins to think about just such an elaboration. The feminist ‘we’ is always and only a phantasmatic construction, one that has its purposes, but which denies the internal complexity and indeterminacy of the term and constitutes itself only through the exclusion of some part of the constituency that it simultaneously seeks to represent. . . . The radical instability of the category sets into question the foundational restrictions on feminist political theorizing and opens up other configurations, not only of genders and bodies, but of politics itself. (Butler 1990: 142) Historically, the protest and struggle of ambivalent femininities in gender politics has emphasised the tendency to address the woman question in such a way as to homogenise the category ‘woman’ (against ‘man’) leading to the ineluctable under-estimation of, amongst other things, the profound situationality that the answering of this question requires. In The Return of the Political, Chantal Mouffe extends Butler’s earlier questioning by giving a sense of the situational imperatives that a new protest must recognise. [It] should be understood not as a separate form of politics designed to pursue the interests of women as women, but rather as the pursuit of

The application of hegemony to gender 73 feminist goals and aims within the context of a wider articulation of demands. (Mouffe 1993: 87; original emphasis) In this context, it is possible to envisage the project of protest femininities as not simply concerned with the woman question, where woman is understood as representing some essentialist and aprioristically imposed set of interests, but as one part, albeit key, of a radical protest against the existing dominative masculine hegemony. As such, this new protest must be able to recognise, in the first instance, the multiplicity of gender types and interests organised within ‘The masculinities schema’ and played out across the whole structural inventory. Then, it must accept that the particularity of types and concomitant interests do not negate the potential universality of radical protest because through the situational thematic it is possible to see the gender order as representing a moment of openness in which all positions exhibit fluidity. In this way, the third outcome is enabled. That is, the emergence of war of position in which a new organic socio-historic critique can be articulated through moral and intellectual leadership grounded in a unity of identity but more importantly, one that leads to what Mouffe (2000: 102–103) calls an ‘agonistic’ politics where struggle exists between adversaries, rather than ‘antagonistic’ politics where struggle continues between enemies. When viewed in this way, protest femininities becomes the point of departure for a rejection of the essentialism, and apriorism at the centre of the dominative masculine hegemony which, in turn, exposes the authority of masculinity as particularly friable.

Dominative masculine hegemonic principles The development of protest femininities and its nexus to aspirational hegemony and social justice, and the impact this would have on a dominative masculine hegemony and gender politics will be elaborated in later chapters. However, at this point, it is important to discuss the significant features of the gender polity as presented through ‘The masculinities schema’. First, the above discussion shows that when Connell speaks of hegemony in gender what he is in fact referring to is a system of relations and practices controlled and directed by a dominative and asymmetrically operating force. ‘The masculinities schema’ shows that the crucial and central relation in terms of defining and sustaining the current gender order is precisely the relation of domination that connects hegemonic masculinity asymmetrically to all the various subaltern masculinities and femininities. Further, that the system of subaltern alliances presented indicates a weak and corporativistically constrained contestatory force whose protest operates in disunited and conjunctural movements. Nevertheless, through ‘The masculinities schema’, and, in particular, the extension and elaboration of the femininities bloc, which exposes protest femininities as a new radical and progressive force,

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there exists a point of departure for protest that opens the possibilities for aspirational hegemony and, through this, a new social justice in gender. However, given the existence of this new protest force – and given that it is part of a system of alliances that can and is challenging the existing dominative masculine hegemony – a question immediately emerges. Why does critique and challenge remain so immature as to be locked within conjunctural politics? The starting point for an answer to this problem can be found in the continuation of the dominative masculine hegemonic principles which, in turn, are maintained by the efficacy of the hegemonic mechanisms and their intellectuals to shift the mass protest into the realm of complicity and ambivalence in both masculinities and femininities, respectively. Hegemonic masculinity was described above as representing the ideal masculinity and the benchmark for normative gender practice. However, it becomes problematic to examine this ideal autonomously, that is, disconnected from the hegemony that gives it life. This is in line with the argument Donaldson (1993) developed about the importance of understanding the environment in which hegemonic masculinity develops and, even more importantly, recognising the points of distinction between it and its exteriority. In other words, knowledge about hegemony requires an understanding of the contemporary situation, which shapes and sustains its form and nature. In the above analyses, hegemonic principles have been argued to represent the defining and privileged values, norms and beliefs as well as the strategies employed to ensure the maintenance and expansion of a particular hegemony in any one situation. Therefore, closer examination of these principles is imperative to understanding the nature of the benchmark and how it operates within the current socio-cultural and historical situation. Heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggression The determinative efficacy of the hegemonic principles within the current dominative masculine hegemony is most acutely felt when they are placed in jeopardy at the concrete everyday level of existence. For example, the violent reactions of men against their spouses and children brought on by the processes of economic and workplace rationalisation, which results in marriage breakdown and the loss of, amongst other things, their breadwinner role (see Faludi 1999). Of course, at a theoretical level, the asymmetricality of hegemonic masculinity’s dominative nature ensures that no other corporativistically exercised demands are able to impose themselves in such a way as to usurp its authority. Thus, even though the ideal of hegemonic masculinity fails to reflect the real attainable aspirations and experiences of the mass of men (and women), its key principles continue to mark out the cultural benchmark as always desirous if not imperative for normative gender relations and practice. In his essay, ‘The case for men’s studies’, Brod (1987: 41–43) shows that the areas of ‘work and family’, ‘violence’, ‘sexuality’ as well as ‘health and

The application of hegemony to gender 75 culture’ are of crucial importance to developing knowledge about men. Connell (1987) too, recognises that in the current situation cathexis or emotional attachments, labour or the division of labour in work and power or the construction and maintenance of authority based on non-emotiveness and aggression represent the key defining aspects of the nature and operation of masculinities across the structural inventory of gender regimes. So, in effect, what emerges as fundamental to an understanding of masculinities and, in particular, its ideal form can be distilled into three specific principles: heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness. As already indicated, the principle of heterosexuality emerged as an epiphenomenon to the project that constructed homosexuality. In the final analysis, though, the cultural legitimacy it gave to the treatment of homosexuality as a deviant and dysfunctional practice ensured its own positioning as the normative and functional cathectic system. The primary importance of heterosexuality to hegemonic masculinity and, therefore, to the latter’s dominative imperative, is its ability to draw together those types of masculinities and femininities that represent the great mass of people and construct them into a reciprocal relation that ensures their practices are hierarchical, and where masculinities are always dominant. This legitimacy conferred upon the heterosexual relation is most acutely evident in the way it forms the basis of a normative marriage in Western culture, which grounds the construction of a family that, in turn, gives legitimacy to the identity and status of its members (Dickey 1997: 10). Through the taking up of their normative and legitimate gendered positions, individual members also assume certain roles that have inherent to them certain behaviours and practices that are immediately operative. In the familial division of labour upheld by hegemonic heterosexuality, the father-male who (as discussed above) assumes the instrumental tasks is ineluctably positioned as the provider of security and safety for the family, through his role as breadwinner. The significance of the breadwinner principle to the regressive/ irestorative task of hegemonic masculinity emerges primarily through its ability to connect masculinities with the public sphere, which in turn makes the operations of masculinities within socio-cultural institutions normative (see Kilduff and Mehra 1996: 115–129).10 The structuring of the heterosexual cathexis, and through it the connection of breadwinning with men and the concomitant alignment of masculinities to the public realm, underpins the functionalist argument of presumptive primacy given to masculinities as instrumental. Thus, the traditional exclusion of the private realm from the sphere of operation for masculinities leads to the negation of expressive or feminine characteristics, which is not just a normative exclusion but hegemonic. In other words, there is a legitimacy that extends throughout the Western historical bloc, which accepts the under-development of emotional and interpersonal skills as well as the exclusion of certain feelings like tenderness and vulnerability from masculine behaviour (Pleck 1976: 156). The outcome is a belief in the

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legitimacy and normativity of masculinity’s non-expressive persona where characteristics such as rationality, non-emotiveness, authoritarianism and competitiveness are enforced through coercive and violent means, where necessary. In the final analysis, the principle of aggression is crucial and leads to its concomitant: masculine authoritarianism.11 Thus, the dominative project through hegemonic masculinity is able to justify the deployment of violence as a means of overcoming challenges and crises. Masculine domination and crises A number of writers on masculinity have recently contended that, in the last three decades of the twentieth century, men and their identification with masculinity have begun to drift inexorably into crisis (Horrocks 1994; Levant 1997; Faludi 1999). However, between these writers there is by no means agreement about the precise nature of this crisis (Petersen 1998: 19) or, as Connell suggests, that crisis is even the most appropriate way of describing the changes that have been occurring. Nevertheless, it is well accepted (Connell 1993; Segal 1997; Petersen 1998: 19) that the contemporary period marks a decisive moment in the way that Western culture thinks about masculinities and about the possibilities of reshaping male interests. As discussed above, to begin to understand the potential significance of crisis for changing hegemonic masculinity, it is crucial to grasp the nature of the historical dynamics of the gender order leading up to the contemporary moment. Both Kimmel (1987) and Pleck (1987) argue that the idea of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ is not a strictly contemporary phenomenon. Both writers point to earlier historical moments in which the established structural features of the gender order and the concomitant cultural representations of masculinity have come under profound scrutiny and led to crisis tendencies in gender. Kimmel (1987) argues that two such moments can be identified, the first occurring during the Restoration period in England between 1688 and 1714 and the second occurring primarily in North America between 1880 and 1914, which, as Pleck’s analysis indicates, occurred during a period in which the conception and practice of the family and fatherhood were being transformed. In both situations, the hegemony of masculinity was struggling against a nascent female assertiveness that began to emerge around the spheres of marriage and the family. In late-seventeenth-century England, Kimmel (1987: 127) claims a pamphlet war erupted, sparked by women who were becoming extremely ambivalent about the notion of marriage and family. Many women argued that both marriage and domesticity effectively confined them to a position not dissimilar to that of sexual slave, reinforced their economic inequality and denied them any possibility to construct a sense of autonomy (Kimmel 1987: 128). In effect, women were reacting to what Connell described as the major structural features of the gender order

The application of hegemony to gender 77 or, in other words, the separation of domestic life from the money economy and the masculinisation of core cultural institutions. The strategy of the female pamphleteers was to push for a renegotiation of the marriage relationship, which became such a popular demand that it culminated in a petition to Parliament on the issue. In response to this demand, men-in-general became wary, if not unwilling, to take on the socially expected positions of husband and family head because women had become so demanding as to render marriage economically unwise (Kimmel 1987: 130). The outcome of this challenge to established gender interests within the family provided the foundation for changes to the way masculinity was to be expressed. A new masculinity emerged that had a significantly more feminine outlook, emphasising characteristics such as vanity, pettiness and beauty. Importantly, though, those writing on these changes also noted the nexus between change in the gender order and societal change. For example, the emergence of the city, fuelled by commercial capitalism, created an environment that enabled anonymity, as well as a coherent and regulated life. This was vastly different to life on the land and opened new doors of freedom for both women and men (Connell 1993: 607). The emerging industrial infrastructure offered women, through paid work, a new opportunity to recognise the possibilities of liberation from domestic isolation. While, for men, it was an opportunity to disconnect from the rigours of working the land, where the imperatives of diligence, toughness and discipline marked their reality. The result was a masculinity that expressed characteristics of the ‘effete fop’ (Kimmel 1987: 136). The second moment of challenge to the masculine hegemony occurred in North America during the years 1880 to 1914 (Kimmell 1987; Pleck 1987). It was a moment marked by significant transformations in the gender order that emerged as a result of new advancements in the industrialisation process. The expulsion of women from industries such as coal-mining, printing and steel-making represented a key moment in capitalism’s on-going organisation of labour and one that allowed the modern industrialism to be synergetically fused with masculinism. The consequence was a normalisation of the conjugally based nuclear family and, more importantly, the institutionalisation of a heterosexual-based reciprocity in relations at the personal level (Connell 1993: 611). However, these changes would, in turn, produce specific problems for masculinity. New crisis tendencies linked to the construction of the breadwinner ideal began to emerge. In effect, the role of breadwinning ensured the disconnection of fatherhood from the socialisation of the children, and this was viewed as especially significant for the male child with respect to the development of his masculine identity (Pleck 1987: 88). The construction of an acceptable masculine identity was exacerbated by the movement of women into positions of responsibility for the socialisation of children in the family and, by extension, key pedagogical positions in the broader culture, because of their exclusion from more manual labour (Pleck 1987: 86–87). Men such as

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Horace Mann and Ichabod Crane were central characters in reforming the education system, which was seen to require a more significant feminine pedagogical influence (Pleck 1987: 87). This positing of women into socialisation and education roles for children in the family as well as schools and religious groups was grounded in the established cultural belief of the natural maternal instincts inherent to women. The developing psychology of the family and gender in the early twentieth century was predominantly under the influence of European thinkers, and here Freud (1977: 375), while holding the father as the omnipotent figure in the family, also maintained a significant presence for the mother. However, this presence for the male child was one which, in the final analysis, needed to be eschewed as part of the process of normative psychosexual development. This position with respect to femininity was supported by other intellectuals at this time, particularly those concerned with the predominant position of women in the upbringing of boys and its inevitable diminution, or feminisation, of masculinity (Pleck 1987: 88). By the turn of the century, a strategy was active to revive in young boys a form of masculinity that would effectively resurrect and re-impose the dominance of a ‘real manhood’ (Kimmel 1987: 146). This strategy called for, among other things, the segregation of boys from girls in schools and the formation of male-only groups such as ‘The Boy Scouts’, which was seen as one way of countering the maternal influence and feminisation of masculinity. Another way was war, and as Kimmel (1987: 147–148) notes, the First World War became a cultural arena in which ‘real manhood’ could be re-made and re-imposed. Not explicit in the diachronic analyses discussed above, yet implicit when understood in a situational context, is that recognition through history of crisis tendencies in the gender order of Euro-Americanised cultures, which has continually disturbed and even transformed masculinity, suggests the existence at any one moment of a tension between masculinities, its ideal and the environment. In other words, while there is a culturally established and legitimate conception of masculinity, to see it as ossified around a continuing core such as its principles of organisation in Habermasian terms or the dominative hegemonic principles, is to base knowledge of men (and women) on an essentialism that negates the significance generativity and in fact, views it as negativity and something that must be removed. The masculinity crisis involves the collapse of the basic pattern by which men have traditionally fulfilled the code of masculine role behaviour, namely, the good-provider role, and the resultant intensification of the gender role strain. In particular, there has been an intensification of what Pleck (1995) has termed ‘discrepancy strain’, the strain that results when we fail to meet the expectations of the code. The major manifestations of the masculinity crisis, which have taken centre stage in the public eye in the last five years or so, include, in addition to the loss of the good-

The application of hegemony to gender 79 provider role, the failure of the good-family-man role to replace the good-provider role, the tendency for marriages to revert to stereotyped roles, the dynamics of divorce, the treatment of men in the media, the ‘angry white male’ and the growth of large-scale men’s rallies. (Levant 1997: 2) Here Levant stresses the notion of sex-based ‘roles’ as the fundamental framework through which normative practice is understood. Thus, where the continuation of the ‘role’ is threatened, this becomes a negative position and its occupiers are immediately seen as falling into crisis. This idea is elaborated in Levant’s (1997: 3) discussion of the dynamics of divorce and how the disruption to the role of the father/parent produces a crisis in the lives of these men. However, his analysis has ignored, amongst other things, the efficacy of the situational thematic to produce a multiplicity of masculinities not all of which operate through the father/parent role in the same way. Thus, to assume that for masculinities to remain functionally normative the father/parent role must continue in its traditional form, undisturbed by the exigencies imposed by changes in other socio-cultural processes, is a profoundly problematic conclusion. Nevertheless, it implies that the only acceptable strategy is one that sustains the dominative hegemonic principles and returns the old. In this context, the solution to the crisis of masculinity being advocated by Levant does not represent a progressive or organic movement. It is simply men acting as the dominative hegemonic group seeking to reassert traditional authority over those who would seek to challenge aspects of their legitimacy. Thus, it represents a regressive/restorative force that emerges under the guise of change. In the final analysis, the solution seeks to protect hegemonic masculinity and its key hegemonic principles. However, because hegemony is never a stable condition but, rather, one that is always situational and, further, because in its aspirational form it is ethico-political, within the dominative masculine hegemony there are always possibilities, through protest femininities, for the initiation of a critical and historical awareness. The immediate task, then, is to develop these possibilities by developing an understanding of the current nature and operation of these hegemonic principles in a concrete sense. This will, in turn, give some grip on the depth of crisis and the underlying solidity or friability of the dominative masculine hegemony, as well as explicate the nature of its current social justice. This will be the focus of the following two chapters.

5

Constructing a study of masculinities and family law History, aims and methodology

The aim of this chapter is to set out the historical and methodological framework within which the analyses of case law will proceed in Chapter 6. It has two objectives. The first will be to offer a diachronic investigation into the gender regime of ‘family law’ in an Australian context by focusing on the ecclesiastic and secular forces that underpinned its development. In particular, to show how the resultant synergy has influenced judicial interpretations and approaches to the dominative masculine hegemonic principles. The second objective is to set out the methodology used in the selection, analysis and presentation of data and findings.

A diachronic investigation of family law To claim that the processes and outcomes of law are central to a society’s definition and application of social justice should raise no polemic hackles, if one accepts Naffine’s (1990: 24) claim (made with tongue-in-cheek), that law is less interested with ‘politics, morals and systems of belief’ and more with discerning ‘the facts’ and ‘the truth of any given matter placed before it’. Thus, from this position, the institution of law unproblematically describes and defines the fundamental moral and intellectual framework within which all other social institutions and their associations are understood (Fletcher, cited in Cotterrell 1992: 2). In other words, through the knowledge given by family law, the relations and practices of gender deemed legitimate and binding within other particular gender regimes are linked to produce a universality of consensus across the structural inventory. But, while the law defines and sets down what is legitimate and binding, it cannot impose a social order; it can only confirm and support one. Thus, the efficacy of law to ensure social justice as the basis of a social order derives precisely from its centrality to the structure of socio-cultural authority. In Habermasian terms, we can understand law as the key procedural criterion and, as such, its processes emphasise moral and intellectual integrity, which, in turn, enables the construction of legal normativity1 and its application at the hands of the judiciary. A crucial feature of the law’s historical search for moral and intellectual

A study of masculinities and family law 81 integrity, truth and thereby social justice, is the recognition that a person who exists within the law is not the same as the person who exists outside the law (Naffine 1990: ix). In other words, as part of its conceptualisation and application of social justice, the law must reject the particularisation of the social individual in favour of a project that emphasises their universalisation.2 This notion of legal universality that defines the subject in law is nowhere more easily conceived of, yet problematically applied, than with respect to masculinity (and femininity) in family law – that branch of law that deals most directly with gender relations. Here, the conceptions of man and woman, masculinity and femininity, and the concomitant roles attached to them have historically been the secure premise upon which the laws of marriage, divorce and responsibility for children have been able to develop a form of universalism or categoricalism that is easily underpinned by naturalism and functionalism. However, in the current situation (as will be shown), where, amongst other things, the notion of gender multiplicity and the amorphous nature of the family are features of uncertain social epistemologies and ontologies, new problems challenge the law’s imperative of the universal subject. Ecclesiastical and secular underpinnings The historical point of departure for the ecclesiastical interest in marriage and divorce was the Catholic Church’s war against what it saw as ‘the sins of the flesh’, which began in seventh-century Europe (Finlay et al. 1997: 1–2). From this point to the Reformation, the Church’s 800-year dominative hegemony across England and much of Europe remained predominantly stable (Roberts 1996: 225). This was notwithstanding the significant changes to marriage and the family that were occurring during this period. As Lawrence Stone argues in The Family, Sex and Marriage: in England 1500–1800 (1977), the marital relation and the concomitant family structure could be seen to alter in three distinctive movements, which by the nineteenth century had produced the ‘Closed Domesticated Nuclear Family’ (Stone 1977: 8). This new family form radically altered earlier principles in four key ways: (i) intensification of the affective bond; promoting individual autonomy; weakening the association between sexual pleasure and sin and guilt; and demanding an increased level of physical privacy (Stone 1977: 8–9). However, post-Reformation England did not witness the obliteration of the Church’s juridical authority over the family, even though it was being increasingly exposed to a nascent secular common law system (Dickey 1997: 8). The emergence of this new system of law, though important in terms of its impact on the processes of public regulation, did not bring with it an equally significant ideological shift with respect to the private sphere. In other words, while it enabled the regulation of the private familial sphere to shift significantly from Church to State, the ideological changes that followed failed to alter in any fundamental way the ecclesiastical hegemonic

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principles. In effect, they represented conjunctural movements that simply reconfigured spontaneously legal philosophy and procedure around existing ecclesiastic dogma (Parker et al. 1999: 90–91). In this way, the new secular common law movement failed to initiate organic critique and a significant anti-ecclesiastic challenge. The outcome of this conjuncture was that the nascent common laws about marriage and divorce incorporated the fundamental principles that underpinned the traditional ecclesiastic dominative hegemony, such as the indissolubility and sanctity of marriage, its procreative imperative, as well as the patriarchal advantage conferred upon men through marriage. However, these principles would now be regulated through the secularism of common law (Parker et al. 1999: 75–78). Secularism was itself underpinned by what de Sousa Santos (1995: 8–9) rather cumbersomely calls the ‘hyperscientificisation’ of the ‘pillar of emancipation’, suggesting that the rise of rational modern science and ethics, while supposedly operating as a mechanism of freedom from the constraints of ecclesiastical dogma, itself became an overactive dominative practice that has led to the collapse of emancipation into the new ‘pillar of regulation’ (de Sousa Santos 1995: 8). However, even though the pillar of regulation would come to ground itself in the new androcentric ideologies of democracy, (neo)liberalism and functionalism, it remained unable to obliterate the traditional ecclesiastic principles and, instead, continued to incorporate them, albeit in new clothes. Australian family law 1900–1975 In the early nineteenth century, the laws about marriage and divorce that operated in England were transported and unquestioningly adopted in the developing colonies of Australia. As a result, Australian laws about marriage and divorce began life as identical to their ruling English provisions and, as such, operated to reproduce the English worldview marked by the fusion of ecclesiastical and secular interests. Unlike its parent system, though, Australian family laws did not represent a distinct and centralised branch of common law within a distinct and centralised Australian nation-state. Rather, it had to cope with a colonial system that was fragmented along state jurisdictional lines. However, in 1901 The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 19003 federated the separate colonies and territories to create the Commonwealth of Australia.4 This new Commonwealth, while still linked to the Privy Council, was nevertheless able to exercise executive powers through s 51 of the Constitution (incorporated in Section 9 of the Constitution, 63 & 64 Vict c12) to legislate, inter alia, upon marriage, divorce and matrimonial causes (Finlay et al. 1993: 37–38). In the final analysis, this desire to entrust the laws about marriage, divorce and matrimonial causes to the Commonwealth was motivated by a perceived need for State-based uniformity. However, the attainment of uniformity would continue to be elusive and

A study of masculinities and family law 83 it would take a further 60 years before these demands produced the enactment of the Matrimonial Causes5 Act 1959 and the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth), both of which unified the laws relating to marriage and divorce (Finlay et al. 1993: 40–41). These acts superseded state laws and enabled the Commonwealth, for the first time, to regulate all the principal areas of family law in Australia (Dickey 1997: 15). A decade-and-a-half later, the Commonwealth Parliament enacted the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), which will be referred to as the Act in the following analyses. It sought to further unify and centralise regulation. More importantly, the Act, unlike its predecessors, aimed to incorporate a radical secular social agenda, which amongst other things questioned the existing views about the way familial and marital regulation should be conducted. In particular, it challenged the ecclesiastical principles about protecting the indissolubility and sanctity of marriage, the privilege of the father and the emphasis on attributing fault and allocating punishment in the case of relationship breakdowns (Parker et al. 1999: 7). A new ‘no-fault’ approach to marital breakdown became a principle of the Act (1998: 62) via s 48(1), which states that dissolution of a marriage would be granted simply on the basis that ‘the marriage has broken down irretrievably’. The effect of this principle was to free the judiciary from tasks such as punishing people whose marriages failed and, instead, allowing judicial attention to be directed at developing ways through which the social and legal conception of family could be supported, particularly in times of breakdown and crisis. In effect, the four main objectives of the Act were: (i) to set out the principal duties, powers and liabilities that exist between husband and wife, and between parents and their children; (ii) to provide for the determination or alteration of the duties, powers and liabilities outlined in (i), and also for the determination or alteration of property rights between spouses; (iii) to set out the current requirements for the dissolution of marriage; and (iv) to establish the Family Court of Australia, and provide for the creation of State Family Courts (Dickey 1997: 15). In addition, the Act enabled the setting-up of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, whose focus would be on policy development as well as reviewing operations of both the Act and the Family Court of Australia. Thus, the on-going enacting of laws within the Act (political), the operations of the Family Court of Australia (juridical) and the development and review of both the Act and the court system (social) represent the distinct yet inter-related points of what will be termed here the family law system. The Family Law Act and the hegemonic family In contemporary feminist literature the family is given a central position in the debate about the persistence of gender injustice (see Mitchell 1971; Delphy 1977; Segal 1983; Delphy and Leonard 1992; Lupton and Barclay 1997) because, amongst other things, it continues to be regarded, certainly

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in Western cultures, as the cornerstone of a progressive and ordered society. As Betty Frieden (cited in Segal 1983: 9) claimed at the historical point of departure for the second-wave of feminism, ‘the family’ represents the essential provider of human happiness and survival. However, the dramatic developments that were part of the Great Transformation,6 particularly in terms of economics, politics, science and technology, necessitated changes in the gender relations and practices that defined the family. This in turn produced a more complex milieu of contradictions both within the contemporary family unit and in its dealings with other gender regimes (see Zaretsky 1976). Thus, as second-wave feminism showed, by drawing on knowledge of familial relations and practices it is possible to uncover the impact of economic, political as well as other socio-cultural influences upon the construction of masculinities and femininities in the current gender politics (Mitchell 1971: 155). In the public statements by the ex-Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, Alastair Nicholson (1988–2004), the complexity of the contemporary family is recognised. In particular, Nicholson encourages the community to move beyond a singular family typology and to accept the existence and importance of a multiplicity of familial forms within Australian society ‘[w]ithout the recognition of all family relationships, equality – the cornerstone of democratic society – is missing; public acknowledgement of private affections, commitments, interdependencies and identities is denied’ (Nicholson 1996; my emphasis). Nicholson here argues that the societal importance of families, in all their forms, is their ability to act as organising frames within which a multiplicity of private relations and practices can develop. But, most importantly, families act as the conduit through which these private relations and practices, and the individuals who operate within and through them, can be publicly acknowledged and given legitimacy. In this sense, and notwithstanding the prima facie progressiveness of Nicholson’s argument for familial multiplicity, a closer reading exposes a latent regressive tone. In effect, the family is being positioned as subordinate to the ethical universality of the public sphere where the law is central. This is a re-presentation of Hegel’s (1977: 268) position in Phenomenology of Spirit, where he distinguishes between the private and public spheres by claiming that the particularistic practices between individuals in the family can only represent the unconscious and immediate notion of the ethical. For it to become the selfconscious ethical, it must be subsumed into the universal ethical society. In The Man of Reason (1984: 80–81), Genevieve Lloyd offers a critical feminist reading of this Hegelian position, drawing a line from it to Parsons and Bales’ (1956: 13) later functionalist articulation of ‘interpenetration’, that is, the link between the private to the public spheres through the instrumentality of masculinity. Thus, femininity is given recognition and status only through the private–public inter-connectedness that results from the operations of masculinity. As such, by maintaining the hierarchical

A study of masculinities and family law 85 structuring of public–private spheres where the private, no matter in what form, continues to be seen as subordinate to the public, it is an ineluctable fact that the law will operate with complicity in the dominative masculine hegemonic project. In this context, while Nicholson’s statements about the multiplicity of family forms appears pragmatic and even progressive within the no-fault approach to Australian family law, in hegemonic terms it simply sustains traditional imperatives of the regressive/restorative project. This position taken by the Family Court of Australia today under the leadership of Chief Justice Diana Bryant also recognises and supports familial multiplicity. However, it is only ambivalently sustained within the Act. In particular, s 43(a), (b) and (c) (see below) fail to offer a precise definition of the family and effectively produces a dilemma of legal normativity about the family by also promoting a set of functional principles. 43. The Family Court shall, . . . have regard to: (a) the need to preserve and protect the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others voluntarily entered into for life. (b) the need to give the widest possible protection to the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children. (c) the need to protect the rights of children and to promote their welfare. (Family Law Act (1975) 1998: 1,232) Notwithstanding the complications that emerge from s 437 with respect to its conceptual treatment of the family, a key feature of this law is the synergetic efficacy of ecclesiastical and secular interests in setting down the fundamental principles of the contemporary family and its inherent gender relations. For example, s 43(a) incorporates the ecclesiastically based principle of the marital union as essentially that between ‘a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others’, which directly implies heterosexuality as a legal norm. Also, s 43(b) and (c) position the family as the ‘natural’ and ‘fundamental group unit of society’, whose key responsibility is the production, care and control of children. Thus, the normative and legitimate family expressed in law is premised on a conjugally based monogamous heterosexual relationship operating within a nuclear rather than kin environment and focused on reproduction and socialisation. In other words, it represents what Segal (1983: 11) described as the post-war ‘traditional family’; consisting of a married heterosexual couple with children, where the sexual division of labour positions the husband as breadwinner and the wife as dependent primary caregiver for both husband and children. This familial type, which represented the elaboration of the closed domesticated nuclear family, became known in the literature as the ‘traditional family’ and represented the point of departure for

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the social functionalism of the 1950s and 1960s to develop its structural differentiation of gender roles (Carrigan et al 1987: 67). However, this familial traditionality is inherently problematic because it demands that analytic attention, as was the case with Parsons’ own functionalism, by-pass the concerns about the biological taken-for-grantedness that assigns functionality to familial gender roles such as husband as breadwinner and wife as housewife. Further, it sustains the legitimacy of these roles by simply obfuscating emergent practices and beliefs that are an ineluctable part of family life in contemporary culture8 yet, within the functionalist paradigm, will be considered dysfunctional. However, to emphasise the multiplicity of familial forms by making reference to families rather than the family within the current situation (in line with family law pragmatics), will require recognition of the problematicity of knowledge about families that are based on the dominative masculine hegemonic principles of heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness. In so doing, the currently legitimate and normative conception of the family will be referred to here as the hegemonic family. This will enable recognition of not just the reproductive arena but also socio-cultural and historical contingencies upon gender that produce a sense of the generativity of familial forms. However, and perhaps more importantly, while the principles that make a family at law may well be underpinned by traditional and functional characteristics, it is the type of protectorship constructed around them that exposes the nature of the generativity. The following analysis will show that the hegemonic family, as described above, forms part of the dominative masculine hegemonic worldview and, therefore, must be understood as the dominant familial form, always set in contradistinction to other subordinate forms regardless of their recognition within the family law system. Nevertheless, its dominative hegemonic position is always unstable and open to challenge.

Methodology Aims and objectives The aim of this case study is to conduct an empirical investigation of hegemonic masculinity as it operates within the family law system by drawing on the theoretical framework developed earlier around hegemony and gender. More precisely, this study will be focused at the judicial level so as to examine the ratio decidendi operating within different areas of family law case law. The task will be to determine whether the judicial interpretations and applications of the hegemonic principles – heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness – show tendencies towards either a regressive or progressive hegemonic project. In so doing, the nature of the social justice being applied to familial gender relations and practices, which in turn, impacts on the continuity of the broader gender politics, will be made clearer.

A study of masculinities and family law 87 In Gramsci’s (1971: 195–196) view, continuity has the potential to represent a positive force, but only where it is underpinned by the activity of the collective of people rather than their passivity. In other words, the reproduction of norms and values can be positive if it emerges out of people’s active engagement with socio-cultural processes such as the law and not simply their acceptance of the legal normativity as a status quo. This activeness enables hegemonic continuity to move beyond conjunctural politics and develop an organic impetus. However, to traverse the catharsis required, Gramsci (1971: 195) identified the ‘juridical problem’ or the process of assimilating the entire community to its most ‘advanced fraction’ and of educating people to ensure their adaptation in accordance with the requirements of the socio-cultural goal to be achieved, as crucial. In a dominative hegemony, the State operates through law to synthesise and homogenise certain ideologies and give them legitimacy. It does so by constructing legal normativity around certain relations and practices that effectively set aside those aligned to other subaltern interests. Thus, through legal normativity, family law is able to project a social conformism to conceptions of masculinity that are seen to fit with the current hegemonic worldview. However, while a key feature of the law’s broader cultural project is the application of normativity through its decision-making processes, it also exercises an educative and definitional project, particularly in framing the grounds upon which disputes can proceed, while giving legitimacy to certain ways of settling them (Cotterrell 1992: 226). In this way, the legal normativity produced through judicial discretion and its concomitant ratio decidendi in family law case law is framed within what will be referred to here as structures of expectations,9 which connect the law with the community. On this basis, the judicial decision-making process within the family law system represents an excellent area for the study of hegemony and hegemonic masculinity because it allows examination of the limits to which the hegemonic principles can be challenged and changed. Further, it offers an insight into the core of the juridical problem and the way the law constructs and reproduces social justice. It is hypothesised that social justice outcomes can take different forms depending on the law’s treatment of hegemonic masculinity. First, where it can be shown that these hegemonic principles are in fact being sustained in line with the expectations of the dominative masculine hegemony, then this would imply a strong and resilient hegemonic masculinity and social justice incorporated into a continuing restorative project. Second, where it can be shown that these hegemonic principles are in fact being consistently and coherently challenged, then this would indicate that social justice is being expressed as part of an organic movement against hegemonic masculinity. However, the third scenario represents a level of ambivalence and tension about the interpretation and operation of these hegemonic principles, which suggests that social justice is being expressed inconsistently and that

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challenge to hegemonic masculinity is being manifest only at the conjunctural level. The importance of family law to understanding hegemonic masculinity is made more apparent in the possibility of claiming, a fortiori, that where, for example, findings support the first scenario, then the hegemonic principles are not only being upheld at law but, effectively, across the structural inventory. On the other hand, where the second scenario is supported, hegemonic masculinity is being similarly weakened. But where this weakening is only spontaneous, idiosyncratic and contradictory, as in the third scenario, then this would indicate a tension and uncertainty being manifest at the community level about the nature of the structure of expectations and the concomitant social justice being exercised. Notwithstanding the effectiveness of this logic10 to draw broad claims from a specific study, the task of developing a more complete picture of hegemonic masculinity’s regressive/restorative project as it operates across the structural inventory will require systematic analyses of gender regimes beyond that which can be undertaken here.11 Data selection and analytic method The data to be analysed in the following investigation are drawn from Australian family law case reports. Each case report represents a detailed summary of the court transcript for a particular case and is prepared by the solicitor or barrister attached to the specific court that represents the Family Court of Australia where the case was heard. Thus, in line with Sarantakos’ (1998: 275) definition, all case reports represent secondary data. The selection of case reports for analysis was confined, in the first instance, to the Butterworths’ Student Companions: Family Law (1998) text12 from which 13 Australian cases were selected for analysis as listed (in bold) in Table 5.1. A further eight Australian cases are listed, which represent either related and/or supportive data. Three criteria were used to determine selection of the 13 primary cases for analysis. First, each case report needed to emphasise a particular hegemonic principle. To facilitate this selection process, the application of hegemonic principles to family case law was mediated through the structural models: cathexis, labour and power (see Connell 1987: 91–117). Thus, heterosexuality underpins cathectic relations, which in turn is central to the area of residency adjudication; the sex-based division of labour ensures breadwinning as masculine, which is the basis of spousal maintenance claims; and masculine power expressed as non-emotiveness becoming overt aggression is the foundation of domestic violence. Second, that the case reports should emphasise men and masculinities. Third, that each of the 13 primary cases represents the historical movement of Australian family law, across both the trial and appellate divisions,13 in the period marked by the Act. More specifically, the analytic method to be employed in the investiga-

A study of masculinities and family law 89 Table 5.1 Primary and supporting cases In the Marriage of Bennett (1990) (17 Fam LR 289) In the Marriage of Bevan (1993) (19 Fam LR 35) In the Marriage of Chandler (1981) (6 Fam LR 736) In the Marriage of Dench (1978) (6 Fam LR 105) Gronow v Gronow (1979) (5 Fam LR 719) In the Marriage of Issom (1977) (7 Fam LR 90) In the Marriage of Jaegar (1994) (18 Fam LR 126) In the Marriage of Jurss (1976) (1 Fam LR 11,203) In the Marriage of Kennon (1997) (22 Fam LR 1)

In the Marriage of Marsh (14 Fam LR 397) McMillan v Jackson (1995) (19 Fam LR 183) In the Marriage of Mitchell (1995) x (19 Fam LR 44) In the Marriage of Napthali (1988) (13 Fam LR 146) In the Marriage of Raby (1976) (2 Fam LR 11,348) In the Marriage of Rose (1976) (1 Fam LR 11,201) In the Marriage of Soblusky (1976) (2 Fam LR 11,528) In the Marriage of Schwarzkopff (1992) (15 Fam LR 545) In the Marriage of Waters and Jurek (1995) (20 Fam LR)

tion of residency, spousal maintenance and domestic violence case reports will take as its point of departure the broad feminist critique of the ‘maleness’ of law. In other words, that the operation of law is marked by an androcentricity that enables its processes to adopt an adversarial, competitive and aggressive nature that is preoccupied with espousing individual rights, objectivity and rationality (Naffine 1990: 114). On this basis, the view that the production, through law, of a social justice in gender challenging the dominative masculine hegemony and adopting a more organic moral and intellectual discretionary strategy will not be accepted unproblematically. Further, given that the nature of this hegemony and, thus, the character of hegemonic masculinity are never completely stable across time and space, it requires an investigative method that incorporates a critico-historical approach.14 However, the intention of such a method should not be to assume a crude positivistic outlook that seeks objective facts. Rather, it must represent a means by which the analyst’s attention is re-directed towards the practico-cultural and historical bases of a particular configuration of power. This will allow analysis to draw out the situational aspects of judicial interpretations by reading each case report, not as an autonomous, objective, specific and abstract statement of legal fact but as a social text. The outcome of this is neither the product of a completely objective and dispassionate legal process nor one that is completely interpretive and contextual but, rather, as some combination of the two. In this way, the law and legal knowledge is viewed not as an autonomous system able to interpret concepts such as the family, masculinity and femininity in a precise and

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static manner, but as an institution that operates reflexively within and across the structural inventory. The following chapter presents a detailed analysis of the selected case reports. It focuses on the ratio decidendi within judicial interpretations of the key hegemonic principles in the areas of residency, spousal maintenance and domestic violence.

6

A critico-historical analysis of masculinities and family law Explorations into heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggression

This chapter presents a detailed analysis of family law case reports. The focus is on examination of judicial attitudes towards the key dominative masculine hegemonic principles articulated in the ratio decidendi of residency, spousal maintenance and domestic violence case law.

Heterosexuality: exploring masculine emotionality in residency case law In the hegemonic family, it is not the case that the ideal operation of gender emotionality in cathectic relations will project consensus and an egalitarianism that is unfettered by sex. In other words, contemporary gendered emotionality, which springs from the heterosexual patterning of desire grounded in the post-war functionalisation of sex-roles, produces a specific difference and unequalness between partners that will be referred to, in line with Connell (1987: 113), as heterosexual reciprocity. The significance of this reciprocity to the structuring of cathectic relations within the hegemonic family is fundamental. Without it, heterosexuality might well succeed in sustaining the subordination and marginalisation of homosexual emotionality, but it will not necessarily ensure the appropriate forms of desire and object attachment required to keep the hierarchical structuring that develops from hegemonic heterosexuality operative within the vast mass of people. Failure to take control of the emotionality of this mass puts the task of maintaining the definition and centrality of the heterosexual principle in a dominative masculine hegemonic worldview at risk. Therefore, determining whether heterosexual reciprocity continues to enjoy legitimacy in the structures of expectation that frame the ratio decidendi of a judgment and, also, how it operates, is of fundamental importance to understanding the nature of the hegemonic project and the concomitant social justice. In this respect, analysis of residency adjudications, in which interpretations of heterosexual reciprocity produce legal normativity, is crucial.

92 A critico-historical analysis In the Marriage of Jurss (1976) Judicial interpretations of heterosexual reciprocity and the conceptions of masculine emotionality they produce are not always clearly evident in case law. Rather, they are very often expressed in covert terms or exist as latent meanings within the obfuscations of discretionary processes and abstract legal detouring. A case in point occurred in 1976 at the height of the second-wave feminist challenge (Carrigan et al. 1987: 70–71). Demack J1 in In the Marriage of Jurss (1 Fam LR: 11,203–11,207) ordered that the husband retain residency of the two children from his marriage to the wife, who in turn was given access. This decision being delivered so soon after the passing of the Act appeared to immediately set a precedent against the ecclesiastical and functionalist implications in s 43 (see above). But more, it gave support, prima facie, to a key feminist critique that posited the legitimacy of heterosexual reciprocity and the structuring of the cathectic system in the hegemonic family is based on a taken-for-grantedness about biological reproduction and, as such, should be questioned and changed. However, closer analysis of the ratio decidendi and his Honour’s exercise of discretion reveal no such critical alignment. It becomes evident that his Honour was faced with a difficult situation exacerbated by the adversarial nature of law. In effect, no clear factor emerged that would allow advantage to be given to one party over the other. In fact, by the time of trial both the husband and wife had re-partnered and constructed traditionally normative relations and there was little to separate the respective accommodation and familial conditions on offer for the children. For example, the husband was living in a stable de facto relationship with Ms Tichbourne and had done so since January 1975, while the wife had been living, since late 1973, with a Mr Hunter whom she now intended to marry. Further, both parties had given evidence at trial supporting the other’s commitment to the children, as well as the other’s quality as a parent. On this basis, his Honour puts forward the ratio decidendi ‘one very significant issue in cases like this is the relationship which will develop between the children and their prospective stepparents’ (1 Fam LR 11,205). This gave justification for the exercise of a discretionary approach that would re-direct the decision-making emphasis away from the parties to the case, that is, the husband and wife, and onto the prospective stepparents. His Honour’s (1 Fam LR: 11,205) cross-examination of the wife’s partner, Mr Hunter, produced the assessment that while he was found to be ‘a pleasant man who would probably discharge the duties of father adequately’, he was ‘presently a complete stranger to the children’. On the other hand, his Honour found the husband’s partner, Ms Tichbourne, who at the time of trial was aged 19 and the primary carer of four children, to be ‘a young but competent and loving woman’ who ‘appears mature enough to discharge the duties of a mother’. This construction effectively placed the stepparents, who were now the determining factors in the process of adjudication, into neat

A critico-historical analysis 93 gendered categories, allowing his Honour to further develop his argument through the invocation of a structure of expectations that employed heterosexual reciprocal ideology.2 Its effect would favour the husband but, in the final analysis, it would also negate the emotionality he had demonstrated through the care and control of the children for a period of almost three years, which included a substantial period without Ms Tichbourne. His Honour (1 Fam LR: 11,205) did make note of these nurturing qualities, stating that he had shown an ‘unusual degree of affection and ability’ but, nevertheless, continued to subordinate them to the demonstrated femininity of Ms Tichbourne. Historically, Australian fathers (like their British counterparts) would have enjoyed immediate, unqualified and absolute rights to residency of their legitimate infant child(ren) on the basis of their privileged status and earning capacity. However, with industrialisation, nuclearisation of the family and the emergence of the two-spheres paradigm that produced a functional emphasis on breadwinner/housewife roles, changes to family laws were inevitable (see Murphy J in 5 Fam LR: 729–730). In Australia, s 43 of the Act (see above), which posits the heterosexual nature of marriage, the family as the cornerstone of society and the welfare of the child as the family’s primary responsibility, gives support to functionalism’s biologistic and, therefore, ahistorical and essentialist dogma. In other words, femininity is taken-for-granted as naturally aligned to motherhood and domesticity on the basis of the ineluctability of childbirth. This produced what would be known in common law as the ‘mother principle’ or the ‘tender years’ doctrine (Graycar and Morgan 1990: 243). However, the social implications that flowed from family law’s adoption of the mother principle are profoundly complex. In a socio-historic sense it ensured the obliteration of the oppressive feudal-based ideology that produced a significant patriarchal dividend for the father or, as Stone (1977: 7) puts it, ensured his position as ‘legalised petty tyrant’ within the home. This occurred on the basis of a new emphasis on domesticity that enabled mothers to increasingly view childbirth and childcare as something more than simply parts of a biological process to produce male heirs (Stone 1990: 170–171). As a consequence, the nexus of woman and motherhood by the twentieth century had become a natural concomitant of the two-spheres paradigm and, as a result, the nurturing of young children and especially girls within the private sphere needed to be put in the care of their mothers (Stone 1990: 171). However, while these transformations and outcomes represented significant challenges and changes to the dominative masculine hegemony of the time (see Stone 1977: 239–244), they continued to provide a patriarchal dividend to husbands and fathers within a family that fettered mothers to the home, childcare and a new oppressive position described earlier under the rubric of emphasised femininities’. In addition, it gave a pseudo-scientific rationale to the exclusion of men and masculinity from this cathectic realm (see Stone 1990: 171–174).

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So, given that the structure of expectations implicit in the ratio decidendi and his Honour’s discretion recognises the importance of heterosexual reciprocity and the mother principle, he could not justify giving residency of the children to the husband simply on the grounds of his demonstrated masculine emotionality. This would indeed set a very obvious and overt precedent against the letter of s 43. However, a basis upon which a decision could be taken to give residency to the husband required that an appropriate emphasised femininity existed in the first instance, thus enabling the construction of a cathectic system in which heterosexual reciprocity could determine functionality. At this historical moment, though, while decisions to give residency of children to their father required this type of qualification, no such justification was required to confirm or return residency to the mother, beyond ensuring the mother had not disqualified herself as a parent. In the Marriage of Rose (1976) The problematics of disqualification for the mother is made clear in the appeal case In the Marriage of Rose (2 Fam LR: 11,101–11,115) initiated by the appellant husband against a decision by Woodward J to grant residency of the three children to the wife. The appeal was subsequently dismissed. During the almost two years between separation and the appeal, residency had changed, on the orders of the Court, some five times between the husband and wife. This was due initially to the husband’s repeated claims that the living conditions for the children, as well as their personal condition, showed signs of neglect, and that this should disqualify the wife from being a fit mother and maintaining residency. Later, residency orders would change on the basis of the husband’s claims about the wife’s adulterous behaviour. Nevertheless, on two occasions while in her care and control, the wife’s neglect of the children and, in particular, that of the youngest child, J, came to the attention of the Court. On both occasions, residency of the children was given to the husband. However, these orders were only ever made as interim measures, for example, approximately nine days in the first instance and ten months in the second. In returning the children to the wife after the first and most serious episode,3 Carmichael J (2 Fam LR: 11,106) concluded that ‘the plaintiff [the wife] did neglect J but that neglect did not reach the degree as being culpable neglect’ and therefore, the wife’s behaviour did not disqualify her from ‘the rights’ of motherhood. In reviewing these statements at appeal, the full court of the Family Court of Australia4 argued that this judgment appeared to be given from the premise that the wife had some prima facie right to the residency of the children. This, in the view of the Bench, was incorrect, however, as will become evident, it would not attract much weight against the wife in future decision-making. On 27 June 1975, Woodward J, who had taken over the case from Carmichael J, stated that with regard to the husband’s petition against the wife’s adultery, the children would be removed from the wife and D, whom

A critico-historical analysis 95 the Court now referred to as their ‘substitute father’. The order to return residency of the children to the husband had followed a second episode of neglect, yet this did not alter the judgment that such a change should not be taken as a permanent arrangement. In fact, his Honour put forward the ratio decidendi in the form of an ultimatum to the wife at this point: marry D or lose residency of the children. By January of 1976 the wife had indeed married D and his Honour made the assessment that: In all, it would appear that the children’s mother is more settled and in a better emotional and stable state of health and general circumstances than is their father, despite his quite apparent genuineness and eagerness to promote his children’s future. (2 Fam LR: 11,112) The wife’s new legally normative partnership with D had presented her to the Court as better able to exercise her right to motherhood. The husband, on the other hand, was in a lesser condition to care for the children because it was claimed by his Honour that he had failed to provide what was referred to as a ‘mother substitute’, and therefore his situation lacked the appropriate conditions to safeguard the welfare of the children. The husband argued at appeal that his Honour had given excessive weight to the marriage of the wife as a factor in changing her approach to the children. While disagreeing with certain aspects of both Carmichael and Woodward JJ’s decisions, which included the prima facie importance given to motherhood and, also, that no consideration was given or comment made about the husband’s demonstrated emotionality as a parent and further, that no comparative assessment of husband and wife as parents was offered, the Bench maintained that Woodward J’s privileged position with regard to assessing the evidence and cross-examining the parties and their spouses ensured that the decision remained in accordance with the welfare of the children. In other words, the Bench showed no desire to question the primacy of motherhood, which sat at the core of heterosexual reciprocity and the negation of masculine emotionality operating in this situation. Gronow v. Gronow (1979) Prior to 1979 in family law, legal normativity continued to be constructed around the mother principle as a central component of heterosexual reciprocity. However, in Gronow v. Gronow (5 Fam LR: 719–736), the High Court of Australia put forward a decision that openly challenged this principle. This case represented an appeal by the husband against a decision by the Bench to allow the appeal by the wife and, as such, overturn the decision of Evatt J at trial, which ordered that sole residency of A, the child of the marriage, remain with the husband. The High Court upheld his Honour’s decision and ordered that A remain with the husband. While this highlights

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the complex disarticulatory nature of the judicial decision-making process, the final decision had significant implications for the legal normativity previously constructed around the mother principle and, at a broader level, the legitimacy this normativity gave to the negation of masculine emotionality. This is made evident through the ratio decidendi put forward by Stephen J of the High Court (5 Fam LR: 724) who claimed that to impose an additional ‘maternal preference’ factor in residency evaluations must necessarily lead to erroneous results. Further, Mason and Wilson JJ argued that: The principle invoked by the respondent [the wife] – that a young female child is best left in the residency of the mother – is not, and never has been, a rule of law. It is, or was, a canon of common sense founded on human experience. (5 Fam LR: 727) These arguments were, in essence, upheld by all members of the High Court, allowing it to exercise discretion in favour of the husband and the status quo. At an overt level the decision openly challenged the validity of the ratio decidendi in Demack J’s judgment (in Jurss) and Woodward J’s (in Rose). Further, it put in place legitimate and significant obstacles for future structures of expectations that would privilege maternal preference. However, notwithstanding the progressive sentiments of the High Court’s decision, closer analysis of the case report reveals that the cause of the marriage breakdown and the continuing emotional state of the wife was a result of her abuse of both drugs and alcohol. In this context, it is not possible to assume that the High Court gave greater weight to the rejection of the mother principle and a concomitant recognition of masculine emotionality than to the demonstrated dysfunctionality of the wife’s mothering abilities. In the Marriage of Chandler (1981) In In the Marriage of Chandler (6 Fam LR: 736–740) following the Gronow decision, Nygh J challenges the claimed erroneous potentials of employing the maternal preference factor. In this case, his Honour ordered that residency of the two children, which had been with the husband since separation, that is, a period of about one year, was to be given to the wife. The basis of the challenge was his Honour’s reading of Ellen Goodman’s (1976) paper, ‘Child residency adjudication: the possibility of an inter-disciplinary approach’ in the Australian Law Journal. The argument presented by Goodman takes as its point of departure John Bowlby’s maternal deprivation thesis and the stress it places on the importance of bond-formation, particularly at the primary attachment stage. Goodman, however, gives situational specificity to Bowlby’s ideas by arguing that ‘since for most infants in our society the person with whom there is the greatest initial interaction is the

A critico-historical analysis 97 mother, it is argued that this is the person with whom the first affectional tie is formed’ (Goodman 1976: 645; my emphasis). Thus, by accepting both the claim about the importance of primary attachment and that it is maternal interaction that is most prevalent and therefore the norm, his Honour is able to view specific behaviours such as attention-seeking with the mother as support for the ratio decidendi that ‘strong bonds exist and continue to exist between the children and their mother’ (6 Fam LR: 737). On this basis, discretion can be exercised in such a way that the attachments produced out of the initial process of bondformation between the mother and children are privileged over all others and, particularly, those that would develop with the father after the primary attachment stage. However, a crucial issue for residency adjudication that failed to emerge in Goodman’s paper and, subsequently, was overlooked by his Honour is centred on the question: when in the child’s life is it possible to disregard the effects of the maternal primary attachment and recognise the desire for, and importance of, other attachments? Of course, if classical psychoanalysis (see Freud 1977) can be used as an elaborative perspective to Bowlby’s primary attachment thesis, given that both children were at school age and the eldest entering the Oedipal period, the completion of the Oedipus Complex for both boys and girls suggests a cathectic movement from the mother to the father. However, no such socio-psychological elaboration was offered by Goodman or required by his Honour. In the Marriage of Bennett (1990) The issue of attachment, particularly between a boy and father, arose in the case In the Marriage of Bennett (14 Fam LR: 397–415), which was an appeal initiated by the wife against the decision of Maxwell J to transfer residency of the boy, E (who was nine), and not the girl, A (who was ten), from the wife to the husband. The Bench subsequently allowed the appeal. The basis of her Honour’s decision was that the husband had maintained a close relationship with both children. Further, that E had expressed a desire to live with the father and that there was evidence of a strong relationship existing between E and his father. This was confirmed by the psychologist’s report entered into evidence. It suggested inter alia the possibility of separating the brother and sister without adverse developmental effects. However, at appeal, the Bench determined, crucially, that there was a lack of justification in the conclusion that E and the husband actually shared a particularly close relationship and, more importantly, one that was in fact closer than that between E and the wife. To support this position, the Bench argued that the episodes of bullying, which E was experiencing at school, and had caused the wife to break the joint residency arrangement by unilaterally deciding to change the children’s school was, in fact, kept from the husband by E. On this basis, the Bench viewed any suggestion of a close relationship existing between father and son to be at best

98 A critico-historical analysis problematic. However, examination of this argument outside of a legalistic paradigm, as was the basis for the decision in Chandler, highlights the problems faced by the judiciary in assessing the welfare of the child within a structure of expectations where heterosexual reciprocity operates. Conceptions of masculinity are unconsciously set early in the child’s psycho-social development and continue to be reinforced until they ‘explode’ into action at adolescence when non-expressiveness, amongst other things, becomes a fundamental characteristic of the nascent adult male (Pleck 1981). Also, given the background of cathectic disunity caused by separation and the trial process, it is very likely that this characteristic would be significantly exacerbated in E’s socialisation. Therefore, it would not be surprising if E’s developing sense of masculinity made it difficult for him to explain the bullying episodes, of which he perhaps felt shame and embarrassment, to his father, the perceived symbol of strength and authority in his life. As Kaufman (1994: 142–163) argues, masculinity is a terrifyingly fragile practice because it does not exist as an inherent feature of each male but, rather, as ideology constructed through gendered relationships. Therefore, it is more than reasonable to suggest that E’s expressed wish to live with his father was born of the feeling that to be near that symbol of strength and authority would offer an increased sense of security, which he needed in terms of his own gender development, at that moment. This development is also explained through the Oedipal process of cathectic detachment from mother that young boys of E’s age begin to develop as they shift to alignment with the father. However, the implication from the decision given by the Bench in many respects follows the decision in Chandler, that is, in law the strength of the primary maternal attachment continues to be applied as a negating force upon the father’s emotional connectedness with his children. But more, that the maternal attachment will effectively provide for all E’s required needs into the future. McMillan v. Jackson (1995) The complexities of the father–child cathectic relationship are further exemplified in McMillan v. Jackson (19 Fam LR: 183–195). This was an appeal by the father against the decision of Rourke J, to give residency of the son, D (aged 2), to the maternal great-grandmother (to be referred to as ‘the intervener’) and allow the father access. At appeal the Bench overturned his Honour’s decision. Evidence at trial showed that it was the intervener who made the initial primary attachment and who was also the primary caregiver for the first eight-and-a-half months of D’s life. The transitory nature of the father and mother’s existence, as well as the father’s full-time work in mid-1993, made both parents content for this situation to continue. Upon the breakdown of this relationship in September 1993, the father returned to his parents’ home, the wife re-partnered and D remained with the intervener.5 In

A critico-historical analysis 99 October 1993 with encouragement from the paternal grandfather, the father failed to return D after an access visit and later lodged an interim order at the local court, which found in the father’s favour that D should continue to reside with the father in the paternal grandparents’ home with weekend access to the intervener. At the trial to assess the interim orders, his Honour was less than impressed with the behavior of the father, stating that he simply ‘took the law into his own hands’. Further, this action exemplified the emotional immaturity of the father who had failed to recognise and assess the needs and welfare of the child with respect to its relationship with the intervener. In effect, these arguments indicate the significance his Honour placed on D’s primary attachment to the intervener but, also, on the need to ensure it is maintained. This is notwithstanding that in evidence the father assured his Honour that he would continue to be the full-time primary caregiver for D, that is, put aside full-time employment, until D is of school age. On the basis of this assurance alone, his Honour posits the ratio decidendi from which discretion and the subsequent decision would be grounded. That is: D and his father will continue to be reliant on social security, with no prospect of income from employment until D attains school age. I will have more to say later in this judgment concerning the long-term implications [of the father’s proposal] for this child . . . (19 Fam LR: 186) This statement also implies the structure of expectations employed by his Honour where the primary attachment argument and mother principle underpin a conception of reciprocity that demands a continuation of the cultural norms about personality, work and welfare with respect to the development of a public masculinity. On the issue of personality development his Honour showed concern about evidence that suggested residency of D had pushed the father into a situation where ‘his life now revolves around the child and very little else’. Further, that ‘he is not involved in any sporting activity, and has little if any social life outside the home’. The implications are that this would restrict the father’s personal development, and in time have a negative influence on the welfare of D. However, the father’s decision to voluntarily exclude himself from paid work and rely on welfare was, for his Honour, the most disturbing issue and he stressed that full-time work was the father’s primary and most valuable contribution to the welfare of his child. In the unusual circumstances presented by this case it seems to me to be very much in D’s best interests for his father to seize the employment opportunity now available to him, thereby decreasing the risk of entrenched welfare dependency in the future. It also goes without saying

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A critico-historical analysis that D’s respect for his father as a role model will be immeasurably heightened if he perceives his father as the parent who is supporting him from his own exertions. (19 Fam LR 190)

So the father’s commitment to domesticity and childcare was rejected by his Honour because, in effect, they represented a challenge to the legal normativity about heterosexual reciprocity and public masculinity. Instead, the implied meaning in his Honour’s statement suggests that the father must negate his own emotionality with respect to the welfare of his son and seek to attain hegemonic masculine ideals because, in the final analysis, this is what represents the best interests of D and will secure his welfare into the future. At appeal, the gravamen of the father’s case presented to the Bench was that his Honour’s claims about welfare dependency leading to negative consequences for both the father and D were clearly ideological and gender biased. Further, that such claims were not based on any evidence and effectively expressed a failure to exercise equality between the situation of single mothers and single fathers, a group the Bench (19 Fam LR: 193) noted were required to ‘fulfil a full-time parenting role’. On his Honour’s treatment of these issues, the Bench had this to say: Whilst a trial judge does not, and is not expected to leave his or her common sense and worldly experience outside the door of the court, a judge must leave outside the court any pre-conceived notions which he or she may entertain, as a private individual, about the roles which males and females ought to adopt in society. With all due respect, it appears to us this is what his Honour failed to do in this case. (19 Fam LR: 192; original emphasis) The appeal was allowed on the basis that his Honour had erred in the exercise of his discretion by not recognising the husband’s legitimacy in putting himself forward as a primary caregiver ahead of being a breadwinner. However, nowhere in the raft of grounds upon which the appeal was based did Counsel for the father raise a question about the importance or relevance of primary attachment. While Counsel may well argue that there were bigger fish to fry, it is this issue that sits at the core of heterosexual reciprocity and a failure to challenge it here sustains the continuing judicial struggle to interpret masculine emotionality.

Breadwinning and the compensation problematic in spousal maintenance case law The operation of heterosexual reciprocity within the hegemonic family supports a gendered division of labour that puts constraints on access to the

A critico-historical analysis 101 private and public spheres of life. Here a normative masculinity, as expressed through the roles of husband and father and determined by the presumptive primacy assigned to the connection between women and childbirth, assumes an instrumental project that demands qualities of rationality, autonomy and non-emotiveness. This primacy also explains the contrasting qualities of expressiveness, passivity, dependence and nurturance assigned to femininity, which underpin women’s functioning as domestic unpaid workers. In this way, men’s suitability to operate in the public sphere as the instrumental breadwinner for the family is confirmed. However, of crucial importance to the continuing success of this gendered division of labour is its ability to ‘constrain’ gender practice within particular ‘categories’ (Connell 1987: 90). So, breadwinning as a masculine practice is constrained to operations within the category of public, where the person has access to the broad social and cultural environment which, in turn, enables institutional access and economic autonomy. More importantly, to continue this location it must negate domestic-based practices as masculine by protecting the ideological connections between men and the public sphere (and disconnecting men from the private sphere, as became evident in the above analyses on masculine emotionality). This promotes breadwinning as a hegemonic principle of the dominative masculine hegemony. In this sense, the function of family law is crucial because, as a gender regime, it is crucial to the continuation of legitimacy and, thereby, normativity, to certain gendered relations and configurations of practice that locate men, and their actions, within the public sphere (Collier 1995: 61). In the family law system, the issue of spousal maintenance, that is, whether formerly married persons should continue an economic relationship and thereby open up the possibility of financial responsibility for one another after divorce, is a crucial, though, problematic, social justice issue (Nicholson 2000: 22). In the Australian Institute of Family Studies Working Paper No. 16, Spousal Support in Australia (Behrens and Smyth 1999), a reason for this difficulty is implied through the absence of any serious consideration given to the articulation of a justification for spousal maintenance. This may well be argued by the authors to fall outside the scope of their study. Nevertheless, it is an obvious and significant omission, particularly given that Behrens and Smyth (1999: 2) stress the importance of policy reform in this area and claim a renewed emphasis towards its provision by the Family Court of Australia. Further, difficulties arise from the fact that the Act does not specifically define spousal maintenance. Instead, it offers through s 72 reference to conditions for its application: A party to a marriage is liable to maintain the other party, to the extent that the first-mentioned party is reasonably able to do so, if, and only if, that other party is unable to support herself or himself adequately whether:

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(a) by reason of having the care and control of a child of the marriage who has not attained the age of 18 years; (b) by reason of age or physical or mental incapacity for appropriate gainful employment; or (c) for any other adequate reason. (Family Law Act (1975) 1998: 249) On this basis, a definition of spousal maintenance is offered by Parker et al. (1999: 516) understood as the provision of money, goods or rights by a person to her or his spouse or former spouse so that that spouse is able to meet their living expenses. In addition, spousal maintenance is paid to and for the spouse on a regular basis over a period of time. This distinguishes it from a property settlement where allocation is made as a lump sum transfer of property or assets (Behrens and Smyth 1999: 2), and from child maintenance payments paid to the spouse specifically for the child. However, while the pragmatics of spousal maintenance as articulated in s 72 is to enable ongoing living expenses to be met, the Family Court of Australia has also sought to emphasise its compensatory function (and thereby, apply a moral integrity) with respect to determining economic disadvantage suffered by a spouse when the marriage breaks down. A number of authors (including Graycar and Morgan 1990; Behrens and Smyth 1999: 17; Parker et al. 1999: 516; Sifris 2000: 3) argue that men represent the vast majority of payers and women the vast majority of payees. This conclusion is also supported by the approach of the judiciary made evident in the above analyses of residency, where the negation of masculine emotionality through the application of heterosexual reciprocity and the mother principle enforce the nexus of femininity–private sphere. This in turn constructs a legal normativity that sustains a broader cultural legitimacy to the assignment of the primary-carer tasks, upon marriage breakdown, to women. This is particularly evident in the preponderance of female-headed singleparent households. For example, Australian Bureau of Statistics (2000) data indicate that 27,128 men received the single parenting payment as compared to 357,814 women. A less-than-recognised aspect of the welfare-based economic support provided by these single parents to their children is its contingency on the lack of, or disconnection from, actual paid-work. The historic masculinisation of breadwinning and the socio-economic imbalances produced across the structural inventory ensures that such contingency and disconnection will affect women more than men. The outcome of this process will be referred to here as the compensation problematic in family law which, in turn, gives continuity to disparities in rights, entitlements and capabilities. Thus the compensation problematic is directly associated with the continuation of the phenomenon the ‘feminisation of poverty’ (see Chant 2003). In family law, the argument that the compensation problematic should be made to equalise the effects of the gendered division of labour, that is, the

A critico-historical analysis 103 masculinisation of the public and the feminisation of the private, is by itself insufficient. The situation may be that a woman voluntarily forgoes economic advantage during marriage so as to concentrate on domestic activities, which for her may give greater personal satisfaction. Under these conditions, why should a domestic worker be able to claim compensation via spousal maintenance? Anthony Dickey (1999: 321) argues that if a wife agrees to devote herself primarily to domestic activities during marriage (an indefinite contract), she will ordinarily do so on the basis that her husband will provide for her economic welfare indefinitely. A woman entering into a marriage situation would almost certainly not agree to prejudice herself economically by restricting her activities to the private sphere if she knew the relationship would end in ten years – at least not without coming to some agreement on the compensation she will receive at the end of the period. Thus, for Dickey, it is precisely this premature termination of the agreement-relationship that causes the cessation of the expected financial support which in turn justifies a claim for spousal maintenance. This justification for compensation naturally implies a liability to provide maintenance. If a man enters into an agreement to provide income for the family as breadwinner on the understanding that the woman will provide the comfort of a home, and that this arrangement will continue indefinitely, or at least, for the duration of their lives, then there is an agreement based on the principle of heterosexual reciprocity. Termination of the marital arrangement by either of the two parties also terminates the agreement and enables a claim for spousal maintenance by the economically disadvantaged and dependent spouse, which can be considered at law on the basis of the original agreement. At its inception, the general philosophy of the Act with respect to spousal maintenance, as argued by Graycar and Morgan (1990: 128), was that, after divorce, women and men should where possible be financially independent. In other words, the basis of judicial decision-making with respect to spousal maintenance, at this historical moment, required that due regard be given to s 72, which sought to determine the ‘threshold’ question, that is, whether there is need on the one hand, and a capacity to pay on the other (Sifris 2000: 3). This enables the application of s 746 but always with due consideration of s 81,7 which upholds the principle of finality in economic relations between parties. However, if in fact judicial interpretations of the Act at this time can be seen to impose a clean economic break, this becomes, prima facie, a curious imposition, particularly given that there will often be the continuation of cathectic relations produced by on-going residency arrangements. What will become evident in the following analyses is that, just as residency decisions draw heavily on heterosexual reciprocity, which assigns women autonomy within the emotional or private realm, spousal maintenance decisions are based on the legal normativity about men operating autonomously in the economic or public realm. This is enabled through s 81, where the finality principle is set out, which effectively makes men

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independent in ‘labour’. However, this independence is set besides a dependence (as has already been shown) in cathexis. In the following analysis, some of the difficulties associated with the compensation problematic and considering spousal maintenance within the constraints of ss 72 and 81 are highlighted. In the Marriage of Soblusky (1976) In the Marriage of Soblusky (2 Fam LR: 11,528–11,553) represents an appeal made before the Bench by the husband who questioned the orders of Kelly J in the Supreme Court of Queensland, allowing spousal maintenance and overturning the magistrate’s decision at trial not to allow the wife’s claim for financial support from the husband. The Bench, while not agreeing with the magistrate’s discretionary logic, supported the final judgment and subsequently over-ruled Kelly J’s orders and allowed the appeal. A brief review of the case facts indicates that, after 32 years, the marriage broke down in 1975 when the husband left the matrimonial home. In December of that year the matter came on for hearing and the magistrate heard in evidence that the husband had transferred to the wife the matrimonial home and a sum of $3,600 cash. In return, the husband asked for and got $1,000, the car and a guarantee that no further claims would be made with respect to spousal maintenance by the wife. At trial the wife claimed she made no such agreement. The ratio decidendi from which the magistrate applied his discretion in favour of the husband was based on his interpretation of the Wachtel Test, drawn from the 1973 English precedent case Wachtel v Wachtel. His Honour determined the test to argue effectively that, where the conduct of either party is so obvious and gross as to be repugnant to justice, that such conduct disentitles either party to give financial support to the other. In effect, the husband’s evidence centred on claims that in the latter part of the marriage the wife subjected him to a life of constant nagging and abuse that often became violent. Further, that the wife dominated him to the point of forcing him to deliver his pay-packet to her unopened and kept him from going out or using the car without permission. However, despite the alleged violence, domination and restraints imposed by the wife, the husband still managed to find another woman, develop a relationship with her and, subsequently, leave the wife. Nevertheless, the magistrate interpreted the alleged actions of the wife as factual and therefore constituting behaviour of an obvious and gross nature that was repugnant to justice. However, this decision by the magistrate appears to operate against the spirit of s 48(1) of the Act (1998: 158) in that the attribution of fault is problematic to the settlement of matters between the parties, a position that is held to in residency adjudications.8 The wife appealed the magistrate’s decision before Kelly J in the Queensland Supreme Court who saw that, in the context of s 75 (1998: 249), there appeared to be both need (on the part of the wife) and the capability to meet this need (on

A critico-historical analysis 105 the part of the husband). Further, it was not clear to Kelly J that the Wachtel Test was relevant and, therefore, had been appropriately applied by the magistrate. On this basis, an error at law was evident and the appeal was allowed. However, this decision set the foundation from which it was possible to set aside s 81 and the principle of finalisation and support the continuation of an economic relation between husband and wife. It is this aspect of Kelly J’s orders, and not other issues such as conduct and fault, that the Bench would subsequently view as problematic at law. They claimed that: He [Kelly J] was entitled to and indeed required to take into account in determining what if any order to make by way of financial provision for the wife the fact that at the time of the final separation of the parties this property had been transferred by the husband to the wife for virtually no consideration at all. We consider that this amounted in substance to a settlement by the husband of his interest . . . (2 Fam LR: 11,552) In other words, the Bench accepted that a lump sum property settlement represents the husband’s attempt to assist the wife to meet her current and future financial requirements. Thus ensuring legal normativity to the practices of finalisation via a one-off property settlement and economic autonomy, but equally undermining spousal maintenance as a compensatory mechanism. The questions of assistance and compensation, which are not being clearly answered, are in fact being obfuscated and at worst negated by the judicial inconsistency and ambiguity that is evident with respect to applications of law to the meeting of existing and future needs by a dependent spouse. This judicial inconsistency is supported by broader scholarly inconsistency. For example, the issues of spousal maintenance and compensation have been criticised by feminist scholars such as O’Donovan (1982) who argues that it is degrading for women, particularly at a time when they are looking for a clean-break and independence. However, O’Donovan does not argue that an unqualified dismantling of spousal maintenance be imposed but, rather, that its removal forms part of a broader project for structural changes to the marital relation itself, which includes the re-configuration of childcare issues, whose efficacy would be to alter economic dependency. The problem with this thesis is that it puts all its eggs in the basket of the child’s dependency on the woman as the principle reason for the latter’s continuing economic dependence on men. While O’Donovan recognises and attempts to deal critically with the often taken-for-granted legitimacy of the disconnection between father and children in the family, which is exacerbated in post-separation situations, it ignores two important aspects of the family. First, the terms of the fundamental agreement (as argued by Dickey 1999, see above p. 103) cuts through the reciprocity inherent to heterosexual relationships. In other words, upon breakdown of the relationship, the

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crucial issue of which party will pay for the privilege of economic autonomy enjoyed by one at the expense of the other must be determined. Second, the nature of the hegemonic family, as discussed earlier, is a reflexive sociocultural phenomenon. In other words, the ideological legitimacy of the gendered division of labour, which the broader culture accepts, imposes constraints upon the gendered configurations of practice within and outside the family. Thus, confining the source of concern to personal level relations without simultaneously addressing broader institutional and societal issues will only produce conjunctural change with little impact upon the dominative masculine hegemony. In the final analysis, this will fail to alter the hegemonic principle that assigns economic privilege to masculinities through the functional practice and ideology of breadwinning but, also, it will fail to alter the concomitant privileges breadwinning affords masculinities across the whole structural inventory. In the Marriage of Dench (1977) In this case (6 Fam LR: 105–115) the basis of the economic privilege afforded to men and, more importantly, its legitimation through law, which became visible in the Soblusky case, is extended and elaborated. In particular, this case shows how the contradictions between continuing residency relations are judicially supported while continuing economic relations are actively negated. In so doing, it exposes a continuing ambiguity at the judicial level with respect to interpreting the father’s joint custodial responsibilities to the child and, also, his assistance and compensatory responsibilities to the wife. This was an appeal action initiated by the wife against the decision by Pawley J at trial in November 1977, which ordered, inter alia, that joint residency of the child be given but with care and control going to the wife; that child maintenance of $20 per week be paid by the husband; that the proceeds from the sale of the matrimonial home be divided equally; and that the spousal maintenance claim made by the wife be set aside. At appeal, the wife, with respect to maintenance, sought to vary the property settlement order as a means of ensuring that her financial security and the child’s future was not jeopardised. A brief review of the case facts shows that the parties were married in 1963 and have one child, J, from the marriage. The wife left the matrimonial home with J in December 1975 and since then J has been in the care and control of the wife. The dissolution of the marriage was made in April 1977, and in November 1977 his Honour made orders for residency and maintenance (see above). At trial, evidence before his Honour showed that the principal asset of the parties was the former matrimonial home, held in joint names and valued at $26,000. A mortgage of $12,000 had been discharged through the proceeds of the business in which both parties had worked. The balance of $1,200 was held on trust pending these proceedings.

A critico-historical analysis 107 In evidence given by the wife’s accountant it was shown that the business was expected to grow in 1976 by approximately 14 per cent. However, after the wife had left the marriage, the books of the business actually indicate a contraction in excess of 41 per cent. His Honour (6 Fam LR: 109) recognising that ‘the husband did let the business run down’ also determined that it was in all probability caused by ‘his ill health and loss of enthusiasm following upon the separation’. Thus, no further determinations on this issue were made and any suggestions that the husband had enriched himself from the business to the detriment of the wife were summarily ignored. The husband also retained the car valued at $3,000 with an outstanding debt on it of $2,000, all the furniture that had previously been regarded as joint property and was in receipt of a weekly income of $142 per week. In May 1977 the husband, whose economic position is shown to be sound and stable, remarried a woman with two children aged ten and eight from a previous marriage. She had financial resources in the form of property valued at $30,000 that was returning her an income of $55 per week, while expenses claimed were $98 per month and she had the capacity to work as a librarian. His Honour did not recognise the new wife’s capacity for work or her property, only the income returned by the property, which curiously, was submitted to be $8 per week. This discretionary approach by his Honour exposes a latent but, nevertheless, crucial gender inconsistency in the application of s 72. It indicates how economic disadvantage develops a gendered nature and is imposed upon the position of housewife; why the preponderance of women are payees and men the payers in spousal maintenance claims; and why the feminisation of poverty becomes a social reality. Effectively, it is the women who must prove a need and men capability to pay. However, a woman who is seen to have the capability to work for a wage or remarries a partner with financial resources effectively negates any further economic claims she might legally have upon the husband (see O’Donovan 1982). In fact, this new position negates the ‘need’ criteria set out in s 72 (see In the Marriage of Mitchell 19 Fam LR: 44). Most importantly, as is evident in this particular case, the husband’s remarriage to a partner with financial resources and the capability to work for a wage does not ensure that his capability to pay spousal maintenance is legally recognised as improved. The product of this type of discretionary logic is the continuation of a legal normativity about the masculinity–economic autonomy nexus that posits men as independent public-sphere agents. The man of law is a middle-class man who demonstrates his masculinity by being assertive, confident, rational; he is firm in his negotiations; he advances his own cause, perhaps aggressively, but in a cool-headed manner, not through his physical prowess. He is willing to make enemies if the situation demands it; he is independent; he proceeds alone. He is an individual who does not need to run with the pack.

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A critico-historical analysis He is the shrewd commercial client . . . who puts the law to his profitable uses. He is the skilful maker of bargains envisioned by classic contract law. (Naffine 1990: 118–119).

In contrast, the wife and J at this time were living with a friend and in receipt of a supporting mother’s pension of $58 per week plus child endowment of $3.50 and $20 per week child maintenance paid by the husband; the latter amount was used by the wife to pay for J’s attendance at Burwood MLC, a private school. Interestingly, his Honour determined that the husband, who accepted the responsibilities of joint residency, could not be further burdened with spousal maintenance claims based on the argument that schooling costs accounted for all the child maintenance particularly, as the husband argued, as it showed the wife’s ‘exaggerated’ demands to send J to an expensive school. The wife’s expenses totalled $25 per week, leaving $36.50 to feed, clothe and maintain both herself and J. It was also given in evidence that the wife suffered from a bowel complaint that restricted her freedom, particularly in the choice of employment but, nevertheless, she claimed a desire to enter tertiary education and ultimately find paid employment. Based on his Honour’s application of discretion and the concomitant orders at trial, any aspiration at appeal to seek on-going economic support via spousal maintenance was set aside and, instead, the wife sought the husband’s full interest in the matrimonial home. The Bench agreed with his Honour that a rejection of spousal maintenance was appropriate but Evatt CJ and Watson SJ9 found that his Honour did not give sufficient allowance for the fact that the wife must provide accommodation for the child and that the husband is in a position where he can provide some help in the form of capital. On this basis, the Bench determined that an order to adjust the property settlement so that the wife is provided with 60 per cent and the husband 40 per cent of the net proceeds from the sale of the matrimonial home would be appropriate.10 This case indicates, amongst other things, that while the family law judiciary overtly delineates between public and private spheres, they also, albeit less directly, construct conceptions of masculinity that are not just passively located in the public. Rather, through their location, masculinities are able to take control, give direction and exert authority over the private sphere and, thereby, women. His Honour’s acceptance, and the Bench’s negation, of the husband’s claim that ill-health and lack of enthusiasm, caused by the marriage breakdown, had caused the significant failure of the business indicates precisely the autonomy and authority of the man in the business realm. Further, that no compensation for the ensuing losses should even be considered by the wife exposes her complete subordination. Marriage is thereby exposed as an agreement unlike that of any other contract in a business context. There is effectively no responsibility upon one

A critico-historical analysis 109 party (say, the husband) to compensate the other party (say, the wife) for failures and concomitant financial losses precisely because of the ideological potency imposed upon gender by the functionalistic delineation of the public/private spheres. On this basis, the decision to refuse spousal maintenance and apply a property settlement decision should raise no eyebrows. It simply reflects a project put in place at a particular historical moment that is based on a demand for economic finalisation. However, the consequence of this compensation problematic is the continuation of the ideological infrastructure that sustains reciprocity and ensures the feminisation of poverty. In the Marriage of Napthali (1988) The 1980s heralded in a ‘redressing’ by the family law courts of the feminisation of poverty, primarily through a ‘new’ focus on s 79(4)(c)11 of the Act (Sifris 2000: 3). In a historical sense, as has already been shown (see above), earlier decisions tended to favour the lump sum property settlement approach to spousal maintenance and compensation, where the wife’s claims were confined primarily to the marital home and, notwithstanding extenuating circumstances, its division would provide equal shares (Sifris 2000: 3). However, this case offers evidence to suggest that the emphasis on s 79(4)(c) was, in fact, not being holistically adopted by the judiciary and that determinations with respect to spousal maintenance and compensation, particularly at trial, indicate the continuing application of a structure of expectations where the gendering of not only labour, but also property, along public and private lines exists. This produces the separation of ‘matrimonial’ and ‘business’ assets, as they are referred to in this case, and ineluctably the negation of private sphere work as a contributory factor to public sphere success. The facts in In the Marriage of Napthali (13 Fam LR: 146–152) are that it represented an appeal by the wife against the judgment by Maxwell J at trial in October 1987. Her Honour ordered that the husband discharge all encumbrances on the former matrimonial home except for the original housing loan of $27,319.65 and transfer all his interest to the wife. Also, it was ordered that the husband indemnify the wife against all claims in respect of loans other than the housing loan of which she would be responsible. Further, her Honour, while not directly rejecting the claim for spousal maintenance, appears to be moving in favour of property settlement. The history leading up to this decision is that the parties were married in September 1972 and separated in January 1984 and at the time of trial there were two children of the marriage, A and M, aged 13 and ten respectively. Both children reside with the wife in the matrimonial home and the husband pays them a sum of $20 per week for each child as maintenance. The matrimonial home was purchased in 1978 for $67,500 and at the time of the hearing was valued at $150,000, which effectively set the value of the

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wife’s equity at approximately $122,700. Further, the value of the contents of the home was determined as $14,000. At trial, her Honour cross-examined the wife and accordingly describes her as a very simple, barely literate person. Her paid work record is almost negligible and, when she did work, it involved simple manual labour. Based on this evidence her Honour (13 Fam LR: 148) determined that the wife had a ‘clear difficulty’ in terms of earning capacity. At the time of trial the wife was receiving a supporting parent’s benefit of $152 per week and family allowance of $14 per week. Thus, her total income, including the child maintenance paid by the husband, was $208. On the other hand, the husband at the time of the marriage was working as a factory worker with Dunlop Australia, but about 12 months after the marriage left to commence a conveyor belt business with another person by the name of Frewin. It is enough to state that from the evidence the original business grew and expanded to the point where, as at 30 June 1987, the company was in receipt of gross income to the value of $792,000. However, no evidence was provided (and from the case report, no evidence was requested by the Court) as to the net profit of the company. The husband claimed that the asset value of the business as at 30 September 1987 was $24,731, a figure that did not include any recognition of goodwill, an omission that, as stated in the case report, could be deemed prima facie misleading. To compound this problematic claim by the husband, her Honour found that the assets of the parties should in fact be considered as falling into two categories: ‘matrimonial assets’ and ‘business assets’. This offers some explanation as to her Honour’s disregard for the details of the business. Effectively, it was not the concern of the wife. Nevertheless, in terms of the matrimonial assets, the contribution of the parties to the matrimonial home and its contents could be regarded as substantially equal. Her Honour (13 Fam LR: 150) then sets out the ratio decidendi, or that ‘the real issues in the case revolve around two questions: what contribution, if any, the wife had made to . . . the business assets, . . . and what weight is to be given to the s 75(2)12 factors in this case’. On this basis, her Honour returned to her earlier assessment of the wife as a very simple woman, because it represented a particularly relevant point in determinations about the business and the division of its assets. The simplicity of the wife convinced her Honour (13 Fam LR: 150) that she did not have the capacity to contribute to the business in any substantial sense, particularly in the early period when it was ‘clearly, a question of all hands to the wheel’. Further, her Honour also made comment to the effect that the husband’s rise from the job of a factory worker through his initiative, intelligence, hard work and determination enabled him to become a successful businessperson. Also, the fact that the wives were included as joint partners in the new business was overlooked by her Honour as simply an accounting tool to maximise benefit. Effectively, the implication by her Honour is that the wife, unlike Mrs James, the husband’s new partner who makes a ‘contribution’ to

A critico-historical analysis 111 the business, lacked these characteristics in her person and as such was used only indirectly in a business sense. This discretionary logic represents a manifestation of what Connell (1987: 105) refers to as the ‘gendered logic of accumulation’. In effect, the wife’s perceived domesticity and simplicity is linked conceptually to emphasised femininities. This connection imposes on the wife additional characteristics such as technical incompetence, passivity, compliance, irrationality and accommodation of the needs of others. This, effectively, as her Honour makes very clear, excludes her from being a legitimate party to the accumulation of wealth that is produced in the public sphere. At appeal, the Bench viewed the failure by her Honour, first, to not consider the value of the business and, second, to not consider the wife’s contribution to it within the framework set by s 79(4)(c) represented a serious error at law. Specifically, the Bench recognised the contribution of the wife to the business assets as a homemaker and parent. Further, it was determined that no evidence was presented at trial to suggest that the wife’s capabilities in regards to paid work were questioned. Notwithstanding the wife’s pre-existing educational and intellectual difficulties, it must be recognised that they were compounded by her very little paid-work experience due to the responsibility of assuming the care and control of the two children. On this basis, and with due regard for ss 79(4)(b)13 and (c), the Bench found that her Honour’s discretion had miscarried. Thus, the judgment at first instance was overturned and the husband was ordered to take over the mortgage payments and pay to the wife $150 per week interim spousal maintenance, that is, until a new trial can be established. The key features of this case, in terms of the construction of breadwinning, are centred on her Honour’s delineation, or more appropriately, categorisation of property into matrimonial and business assets and its implications for understanding productive and reproductive autonomies. This type of categorisation and its application by her Honour represents a product of the gendered privilege attached to the public and dis-privilege attached to the private spheres. More specifically, though, this case exposed a fissure in family law based on a failure (that is similar to but elaborates the matters raised in Dench) to give due regard to appropriate sections of the Act that seek to restore a connection between the operations of the private and the public. While the action taken by the Bench in this case can be seen as sustained in later decisions at this judicial level and also in the High Court of Australia (Sifris 2000: 4), it is nonetheless an ideological application of ‘black-letter law’ that is not cross-divisionally consistent. Notwithstanding the more spatial inconsistencies about spousal maintenance evident in the family law courts, these analyses also indicate inconsistencies at the historical level. In the period immediately following the introduction of the Act, the compensation problematic was effectively obfuscated by a desire to ensure economic equality and finalisation based on a definite distinction between private and public labour and property. However,

112 A critico-historical analysis in an historic sense, the catalyst that forced a change in the judicial approach to spousal maintenance and the issue of compensation, albeit predominantly at the appellate level, was the landmark judgment in Moge v Moge; Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (Intervener), heard in the Canadian Supreme Court. Effectively, it was determined here that spousal maintenance could be awarded to a self-sufficient spouse as compensation for the economic disadvantages incurred during the marriage (Sifris 2000: 5). Following Moge, the full court of the Family Court of Australia indicated their determination to follow its precedent and openly question s 72. This is exemplified in judgments set down in In the Marriage of Bevan (19 Fam LR: 35)14 and In the Marriage of Mitchell (19 Fam LR: 44). These two cases were very similar because both involved the breakdown of long-term relationships, with both parties at the time of trial being middle-aged and with no dependent children. Also, there was a relatively small asset pool available for distribution and a significant disparity between the parties’ incomes along gender lines. However, in Bevan, the wife had been and continued to be employed, while in Mitchell the wife had been unemployed but had recently entered into part-time employment. In the Marriage of Mitchell (1995) This case (19 Fam LR: 44–64) represented an appeal by the wife against the judgment of Moore J who ordered that 40 per cent of the joint assets be paid to the wife and that the wife receives 90 per cent and the husband 10 per cent of the value of the matrimonial home. On this basis, the claim for spousal maintenance was dismissed. At the time of trial (1994) the wife was 54 and the husband 55. They had been married to each other for approximately 26 years and had two children, A and B, who were 26 and 21 respectively. The marriage breakdown occurred in 1992 when the husband left the matrimonial home and since that time the wife and children have continued to live there. The wife was a registered nurse working full-time prior to her marriage but now works part-time. However, for most of her married life she did not engage with her career and, instead, focused predominantly on her domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, during the marriage the husband undertook study and moved from clerk to his current position as a practising barrister. Although the evidence at trial indicates that the wife’s career was significantly set back because of her domestic responsibilities, the ratio decidendi in her Honour’s (19 Fam LR: 59) judgment to reject the spousal maintenance claim centred on two aspects of the wife’s case. First, that the wife had not taken sufficient steps ‘to persuade [the court] that she had made proper efforts to increase her income’ and second, ‘bearing in mind the quantum of the property order’. As such, her Honour determined the wife failed to meet the ‘threshold’ question implicit in s 75. In other words, notwithstanding her Honour’s implied acceptance of the damage caused by the normative

A critico-historical analysis 113 division of labour as presented in the trial component of this case, this decision followed the same discretionary logic that was applied some 20 years earlier in the Soblusky and Dench cases. That is, one-off property transactions were determined appropriate because they ensured the application of the finalisation principle. And, as shown in those cases, the latent effect of this discretion was to sustain the reciprocal division of labour that underpins the feminisation of poverty. However, at appeal, the Bench determined her Honour to be wrong with respect to the second reason. It was assumed by the Bench that after sale of the matrimonial home the wife would receive $247,532 (as well as a debt of $10,000 over the property). This was considered a modest amount given that the husband’s gross income is in excess of $300,000 per annum, that the wife and children would need to find new accommodation, that a substantial debt with respect to court fees will be forthcoming and, with the wife’s age and experience, she would be entitled to set aside an amount as a ‘nest egg’ for the future.15 However, the ratio decidendi posited by the Bench (19 Fam LR: 60), upon which their discretion was based, drew from the Moge case in so far as they determined it was no longer necessary for a spousal maintenance applicant to use up all their assets and capital in order to satisfy the requirements set out in s 75. In particular, the requirement that spousal maintenance must be paid where the applicant is unable to support his or her self adequately. The Bench elaborated this position by expressing their recognition of the impact that the normative division of labour has on the domestic worker, particularly those who have reached middle-age and are left in a situation where they very often have lost significant experience and confidence. In this context, the Bench made the point that the husband acquired his professional skills during the marriage and was enabled to follow through his career while the wife sacrificed her professional skills and gave up her career to assume the care of the family. In the 1997 case, In the Marriage of Kennon (22 Fam LR: 1), Fogarty and Lindenmeyer JJ (22 Fam LR: 30) described marriage as ‘an intimate sharing of mutual but diverse talents for . . . joint benefit’. But the difficulties faced by the person who assumes domestic work is that the talents developed in this sphere do not translate with equal facility into qualifications recognised within the public sphere. A point expressed in 1995 by Fogarty J in In the Marriage of Waters and Jurek when he said that ‘post-separation, the party who had assumed the less financially rewarded responsibilities of the marriage is at an immediate disadvantage. Yet that party cannot simply turn to more financially rewarding activities. Often, opportunities are no longer open . . .’ (20 Fam LR: 199–200). Accordingly, the appeal in respect of spousal maintenance was upheld (to the extent that it should go on for determination by another court) and that in the interim the husband pays the sum of $150 as interim maintenance.

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Masculine aggression in domestic violence case law A close examination of the collection of cases in the Butterworths volume (see Chapter 5) with regard to the hegemonic principle of aggression exposes a peculiar, though interesting, inconsistency. Unlike the areas of spousal maintenance and residency, where it is possible within the methodological constraints of this case study to present a historical development of ratio decidendi, no similar possibility exists for aggression in domestic violence case law. In the few early cases where the issues of aggression and violence are raised, it appears as a factor subsumed by some other issues, such as residency, spousal maintenance and/or property determinations. But even then, it is very often excluded by judicial discretion because of the Act’s no-fault principle (see Raby 1976; Soblusky 1976; Jaegar 1994). However, as Peter Nygh (1999: 14) states, the no-fault principle should not be seen as disadvantaging wives in the sense that they have now lost any right to be compensated for misconduct by the husband because it is an entitlement they never had. In fact, what this principle offered to women was the advantage of not being punished or disqualified from compensation if they were found guilty of desertion and adultery.16 Thus, the no-fault principle enables aggression and violence to be excluded from determinations on residency, spousal maintenance, and so on because such claims have been historically considered best handled by the criminal court. This approach to the principle of no-fault begins to explain why there is no history of stand-alone cases of aggression leading to domestic violence.17 It is only recently that domestic violence has become a specific issue of importance to the family law courts. Yet even here, it continues to be obfuscated inside the blurred boundaries of the civil (or family) law and criminal law jurisdictions (the reasons for this will be discussed below). Nevertheless, what this lack of history exposes is the very real way the State, through family law, has treated masculine aggression in the private sphere, particularly in terms of the provision of safety for victims and the prosecution of perpetrators since the enactment of the Act (Seddon 1993: 31–32). Despite these initial concerns about history and the treatment of violence, few would question the proposition that family law should aim to promote non-violence, safety and security as central planks in the regulation of the consequences of marriage breakdown. However, on this issue, considerably more controversy surrounds questions of how such objectives are to be achieved and what precisely is the substance of social justice. In terms of this debate, Bailey-Harris’ (1998: 3) argument, which is very much in line with Gramsci’s own concerns over the juridical problem, posits that the trend in the politics of family law is one of ‘retreatism’ rather than engagement. In other words, family law is marked by a passivity rather than activity about the issue of continuity. This becomes particularly evident in the State’s failure to put in place procedures to overcome the dilemmas that legal nor-

A critico-historical analysis 115 mativity imposes. In other words, legislation, both historically and in the current situation, ineffectively recognises the multiplicity of interests within the community. Thus, the Act (as has already been shown through the above analyses) maintains an ambiguity that in the final analysis fetters the family law judiciary to the exercise of a conservative discretionary strategy. This type of legislative approach produces law that simply maintains existing social injustices, while creating the possibilities for new problems to emerge. The efficacy of this passive or retreatist politics becomes most dangerously manifest in the real and even life-threatening violence within the private sphere. The claim by Gilgun and McLeod (1999: 168) that men in Western cultures are disproportionately represented as perpetrators of all forms of violent acts, either in the public or private spheres, should not come as any surprise given that the masculine gender-role, which sits at the core of contemporary legal perceptions of masculinities, incorporates the sex-role norms18 of aggression, achievement orientation and emotional inexpressiveness (Pleck 1981: 10). Within the hegemonic family, heterosexual reciprocity and its concomitant division of labour, which demands the negation of masculine emotionality in the private sphere as a platform from which to promote rational, autonomous career-focused masculinities in the public sphere, ensures the construction and maintenance of power underpinned by aggression as a functional attribute of these masculinities. However, while aggression can be argued (see Kilduff and Mehra 1996: 115–129) as functionally positive in a public instrumental sense because it is linked to competitiveness, rationality, single-mindedness, authoritarianism as well as achievement orientation, within the private sphere these characteristics of masculinity (or at least the perceived imperative to protect them), which enable the legitimate qualities required to dominate and control, become functionally negative (see Pringle 1995: 100). The operation of a publicoriented structure of expectations that constructs judicial conceptions of masculinities effectively incorporates what Dobash and Dobash (2000: 193) see as the main sources of men’s violence in the family, that is, possessiveness and jealousy, expectations about women’s domestic work, the right to punish ‘their’ women, and the importance of maintaining and/or exercising their position of authority. At a more general conceptual level, violence can be understood as unlawful behaviour that violates the personal security of another person (Honderich 1995: 900). In the Act, this type of behaviour is referred to as ‘family violence’ and is defined in s 60D(1) as: [C]onduct, whether actual or threatened, by a person towards, or towards the property of, a member of the person’s family that causes that or any other member of the person’s family to fear for, or to be apprehensive about, his or her personal well being or safety. (Family Law Act (Cth) 1975: 71)

116 A critico-historical analysis This description of family violence is aimed at incorporating a range of behaviours, as well as recognizing that violence has an impact on all members of the family, even if it is only directed at the wife. In this respect, family violence can manifest as emotional/sexual or economic violence impacting directly or indirectly on either one of the spouses or the child(ren) (Parker et al. 1999: 350). However, judicial interpretations of family violence tend to recognise and specifically target physical violence or threats of it19 that occur between spouses (Parker et al. 1999: 350). In this context, the preponderance of violence that occurs within the family between spouses is perpetrated by men against women (Graycar and Morgan 1990: 278; Ingleby 1993: 110; Parker et al. 1999: 350). Further, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (1996) ‘Women’s safety Australia’ survey indicated that, during their current relationship, 8 per cent or 345,400 women aged 18 and over who were either married or in de facto relationships reported an incident of violence.20 Given that the focus of this investigation is on heterosexual relations and practices within the hegemonic family, the term ‘domestic violence’ will be used here to refer specifically to violence within the family perpetrated by the male against a female spouse.21 A crucial issue that underpins the application of family law about domestic violence is the conceptual distinction made between private and public violence. In other words, violence that occurs within the home between people who are recognised as legally related and outside the home amongst those who are not. In the latter case, the criminal law would be immediately invoked to deal with the perpetrator. However, Parker et al. (1999: 367–368) argue that the invocation of criminal law in the former context is particularly problematic. In the first instance, criminal law is focused on punishment after the event rather than preventative action. Second, for criminal law to be effective with respect to domestic violence, the agents of the system, such as the police and judiciary, must support its application. Third, the invocation of criminal law may in effect impose yet further hardship for the victim, particularly if there is a dependency issue involved. This differential application of criminal law draws on a substantial history of acceptance to domestic violence underpinned by the separation between the public and private spheres.22 But this geographic separation of power and authority operates, albeit latently, upon a fusion of public and private gender ideologies that are always marked by the dominative masculine hegemony. So that: [t]he public face of hegemonic masculinity is not necessarily what powerful men are, but what sustains their power and what large numbers of men are motivated to support . . . There are various reasons for complicity . . . it seems likely that the major reason is that most men benefit from the subordination of women, and hegemonic masculinity is the cultural expression of this ascendancy. (Connell 1987: 185)

A critico-historical analysis 117 So, for many men, the imperative of aggression and non-emotiveness in masculine practice in the public sphere supports its natural appropriation when dealing with private issues particularly in times of crisis. This is exemplified in the behavior of many men who see their power and authority as being directly jeopardised by the breakdown in their marital relationship. Such a loss of power and authority feeds the development of uncertainties about their personal masculine adequacy and successes, which in turn very often leads to the development of anger mixed with an imperious sexual approach. This perpetuates conflict and the inevitability of physical and/or sexual violence (Liddle, cited in Pringle 1995: 179). In the Marriage of Schwarzkopff (1992) In In the Marriage of Schwarzkopff (15 Fam LR: 545–555), these aspects of a nascent violent masculinity can be seen to develop into explicit violent episodes. The case itself, represented an appeal by the husband against the excessiveness of a two-year sentence ordered by Hase J for repeated breaches of court injunctions made under s 114 (1998: 306) of the Act and put in place on 28 March for the personal protection of the wife. In effect, these original orders, made in March 1991, after the wife and the three children had left the matrimonial home and sought accommodation at a refuge, restrained the husband from variously assaulting the wife, being within 200 metres of the matrimonial home, in which the Court now relocated the wife, and making any contact with the wife. Between 29 March and 3 April, the husband committed a number of threatening and violent breaches of these orders (approximately 20) and on 9 April the wife applied to the Family Court of Australia for assistance to deal with the husband. On 3 May the Court found the husband had contravened the earlier orders and, in turn, ordered that the husband pay $500 and be released on his own recognisance, on condition he behave and comply with all previous injunction orders. However, between May and July the husband again breached the orders on numerous occasions. These breaches ended in a particularly violent incident in which the husband threatened to kill the wife in front of the children and then proceeded to rape her. While the husband slept, the wife and children escaped from the family home and again called on the Family Court to deal with the husband’s actions. Two days later, on 5 July the husband was arrested and conditionally released on his own recognisance. On 14 July the husband again assaulted the wife by head butting, tripping and striking her. This was followed a week later by an extremely serious incident in which the husband tracked the wife down at a public place and punched her in the eye while wearing rings that were known by the husband to inflict serious damage on the victim. The wife again applied to the Family Court of Australia for assistance and as a result the husband was arrested and remanded in residency until the trial before his Honour.

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At trial it was determined that of the 32 alleged breaches of the orders set down on 28 March the husband was guilty of 29, including the two serious incidents of violence. The husband was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, which was upheld upon appeal. Freeman (cited in Collier 1995: 249) argues that violence by husbands against wives should not necessarily be seen as a breakdown in the social order. In other words, that masculine violence, particularly in intimate relationships, does not represent a breakdown in the justice system’s ability to exert control, impose stability and ensure safety for its citizens, as conservative interpretations would suggest. Rather, that the gendered nature of domestic violence points to the affirmation of a particular sort of social order, where violence is not necessarily considered as dysfunctional but, in fact, functional behaviour in certain contexts. In this case, the hegemonic principles underpinning the structure of expectations through which the family law and justice systems treat aggressive behaviour have failed. In effect, they have been unable to ensure the application of restraint upon the husband to prevent the continuation of his violent behaviour. However, these are not pragmatic but ideological failures. Thus, when the husband’s behaviour is viewed within the context of the current dominative masculine hegemony, the legally normative basis for interpreting domestic violence is exemplified in the profoundly regressive arguments of Ms Bryant, counsel for the husband. Specifically, her argument posits that notwithstanding the large number of breaches against the court’s injunction, the fact that they occurred immediately following the marriage breakdown, in such a short period of time, should in fact indicate ‘aspects of a particular course of action’ (15 Fam LR: 554) to rebuild the relationship. This reinforces the argument posited by Connell (1987: 107) that relations of power operate as a ‘social structure’ that enforce certain ‘pattern[s] of constraint on social practice’. Thus, the spousal violence perpetrated by the husband in this case represents configurations of practice that operate within familial power relations, which in turn draw on the inequalities deeply embedded in the ideological structures of the dominative masculine hegemony. Thus, the type of legitimation Ms Bryant sought to exploit in her argument for leniency draws from these ideological structures and sustains an acceptance of men’s emotional inexpressiveness and immaturity. Thus, masculine violence, particularly where it can be shown to represent an attempt to try to re-construct a relationship in crisis, is understandable and promoted as legally normative.23 In this context, breaches of the injunction are argued by counsel to be of a ‘special’ nature, that is, distinct from violence directed towards an unrelated or, more importantly, a significant other who is cathectically disconnected. Rather, these actions must be seen as specifically masculine and operating precisely within the heterosexual cathectic system. Therefore, it follows that the judiciary should approach the setting of punishment with a more lenient attitude. The Family Law Court’s repeated decisions to offer the husband, as described by his Honour (15 Fam

A critico-historical analysis 119 LR: 549), ‘opportunities’ to change rather than impose punishment is evidence of the justice and judicial system’s ambivalent interpretation of public violence initiated by domestic factors. Interestingly, counsel does not perceive these opportunities as leniency but, rather, the legitimate and expected exercise of discretion within the judicial structure of expectations. Today, as Carolyn Hoyle (1998: 1) claims, the divide between public and private violence has become less distinct and the whole issue of violence between intimate couples sharing familial cathectic bonds has increasingly become a public policy issue. However, the sentence of two years, which was upheld at appeal, suggests that as at 1992 there is still some way to go before the trivialisation of domestic violence argument can be dismissed and a new significance, as Hoyle would argue, is attributed to this crime. The trivialisation–significance divide is made even starker when it is recognised that if this case had been heard in a criminal court as criminal offences, they would be viewed as particularly malicious actions because they show an intention to inflict grievous bodily harm. Thus, in the broader context of repeated assaults and batteries both physical and sexual, not only does the two-year sentence sustain the diminution of the criminality of the husband’s judicially interpreted domestic violence, thereby maintaining the distinction between public and private violence. But, more importantly, this sentence highlights the passivity that underpins laws about domestic violence and the concomitant ineffectiveness of judicial processes when attending to it. In the Marriage of Jaegar (1994) In In the Marriage of Jaegar (18 Fam LR: 126–132), the broad (that is, justice and judicial) system-based indirect acceptance of violence as a form of masculine expression in crisis, which is made evident in Schwarzkopff, shifts to a direct judicial, albeit at trial level, acceptance of domestic violence and a concomitant rejection of violence as a potential harm to family members. At trial, Cohen J ordered that residency of the child A be given to the wife, ignoring evidence submitted by the wife’s sister that violence was being perpetrated against the wife by her new spouse. The sister’s evidence was based on the wife’s admission to her of violence and the subsequent witnessing by the sister of the injuries received by the wife immediately following the violent episodes. This evidence was set out in an affidavit that was ignored as evidence by his Honour who made it clear that such claims were of little importance in this case. I am not really interested in whether the home is a peaceful haven or a bit of a – or a bit rougher than that, I might put it that way. I do not think that that is what affects children or is likely to affect this child. . . . The relationship between the wife and her current de facto does not really figure in this child’s needs. (18 Fam LR: 129)

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This statement indicates that the ratio decidendi underpinning his Honour’s discretionary approach is premised on an acceptance of domestic violence as an inevitable part of family life. It is from this position that his Honour argues against viewing domestic violence as a factor in determining the ongoing welfare and development of the child and, by implication, the welfare of the wife. Therefore, by rejecting the notion that domestic violence perpetrated against a significant figure in the child’s life, in this case the mother, will detrimentally effect that person’s welfare and safety, and given that the violence is not directly targeted at the child, it is determined that there is no case to answer.24 However, this position sits uneasily with both the definition of family violence as set out in s 60D(1) of the Act (the key principle of family law, that is, to promote the child’s best interests) and also the research and literature on the issue. It was argued (see above, p. 116) that the family law judiciary, with respect to family violence, tends to focus primarily on physical violence or threats of it, yet its definition is far broader. Most importantly, it recognises violence as causing a person, and not necessarily the person to whom the violence is directed against, to experience fear and apprehension about their safety. In this respect, Tomison (2000: 8) refers to children who witness violence in the home as the ‘invisible victims’ who are vulnerable to the traumatising effects of domestic violence. In McGee’s (2000: 77–95) study of both children and mothers’ views about domestic violence, the invisibility of children in violent households is given shape. In particular, children’s confusion, powerlessness, apprehension and fear that are products of violence is illustrated in the recollections of a six-year old boy: I remember when there was fighting. When daddy had the chair in his hand and when I run over by to the chair and my mum was sort of trying to defend herself. That’s all. And I was running around hiding over there by the big chair what was there before. (McGee 2000: 79–80) The husband did not accept his Honour’s discretionary approach towards domestic violence between the wife and her new spouse and, in particular, the ignoring of the affidavit offered as evidence by the wife’s sister. On this basis, he appealed the decision and succeeded in overturning his Honour’s orders. In their judgment, the Bench determined that had his Honour recognised the affidavit and accepted it as evidence, this would have significantly influenced his determinations and inevitably the outcome. Thus, the position taken by the Bench, with respect to the child’s welfare, is in line with the spirit of the Act and current research. In effect, they viewed domestic violence within the family, regardless of whom it is directed to, as impacting upon all members of the family. In this case, violence that targets the mother will have a detrimental impact upon the welfare and development of the child but, also, that domestic violence overrides any arguments

A critico-historical analysis 121 that seek to maintain the primary custodial relationship between mother and child. The judicial interpretations of domestic violence in the two cases presented so far highlight, amongst other things, judicial inconsistency towards the interpretation of domestic violence across and within the various divisions of the family law court. This systemic inconsistency and tension between trial and appellate divisions has the potential to exert a significant influence upon the community with respect to understanding and accepting domestic violence. In the Marriage of Marsh (1994) The decision at trial in Jaegar raises serious concerns about the structure of expectations through which judicial decisions are determined in the first instance. There is the very real potential for attitudes such as that expressed at trial in Jaegar to become legally normative and thereby assume a broader legitimacy in the community. In this context, a particularly important case is In the Marriage of Marsh (17 Fam LR: 289) where the judgment of Coleman J at trial sits in opposition to that of Cohen J in the Jaegar case.25 The Marsh case represents an application made by the wife that was heard in June 1993. It sought orders for property settlement, spousal maintenance, residency and by way of ‘cross-vested jurisdiction’ a claim for common-law damages of $10,000 arising out of an assault by the husband on the wife. His Honour determined that with respect to the damages claim it should be recognised that physical assaults are in fact crimes not to be tolerated by the law and that they should be subject to punishment under criminal law where damages for injuries can be recovered. But, more importantly, his Honour stated: This is a case where the message must be spelled out to persons such as the respondent [husband] that they cannot assault and beat wives or de facto wives and escape civil liability simply on the basis that it was a ‘domestic’. I know of no principle which renders an assault and battery in a domestic context less reprehensible than in any other context. (17 Fam LR: 296) This position seems to run counter to the exercise of discretion not just in Jaegar but also similarly in Raby. In the latter case, Demack J’s discretion set aside the wife’s claims of domestic violence as a factor to be considered in the residency determination on the basis of the no-fault principle and that such violence was not directed at the child. In effect, what the Marsh case exposes is a tension and struggle within the family law judiciary as a whole to re-think the existing traditional structure of expectations in which domestic violence as a form of criminal violence is rejected. As a result, the inevitable disarticulatory effect to family law only

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succeeds to trivialise domestic violence and its consequences. In hegemonic terms, the legal normativity given to masculine inexpressiveness and its concomitant aggressiveness pervades all aspects of men’s everyday public and private lives. In this way, the public ideals of hegemonic masculinity become the private ideals of the father/husband, and to ensure the continuing receipt of advantage, masculine authority must be protected. In the final analysis, this is achieved through the mobilisation of violence. Therefore, in line with Freeman’s argument (see above, p. 118), the manifestation of domestic violence and, more importantly, the struggle about its interpretation and treatment by the family law judiciary suggests that it does not necessarily represent dysfunctional configurations of practice. Rather, given the dominative nature of the current masculine hegemony, it reflects the appropriate functional practice of men in certain contexts, particularly when faced with a crisis in their heterosexual marital relations.

Discussion It was hypothesised in Chapter 5 that the nature of the social justice produced in gender would be determined by the judicial treatment of hegemonic masculinity. In other words, the social justice that is produced by the family law system would be grounded either in judicial complicity, ambivalence or opposition to the hegemonic principles.26 From the evidence presented, there is no suggestion that a consistent and coherent revolutionary opposition to the hegemonic principles exists. However, there is also no evidence to support the claim that hegemonic masculinity continues to operate unchallenged and, as such, remains omnipotent. Rather, precisely because this investigation operated at a critical and historical level, it was able to draw out a latent, though particularly significant, complexity about judicial attitudes. That is, to claim validity, these findings must be qualified with recognition of judicial inconsistency that is expressed along both temporal and spatial lines. In other words, inconsistency is produced by historical movements such as the reconfiguration of the interpretation of the mother principle after Gronow and the redressing of the feminisation of poverty in the 1980s. In addition practice-based or operational differences expressed through the structure of expectations held by the presiding judge(s) and demanded by the procedural imperatives of trial and appellate divisions of the Family Law Court are responsible for judicial inconsistency. Thus, the idea of legal normativity, which represents the expression of moral integrity at law, being a product of progressive judicial unity with respect to the interpretation and application of both the letter and spirit of law is problematic at best. In this context, when viewing the operation of the family law judiciary as a whole, it becomes evident that contextual (or case-based) subjectivity produces systemic ambivalence that manifests as intra-divisional and inter-divisional inconsistencies.27 Intra-divisional inconsistency is exemplified by the juxtaposition of her Honour’s progressiveness

A critico-historical analysis 123 in Chandler with his Honour’s regressiveness in McMillan v. Jackson. However, at appeal, both first instance decisions were rejected because they did not meet the higher courts operational structure of expectations. This in turn exemplifies inter-divisional inconsistency. A crucial feature of this systemic ambivalence is the tension produced between the tasks of law-making and its subsequent application. This in turn gives support to the concerns raised earlier about the juridical problem and its inability, which became evident in the above analyses, to unify both the letter and spirit of family law and deliver a social justice that is based on recognition of all identities and interests. To overcome the juridical problem would require that the construction of legal normativity be disconnected from the unproblematic interpretation and application of laws as well as the precedent-based objective knowledge that develops from it. Rather, laws and their interpretation and application must be more closely connected to situational knowledge.28 However, while there is evidence to suggest that at the appellate level (see McMillan v. Jackson and Marsh) situational knowledge is being expressed and applied, the operation of systemic ambivalence produces a disarticulatory effect that ensures any challenge against the hegemonic principles will operate at the conjunctural level to produce restorative justice. This exposes the functioning of the family law judiciary as predominantly traditional intellectuals who maintain, in the final analysis, the existing order, even though the legal normativity that supports it continues to be exposed as problematic for social justice. Finally, because family law represents a key formal procedural criterion of a social system, the systemic ambivalence that marks the judicial attitudes and treatment of hegemonic masculinity and its principles, can, a fortiori, be upheld across the structural inventory. This is a claim supported by the case analyses, where it is possible to see other gender regimes such as the police, the family and the workplace implicated as sites of ambivalence towards hegemonic masculinity.

7

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This chapter will begin to elaborate the possibilities for a challenge to hegemonic masculinity and its dominative masculine hegemony by focusing on the development of a project for aspirational hegemony in gender. Analysis of the postmarxist paradigm developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe will be the point of departure. Specifically, this analysis will focus on two key concepts within this socio-political paradigm: antagonism and equivalence. Further, through a synthesis of these prima facie contradictory positions, it will be shown that a new basis for organic protest is possible.

Aspirational hegemony: a critical analysis The imperative that pushed Gramsci to develop his theory of hegemony was the need to radically re-think the role of the Party as a new progressive force. Indeed, his ideas in the unfinished essay on the Southern Question, as shown, set the foundations for a progressive politics. However, the development of concepts that would follow in his prison-based writings, while building upon the earlier pre-prison ideas about culture and hegemony, would expose what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: viii) refer to as the ‘appalling impoverishment of the field of Marxian diversity’ created by Leninism. Thus, they claim that it is precisely Gramsci’s radicalisation of Leninism through the theory of hegemony with its ‘arsenal of concepts’ that include war of position, historical bloc, collective will, moral and intellectual leadership and hegemony that represents the point of departure for their project and its task of deconstructing Marxist categories left in the wake of Leninist dogma. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, (1985) is seminal to this work and develops the central argument that the essentialism and apriorism that has historically fettered politics of the Left1 has no place in hegemony. Further, by setting aside this conceptual weight, a radical political strategy is possible that can progress towards a new social justice. This re-appropriation of the Marxist intellectual tradition and the process of moving beyond its orthodox intellectual and practical frame is what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: ix) ‘accept’ as postmarxism.2

Radical pluralism 125 The conceptual points of delineation highlighted by the ‘Tripartite model of hegemony’, which mark out the form of dominative politics as distinct from aspirational politics, or in other words, politics underpinned by coercion, inequality and structure as opposed to a politics of unstable equlibria, consensus and superstructure, also represent the key cathartic lines of movement. In effect, they mark the decisive ‘moments’3 of transcendence beyond essentialist and aprioristic articulations that characterise regressive politics. A crucial moment in this aspirational transcendence is the articulation of the elements of ‘leadership’ and ‘mass’ within war of position and primarily through the functioning of organic intellectuals. Central to these articulations is the development of ideology as organic critique. In other words, the systems of belief that underpin a traditional dominative hegemonic worldview must be exposed, through a moral and intellectual process, as exclusionary and constraining and, therefore, incapable of ensuring that the mass of people are actively cognisant of the multiplicity of identities and interests existing at a particular historical moment. Further, this moral and intellectual critique must develop a new ideological authority within education, the media, religion and judiciary, as well as the mechanisms and strategies capable of giving voice to other subaltern demands so that they, too, can become part of the cement that unifies philosophically and, practically, the mass of people into a collective will. However, orthodox Marxism has historically privileged the base and rejected a greater level of importance being assigned to superstructure. Therefore, to conceptually enable moral and intellectual leadership and, thus, aspirational hegemony, Gramsci first had to bring about three new and radical displacements to the orthodox position on ideology (Mouffe 1979: 199). The first displacement effectively recognised the material nature of ideology. In other words, positing it as effectively operating with a level of autonomy in articulations materialised within social apparatuses and institutions. This sat in contrast to Marx’s materialist conception of history, within which the structuring of production made the superstructure contingent and, thereby, secondary. This led to the second displacement, which set aside the notion that ideology is simply epiphenomenalistic. If, in fact, ideology can be understood as inscribed in the apparatuses and institutions that actually produce identities and interests, then it must take on a significance and immediacy that had previously only been assigned to material production. Thus, by re-thinking the importance of ideology and its bonding effect within a historical bloc, Gramsci had begun to effectively create what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 67) saw as a new ‘totalising category’, that is, hegemony, which would displace the orthodox base/superstructure distinction. But these two displacements and their product were not enough in themselves to ensure that within an interregnum, the ideological organicity of catharsis is always enabled in a way that produces aspirational hegemony, released from all of its dominative potentials. This is because moral and intellectual leadership and, thereby, consensus, may still be

126 Radical pluralism underpinned by the ideological inculcation of a whole range of subordinate (passive) groups by a dominative hegemonic group as would be the case in a ‘detached hegemony’. In that case, there would be no subject positions traversing classes, for any that seemed to do so would in fact be appurtenances of the dominant class, and their presence in other sectors could be understood only as phenomenon of false consciousness. (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 67) At this point, the third key displacement emerges and involves the setting aside of all reductionistic interpretations of ideology. The consequence of this last radical displacement is that it raised within the theory of hegemony the problematicity attached to the orthodox reduction of ideology, knowledge, spirit and even common sense to categories such as bourgeois and proletarian or, for that matter, masculine and feminine, where they could then be hierarchically ordered. This displacement, then, becomes the crucial moment from which aspirational hegemony develops, because it demands that the leading group produce a collective will where all narrow corporate interests, even its own,4 have been transcended. Therefore, the formation of identities and interests that subjects will construct through a historical bloc, grounded in aspirational hegemony, will not strictly emerge on the basis of their location in distinct classes with precisely distinct conceptions of the good. Rather, these subjects will come to represent aspects of a collective will, so that their demands can be articulated in relation to the leading group but do not need to be understood as representing particular and necessary class positions. From this one can deduce the importance of the ‘cultural aspect’, even in practical (collective) activity. An historical act can only be performed by ‘collective man’, and this presupposes the attainment of a ‘cultural–social’ unity through which a multiplicity of dispersed wills, with heterogeneous aims, are welded together with a single aim, on the basis of an equal and common conception of the world. (Gramsci 1971: 349) In Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985: 67) terms, the articulation of elements to moments, that is the recognition of differential positions within relations, imposes no characteristics upon the identity or interests of a subject other than that which emerges from their relations with the hegemonising force. Therefore, it is the form and nature of the hegemony that becomes the crucial basis of the articulation of subject positions. However, in an aspirational situation that is marked by moral and intellectual leadership, consensus, and its concomitant actively constructed collective will, the existence or necessity of difference and struggle is never negated. Rather, what is made

Radical pluralism 127 possible is the shrinking of the exteriority of hegemony or, following Derrida, its ‘constitutive outside’ (Mouffe 2000: 21). In other words, a key part of the aspirational hegemonic project is re-constructing the collective will so as to incorporate all subordinated and marginalised identities and interests produced by an exclusionary worldview, such as the dominative masculine hegemony. This type of exclusionary situation is explicated in ‘The masculinities schema’ where the operational asymmetricality of hegemonic masculinity enforces the subordination and marginalisation of particular identities and interests that fail to accommodate its nonnegotiable hegemonic principles. Notwithstanding Gramsci’s radicalisation of ideology, and the historical and relational character this gives to hegemony in the Prison Notebooks, Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 69) argue that the process of hegemonic ‘becoming’ that Gramsci envisages is constrained by the inevitability that a fundamental class, always emerging from the sphere of production, in other words, proletariat or bourgeoisie, will determine the ‘unifying principle’ of a hegemony. The consequence of this inevitability is that the theory of hegemony fails to clear the last hurdle of orthodox Marxism and, instead, stumbles back to foundationalism where the nature of unity given by a unifying principle will necessarily have a class character that, in turn, privileges one part of the historical bloc over others, that is, production. Most importantly, Laclau and Mouffe see this foundationalism as bringing back to hegemony the essentialism and apriorism that ensures hegemony does not emerge from struggle but, rather, from an ‘ontological foundation’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 69–70). The general field of the emergence of hegemony is that of articulatory practices, that is, a field where the ‘elements’ have not crystallised into ‘moments’. In a closed system of relational identities, in which the meaning of each moment is absolutely fixed, there is no place whatsoever for a hegemonic practice. A fully successful system of differences, which excluded any floating signifier, would not make possible any articulation; the principle of repetition would dominate every practice within this system and there would be nothing to hegemonise. (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 134) In this context, hegemony can only operate where the character of the social is always a becoming, that is, open and incomplete. So that, if a moment is, in the final analysis, the essential product of some foundational identity or interest then, when this is extended into the broad operation of social democratic political struggle, it cannot escape becoming a ‘zero-sum game’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 69). So, for example, the failure of the workingclass to traverse crisis and produce an organic challenge can only be followed by the reconstitution of traditional principles that sustain the dominant category, bourgeoisie. It is always either one or the other.

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However, Gramsci’s position on the problem of historical materialism and the complexity of its resolution, as shown to operate within the theory of hegemony (see Chapter 2), suggests that the unifying force of a fundamental class while being foundational is not completely determining. In other words, as ‘The tripartite model of hegemony’ illustrates, class can be viewed as representing a ‘foundational’ moment without being necessarily determinative if, in so doing, emphasis is given to its articulation within the broader historical discursive situation and the exigent forces at play at the time. For example, the ‘motor force’ of industrial society between the wars was based predominantly on economic and production principles such as accumulation of wealth and capitalisation, control of property, including resources, infrastructure and people, as well as workplace rationalisation and conformity.5 These, in turn, defined and sustained the type of principles emphasised and the social justice constructed. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that new demands, driven by racial, gender, sexual, ethnic, leisure and other civil interests, interrupted and challenged the hegemonic principles of economy and production to enable what thinkers like Alain Touraine (1971) in The Post-Industrial Society see as a ‘post-industrial’ culture. In this context, the privileging of one sector of the historical bloc by Gramsci, which saw class become the foundational and unifying principle of a hegemonic worldview, should be seen as driven more by the operations of the situational thematic than dogmatic essentialism. It is argued in Chapter 2 that the theory of hegemony does not develop hegemony as a singularity but, rather, as a complex multiplicity. Further, that there is a reluctance on Gramsci’s part to attach any form of dogmatism to hegemony when conceptualised as the ‘highest synthesis’. In other words, aspirational hegemonic unity, in its becoming, is always a balancing of power and liberation between the hegemonic group and the subaltern groups, which is constructed by and through the operationality of the hegemonic principles.6 In this way, it is possible to conceive aspirational hegemony as emerging from a multiplicity of identities and interests within a multiplicity of categories that operate within unstable equilibria underpinned by principles of moral and intellectual leadership, openness and unity. However, within a dominative hegemony, the nexus between multiplicity and the hegemonising force will only ever produce an uneven imbrication of identities and interests over the fundamental hegemonic principles. In other words, it will only produce complicity or ambivalence. It will not produce a necessary or complete subsumption by the hegemonic group of subaltern particularity. But neither can dominative hegemony sustain unstable equilibria. This is precisely the argument Gramsci develops in his essay, ‘Analysis of situation: relations of force’ in the Prison Notebooks,7 where aspirational hegemony was shown to develop through various moments of self-knowledge. Extended into ‘The masculinities schema’, it is possible to see that the relationality of gender represents precisely this type of uneven

Radical pluralism 129 imbrication, which is a consequence of hegemonic masculinity restricting self-knowledge. As a result, complicit and protest masculinities, as well as ambivalent femininities, clearly express this imbricative identification with hegemonic masculinity but do not have their identities or interests completely subsumed and obliterated.8 Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 69–70) also argue that foundationalism is present in the discursive style employed by Gramsci in the theory of hegemony – in particular, the Gramscian desire to follow the Marxist tradition for the military metaphor. This becomes particularly evident in the concepts: war of position and war of movement, where the militaristic implications have the potential to discursively and practically produce moments that bifurcate identities and interests into warring factions, whose objective is the obliteration of each other – rather than enabling the management of the various antagonisms within an unstable equilibria. So, while war of position initiates the disaggregation of the dominative hegemonic principles and pushes towards the construction of new principles, for Laclau and Mouffe, it will inexorably produce a dichotomic struggle devoid of dialectic because unity does not emerge from struggle but exists and is imposed aprioristically from separate class positions. Therefore, the limit will always be the point where the hegemonic discourse remains constant, that is, fundamental classes. This view of ‘militarism’ and its influence on Gramsci’s work, though, is far too simplistic, and is symptomatic of an understanding that does not fully recognise the complexity of the theory of hegemony and the importance of catharsis as the movement from the politico-economic (dominative hegemony) to the ethico-political (aspirational hegemony). In this transformative context, a crucial moment in the project of war of position is the bringing to life of the organic intellectuals and a new leadership (as will be discussed below in Chapter 8) that can raise the moral and intellectual consciousness of ‘the people’ and undermine the continuity of tradition. Thus, war of position (as organic protest) must be understood as existing and operating precisely in the space between dominative and aspirational hegemony and, therefore, not as part of aspirational hegemony proper. On this basis, it is not problematic for the organic becoming of aspirational hegemony to involve a delineation of morality and intellectuality between what Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000: 302) would call ‘system’ and ‘anti-system’9 activity, because put simply, war of position is always a precursive moment to the realisation of aspirational hegemony.10 However, through the theory of hegemony, a key feature of war of position and aspirational hegemony is that the moral and intellectual leadership, which controls and directs all subaltern interests against the ‘system’, must not impose constraints of a corporativist nature upon the nascent critique. In fact, to do so is to negate the aspirational efficacy of leadership and simply produce, in new clothes, a re-constituted dominative hegemonic situation, or what, in Laclau and Mouffe’s terms, would be a return to the ‘zero-sum’

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scenario. This type of re-constitution was shown to emerge through the failure of the secular common law to clearly delineate and give voice to the new demands emanating from other identities and interests. As a result, ecclesiastical values became fused with the secularisation of law (see Chapter 5), which effectively produced a hegemonic regression. The consequence of this was the re-imposition of traditional ecclesiastic hegemonic principles into a new discourse, thereby effectively giving a level of control back to religiosity, albeit in more subtle ways. The effect upon gender of this new synergy was to incorporate into contemporary Western judicial attitudes the continuation of the dominative masculine hegemonic principles, which would represent a key target for the second-wave feminist challenge. However, second-wave feminism failed to produce an organic critique that could challenge at a systematic level these traditional hegemonic principles because it struggled to release itself from a foundationalist and dichotomic discourse that, in the final analysis, limited its movement towards the development of war of position. Thus, even though the broad discourse of feminism recognised that ‘femininity’ had a contingent and historical character, which required as part of its emancipation from oppression the articulation of a multiplicity of other struggles and democratic demands to its self. The critical articulations it produced were predominantly organised around the demands of white middle-class heterosexual women. This, in turn, imposed a limitation that emphasised the particularisation of struggle rather than its broadening or universalisation. Of course, the essentialism and apriorism that took centre stage in the secondwave feminist movement have more recently been opened up and questioned. In particular, the debate about the naturalism of feminine (and masculine) identity has exploded many of the earlier articulations (see Butler 1990). In this way, second-wave feminism represents, at best, a war of movement or frontal attack on the taken-for-grantednesses that protect the hegemonic principles of the dominative masculine hegemony. Notwithstanding a certain level of success, it has ultimately failed in developing the organic potential of the initial movement and, as a result, continues to struggle to overcome the system of ‘ideological ditches and earthworks’ that support the dominative masculine hegemonic principles. This problematic, though, does not negate pro-feminist struggle and, in fact, the socio-cultural platforms constructed by second-wave feminism should be viewed as the starting points for a new moral and intellectual leadership. Before taking up the project of organic protest in gender and, in particular, recognising the dangers of falling into a determinist and dichotomous mode of conceptualising the possibilities for hegemony, the following discussion will develop two key concepts of Laclau and Mouffe’s postmarxist project.

Radical pluralism 131

Antagonism: a basis for aspiration In the contemporary Western political situation it is liberal-democracy that is viewed as assuming ideological omnipotence with respect to the enabling of social justice (Heyward 1992: 49). The ‘spectacular failures’ of the various socialist projects of the twentieth century have given a new, almost transcendent legitimacy to Western liberalism (Gamble 1999: 1–2). However, at the conceptual level, this triumphalism has been enabled primarily because of the political Left’s dogmatism for commonality at the level of economics and production; a position that historically has proven problematic at best, for democracy and social justice. Nevertheless, this imperative, which through Marx became the basis for dictatorship in revolutionary Leninism, has continued under the centralised authoritarianism of post-war socialist politics and contemporary Western syndicalism. The consequence is the effective negation of possibilities for multiplicity of antagonisms at the superstructural level because, in the final analysis, it remains anchored in a dichotomic and politico-economic view of struggle. From this position it is profoundly difficult to contain and manage emergent demands, particularly from the superstructural blocs. This makes any notion of difference and change profoundly problematic, if not impossible, and ensures that the Left’s progressiveness remains inherently friable (Barnard 1991: 15). In contrast, liberalism, or more specifically, ‘modern liberalism’ as Heyward (1992: 18) refers to it, brought to the contemporary political table, on the back of the success of capitalism, the ideas of individualism, contract and a balancing of political and civil responsibilities. Its project was to give the subject access to citizenship which, in turn, offered the capacity to form, revise and rationally pursue one’s own particular conception of the good. Modern liberalism also developed in close association with democratic principles, which enabled the subject citizen to gain access to the political realm. But, more importantly, the synergy of liberal-democracy ensured that politics and the public became firmly and reflexively linked which, in more recent times, has led to the emergence from the public realm of various specific demands organised within collectivities capable of exerting considerable political pressure. This development in the classic liberalist desire for all people, in their own way, to pursue a consistent conception of the good has made problematic its nexus with democracy. This in turn has become an increasingly important feature of the modern liberal-democratic landscape (Heyward 1992: 283; Mouffe 2000: 18). However, it is precisely this pluralisation of collective interests, leading to the ‘proliferation of antagonisms’ within the nexus liberal-democracy, that has begun to undermine liberalism and, as a result, the effectiveness of the synergy (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 163). The key to understanding this problematic is recognising that liberal-democracy is not simply a ‘form of government’. Rather, it is a ‘regime’ (and, also, a gender regime) that represents a specific form of organising, politically, human coexistence or social

132 Radical pluralism relations (Mouffe 2000: 18). Thus, the effect of a proliferation of antagonisms upon this regime and, in particular, the operation of coexistence, is to put an end to a substantive notion of the good. This, in turn, imposes a profound transformation of the ‘symbolic’ ordering of social relations (Mouffe 2000: 18; original emphasis) so that the interests of the worker, for example, are now increasingly being seen to exist simultaneously but not necessarily superordinately with other subaltern interests within a broad collective.11 Thus as Bobbio (1987: 115) argues, the ‘historical progression (or regression)’ of liberalism, which originally took socialism as its ‘natural enemy’ and, more recently, has directed its attention to attacks on the welfare state (as the watered down version of socialism), must now direct its attacks at democracy. In effect, Bobbio’s argument highlights the increasing friability of the modern liberalist conception of social justice under the pressure exerted by the pluralisation of antagonism. This is because, in the final analysis, like socialism, liberalism is also unable to recognise and manage these contemporary democratic demands within the framework set by its hegemonic principles. Thus, the imperative for the hegemony of LIBERALdemocracy12 is to impose a restorative project that will protect the liberalist principles, which ensure the unity of its historical bloc around a substantive conception of the good, even at the expense of democracy. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985) Laclau and Mouffe recognise this problematic within modern LIBERAL-democracy and argue against its continuity as proposed by liberals such as Rawls in his conception of ‘justice as fairness’: [T]his more fundamental idea is that of society as a system of fair social cooperation between free and equal persons. The concern . . . is how we might find a public basis of political agreement. The point is that a conception of justice will only be able to achieve this aim if it provides a reasonable way of shaping into one coherent view the deeper bases of agreement embedded in the public political culture of a constitutional regime and acceptable to its most firmly held considered convictions. (Rawls 1991: 9; my emphasis) The concern Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 177) and Mouffe (1993: 19; 2000: 45) have with this type of liberalist conception of justice and the ‘good life’, with its ‘deliberative’ democratic politics, goes back to the problem of apriorism and essentialism (see Laclau and Mouffe 1985).13 In other words, the concern is that subjectivity about the good and the right exist aprioristically to the social relations that form them. This, in turn, essentialises the ‘right’ and constrains the good in a way that effectively negates the importance of emergent antagonisms within the liberal-democratic project. In fact, its ideal type is a model where all antagonisms have been negated, at all levels of generality, within what Rawls (1991: 8) refers to as a ‘reflective equilibrium’. However, the enabling of equilibrium requires passivity in the

Radical pluralism 133 process of reaching agreement between the good and the right. As became evident in the study of case law, passivity enables the hegemonic mechanisms of disarticulation and legitimation through the functioning of intellectuals to obfuscate antagonisms and particularity behind ideologically based re-definitions of liberty that enforce the obfuscation of difference. Thus, the possibility for a war of position that employs liberalist principles ála Rawls, and which is also capable of developing the organic critique required to initiate the installation and maintenance of unstable equlibria as aspirational hegemony which is, in effect, the moral and intellectual management of antagonisms, is profoundly problematic, if not impossible. So what type of project is required to break the liberalist hegemonic continuity of the good and the right as singularities? Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 176) argue that it is not the obliteration of the liberal-democratic paradigm. Rather, the focus must be on breaking the liberalist usurpative project, in which the antagonisms that mark contemporary democracy are at best obfuscated and at worst, put down. Thus, by deconstructing the ideological pathways upon which the regression of liberalism moves, in other words, by recognising that differential subjectivity cannot be given coherence by some exogenously imposed and unifying principle, an inversion can be affected that will result in a deepening and expansion of democracy and a negation of the good as singularity (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 167). The articulation of the various elemental antagonisms into an always-active anti-system moment is precisely what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 176) refer to as a ‘radical and plural democracy’. The value of conceptualising progression in this way is that it enables catharsis through a war of position that is built upon a ‘logic of equivalence’ applied to the operations of antagonisms which, in turn, re-configures the unstable equlibria of aspirational hegemony.

Equivalential logic In beginning to conceptualise the ‘equivalential’ nature of antagonism it is helpful to quote from Mouffe at length: If the task of radical democracy is indeed to deepen the democratic revolution and to link diverse democratic struggles, such a task requires the creation of new subject positions that would allow the common articulation, for example, of antiracism, antisexism and anticapitalism. These struggles do not spontaneously converge, and in order to establish democratic equivalences a new ‘common sense’ is necessary, which would transform the identity of different groups so that the demands of each group could be articulated with those of others according to the principle of democratic equivalence. For it is not a matter of establishing a mere alliance between given interests but of actually modifying the very identity of these forces. In order that the defence of the workers’ interests is not pursued at the cost of the rights of women,

134 Radical pluralism immigrants or consumers, it is necessary to establish an equivalence between these different struggles. It is only under these circumstances that struggles against power become truly democratic. (Mouffe 1993: 18–19) Thus, to effect a deepening of the democratic revolution requires the development of a ‘logic of equivalence’ capable of linking the diverse democratic struggles. However, for antagonism to achieve equivalential status, the product of this logic must be more than simply a system of alliances. In effect, it must enable the construction of new identities. The discussion so far has shown that a radical plural democracy has its conceptual point of departure in an aspirational hegemonic project. Further, that regardless of war of position’s point of emergence from the historical bloc, an aspirational hegemony develops through hegemonic articulatory practices that reject dogmatism and corporativism.14 In this sense, aspirational hegemony articulates subjectivity as a moment in which the essentialist apriorism of a dominative politico-economics, which has historically led progressive forces from the Left to conceive antagonism in fundamentalist and dichotomic terms, is set aside. In other words, by elaborating aspirational hegemony through Gramsci, it is possible to see why radical pluralism demands that no subject can be the origin of social relations. But more, because every subject position is in turn a discursive position interacting openly with the situational milieu as a whole, a subject can never be fettered to subject positions that are fixed in a closed system of differences. Thus, to begin to understand how these subject positions construct new identities, which can then traverse other subject positions and identities, it is imperative to analyse the process by which ‘relations of subordination’ become ‘relations of oppression’ and, thereby, moments of antagonism. The conditions for oppression can begin to be explicated by seeing that, in the first instance, a ‘relation of subordination’ is a situation in which an agent is subjected to the decisions of another, as a worker is to their employer. In this context, a relation of subordination does not immediately assume an oppressive moment because it simply establishes a set of differential positions between social agents. This system of difference, which constructs each social identity as positivity, not only cannot be antagonistic but will, in fact, bring about ideal conditions for the elimination of antagonism (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 153–154). This is evident in ‘The masculinities schema’, where the relationship between emphasised femininities and hegemonic masculinity has both gender types viewing the differences about their own particular identities through the ideology of reciprocity as advantageous to their own particular interests. As such, the dominative asymmetricality inherent to this relationship produces levels of acceptance and accommodation on the part of emphasised femininities to hegemonic masculinity rather than the tension and antagonism evident in hegemonic masculinity’s other.

Radical pluralism 135 By extension, then, a ‘relation of oppression’ develops where certain relations of subordination have transformed themselves into sites of antagonism. However, the transformation from subordination to oppression can only occur where the positive differential character of the subordinated subject position becomes ‘subverted’ to produce antagonism (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 153). Crucially, this subversion does not develop simply through the unequal operation of power in concrete practices, as the theory of practice would imply, but also through the development of knowledge in discourse.15 Thus, it is possible to understand both the spiritual/knowledge and material/practical force in the claim ‘who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him of the gift of reason?’ (Wollstonecraft 1985: 11). The rights of women developed by Mary Wollstonecraft emerged not just from the subordination that marked everyday practical activity about women but, crucially, from understanding these practices through a new intellectuality and knowledge that was enabled through the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’.16 So, in effect, the moments previously marked by a differential positivity of gendered relations and practices could now be actively subverted and the subordination of women (and others) in certain relations understood as oppression. Thus, it is through the discursive conditions, which enable the articulation of subversion, that the moment oppression–antagonism is produced. But, more importantly, because the articulatory and, thereby, hegemonic field is discursively framed, it enables the various particular demands to emerge as equivalences that can then be organised to form a more profound and democratic progressive struggle. Following Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000: 302–305), it is possible to further elaborate this chaining process. To begin, a starting point needs to be taken that represents a moment of extreme oppression, such as the situation that existed in the transitionary period from feudalism to industrial capitalism, where a dominative ‘patriarchy’, as exemplified in the laws of marriage and divorce (see Chapter 5), operated. However, at this time, a discursive space was set up through the principles articulated in the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’, which Wollstonecraft, amongst others, used as the basis for knowledge about social justice. More importantly, this knowledge could subvert existing relations of subordination and concomitant configurations of practice, and initiate a particular feminist demand. This nascent feminism, while expressing its own particularity, would in the context of the oppressive regime’s operations also express an anti-system activity; and it is this expression that gives antagonism the potential to develop a universal action. In effect, those who support the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’ principles share a common or equivalential moral and intellectual discursive position that does not just form alliances but, effectively, changes subject identities because they share similar knowledge of their subject position not as subordinated but as oppressed. These new identities and positions form the basis of a broad antisystem chain of equivalences against the traditional oppressive system.

136 Radical pluralism However, in developing this equivalential chain, identity is always split between, on the one hand, its own particularity and, on the other hand, its potential to universality. But it is not an objective of progressiveness in a postmarxist project to obliterate particularity in deference to universality, as is evident in the projects of classical Marxism, socialism and modern liberalism. Instead, it is important to recognise and develop the potential to universality of all particularities as the key aspiration for a new social justice. For example, gay and lesbian rights, the recognition of queer, men seeking access to the private sphere, black and ethnic women and men seeking recognition in a white Anglo-Saxon culture, stem from the pro-feminist articulations premised on the knowledge given by the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’. So, each of these demands, while in their self representing a particularity of anti-system activity, sourced from different socio-cultural locations and histories, have the potential to unite at the point Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000: 304) refers to as the ‘frontier’. This coming together of antagonisms as a dialectic of equivalence and difference to produce antisystem activity is referred to as the ‘chaining of equivalences’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985).

Universality and the general equivalent Crucial to understanding the development of a chain of equivalences is recognition that the point at which the various antagonisms produce unity with each other is always at the frontier. This space separates the demands of the system from those of the rest of society. Therefore, without recognition and development of such a delineative marker, anti-system activity will inexorably produce an uneven imbrication upon the hegemony of the system. This results in the blurring of system and anti-system demands and the constraining of the articulation of universal antagonism via the undermining of its equivalential logic (Laclau, in Butler et al. 2000: 304–305). On the other hand, through organic critique the frontier becomes more obvious and as such, more antagonisms will emerge from the public sphere, resulting in an extension of the chain as a whole. Thus, as the chain extends, there is an increasing need for the articulation of a new element that can ‘represent’ the anti-system chain as a whole in the face of system demands (Laclau, in Butler et al. 2000: 304). Crucially though, because the internal logic of equivalence demands the expression of both particularity and universality, the resultant chain cannot display its presence simply through the incidental substitutability of each particularity, it must produce a ‘general equivalent’17 that can crystallise symbolically18 the universality of oppressed forces. Such an equivalent can only emerge from the chain of equivalent particularities and, as such, must have developed through the logic of equivalence and not be exogenously imposed as some fundamental, aprioristic and, ultimately, transcendent category. Thus, the logic of equivalence recognises both the autonomy of particu-

Radical pluralism 137 larity as well as its universal potential. But just as Gramsci stressed (see Chapter 2) that the hegemonic group as the ‘highest synthesis’ must, in the final analysis, set aside its own corporate interests, so to the general equivalent must ultimately empty itself of its own particularity as it takes on the symbolic universality of the collective will. The more extended this chain is, the less its general equivalent will be attached to any particularistic meaning. This universality, however, is neither formal nor abstract, for the condition of the tendentially empty character of the general equivalent is the increasing extension of a chain of equivalences between particularities. (Laclau, in Butler et al. 2000: 304) As such, a radical pluralist universality cannot develop through a ‘deliberative democratic politics’, where principles hold to a rationalistic conception of communication and a search for consensus that is homogenous and static (Mouffe 2000: 74). Because: [w]hen the chain of equivalence is operationalised as a political category, it requires that particular identities acknowledge that they share with other such identities the situation of a necessarily incomplete determination. They are fundamentally the set of differences by which they emerge, and this set of differences constitutes the structural features of the domain of political sociality. If any such particular identity seeks to universalise its own situation without recognising that other such identities are in an identical structural situation, it will fail to achieve an alliance with other emergent identities, and will mistakenly identify the meaning and place of universality itself. The universalisation of the particular seeks to elevate a specific content to a global condition, making an empire of its local meaning. (Butler, in Butler et al. 2000: 31) Thus, as Zerilli (1998: 15) argues, following Laclau, universality must not be held up as a pre-existing, transcendent something, either in essence or in form, to which people accede but, rather, as the fragile, shifting and always incomplete achievement of socio-political action. But, further, because this type of universality is premised on a logic of equivalence, it dissolves the hierarchicisation of antagonisms and emphasises the potential of all antagonisms as equivalent symbols of an indivisible struggle (Mouffe 1993: 77). In this way, the universalisation of anti-system activity can never be subsumed into and become simply the general equivalent, or any other particular identity, because this would negate the very nature of a radical pluralist universality, that is, one that promotes diversity. However, while diversity opens the possibility for conflict, given that it would be a mistake to expect the various different interests and demands to coexist without clashing, the

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inevitable struggle will not be one between ‘enemies’ but among ‘adversaries’. In other words, since all participants will recognise the position and operation of the other in the polity as a legitimate one, democratic politics moves from the constraints of a deliberative model to what Mouffe (2000: 74) refers to as ‘agonistic pluralism’. In Chapter 8, antagonism and equivalence will be employed in examining the possibilities for developing sociohistoric critique or organic protest in gender.

8

Radical organic protest in gender

The aim of this chapter is to draw together the key arguments presented in previous chapters so as to develop a strategic position from which to progress a new radical and plural organic protest in gender. A key objective will be to show that, by taking protest femininities as the nascent general equivalent grounded in a re-vitalised and complex understanding of hegemony, the aspiration for social justice in gender is imbued with new possibilities. However, the first task in this conceptual project is to elaborate the specific principles that a radical and plural organic protest must incorporate and then to develop a sense of operationality by working through certain inherent paradoxes.

Principles of a radical organic protest In Chapter 4, the ‘Masculinities schema’ explored the contemporary gender order and its basis in a dominative masculine hegemony, whose asymmetrical control and direction of the sub-system of alliances restricts any possible organic protest. As a result, continuity remains with the dominative masculine hegemonic principles because, amongst other things, a systemic ambivalence (as discussed in the family law study) undermines the potential to organic critique. Extending these findings into a radical plural democratic paradigm, two key aspects of challenge become important. First, as Laclau and Mouffe stress, it is not enough to develop an anti-system challenge simply through alliance; which, as the Masculinities Schema shows, does not ensure the problems associated with the obfuscation of the frontier and the uneven imbrication of identities and interests are overcome. Instead, what is required is to produce, through alliance, moments that are the manifestation of an articulation process, which confirms rather than ignores the importance of constructing equivalential identities. Second, it is important to view the universality of challenge as a product of the dialectic between the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference. A significant threat to the realisation of this dialectic is what Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000: 303–304) refers to as ‘transformistic’ operations.1 These operations are produced by the logic of difference as a means by which the system neutralises the equivalential

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potential of particularistic demands. Thus, it is an imperative of the radical organic anti-system challenge to engage with and promote equivalential logic, ultimately through a general equivalent, thereby enabling the meaning of anti-system to transcend any and all particularity without obliterating difference and antagonism in the process. However, through the analyses in Chapters 5 and 6, it is possible to see a gender order whose hegemonic processes and aspiration for social justice is infiltrated precisely by transformistic strategies that continue to negate the operational efficacy of an equivalential logic. To break down these strategies and their delivery mechanisms, and initiate a progressive radicalising of the current gender hegemony, the starting point must be the re-invigoration of a new discourse. This is a discourse that is capable of synthesising all particularities within a common anti-system universality. However, such a radical and plural organic protest in gender, as has already been argued, cannot develop within second-wave feminist discourse. Rather, its articulation must begin from the base second-wave feminist discourse has set but aspire towards new moments that can transcend the limitations of earlier essentialist and aprioristic elements. The importance and appropriateness of positing protest femininities as the active voice of critique capable of extending progressive action towards an equivalent universality has already been discussed. Nevertheless, for it to transcend its own particularity and hegemonise with other anti-system demands and antagonisms, effectively becoming the general equivalent, its moral and intellectual critique must recognise and articulate three key inter-related and strategic principles. A radical intellectuality The first principle is that of radical intellectuality. This involves the enabling of dispersion and access in a way that progresses knowledge of and towards all people, rather than just a small intellectual group. This is precisely the function of the organic intellectuals. However, as Golumbia (1997) argues in his essay, ‘Rethinking philosophy in the third wave of feminism’: It is . . . a problem that feminist theory today is almost exclusively available within the contemporary academy . . . For what I mean to expose here is the way in which the university, as an institution of patriarchal (white supremacist, capitalist, homophobic, etc.) society, has worked to contain and even to structure the feminist challenge so as to put feminists in difficult, even impossible positions – positions in which every exercise of power forces us to subvert our own authority and security. (Golumbia 1997: 2) In effect, Golumbia recognises the oppressive relations through which feminism must operate in contemporary academia. But, crucially, these rela-

Radical organic protest in gender 141 tions stem from the grip that the dominative masculine hegemony has on elite knowledge. Thus, because knowledge as progressive knowledge is never just about thinking in abstract terms disconnected from the concrete realities of everyday life, such elitism imposes a detrimental effect upon organic protest. So, for the organic critique of protest femininities to develop, it must give regard to the prevailing common sense and its taken-for-grantednesses, as much as that of traditional philosophy, laws and science. This is the moral and intellectual precondition for aspirational hegemony. Critical self-consciousness means, historically and politically, the creation of an elite2 of intellectuals. A human mass does not ‘distinguish’ itself, does not become independent in its own right without intellectuals, that is without organisers and leaders, in other words, without the theoretical aspect of the theory–practice nexus being distinguished concretely by the existence of a group of people ‘specialised’ in conceptual and philosophical elaboration of ideas. (Gramsci 1971: 334) Thus, while second-wave feminism has set the platform for this ‘elite’ intellectuality (in Gramscian terms) to emerge, its trajectory requires radical alterations to ensure an organic aspiration that can challenge profoundly and systematically the operations of the protectorship of traditional knowledge. The key to such a radicalisation is recognition of antagonism and equivalence in the process of re-invigorating gender politics. Of course antagonism and equivalence always existed in Gramsci’s conception of war of position and, for that matter, in second-wave feminism and Connell’s masculinities theory. However, in Laclau and Mouffe’s radical plural democratic paradigm, antagonism takes on the new and progressive expression of an antidichotomic possibility, though always engaged in a dialectical process inexorably pushing towards aspirational hegemonic possibilities. This dialectic process is precisely the chaining of antagonisms into an equivalent articulated moment which, in turn, marks a deepening and expansion of knowledge about democratic potentials. On this point, Connell’s (1995: 79) argument that sexuality and gender politics is mass politics is crucial because, while the mass is understood to be organised around two broad gender types, that is, complicit masculinities and ambivalent femininities, the demands and antagonisms towards the dominative system emergent from this collective vary greatly; for example, mothers in paid labour, fathers in unpaid labour, traditional male breadwinners, housewives, childless couples and single parents. However, what is significant about this organisation of antagonisms into a system of alliances, as shown in the ‘Masculinities schema’ is that it does not project a direct and clear anti-system protest towards the principles of hegemonic masculinity. Rather, these antagonisms express a systemic ambivalence about the legitimacy of the hegemonic principles that enables the system to initiate

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transformistic operations which, in turn, continue to produce protest that is disarticulatory and conjunctural. Thus what becomes evident about the alliance politics that exists in the contemporary gender order, and schematised in the ‘Masculinities schema’, is the immaturity of self-knowledge underpinned by a failure to articulate a universal anti-system protest identity. Therefore, the crucial point of departure for a new intellectuality must be to educate and develop an understanding within this mass of people that multiplicity of antagonisms or radical pluralism about anti-system demands is an ineluctable part of political alliance and that this pluralism does not negate the potential for universal action. In other words, radical organic protest is not about homogenising gender within dichotomic and autonomous sources of challenge, as secondwave feminism attempted. This only results in the negation of difference and the prioritisation of challenge. Rather, the strategy must be to develop a new intellectuality through which knowledge about the operation of difference and antagonism is understood as compatible with a democratic identity (Mouffe 2000: 22). It is only in this context, where difference is held as ‘the condition of possibility of being’ that the dialectic of antagonism and, thus, equivalence, can be formulated to produce and sustain a new social justice in gender. However, in conceptualising this approach to social justice, there must be a move away from a liberal view of pluralism, which is based on a logic of the social that recognises difference expressed as various conceptions of the ‘good’ subordinated to the essentialist and aprioristic imposition of the ‘right’. This type of categoricalist articulation leads inexorably to the reduction of plurality about what is ‘good’ to a singularity, àla Rawls, and ultimately to the negation of plurality’s efficacy (Mouffe 2000: 19). Connell (1995: 229–230) also argues against any alignment to ‘liberal pluralism’ as a political paradigm from which social justice in gender can emerge. However, here the problem of pluralism emerges not so much from its singular nature but because it ‘recognises no continuing basis of politics beyond individual interest. The interests of individuals are aggregated in shifting groups whose pushing and tugging constitute the political process’ (Connell 1995: 228–229). In other words, liberal pluralism for Connell is unable to ground its politics in anything solid and definite and its social justice becomes a freefloating, purely contextual moment. This is perhaps an oversimplification given Mouffe’s argument that, in Rawls’ model of liberalism, which favours the de-ontological rather than teleological approach, the task is to give individuation a substantive framework in which differences can operate, albeit, always with regard to the priority of the ‘right’. In the final analysis, this too undermines difference because such a priority de-politicises the common will. In addition, Connell (1995: 229) extends his attack to the postfoundationalist perspective that ‘justifiably’ rejects the pre-political agent, but which also rejects collectivism and any ‘foundation’ for politics. Of

Radical organic protest in gender 143 course, the rejection of foundationalism is precisely Laclau and Mouffe’s key position but, crucially, their anti-foundationalism does not impose an antiunity or anti-collectivism. It has been argued throughout this book that by opening up and exposing the full complexity of the theory of hegemony, the process of hegemonic becoming can be seen to involve the always already potential for progression from a situation of dominative to aspirational hegemony, where war of position represents the organic articulatory process. A key task of this process is the construction of a new intellectuality and leadership, which can only be made possible by a particular social group capable of articulating the rejection of corporativism, essentialism and apriorism in its hegemonic principles. Further, within the situational foundationalism and dichotomisation that is argued to be an acceptable if not necessary part of war of position, there is no privileging of one part of the historical bloc over others as the inevitable determinant for morality and intellectuality. This is because, if organic critique hierarchicises antagonisms – for example, women over men, gay and lesbian over queer, mother over single parents – it immediately acts against the logic of equivalence and will only regress to a dominative form of hegemony. Crucial to a radical intellectuality and the undermining of a hierarchy of antagonism is the re-thinking of the prioritisation of practice over discourse. The emphasis on practice is a significant feature of Connell’s theory of practice (see 1995: 229) and masculinities theory. So, in effect, both the theory of practice and masculinities theory need to be re-articulated so as to give discourse and concrete practice equal recognition as influential drivers of identity articulation.3 To simply focus on one without the other, in other words to reject the constructive synergy of praxis, returns the possibility of a new intellectuality and aspirational hegemony back to Gramsci’s original concern with the problem of determinism in historical materialism (see Chapter 2). It is in this context that the importance of protest femininities as the point of departure for a radical intellectuality emerges. Its crucial feature (as discussed in Chapter 4), is that it is ideologically disconnected from the hegemonic principles of the dominative masculine hegemony. There is no uneven imbrication across the frontier. In other words, through the ‘Masculinities schema’ we can see that protest femininities articulate no relation of alliance with hegemonic masculinity. Thus, it owes nothing to the dominative masculine hegemony, nor expects, or is given, a patriarchal dividend in return. It represents precisely the constitutive outside of the hegemonic masculine ideal. However, because the constitutive outside is always present inside, that is organic protest is part of hegemony as its always-real possibility, every hegemonic identity becomes purely relational and contingent. In other words, neither hegemonic masculinity nor protest femininities, nor any gender types in-between for that matter, exist as pre-constituted identities that can claim mastery to the foundation of the gender order and society. Instead, their emergence is always based on the ineradicable

144 Radical organic protest in gender nature of power and knowledge being exercised and challenged at that particular moment in that particular situation. As Laclau describes it, this is a situation where ‘there is no room for conceiving totality as a frame within which hegemonic practices operate: the frame itself has to be constituted through hegemonic practices’ (Laclau, in Butler et al. 2000: 302; original emphasis) Thus, protest is an ineluctable part of the ‘Masculinities schema’ and, therefore, the hegemonic framework. In this situation, at the current historical moment, no other gender type is able to represent, un-imbricated, the ideological exteriority of hegemonic masculinity. This gives protest femininities the capability of initiating an intellectual leadership, emancipated from potential dominative hegemonic advantage. In addition, this intellectuality and leadership recognises the possibility of social justice producing perfect harmony, where power has been eradicated, as a simplistic and ultimately un-realistic aspiration. A clear frontier The argument that a new intellectuality is possible through protest femininities because of its exteriority to the dominative hegemony is made more significant by the imperative in radical pluralism for protest to establish, as Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000: 304) puts it, a ‘clear-cut frontier’ that separates the oppressive system force from the oppositional-force of antagonisms within the anti-system chain of equivalence. In other words, it is the terrain through which catharsis must cut its path because, in so doing, it interferes with the articulatory processes that obfuscate oppression so as to expose the false moment where the logic of difference holds superiority over equivalence. Further, it is at the frontier that the hegemonic principles sit, metaphorically speaking, as the last line of the system battlements that must be protected from the challenges launched by the chain of demands. Therefore, without consciousness and knowledge of this frontier as a delineative space, protest remains open to a dominative ‘logic of difference’ capable of exercising unhindered its transformistic strategies that can disarticulate and, in some instances, negate particular demands by blurring them with traditional interests. In a gender-specific context, the consequences of ignoring the frontier is particularly evident in the emergence of protest masculinities and the way it deals with traditional masculine functionality. In the case McMillan v. Jackson (see Chapter 6) the new-found desire of the young father to take up the primary care-giver role was met with derision and contempt by his Honour at trial. This example highlights what was referred to earlier as the uneven imbrication of particularity across the frontier. The father accepts the responsibilities of primary carer for his child, yet his Honour later argues that this is a dysfunctional role for men because it would allow a disconnection from ‘normative’ social, paid-work and domestic cathectic practices.

Radical organic protest in gender 145 This is contrasted with the father’s earlier experiences with his baby son, where his attitude was to leave the care and control of the child completely in the hands of the mother, even when the mother gave the child to the intervener for long periods, sometimes months. Thus, through ambivalence directed towards the key hegemonic principles by the father, that is, fathering of this type is acceptable where there is no mother, produces a type of protest about hegemonic masculinity. However, this form of protest masculinity is unable to balance its particularity with the broader equivalential project for anti-system universality. Of course, it is not people like the father in this case who create the ideological ambiguity around masculine functionality but, rather, traditional intellectuals such as the judiciary who impose their attitudes and biases in formal procedural criteria. The types of transformistic smokescreens they produce through the logic of difference and its strategies do not obliterate either system or anti-system demands. Rather, as was shown in the family law case law analyses, the operational nexus between black-letter law and its judicial interpretation, particularly across trial and appellate boundaries, produces a systemic ambivalence about the hegemonic principles and their balancing with the exigencies of everyday life. In effect, judicial attitudes impose a structure of expectations upon the frontier that enables the logic of difference to effectively negate the potential for organic protest and equivalence, thereby making problematic the construction of a social justice that is able to break the fetters imposed by the hegemonic principles. Thus, through judicial operations within the family law system, the key objective of a dominative hegemony’s maintenance project is exposed. That is, always remaining focused on the obfuscation and blurring of the frontier and its various points of contradistinction between system and anti-system activities. In this way, the logic of difference has freedom to articulate and re-articulate the nature and legitimacy of particularities within contexts set out by the hegemonic principles. In effect, this produces similarity between anti-system needs and demands and system interests. However, though this produces a situation at the frontier where the hegemonic principles remain uncompromised, there is always a state of tension operating. This, of course, is expressed as a central principle of masculinities theory. The hegemonic form need not be the most common form of masculinity, let alone the most comfortable. Indeed many men live in a state of some tension with, or distance from, the hegemonic masculinity of their culture or community. (Connell 2000: 11) On this basis, the logic of difference, which is about blurring, or even negating, the possibilities for equivalence by creating disarticulation and tension between anti-system antagonisms at the frontier will lead inevitably to the expansion of conjunctural activity and a concomitant increase in the

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complexity of politics. In contrast, radical and plural organic protest that pushes towards an aspirational hegemonic situation requires an equivalential logic that organises and connects particularity under a common discursively produced identity frame that also clarifies the frontier and exposes the dominative hegemonic principles as ossified structures that protect an exclusionary and regressive worldview. Further, the initiation of this protest, understood in Gramscian terms as war of position, enables a universality to emerge that undermines the logic of difference and, thus, reduces the conjuncturality of antagonism and anti-system challenge. This produces a simplification about political society (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 130) but, more importantly, a new complexity about civil society. Overdetermination The single most important aspect of radical pluralism as a progressive movement is its ability to articulate an anti-essentialism and anti-apriorism. The motive for this is given by its grounding in hegemony which is held to be an always contingent and constitutive discursive process of constructing social relations and practices (Laclau 1996: 90, 94). However, before developing the principle of overdetermination and arguing for its inclusion as a key aspect of the aspiration inherent to the protest femininities project, it is important to review the significance of discourse to a radical and plural aspirational hegemonic project. A common-sense understanding of discourse is usually as something in the form of a written text or, perhaps, the delivery of a speech. Further, social scientists have generalised this understanding by treating all the meaningful signifying systems in human societies, such as painting, architecture and law, as discourses. From this position it is possible to develop an understanding of discourse as any organised system of meanings that develop through the combination of speech and writing. However, in radical pluralist terms discourse does not simply represent this combination. Instead, it is the field in which speech and writing are themselves but internal components of a discursive totality. This totality is explained in the following example: Let us suppose I am building a wall with another bricklayer. At a certain moment I ask my workmate to pass me a brick and then I add it to the wall. The first act – asking for the brick – is linguistic; the second – adding it to the wall – is extra-linguistic. Do I exhaust the reality of both acts by drawing a distinction between them in terms of linguistic/extra-linguistic opposition? Evidently not, because the differentiation in those terms, the two acts share something that allows them to be compared, namely that they are both part of a total operation, which is building the wall. (Laclau and Mouffe 1987: 82)

Radical organic protest in gender 147 Thus, discourse in the radical pluralist project is understood as the structured totality of all articulation that represents both the symbolic and practical. Thus, within a discursive space the meanings that elements acquire do not subsequently attain coherency or legitimacy from some point outside of the system of relations itself and, therefore, outside of discourse. In effect, these elements do not have some pre-ordained meaning conferred upon them from some transcendent moment that determines discourse. Rather, the articulation of elements to moments is always through discourse which, in turn, is an ineluctable aspect of the contingent and constitutive nature of hegemony. This is what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 111) refer to, following Freud and Breur (1974) and Althusser (1977), as always marked by ‘overdetermination’. In other words, the meaning or identity of a social group (or ‘subject’) or social institution can never be fixed or given in the a priori. Most importantly, if this overdeterminative characteristic is true of all elements, then it is true of each of them, and vice versa. Thus, no one element among them, for example, bourgeoisie or proletariat, masculinity or femininity, has a superordinate status capable of controlling and directing discourse in a way that confers legitimacy upon all the others. Where this is the case, we return immediately to a determinative situation. As a result, each element within the system acquires meaning for itself from, and only from, its insertion into regular relations and configurations of practice with all the other elements. Only in this way can elements be articulated in terms of their differential relationality to other elements and, as such, assume the status of moments. But, crucially, the process of articulation that leads to aspirational hegemony cannot ossify itself at certain nodal points or points of privilege within discourse; it must always recognise fluidity and openness. However, if the whole sphere of articulatory operations within a discourse represents the hegemonic terrain, problems emerge when a particular element imposes its demands asymmetrically, thus effectively taking control of this terrain. The claim that each element within a progressive hegemonic system has a meaning that develops precisely through the articulation of regularly occurring, though never ossified, configurations of practice within differentially recognised relations has already been emphasised. So, if a particular element is able to take control of the hegemonic process, it is then able to construct meaning, in line with its interests, by articulating moments where only particular configurations of practice are acceptable. This in turn disrupts the meanings and inter-relatedness of all elements at differing levels and initiates a crisis in the hegemony. The consequence of crisis, as shown in the ‘Tripartite model of hegemony’, is that meaning dissolves to either enable a new determinative configuration that represents the re-articulation of traditional meaning, or a new discourse through which critique of the dominative moment develops, underpinned by the principle of overdetermination. The former configuration is precisely the one that Laclau and Mouffe see Gramsci as sustaining. This is because, by giving foundational privilege to economics/production, significance is attributed to

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the bourgeoisie/proletariat dichotomy. Thus, no matter which side of the dichotomy emerges as hegemonic, the situation remains as one that is aprioristically determined. However, as argued above (p. 129), Gramsci’s foundationalism applies only during war of position and whose success is based on the ability to not privilege any particular sector of the historical bloc. Therefore, the resultant hegemony, understood as the highest synthesis, has effectively eschewed all corporatist interests. When this foundationalism is applied to the current critique of hegemonic masculinity, its importance becomes particularly evident. First, in exposing the blurring of the frontier by the systemic ambivalence that marks current notions of social justice. Second, it attempts to clarify the frontier by emphasising the importance of protest femininities as the hegemonic ‘other’ capable of articulating the nodal points that have become reified hegemonic principles, which determinatively impose meaning upon all moments and threaten their exclusion if they cannot be accepted and accommodated. Thus, through protest femininities, radical organic protest can be directed through the Gramscian idea of war of position and towards aspirational hegemony and unstable equilibria where social justice, in the final analysis, is premised on the fluidity and openness of the articulation of meaning. Here the principle of overdetermination ensures an active challenge to any attempt to close down discourse around certain nodal points. However, overdetermination does not open the door to unbridled particularity. It can and must balance the need for particular identities and demands to express themselves through a new discursive universality. This imperative is described in Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985: 8–14) discussion of Rosa Luxemburg’s conception of working-class unity as not the product of a priori political or economic priority but the accumulated effects of partial mobilisations against the system. Thus, revolutionary mass identity is established through a whole historical period in which the overdetermination of a plurality of separate struggles operate. But, as Laclau elaborates later: The meaning (the signified) of all concrete struggles appears, right from the beginning, internally divided. The concrete aim of the struggle is not only that aim in its concreteness; it also signifies opposition to the system. The first signified establishes the differential character of that demand or mobilisation vis-à-vis all other demands or mobilisations. The second signified establishes the equivalence of all these demands in their common opposition to the system. As we can see, any concrete struggle is dominated by this contradictory movement that simultaneously asserts and abolishes its own singularity. (Laclau 1996: 41) In this way overdetermination is always penetrated by what Laclau (1996: 41) goes on to refer to as ‘this constitutive ambiguity’ in which universality and particularity sit in a precarious nexus.

Radical organic protest in gender 149

Through paradox to an operational logic of organic protest Incorporating these three principles into an operational conceptualisation of organic protest, it becomes evident that there is a need to overcome an inherent paradox. In effect, protest that sustains pure particularity will undermine its own organic principles and, thereby, remain hegemonically impotent. However, to aspire towards complete homogeneity is to eliminate all particularity but so, too, the potential for antagonism, equivalence and, therefore, radical universality. This is nowhere more evident than in law and, in particular, family law, in which the on-going difficulty of applying the symbolic universality of black-letter law to the contextual particularity of case law, as it applies across trial and appellate divisions, remains a difficult and vexed issue. Absent completeness Thus, to apply radical organic protest to the gender regime of family law requires a strategy that sustains the universality/particularity distinction so that the multiplicity of gender identities and interests that confront its intellectuals can be dealt with on the basis of each demand as particularity operating through the ‘absent completeness’ (Laclau 1996: 56–60) of the universality of law. Again, McMillan v. Jackson represents an excellent illustration of this aspect and, in particular, the comment made by the Bench when they argued that in the determinations of a trial judge, there is no room for the introduction into ratio decidendi of any pre-conceived notion that judges may entertain as private individuals. In effect, while it is important to recognise the nexus of law–context, it is unacceptable to infiltrate this discursive situation with coherence and meaning, in other words, completeness, exogenously drawn and oppressively imposed. Thus, while the task of radical organic protest is to construct a radical universality through the logic of equivalence, it must be understood that such universality will never reach completeness (Laclau 1996: 57). Crucially, though, this absence of completeness does not represent negativity but, rather, positivity within a situation that enables progression towards an aspirational hegemonic position. So, for example, promoting family law to a position of radical universality where its intellectuals express the law as a project representing all people, it must also recognise itself as incomplete. In other words, the family law judiciary must express the universality of the law as a dialectic in which the aggregation of particularity represents the universal. In this respect, radical organic protest can use the unifying effects of the dominative masculine hegemonic system, whose source are the hegemonic principles encapsulated by hegemonic masculinity, as the point of departure for organic critique. This is because it is in, and through, these hegemonic principles that each particularity finds equivalence about its

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antagonism which, in turn, can be articulated and shared as critical knowledge across the chain of equivalence. In this way, the ambivalence and ambiguity inherent to the existing structure of expectations that frames family law judicial ratio decidendi can be shown as a universally closed system. So, by interrupting this closure, a new unification of antagonism can emerge where all particularities identify their selves as open to the benchmark of hegemonic masculinity, making the universality of law a part of an open chain. However, the paradox of radical organic protest is deepened even further if it is understood that, while the nature of the chain of equivalences is always open and never closed, so it is that, as the number of antagonisms increase and the chain is extended, there will emerge a need for a general equivalent that represents the aggregation of antagonisms and the symbolic universalisation of protest. But this representative equivalent must emerge from within the chain itself and, thereby, from an enabling yet doomed particularity (Laclau 1996: 41). In effect, the symbolic representation of protest femininities as the locus of equivalential effects and the universality of protest must accept the negation of its own particularity. This is a point Gramsci alluded to in both the Southern Question essay (albeit, with respect to the hegemony of the proletariat) and the Prison Notebooks. In effect, for a group to be hegemonic, it must, in the final analysis, set aside its own corporate interests. Thus, it is through the articulatory process by which protest femininities is able to encourage the setting aside of particularity so as to hegemonise with all the various other gender types and their demands that it can become the empty signifier or absent completeness of unstable equilibria. Discursive dispersion In an attempt to give the principles of protest femininities a sense of strategic operationality that moves in line with a radical organic protest, the point of departure, as shown in the (above) analyses, is that unity of protest is developed through the articulation of various elemental antagonisms into moments of equivalence, based on knowledge of a clear-cut frontier between the system or dominative hegemonic principles and the anti-system chain of equivalences. However, given that, for aspirational hegemony, the totality of equivalential relations and practices organised into a discursive configuration cannot be unified on the basis of the logical coherence of its elements, or in the a priori of some transcendental moment, its unity develops, following Foucault, through the ‘regularity of its dispersion’ of discourse (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 105). Thus, rather than focusing on references to an object of knowledge (such as hegemonic principles themselves), commonality about style in the production of their statements, conceptual constancy and reference to a thematic also enable dispersion to emphasise the rules of formation and conditions of existence of the object. So, to operationalise organic under-

Radical organic protest in gender 151 standing of a dominative hegemonic situation, the starting point must be where the unification force emanates. Thus, the key becomes, as has been argued above, the hegemonic principles, or what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 112) refer to as the ‘nodal points’, which impose a partial fixation upon the discursive situation. Of course, these nodal points represent hegemonic principles, which in a dominative hegemonic situation become reified and ossified so as to represent the immovable transcendental signification of all that is articulated as normative functionality. In so doing, dominative hegemony produces a closure and singularity about its discursive configuration, which is maintained through the mechanisms of hegemony. Therefore, it is precisely the task of radical organic protest to expose through a deconstructive tactic the determinative imperative of these dominative principles and articulate the always already incompleteness of hegemonic totality where ‘neither absolute fixity nor absolute non-fixity is possible’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 111). Now, to make these theoretical claims certainly exposes possibilities for re-thinking the hegemonic structuring of a discursive situation and, through it, a new social justice. But it seems that, for an organic protest to take root in the psyche of a culture, the equivalentiality of antagonism, the exposing of the frontier that must be traversed through catharsis and incorporation of overdetermination, which rejects all a priori ‘facts’ and taken-forgrantednesses as bases for the legitimacy of knowledge and practice, must be developed simultaneously. They are effectively hegemonically inter-related, in the sense that each one gives life to, and supports the importance of, the other in the overall ethico-political project. However, achieving such an operational imperative is not a straightforward process, given that, at family law, at least, the systemic ambivalence that continues to mark judicial and broader socio-cultural attitudes about what is social justice in gender continues an uneven imbrication of identities and interests upon the hegemonic principles that stifles equivalential potential. Thus, the asymmetricality of the dominative relation at the centre of the ‘Masculinities schema’ continues to operate as the reified force of unification that gives coherence to the various gender types. Further, the hegemonic principles that describe this asymmetricality continue to represent the nodal points of knowledge that describe what are the legitimate configurations of practice. The radical organic protest that is required to overcome these hurdles and push towards an aspirational hegemony requires not simply a democratic logic (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 189). It is not enough that the various demands emerging from the broad field of gender are recognised, if when this occurs their existence is then considered as negativity to the gender order. The example exposed in the case McMillan v. Jackson, where his Honour deemed the new identity, which the father sought to construct upon assuming custody of his young son, as being understandable but inherently detrimental to the welfare of the child, indicates precisely, this problem.

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Radical organic protest in gender If the demands of a subordinated group are presented purely as negative demands subversive of a certain order, without being linked to any viable project for the reconstruction of specific areas of society, their capacity to act hegemonically will be excluded from the outset. (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 189)

In effect, such anti-system positions, while representing the concrete exigencies of an open and fluid social, continue to be excluded both by the traditional worldview manifest in law, but also in the current feminist project whose corporate position is stuck within a ‘strategy of opposition’ focused on the woman question and, as such, unable to articulate a ‘strategy of construction of a new order’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 189). Of course, it is compatible with the logic of equivalence to argue, as Dinnerstein (1976) amongst others did, that, by encouraging men to enter and become part of the domestic sphere, new possibilities for broader gender progressiveness open up. However, to focus strategically on a new order requires a process that can critico-historically deconstruct existing dominative hegemonic principles and re-articulate new points for unification. In effect, to challenge privileged dominative principles such as heterosexuality and the cathectic reciprocity inherent to it, by attacking not just its existence but its ability to exercise closure around certain identities and interests, will undermine its efficacy to negate the possibility of difference developing an equivalential quality. In thinking through this process where the juridical regime is key, it is instructive to return attention to the discursive location from which progressive principles emerged and the possibility for equivalence was enabled. In ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ (Finer 1979: 267–271), it is stated that ‘Liberty is the capacity to do anything that does no harm to others . . .’. Accordingly, ‘Legislation is entitled to forbid only those actions which are harmful to society . . .’. Therefore, ‘Legislation is the expression of the general will . . .’. But how can the decision of his Honour to remove a young boy from his natural father be understood within the framework set by these ‘rights’? Since the articulation of the ‘Rights of Man’ the equivalential potential of the principles it projects have been disarticulated and re-legitimated through a logic of difference that has employed as part of its transformistic strategies other knowledges that set out and specify the relations and practices that produce injury and harm to the individual and to society. Of course, this became evident in the above case law analyses particularly where the mother principle was shown to operate in family law as just such a form of knowledge. In this respect, his Honour’s adherence to the mother principle legitimises certain relations and their concomitant configurations of practice without which the judgment would act against the spirit, if not the content, of these ‘rights’. Thus, what emerges in organic crisis is a discursive totality in which equivalential discourses are continually being criss-crossed with various other subordinate knowledges that, at any

Radical organic protest in gender 153 one time, will interrupt the regularity of discursive dispersion, thereby giving support to traditional hegemonic principles while undermining the articulation of new nodal points; ultimately pushing regressively towards the ossification of the system demands and away from the possibility of unstable equilibria. Thus, radical organic protest must understand the milieu of knowledges that sustain or undermine discourse through a focus on the nodal points or what has been referred to as hegemonic principles. The significance of such a focus is based not so much on the hegemonic principle’s emphasis on inclusion, which of course desires the homogenisation of the social, but rather, on its exclusionary objective. In other words, hegemonic principles, as has been shown throughout this study, remove the capacity for antagonism to act hegemonically. Thus, if in fact hegemony is a situation in which the management of the positivity of the social has achieved a maximum of integration (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 189), then to ignore the efficacy of these privileged principles or nodal points will make impotent any protest and, concomitantly, any social justice. In closing this chapter it is important to make a comment on Connell’s concern about the demise of hegemonic masculinity, which he argues must be achieved for social justice in gender to be realised but will, in turn, result in the demise of a raft of positive contributions made to the broader Western culture. This position should not be surprising given that, for Connell, hegemony is always dominative (see Chapters 3 and 4). In effect, the ‘de-gendering strategy’ (which will be discussed as part of the Conclusion) called for to overturn the predominance of hegemonic masculinity is about new alliances that can change the configurations of practice around the various structural models – for example, men becoming more involved in the home, men rejecting violence and war and so on. However, such a strategy as Connell recognises requires selection and rejection of characteristics and values, a task that is profoundly problematic. In contrast, the task of radical organic protest, as it has been developed through this analysis is, in the first instance, not about rejecting all characteristics and values associated with the current dominative gender type. But, of course, neither is it an acceptance of all dominative hegemonic characteristics and values. It is precisely about challenging closure and, as such, it is not about the removal of dominative hegemonic principles such as heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness, but about adding to and rejuvenating the situation in which they operate so that, rather than shutting down the possibilities for unstable equlibria and change, they are enabled and, most importantly, can become part of the foundation for a new social justice.

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Conclusion

The basis of the argument presented in this book was that the possibility of achieving a social justice in gender, which represents the product of a movement beyond oppressive traditional structures, to a situation of openness, is not attainable given the continuity – conceptually and practically – of hegemonic masculinity. The argument that hegemony and, therefore, hegemonic masculinity represents a negativity about gender has in the recent past assumed an axiomatic status in the literature on masculinities, and has also infiltrated into the broader debate about social justice in gender. Nevertheless, at its core sit two crucial yet problematic conceptual positions. Hegemonic masculinity is interpreted as a dominant and dominating ideal type of masculinity whose efficacy ensures the continuity of a legitimated closure around a particular gender order. But even more significant for the question of social justice is that, while conceiving of hegemonic masculinity in this way it is based on an interpretation of hegemony drawn from Gramsci, its underpinning logic fails to elaborate the full complexity of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and, as a consequence, reduces the possibilities for social justice to the demise of hegemony. This is anathema to Gramscian politics as developed here. Nevertheless, the importance of this position is that it enables masculinities theory to sustain the profoundly regressive argument that there is no basis either in history, the current situation or in the future for a hegemonic ‘other’ (Connell 1987: 183). Therefore, hegemony and social justice are mutually exclusive socio-cultural phenomena. Accordingly, social justice in gender is possible only through strategies that negate the hegemonic, such as in a ‘de-gendering strategy’ delivered through ‘alliance politics’, which seeks to dismantle hegemonic masculinity and construct in its place, not a new hegemony but a de-gendered world (Connell 1995: 232–238). What form this world would take and, more importantly, how its underlying politics would operate is not made clear in masculinities theory. However, its starting point is a shift in the strategy for change in gender. This would be, in effect, away from women simply assuming equality through sameness with men to a new situation where men involve themselves in new relations and configurations of practice that break down tradi-

Conclusion 155 tional cathectic and sexual imperatives, as well as divisions of labour and power. A profoundly problematic aspect of this alliance politics and de-gendering strategy, though, is that it continues a particularly troubled progressive project. In effect, it continues the discourse of early second-wave feminism (see Connell 1995: 233) whose aspiration for a type of androgeneity as the identificatory terrain upon which a new social justice could be constructed became the nodal points. In so doing, though, it stumbles over the same issues that undermined the organic potential of early second-wave feminist critique. Specifically, it failed to elaborate the importance of an open and unstable politics that can also develop equivalential particularity within a new radical universality. In other words, just as second-wave feminism struggled to universalise protest, succeeding only to dichotomise difference, the implications of a de-gendering strategy is to further simplify this politics with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach through a system of alliances that supports agency but is unable to articulate its continuity. Further, hegemony and, more particularly, the aspirational, active aspects of hegemony play no role in this new alliance politics and, as such, the aspiration for protest to produce an on-going ethico-politics built upon an open and unstable equlibria are lost. So, by extension, a de-gendered social justice would resemble a demand for the demise of particularity, similar to the dilemma that family law is faced with: how to uphold the good and the right. Thus, while it emphasises the agential emancipation from functional and biological constraints, it develops practice as transparent, making the need to extend and develop democracy irrelevant. A crucial objective of the argument for aspirational hegemony and radical organic protest was to develop a new challenge to the problematic nature of the interpretation of hegemonic masculinity that sets up certain impossibilities for social justice. As a result, this work shows that, by re-visiting the framing discourse, that is, the theory of hegemony, and elaborating its findings through a critico-historical analytic method, the impossibilities for a social justice that would represent precisely a movement away from the oppressive politics of the current gender order can be thought through without the need to return to the problematic de-gendering strategies of second-wave feminist discourse. This is because this methodology moves the investigation beyond the immediacy and constraints imposed by Connell’s theory of practice and masculinities theory. It does this by accepting, as Gramsci did, that change requires recognition of the moral and intellectual imperatives of the present, through a critical organic understanding of history, and their impact on the future. This methodological approach exposed the axiomatic status of the hegemonic masculinity–domination nexus in the current masculinities literature as problematic both for hegemony and social justice. So, in effect, the nature and operation of hegemonic masculinity, both theoretically (see Chapters 3 and 4) and practically (see Chapters 5 and 6), in the current situation, were opened up and set against

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the preceding detailed analysis of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as its historical foundation (see Chapter 2). Further, through this explication of the theory of hegemony, it was possible to set a future trajectory for social justice in gender from the platform set by the discourse of second-wave feminism, by extending and elaborating it through a particular postmarxist approach (see Chapters 7 and 8). Thus, the point of departure for analysis was the work of Gramsci, specifically on culture, knowledge, education and power, which were encapsulated in the key Southern Question. This was a pivotal moment because it set out the socio-political direction and emphases Gramsci would follow in his later prison-based work. Supported by analyses of earlier journalistic writings, it was shown that the concept of hegemony was never conceptually ossified, even at this early moment in Gramsci’s writings. For example, immediately following 1917 and the failure of the Turin Factory Council Movement, hegemony assumed (in line with Leninism) a dominative tone. However, by the time the PCI had emerged as a political force, with Gramsci assuming its leadership, a shift had occurred in his thinking that indicated the beginnings of a re-conceptualisation of political struggle that saw as imperative a less dominative, or politico-economic, focus. In its place would emerge a conception of hegemony that was more aspirational or moral and intellectual in tone and which spoke of a dialectical strategy that could progress a new ethico-politics. In other words, the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ that was demanded by Leninism and the Marxism’s of the Second and Third Internationals had been reformulated in Gramsci’s ‘hegemony of the proletariat’. This form of hegemony was central to the radical re-articulation of the traditional political terrain where the Party, while it remained the vanguard of progressive movement at this time, would now incorporate the imperative of controlling the superstructure and not just politics and economics. This was a radical and crucial shift in Marxist theory, not least because it began to break down many of the foundational and dogmatically held positions about struggle and politics and emphasised moral and intellectual leadership focused on the whole historical bloc with the express tasks of embracing non-corporatist principles and mass education. Within the vast corpus of work that is the Prison Notebooks, the point of departure for analysis of hegemony were the ideas Gramsci set down as part of a critique of historical materialism and its failure to accept the dialectical nature of objective knowledge. The importance of this critique for the theory of hegemony and, in particular, the positivity of hegemony, is contained in its rejection of the determinism of orthodox Marxism, with respect to enabling progressive change. In effect, Chapter 2 sets out the possibilities for re-invigorating the knowledge–mass nexus in a way that fuses philosophy with common sense to produce an organic self-knowledge which, in turn, is central to developing the aspirational aspects of hegemony. More specifically, the analyses show how by conceptualising change as no longer exogenously imposed by the inevitability of a meta-history but, rather, as

Conclusion 157 always part of the internal dynamics or relations of force of a situation, Gramsci articulates hegemony’s generative and positive potential. However, because of this generativity, hegemonic change from traditional to organic is ineluctably tied to crisis, and it is from this latter concept that a ‘Tripartite model of hegemony’ is offered. A key feature of this typology, particularly with respect to social justice, is its ability to expose within the interregnum certain points of delineation that mark movements in a cathartic transition from dominative to aspirational hegemonic moments. In effect, it presents dominative hegemony as the immature precursor of aspirational hegemony, which is effectively the highest level of consciousness in the political relations of force. Thus, through Chapter 2, the complexity of the theory of hegemony is set out, which includes the way hegemonic principles operate socio-politically to define and maintain a hegemonic structure. The explication of this complexity is able to reject the view that hegemony is a dominative singularity. But more, it offers a platform upon which it is possible to begin a profound and systematic investigation of hegemony within the theory of practice and, later, as hegemonic masculinity in masculinities theory so as to understand the possibilities for social justice in gender. In the theory of practice the key task for hegemony is as a means of analysing the efficacy of power in situations. As such, Chapter 3 began with a detailed analysis of the concept: situation. It focused on its three interrelated themes: relationality, onto-formativity and historicity, which were referred to collectively as the situational thematic. This analysis showed that the operational framework for hegemony in the theory of practice, that is, situation, has a fundamentally generative nature and, therefore, that hegemony, too, is never completely static. However, notwithstanding the situational fluidity in which hegemony operates, a detailed analysis of Connell’s descriptions of hegemony show that, regardless of the subtle terminological movements over time, it remains conceptually ossified around the ideas of domination and singularity. This position was further supported by analyses of the dominative hegemonic mechanisms, which were shown to effectively manage the manifestations of crisis tendencies, so that the generativity of situation represents no more than conjunctural movements which, as explained in the theory of hegemony, is effectively incapable of any organic and progressive generation. Given hegemony’s development in the theory of practice, the aim of Chapter 4 was to show how this understanding operates with respect to the relations and practices of gender. What became evident is that hegemony viewed in this way opens up a progressive potential in so far as there is generativity about a situation. Further, the efficacy of the situational thematic enables the conceptualisation of gender outside of the static and simplistic constraints imposed primarily by socio-biology and role theory. In this way, seeing the gender order as a hegemonic order set the ground for the development of masculinities theory, which exposed sex-based functionality as an

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inadequate basis for understanding masculinity because it was now possible to recognise the influence of power, thereby problematising and fracturing the oneness that traditionally marked the category ‘man’ (and ‘woman’). So in effect, masculinities theory opened up the gender order and articulated multiplicity, or the various particularities that comprise the concepts ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’. By extending this notion of multiplicity into an elaboration of femininities, the ‘Masculinities schema’ was offered as a representation of the gender order in which the various gender types, as well as the structuring of relations between them, is illustrated. Specifically, this schema showed that, while the sub-system of alliance relations operate as a weak conjunctural force that lead to crisis tendencies and no further, the presence of protest femininities within this alliance gives this dominative masculine hegemonic situation the potential for organic progressive movement. However, the study of family law that followed showed that, at the concrete level of reality, this protest potential remains constrained and restricted by the systemic ambivalence that marks the attitudes and concomitant judgments of the family law judiciary. The case law analyses also showed that this understanding of gender and social justice effectively protects the hegemonic principles: heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggressiveness. Thus, in the final analysis, this systemic ambivalence ensures the failure of articulatory processes of protest to develop a connectedness or equivalence of identities between alliance partners. The significance of law and, in particular, family law for this thesis is that the law operates as a key regime or procedural criterion in the maintenance of the authority of the hegemonic principles. But, more importantly, that the legitimacy of certain relations and practices set by legal decision-making influences knowledge and meaning in all other regimes across the structural inventory. In other words, because law is always already political and, as such, operates reflexively with community expectations, it is a key site for the functioning of traditional intellectuals and the development of a structure of expectations within which operates a constrained conception of social order that demands a similar constrained social justice. The analyses of custody, spousal maintenance and domestic violence case law provided evidence for this constraint by showing that, at the judicial level, this structure was unable to set out a clear-cut position on social justice in gender. Rather, it constructs around social justice a systemic ambivalence that, amongst other things, obfuscates the frontier between black-letter law as universality and community exigencies as particularity. The consequence of which is continuity of a universality that negates the active hegemonic components of law through the logic of difference and this ensures, a fortiori, the maintenance of the dominative hegemonic principles and the conjunctural operation of protest across the entire structural inventory. While the family law study exposes the existence of a dominative gender politics operating in the contemporary situation, it is important to understand that this situation can be opened up conceptually by recognising the

Conclusion 159 tripartite nature of hegemony. In this way, it is possible to see the theorisations of hegemony and hegemonic masculinity that are central to current knowledge about practice and gender, respectively, as not so much hermeneutically erroneous, as partial. Further, it exposes the operations of hegemonic masculinity as moving through the dominative, regressive and restorative cycle as set out in the ‘Tripartite model of hegemony’. However, differences in interpretations are of far lesser significance to the issue of social justice in gender than is the efficacy of partiality to produce a political vacuum as a consequence of its strategic imperative to dismantle hegemonic masculinity and, ultimately, hegemony. In other words, what would be the possible trajectories for a future social justice based on gender politics if, in fact, hegemony is removed? From the literature, two key possibilities emerge; that is, Butler’s (1990: 16) ‘coalitional politics’1 and Connell’s (1995) ‘alliance politics’. These examples, while sourced from polar positions within the literature, nevertheless speak directly to, and for the aspiration of, a new social justice in gender. However, even though both conceptions of politics seek to move beyond a simple strategy of opposition, both struggle to elaborate an ethico-political strategy that can construct and incorporate new hegemonic identities in a strategy for the construction of a new democratic order. So, in effect, it is not so much the de-gendering that is strategically problematic about the dismantling of hegemony as its resultant de-politicisation and the impact this would have on the management of an always-unstable system of interests and demands that are an ineluctably inherent part of the contemporary gender order. The inevitable product of such a de-politicisation is that radical organic change can no longer be understood to emerge and develop as an inherent part of a situation but, rather, as imposed by some apriorism. ‘If patriarchy is understood as a historical structure, rather than a timeless dichotomy of men abusing women, then it will be ended by a historical process’ (Connell 1995: 238). Chapters 7 and 8 offer a radical political alternative. It is one that draws more deeply and comprehensively from the historical conceptual foundations set up by Gramsci with respect to hegemony as the possibility of overcoming the constraining and oppressive forces of a dominative historical bloc. In this context, the postmarxist-based radical plural democracy of Laclau and Mouffe (Chapter 7) was offered as a significant theoretical elaboration of the possibilities for aspirational hegemony. Specifically, radical pluralism and the later elaborations of Laclau give contemporary theoretical ‘flesh’ to the possibilities for social justice in gender to move beyond the non-politics of post-structuralism and the problematics of second-wave feminist aspirations inherent to masculinities theory. Crucially, though, radical pluralism offers considerable recognition of the complexity of the theory of hegemony, in a way that is able to emphasise and develop the positivity of hegemony. Thus, rather than dismantling hegemony, radical pluralism seeks its complete reinstatement. However, in so doing, it re-configures the articulation of its politics so

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that all traces of apriorism and essentialism are by-passed – thereby undermining the real potential of traditional foundational explanations such as those based on biology, function and ahistory to impose legitimacy. In effect, radical pluralism emphasises the construction of an ethico-politics of gender where the management of demands are undertaken as always developing precisely within and through the hegemonic terrain where relational, onto-formative and historical processes produce subject positions as moments that have no fixity to other moments and the hegemony itself. Whatever connectedness subject positions develop between each other and the hegemony is always articulated within and through discourse as the dialectic of knowledge and practice, and is never determined by some exogenously operating and omnipotent force. This discursive non-fixity of subject positions is compatible with Gramsci’s unstable equlibria, but radical pluralism was shown to elaborate its process by emphasising two key interacting qualities: the continuation of an active antagonism and the simultaneous progression towards equivalence. Of crucial importance for cathartic movement to a new radical gender politics is a need to develop, as part of an organic strategy, the knowledge that a system of alliance, in and of itself, does not render antagonism between alliance partners impotent. But, most importantly, the continuity of antagonism does not negate the possibilities for developing the logic of equivalence required to produce new identities that must premise a common unity. The crucial transformative moment required is the articulation of antagonisms as particularity within an equivalential universality. But further, these identities cannot develop through simple alliance produced always at the performative or practical level. Rather, only through discourse, in which the everyday experiences of people in certain configurations of practice are subverted to be understood as oppression can the hegemonic process synthesise the disparate, heterogeneous and conjuncturally operating anti-system activities and demands into an articulated equivalent common will. Thus, the moments of anti-system unification between ambivalent femininities and complicit masculinities as set out in the ‘Masculinities schema’ may well be real but, as the family law study indicated, this unity is inherently friable because there is only a weak ethico-political logic operating through the alliance, across the structural inventory. Instead, this unity, which represents the mass of people, is understood simply in terms of a loose aggregation of interests more focused on separate relationships with hegemonic masculinity rather than developing the relationship between what are potentially equivalent anti-system demands. So, in the final analysis, this enables the logic of difference to articulate certain relations of subordination as legitimate and positive that, in turn, obfuscate their oppressive reality and equivalential possibilities. Thus ambivalence about social justice emerges and is sustained because transformistic strategies, particularly when operating within key legitimising regimes such as law, are able to fragment alliance along distinct corporate lines.

Conclusion 161 For example, the current debate in Australia about birth rates, maternity leave and childcare is framed within a mother–paid work–childcare nexus that excludes paid paternity leave. Effectively, this gives ideological continuity to, amongst other things, the mother principle, which, as shown in the family law study, negates the possibility of the domestic sphere being seen as a regime-supporting equivalential rather than reciprocal interests. This type of constrained progressivity follows the continuing negation of masculine emotionality at family law and simply represents conjunctural challenge that sustains an uneven imbrication of anti-system demands across the nodal points or hegemonic principles. Thus, for protest to continue down the path of autonomy in alliance, without elaborating a strategy that recognises the importance of altering the identities of alliance partners so as to form an equivalential bond, it can only result in the failure to push social justice away from the regressive and dominative hegemonic cycle. This is precisely the task of protest femininities. Through the radicalisation of gender politics developed in the above chapters, protest femininities is seen to represent the generalisation of the progressive equivalential force. This is possible because its aspiration is the coming together of all gender particularities that emerge through and within the dominative masculine hegemonic situation where the imperative is for closure around the hegemonic principles. But because this protest is underpinned by knowledge of its own particularity as exclusion, it operates clearly, from the other side of the frontier to hegemonic masculinity. Further, its protest, which takes the form of a synthesising act underpinned by the principles of radical intellectuality that delineate a clear-cut frontier and push towards overdetermination (see Chapter 8), acknowledges that this aspiration is always already marked by paradox. In effect, the value of realisation or, in other words, the value of aspiring for and achieving the completion of democracy, particularly in gender, has itself come into a crisis in the contemporary situation. So, it seems that the commitment to a conception of democracy which is futural, which remains unconstrained by teleology, and which is not commensurate with any of its ‘realisations’ requires a different demand, one which defers realisation permanently. Paradoxically – but significantly for the notion of hegemony elaborated . . . and inaugurated by Laclau and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy – democracy is secured precisely through its resistance to realisation. (Butler, in Butler et al. 2000: 268) As Butler continues, at this moment in the discussion the committed activist might well turn away and ask, why struggle for some position that is permanently deferred and can never be realised? So, too, this concern can be extended to a questioning of radical organic protest in gender. What is the value of a protest to emerge from war of position articulated through

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radical pluralism whose aim is for a social justice in gender but whose very incompleteness is the mark of its success? However, to counter these concerns, it is instructive to stay with Butler’s reasoning. In particular, that unrealisability or what was presented as the absent completeness of universal protest: does not mean that there are no moments or events or institutional occasions in which goals are achieved, but only whatever goals are achieved (and they are, they are), democracy itself remains unachieved – that particular policy and legislative victories do not exhaust the practice of democracy, and that it is essential to this practice to remain, in some permanent way, unrealisable. (Butler, in Butler et al. 2000: 268) So, in effect, the unrealisability or incompleteness of democracy is precisely the moment at which war of position becomes cathartic transition and becomes unstable equilibria. As such, it is also the possibility of understanding the positivity of Gramscian aspirational hegemony, as developed here, and its linkage to a deepening of democracy advocated by Laclau and Mouffe. But most importantly, this never realisable completeness is the aspect of radical organic protest that overrides the efficacy of hegemonic principles to ‘bar’ or impose structural closure around, in the case of gender, the dominativity of the masculine hegemony. Thus, by developing the principles that underpin the organic protest of protest femininities, the possibility for an incomplete democracy is enabled, which in turn underpins moral, intellectual and consensus-based social justice in gender. Through this investigation it has become clear that the theorisations of hegemony presented, from the theory of practice to masculinities theory and then to radical pluralism, have all drawn deeply from the theory of hegemony. However, what becomes evident is that the key point of concurrence for all these theories is the need to conceptualise a strategy for movement towards incompleteness (which if not explicitly, then certainly implicitly applies to gender), albeit via their own particular conceptual trajectories. This is notwithstanding that these elemental (theoretical) particularities are often in contrast with each other, but then can find agreement at certain points, and are always changing over time. Nevertheless, incomplete democracy remains, certainly at this historical moment, the aspiration that represents the crucial principles for membership to Western society set out in the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ and, in turn, provides the equivalential thread about what is understood as progressive organic social justice. Now, throughout the journey to this conclusion, the tenor of this investigation into gender and social justice, which has deliberately been one of positivity, remains prima facie intact. However, precisely at this point, and with much thought and research traversed, it is necessary to step back from this

Conclusion 163 terrain and ask what the futural possibilities of aspirational hegemony are. Of some concern must be that progression appears to remain problematic within a radical plural democracy if, in fact, its task is simply to deepen the democratic revolution. Certainly, the operation of the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ as a discourse has opened up and made democracy more profound by offering an intellectual basis upon which various practices and relations are now understood as oppression, and the resultant demands are now able to be articulated as anti-system antagonism. But the contemporary situation is not one where the ‘Rights of Man and the Citizen’ operate unencumbered. In effect, the evidence presented throughout this investigation suggests the operationalisation of this discourse has been marked by the cross-cutting of a plethora of knowledges whose dispersional efficacy is to give a new understanding to how these principles must be read. In other words, they offer their own expert qualification to terms such as ‘harmful to others’, ‘free and equal’ and ‘general will’. Now it was not the intention here to close on a note of concern. Nevertheless, this investigation, in its attempts to show the operation of hegemony at both the theoretical and concrete levels as expressing a complex and multiple character has, as a consequence, exposed its dominative possibilities as profoundly negative. Crucially, though, in the current dominative masculine hegemony, the progressivity of a discourse such as the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’, while it may well have opened up democratic potentials, it has not been able to change the nature of the hegemonic situation, for example, from a dominative to aspirational form. In other words, the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’, along with other progressive discourses that it has initiated in gender such as feminism, queer and many more included, have been unable so far to breach the hegemonic principles and realise the unrealisability of gender. Certainly, protest femininities offers a cathartic moment in reconceptualising struggle for social justice in gender, but the task of negating the efficacy of all those knowledges, which continue to cross-cut the originary progressivity inherent to the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ and give qualification to certain of its principles, is an improbable possibility. Second-wave feminism is testament to that attempt. So, must radical organic protest accept the consequent uneven imbrication of demands as progressive unrealisability, which returning our thoughts to the family law study became evident in the exercise of ratio decidendi in family law adjudications? Further, is it enough to accept the conjunctural change that this uneven imbrication gives rise to, as positivity? Of course, over a historical epoch these spontaneous and incoherent conjunctures may configure a progressive social justice of sorts, in the same way as Luxemburg envisaged the unity of protest. In many ways, this is accepted in the language used by Butler to express the positivity of the unrealisability of democracy as producing ‘events’, ‘moments’ and ‘occasions’ of change. This indicates precisely the spontaneity of politics

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reminiscent of a ‘traditional’ post-structuralism but which, as part of organic and equivalential protest, must be questioned. Thus, just as Gramsci recognised the importance, as well as the difficulties of universal education to promote self-knowledge for all, and not just the elite, so too, the radical pluralist project, which emphasises the importance of developing equivalential particularities into a universal antisystem challenge, must also recognise and work to overcome similar difficulties of this task. In effect, it is not enough to leave the task simply in the hands of the hegemonic processes, as Laclau and Mouffe imply, and further, it is not enough to leave the general equivalent as simply the symbolic representation of universality, as Laclau implies. Now this should not lead to suggestions that what is required, instead, is the imposing of coherence upon the hegemony from some external and aprioristic source. This, of course, would be fatal for a radical plural democracy. Rather, the possibilities of producing a social justice in gender that develops on the back of a deepening of democracy and hegemonic equivalentiality can only emerge by focusing the deconstructive efforts of protest precisely on the hegemonic principles, that is, on the frontier, because it is always at these hinge-points that closure, in the final analysis, is exercised. But in declaring the importance of this focus it is crucial that, for the logic of equivalence to become part of protest, the general equivalent must assume a direct and concrete moral and intellectual leadership role.

Notes

1 Masculinity, hegemony and the new challenge 1 The term ‘post-industrial’ is used in line with Alain Touraine’s (1971: 18) claim that ‘tomorrow’s struggle will not be a repetition or even a modernization of yesterday’s’. In other words, labour as central to the industrialisation process, where it assumed a foundational and aprioristic determinative position with respect to social movement and struggle, no longer holds such a position. Thus, this transformation suggests the emergence of a post-industrial period where conceptualising a ‘new’ social justice requires the search for new social forces that might become the actors in a progressive politics. 2 Both Gray and Biddulph (in the texts cited above) sustain this type of traditionalism about gender by drawing on Jungian psychology to argue that there is an essence to masculinity which, in turn, determines the practice of men and, therefore, gender relations as a whole. 3 Following Connell (1987: 98–99), the term ‘gender order’ will refer to a historically constructed pattern of power relations between men and women. It will be used in the place of ‘gender structure’, which implies a more static and ossified arrangement. 4 The reference to politics here is grounded in Gramsci’s argument that politics refers to ‘the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it rules’, as well as an inherent potential to ‘discovery’, to reach some ‘transcendent’ reality that can ‘develop life to a higher level’ (Gramsci 1971: 244). Thus, through the term ‘gender politics’, the nature of inter- and intra-relations and operations of the various gender types, as will be discussed in following chapters, are implied. But gender politics also implies a process through which this nature can be opened up and strategies for a new social justice in gender developed and implemented. 2 Revolutionising the revolution: towards a tripartite model of hegemony 1 On the evening of 8 November 1926, under Mussolini’s ‘Exceptional Decrees’, the Italian fascists arrested and imprisoned Antonio Gramsci, who was at that time a member of the Italian parliament and leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). After 11 years of incarceration in various Italian fascist prisons, he was granted his freedom in April 1937, but one week later, on the 27th of that month, he was dead from a cerebral haemorrhage. In the months leading up to his arrest on 8 November 1926, Gramsci had started work on a lengthy draft essay entitled, ‘Some aspects of the Southern Question’. The historical location of

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this unfinished essay, that is, during the seizing of political power by the fascists, is particularly significant because it effectively represents a period of extreme political and cultural repression that gave rise to a need and desire in Gramsci to understand and challenge the situation. As a result, this essay articulates many of the foundational planks of the theory of hegemony, albeit in embryonic form. For example, Gramsci introduces the importance of alliance in a radically new way, the role of intellectuals and education in manufacturing consent over corporativism, the significance of ideology in constructing social power, as well as the reconfiguration of Lenin’s ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ into the ‘hegemony of the proletariat’. In Gramsci’s pre-prison work, controlling culture – as well as production – was crucial to revolution. However, culture entailed more than the mere acquisition of esoteric information or the cramming of encyclopaedic knowledge, because neither could produce real self-knowledge. What Gramsci is alluding to is that the real nature of culture is as the ‘organization, discipline of one’s inner self, a coming to terms with one’s own personality’. It is the attainment of a higher awareness, achieved not through spontaneous evolution and physiological necessity but, rather, the incremental movements of history resulting from intelligent reflection (Gramsci 1977: 10–11). This was applied within a Marxist paradigm in his essay Our Marx, published in May 1918, where he spoke of ‘will’ as ‘consciousness of the ends’, which comes from being able to ‘know one’s own power and being able to express this in action’. Thus, Marx becomes ‘the master of spiritual and moral life’ (Gramsci 1975: 11). This anti-dogmatism can be seen in Gramsci’s early writings, where the influence of Croce’s philosophy emerges as significant. For example, Gramsci (1975: 10) begins to understand, in a Crocean sense, history as an intellectual system, ‘the domain of ideas, of spirit’, that dominates and embraces all other intellectual systems, such as morals, politics and art, moving them as a bloc through ‘pure practical (economic and moral) activity’. In this way the importance of relating the past to the present, from which we can understand the future, is recognised, particularly in terms of developing self-emancipation as truth. In other words, history gives truth a generative and often unstable quality. This is a point Gramsci (1975: 55) stresses in his 1918 article, ‘Free thought and liberated thought’, where he argues: ‘truth must never be presented in an absolute and dogmatic form, as if already ripe and perfect. In order to be disseminated, truth must be adapted to the historical (or cultural) conditions of the social groups in which one wants it to be disseminated’. The term ‘ethico-political’ is central to Croce’s (1946: 67–77) critique of historical materialism in which it was used synonymously with moral (history). This emphasis would effectively subordinate the practical and political aspects of life in the explication of history. Gramsci’s appropriation of ethico-political operates, first, to accept Croce’s broad historiographical approach and to show, specifically, the importance of a moral and intellectual aspect within historical materialism, but also to recognise that the politico-economic realities of power in social relations must never be negated à la Croce (Gramsci 1995: 345). In this context, the term ‘ethico-political’ will be used in a Gramscian sense, that is, to refer to the synthesis of the moral and intellectual with political and economic exigencies to form a historic bloc. However, there are two ways that hegemonic principles can be articulated and imposed: through regressive force that ensures subaltern demands and interests are continuously subordinated or neutralised at the direction of the hegemonic group or, as part of a progressive, open and generative force. The notion of national–popular is linked to Gramsci’s reading of Italian history

Notes 167 and specifically the Risorgimento, a historical moment when the Italian national movement failed to be a popular movement. 7 It should be noted that Italian fascism as a Caesarist moment reflects Gramsci’s criticism of Croce’s conception of ethico-political as ‘an arbitrary and mechanical hypostasis of the moment of hegemony, of political leadership, of consent in the life and development of the activity of the state and civil society’ (Gramsci 1995: 345). 3 ‘Ascendency in a play of social forces’: hegemony in the theory of practice 1 Other social phenomena include class (Connell 1977; Connell and Irving 1980), education (Connell 1993), human bodies (Connell 1995: 61) and families (Connell 1987: 121). 2 Connell’s conception of crisis and crisis tendencies differ from Gramsci’s conception and will be analysed and discussed in detail later in this chapter. 3 Although Connell’s terminology has changed from ‘socialism’ (1977, 1978) to ‘social justice’ (1995), the meaning and objective remains the same. Here I have used the most recent term. 4 Weber (1978: 53) defines power as ‘the probability of one actor in a social relationship being able to exercise their will despite resistance’. 5 The idea of probability suggests that domination will operate at different levels of intensity. For example, a high probability that a command will be followed ensures the intensity of domination is high. Similarly, a low probability that a command will be followed suggests a domination operating at a low level of intensity. 6 The patriarchal dividend is defined as the advantage men in general gain from the overall subordination of women (Connell 1995: 79). 7 These categories organise the activities of intellectuals in relation to the gender order. However, these intellectual groups have a broader socio-cultural influence, for example priests not only maintain regimes of inequality within the gender order, but they also sustain inequality within the capitalist regime by supporting the ethics of work and profit, masculinism and liberalism. Crucially, however, because a clear bifurcation of intellectual function is not articulated, there is a failure to recognise the restorative/revolutionary aim and, therefore, an inability to recognise the progressive from the regressive. 8 It might be noted that President of the Promise Keepers, Tom Fortson, announced in April 2004 that this organisation would change from thinking of itself as a movement to a mission. Fortson sees the Promise Keepers project today as not political but, rather, moral. 9 Habermas identifies and discusses three social formations that mark the key periods of social evolution: primitive, traditional and liberal-capitalist. Only the primitive social formation does not involve class structures but, further, only this social formation recognises sex as a component of its principle of organisation. Thus, for Habermas, the concept of crisis in the more advanced social formations will always exclude sex or that sex is subordinated to class imperatives. 4 The application of hegemony to gender 1 For Connell (1983: 204), it is not surprising that role theory emerged when it did in Western social science, that is, during the 1930s. This was a period marked by economic and political crises which, amongst other things, initiated a questioning of the social order. Thus, role theory by the end of the 1950s had

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come to represent a social scientific attempt to understand and re-impose the legitimacy of certain institutions by outlining a theoretical position based on explaining the functional necessity of organisation, discipline and performance to the progression of a normative ordered society. The conservative political implications of role theory and its grounding ideology in sociology, that is, functionalism, was fundamentally restorative because its aim was to safeguard social order by obfuscating the power inequalities within social life (Connell 1983: 191). Connell’s ‘structural models’, while focused more on gender, are analogous to Gramsci’s ‘relations of forces’ as they both enable analysis of particular sets of relations across historical situations. The specific use of masculinities in the naming of the ‘Masculinities schema’ is to emphasise that there is a dominative masculine hegemony operating in gender politics that privileges men and masculinities over women and femininities. For example, if the relation of domination being imposed is unilateral and proceeds in a unidirectional fashion this would indicate an asymmetrical nature. However, if domination incorporates the principles of other gender types as active elements, this would indicate a symmetrical dominative relation. Donaldson’s (1993) paper, ‘What is hegemonic masculinity?’ posits that all masculinities, including hegemonic masculinity, do not operate within an autonomous gender system. To see masculinities in this way directs attention to an introspective view of gender that is incapable of recognising any exteriority. Without recognition of the exteriority of gender, Donaldson claims there can be no hope for challenge to a dominative masculine hegemony that has effectively covered all its bases. Connell does not outline the precise way in which ‘authorisation’ is produced and given. However, the analysis so far has made it possible to see authorisation as part of the legitimation process. While Connell does not suggest ‘authorisation’ is the signing off for certain anti-authority actions to occur, it goes to the fact that hegemony is not about the obliteration of the subaltern culture. There is, rather, a balancing of interests, and so long as the core hegemonic interests are not jeopardised, then authorisation is often given. Hegemonic authorisation is most explicitly exemplified in the legitimacy of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, an event that, while blatantly critical of the dominative masculine hegemony, enjoys broad cultural legitimacy and support. It should also be understood that, more recently, there is a significant economic gain to be realised from the Mardi Gras and as such many businesses and politicians and the media have sanctioned its expansion on this basis. Connell (1987: 96) argues that these ‘structures’ identified by Mitchell and which underpin her notion of complex unity are not really structures but, rather, configurations of practice. In this way, it can be argued that Connell has effectively weakened the inevitability and taken-for-grantedness of the connection between them and femininities and re-configured their existence as the outcome of certain relations that are themselves inexorably generative. This movement is something that second-wave feminism has struggled with, and this struggle is seen clearly in Psychoanalysis and Feminism, where Mitchell (1974) also struggles to engage with positions other than masculinity as patriarchy which, in the final analysis, must be overthrown. And while a cultural revolution was sought, Mitchell offered no real answers as to who would initiate this, by what means and what it would replace. The authors present empirical research on an American MBA programme, which shows that hegemonic masculine characteristics are adopted by both

Notes 169 males and females but that it is the male students who find taking on hegemonic characteristics less disruptive to their goals. 11 The ‘authoritarian’ personality is one that is submissive and obedient to those considered superordinate, yet contemptuous and aggressive towards those considered inferior. Psychoanalytic theory suggests that individuals with authoritarian personalities must continually repress knowledge of their own failings, while also looking for ways to project them onto people considered inferior (Atkinson et al. 1993: 731). 5 Construting a study of masculinities and family law: history, aims and methodology 1 Legal normativity can be understood, in line with Van Krieken’s (2000: 63) argument, that normativity is aligned to ‘morals’, ‘ethics’ or ‘principles’, which are central to the exercise of law. However, moral integrity in the legal field is closely tied to a critical attitude towards the past. Thus, a contradiction arises when ‘good law’ in the present, which is precedent based, is equated to an inability to adjust to the changed nature of the current moral community. This will be referred to as the dilemma of legal normativity. 2 To qualify this claim, particularisation does apply in the law but only with respect to the issue at hand, or as Naffine suggests to ‘any given matter’. Thus, regardless of what the inherent characteristics or beliefs of the individual are, their treatment by the law on similar ‘matters’ must also be consistent. Further, if it is possible to apply the logic employed by de Sousa Santos (1995: 337) with regards to the universality of human rights in the West, then the attainment of universalisation applying to the legal subject is possible only where the system that demands it is also accepted as representing the ideal cultural standard. 3 To be referred to as the Constitution. 4 To be referred to as the Commonwealth. 5 The term ‘matrimonial causes’ was constructed in English law to represent an ‘open’ category and remains so in the Constitution. As a result, it is not specifically clear what this category refers to and, as such, this has led to disparate interpretations within the family law judiciary. 6 By ‘Great Transformation’ is meant the effect on cultural systems of sustained economic and industrial growth underpinned by such developments as the agricultural revolution, sustained population growth, transport and social infrastructure development, capital accumulation, an entrepreneurial and profit ideology, development and application of technology, and a new role for the State. These developments combined during the period 1783 to 1802 to mark a watershed moment for modernity because it led to a long period of sustained socio-cultural growth (see Rostow 1976). 7 The scope and focus of this investigation do not make it possible to develop this claim any further, but a brief example of this complication is that in sub-section (b) the family is referred to as ‘it’ and is described as being responsible for the children. The implication from this statement is that the family can be understood in law as being the husband and wife, as separate from the children under their care. 8 The research paper by Deutsch and Saxon (1998), ‘Traditional ideology, nontraditional roles’ shows the uncomfortable position traditional gender roles occupy within the contemporary traditional family. In particular, this involves the exigencies of a dual-income household demands that traditional expectations be set aside to allow non-traditional practices. But, more importantly in this context, the authors show how non-traditional practices can become normative by re-configuring the employment of traditional ideologies.

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9 A structure of expectations is a term used here to conceptually represent the bloc of values and norms as interpreted by a family law judicial body to be communally accepted and which, in turn, frames their application of discretion that leads to certain judgments and, ultimately, a form of social justice. 10 This logic follows one similar to that employed by Goldthorpe et al. (1969) in their classic case study of working-class embourgeoisement. 11 A good example of this type of work is McKay and Middlemiss’s (1995) case study of media representations of hegemonic masculinity in Australian sport. 12 Case reports, unlike the full court transcripts, are freely accessible to the public. However, the number of reports that are available is exemplified in the fact that, within the online AUSTLII System, the ‘Family Court of Australia Cases’ database contains well in excess of 1,000 cases. Thus the magnitude of the selection task, which would involve reviewing this type of quantity of case reports, represents a substantial research issue within the confines of this study. Further, imbricated upon this substantial review process is the imperative to accurately identify a representative set of ‘key’ case reports, which deal specifically with the hegemonic principles of heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggression as they relate to masculinities. This combined task would require considerable resources as well as specialised legal knowledge, and even then the result would represent very much a ‘hit-and-miss’ process. The use of the Butterworth’s text, which is a collection of some 212 Australian cases spanning the period 1866 through to 1997, represents an excellent data source because all its cases are recognised within legal academia as expressing important and/or leading-edge judgments (Holmes 1998: iii). 13 In 1983 a separate Appeals Division of the Family Court of Australia was created, which represented an attempt to allay community concerns about consistency and objectivity in the family law judicial process, which was being seen to fail in the delivery of social justice (Dickey 1997: 71). While the selection of cases was not made on the basis of trial or appellate judgments, nevertheless, this will have significance within the study, particularly in that it offers a comparative view of judicial attitudes and justice operating across divisions. 14 The importance of this methodological approach can be seen in Gramsci’s cultural analyses. In particular, his contention that inherent to Pirandello’s work is a resolution to the problem of historical materialism, that is, the spirit-matter antithesis. This arises because emphasis is given to the predominance of the ‘history of culture’, which always prevails over the ‘history of art’. In other words, art becomes knowledge just as law becomes knowledge and, thus, praxis, only when it is connected to concrete reality understood through an awareness of history: ‘A given socio-historical moment is never homogenous; on the contrary it is rich in contradictions. It acquires a “personality” and is a “moment” of development in that a certain fundamental activity of life prevails over others and represents an historical “peak”: but this presupposes a hierarchy, a contrast and a struggle’ (Gramsci 1985: 93).

6 A critico-historical analysis of masculinities and family law: explorations into heterosexuality, breadwinning and aggression 1 In each of the cases analysed, after giving the name of the presiding judge at trial, they will then be referred to as either his or her Honour. 2 This was not possible with respect to the husband and wife because, amongst other things, the wife had left the marital home leaving the children with the husband. His Honour accepted that the reason the wife did not actively seek to

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gain residency of the children is because of mis-information given by the husband and also poor legal advice. On this basis it was not considered that the wife acted in a maternally deviant fashion and that it should not stand against her claims to residency. On the other hand, the husband had assumed the responsibility of care and control of the children for a period of almost three years with and without a partner. The injuries sustained by J included a grossly excoriated scrotum and penis and buttocks with swelling, severe dermatitis and underweight for age. The full court of the Family Court of Australia will be referred to as ‘the Bench’. After separation, the wife married B, whom she was previously having an affair with. At this time she had also decided unilaterally that the intervener take care and control of D. Further, nowhere in the case report is there evidence to suggest that the exclusion of the father from this decision was raised by either party as an issue for consideration. Section 74 of the Act (1998: 249) states that: ‘In proceedings with respect to the maintenance of a party to a marriage, the court may make such order as it considers proper for the provision of maintenance in accordance with this Part.’ The Act (1998: 258) via s 81 states: ‘In proceedings under this part, . . . the court shall, as far as practicable, make such orders as will finally determine the financial relationships between the parties to the marriage and avoid further proceedings between them.’ For example, in Jurss and Raby, two residency cases that were heard at the same historical moment as Soblusky, that is, 1975 to 1976, the alleged violence of the husbands was set aside as not relevant. However, by 1994, in In the Marriage of JG and BG, family violence became relevant in so far as it impacts, either directly or indirectly, upon the welfare of the children. The Bench’s decision was split, with Evatt CJ and Watson SJ finding in favour of the appeal and that the property settlement order be varied. However, Goldstein J found against the appeal and that his Honour did not err in his determinations or discretion. Nevertheless, the appeal was allowed. Using the additional 20 per cent, which equates to an amount of $5,200, the wife could maintain a financial position comparable to the husband’s for about three years. This would fail to see J complete school before parity is lost. Section 79(4)(c) states that: ‘the contribution made by a party to the marriage to the welfare of the family constituted by the parties to the marriage and any children of the marriage, including any contribution made in the capacity of homemaker or parent’ (1998: 158–159). This section states that: ‘the extent to which the party whose maintenance is under consideration has contributed to the income, earning capacity, property and financial resources of the other party’ (Family Law Act (Cth) 1975: 250). Section 79(4)(b) states that: ‘the contribution (other than financial contribution) made directly or indirectly by or on behalf of a party to the marriage or a child of the marriage to the acquisition, conservation or improvement of any of the property of the parties to the marriage’ (1998: 158). The Bevan case represented an appeal by the husband against the judgment at trial that, inter alia, ordered him to pay to the wife, as spousal maintenance, the sum of $175 per week. This decision represented a significant development in the interpretation of equity and compensation at the trial level because spousal maintenance was applied as a compensatory measure, notwithstanding the fact of property settlement. After consideration the Bench dismissed the husband’s appeal. However, while the division of property (valued at $280,000) favoured the wife by approximately 64 per cent to 36 per cent, the spousal maintenance amount was reduced from $175 to $50.

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15 This point is particularly significant given that both her Honour and the Bench determined that the husband’s superannuation should remain with the husband. 16 Although in 1977, in In the Marriage of Issom (7 Fam LR: 90–238), Fogerty J determined that the wife’s conduct in abandoning the husband and children did throw light on her character as a potential custodian and, further, it disentitled her to any claim for maintenance. 17 The selection of domestic violence cases for analysis has been significantly reduced because of the lack of cases that, first, meet the ‘domestic violence’ definition (see below) and, second, that represent ‘stand-alone’ cases. From the Butterworths collection, two case reports presented ‘domestic violence’ as a specific issue upon which the judiciary was being asked to make determinations regarding social justice in gender. However, the analyses will have to draw on a number of non-specific ‘domestic violence’ cases as supporting arguments. 18 The sex-role incorporates sex-role norms, which are the shared prescriptive beliefs about what the sexes should be like, not what they actually are like: these are sex-role stereotypes (Pleck 1981: 10–11). 19 It should be noted that in Soblusky (1976) the alleged emotional, economic and physical violence of the wife was very clearly taken into consideration in determining economic outcomes. 20 The data offered here must be qualified in that it does not represent indigenous women in any substantial way and neither does it indicate the ethnicity of the women respondents, making any detailed conclusions problematic. 21 While a very specific focus towards family violence is taken here because of the objectives of this study, it is recognised, in line with Tomison (2000: 2), that the perpetrators of violence in intimate heterosexual relationships do include women so that men, too, are being assaulted. Further, it is recognised that violence does occur in same-sex relationships. 22 The efficacy of this separation is starkly presented in Foucault’s (1985: 143–151) discussion of ‘The wisdom of marriage’ in The History of Sexuality Volume 2. Here, in Ancient Greek society, punishment for the adulterous wife is meted out at both the private and public level, while punishment for the husband is restricted to public punishment. This situation is shown as maintained within the ecclesiastical law that continues to underpin contemporary conceptions of social justice. In other words, historically, the husband operating within the private sphere held the right to exert his patriarchal authority autonomously of the public law. 23 In finding that this violence is understandable and legally normative within the family law system does not suggest that, on this occasion, the fourth time the husband had appeared before the courts, the family law system, the justice system and counsel did not believe that these actions should go unpunished. Rather, given that they occurred as a reaction to a relationship crisis, the behaviour of the husband was viewed as consistent with society’s acceptance of masculine inexpressiveness manifesting as violence, and in this context should be understood. This finding is consistent with Busch’s (1994: 106) study of domestic violence in the New Zealand situation, where it was found that because the re-constitution of the family is valued over the welfare of individual members, there is a predilection on the part of judges to favour counselling or other ‘opportunities’ as opposed to the granting of effective policing of protection orders. 24 It is important to note here that, given this violence was directed at the mother, the determination of his Honour to keep the child with the mother speaks directly and negatively to the persistence of the judicial negation of masculine emotionality, certainly at the trial level.

Notes 173 25 See also In the Marriage of Harrison and Woollard (18 Fam LR: 788), a case that exposes the contextual and consequential complexities of domestic violence and their interconnections with other conceptual frames, such as the mother principle. Here the mother was unable to prevent violence towards the eldest girl child by her new partner and, further, was of a mental state that led to her exacting violence upon herself in two failed suicidal episodes. Nevertheless, at trial her Honour set aside both manifestations of domestic violence and determined that residency of the two children should remain with the wife rather than the husband, effectively on the basis of the mother principle. 26 It is important to note at this point that by ‘social justice’ I do not mean the justice that is delivered at the individual case level. Rather, I am referring to justice that operates at the hegemonic and situational level (see Chapter 3). It is at this higher level of articulation that it becomes possible to get some grip on the nature of justice as social and a product of situational crisis but, more importantly, by the type of hegemonic project operating on this crisis – that is, either restorative (aligned to complicity), ambivalent (expressed as conjunctural movements) or revolutionary (expressed as socio-historic opposition). 27 By intra-divisional inconsistency, I refer to judgments made in the first instance at trial, and which sit contradistinctively to one another. However, because these judgments sit predominantly at the same judicial level, the inconsistency they represent is predominantly temporal in nature. In other words, they show the dilemma of legal normativity in historical context. On the other hand, interdivisional inconsistency is predominantly spatial, that is operating across trial and appellate divisions rather than temporal in nature. Thus, it gives a more immediate sense of the ambivalence, operating within the current hegemony. 28 This knowledge should not be confused with contextual or case-specific knowledge. Instead, the judiciary must develop knowledge that recognises the influence of the situational thematic on people’s actions. Thus, moral and intellectual decisions cannot be made without accepting that context specificity is always a contingent product of situation specificity.

7 Radical pluralism 1 This includes Gramsci’s work as will be shown. 2 While Laclau and Mouffe (1985: ix) do not refer to their work as postmarxist, they ‘accept’ the label if it is used in the sense of ‘reappropriation’ and ‘going beyond it’. This is because, as they state, postmarxism cannot be conceived just as an internal history of Marxism. Many social antagonisms, many issues which are crucial to the understanding of contemporary societies, belong to fields of discursivity [and thus practices]that are external to Marxist categories – given, especially, that their very presence is what puts Marxism as a closed theoretical system into question, and leads to the postulation of new starting points for social analysis. 3 Following Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 105) ‘moments’ will refer to differential positions articulated within a discourse. By contrast, ‘element’ will refer to any difference that is not discursively articulated, given that ‘articulation’ refers to any practice establishing a relation among elements such that their identity is modified as a result. In this context, ‘discourse’ will refer to the structured totality of all articulatory practices. There should be no concern about the application of these post-foundationalist concepts to understanding hegemony because they effectively represent praxis, or the synergy of theory–practice. 4 The application of this type of anti-reductionism can only apply through moral

174

5 6

7

8

9 10

Notes

and intellectual leadership, where all interests are recognised and consensus is the aspiration. It fails at the dominative hegemonic level because, as has been shown already (see above), the hegemonic principles of a dominative hegemony are, in the final analysis, the protected ineluctable determinants of social justice. See ‘Americanism and Fordism’ (Gramsci 1971: 279–318) where the relationality inherent to the historical bloc is explicated. While hegemonic principles are always open to change, the nature and process of this change is conjunctural at a dominative level, where regression is enforced in crisis; and organic at the aspirational level where progression produces ‘unstable equlibria’. In addition, Mario Telò (1982: 200–210) makes the very important point in his essay, ‘The factory councils’ that a defect of Gramsci’s pre-prison writings, particularly the Ordine Nuovo articles, is that they tended to support a productivism that saw the capitalist factories as a basis for a new proletariat state. However, in the prison notebooks and, particularly, the notes under ‘Americanism and Fordism’, Telò argues that Gramsci begins to articulate a much more critical and complex view in which leadership plays a crucial role in articulating a new development and not just re-configuring the capitalist system. While the constraints on this chapter do not allow further elaboration on this point, it is perhaps important to note that Laclau and Mouffe’s critique of hegemony is based on viewing it as a political singularity and, as such, they must apply a literal or ‘politico-practical’ reading of Gramsci’s fundamental class to its operation. Thus, they fail to give significance to Gramsci’s (1971: 333) emphatic claim ‘that the political development of the concept of hegemony represents a great philosophical advance as well as a politico-practical one’ [my emphasis]. Thus, before identity can be produced, there is struggle in the ‘ethical field’ and then in the ‘political field’. In other words, without gaining victory of the mind, knowledge and spirit (which must never be disconnected from concrete action), the importance and success of all other struggles are made problematic. Thus, without the successful imposition of moral and intellectual hegemonic principles as the legitimate benchmark of ethico-political discourse, which emanates from the organic intellectuals (whose function it is to recognise and manage all cultural interests), to speak of fundamental classes determining unity is to locate discussion at the level of dominative and not aspirational politics. In other words, the analyses in earlier chapters have shown that (and Laclau and Mouffe 1985 would also accept this argument), while there is a point of departure for progressive action, it is clear that organic critique must produce knowledge that has no necessary and particular class alignment. The terms ‘system’ and ‘anti-system’ will be used to represent the concepts ‘dominative hegemony’ and ‘counter-hegemony’ respectively. It is interesting to note that Laclau (1985 with Mouffe), while criticising Gramsci’s fundamentalism in war of position has, in his later work (See Butler et al. 2000), unproblematically stressed the importance of defining a ‘frontier’ and ‘general equivalent’ in developing anti-system activity. Both of these concepts will be discussed in detail later; nevertheless, it is important to note here that the concept of ‘frontier’, while argued to be crucial for radical pluralism, effectively presents struggle as a dichotomic structuring of system and anti-system forces, where the ‘general equivalent’ is the anti-system representative that is capable of universalising the various subaltern antagonistic particularities. In this context, it becomes evident that the process of ‘chaining equivalences’ upon which radical plural democracy develops is simply war of position removed of class as the determinant or point of departure for organic unity. Thus, the implicit fundament-

Notes 175

11

12 13

14

15

16

17

18

alism it attempts to overcome is not so much transcended as applied to the process later – thereby overcoming apriorism. However, unlike Gramsci’s moral and intellectual leadership as the driving force in war of position, Laclau’s general equivalent (as will be shown later) is not developed to the same level of complexity and sophistication, and therefore leaves a gap in terms of the philosophical and organisational processes that underpin the logic of equivalence. This point is of particular significance for gender in a liberal-democratic scheme because it reflects a movement away from the view that the demands of white middle-class femininity as representing the substantive good is superordinate to other demands posited by other subaltern gender types within ‘The masculinities schema’. I have referred to LIBERAL in this way to emphasise its superordinate or dominative position over the hegemony of liberal-democracy. It should be recognised that there are articulations of deliberative democracy that challenge the a priori nature of the Rawlsian model. In Iris Marion Young’s Inclusion and Democracy (2000), the author attempts to think through ‘discussion’ as the basis of a ‘deliberative politics’ that attempts to enable everyone to speak and criticise freely and thereby widen democratic inclusion. In this model deliberative democracy and justice emerge always from the social relations through which discussion operates and are never constrained by some exogenously imposed essential ‘right’. I have already argued above that Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) concerns regarding Gramsci’s fundamentalism can be qualified by understanding that moral and intellectual leadership operating in war of position must reject corporatist values and that it is the hegemonic principles, which emerge through the development of an historical bloc within a situation, that define and expand a social group’s hegemony, not their identity per se. This claim fits neatly into the framework set by Gramsci’s notion of the individual’s two theoretical consciousnesses, where the first operates implicitly in the practical transformation of the real world and the second, explicitly or verbally as determining moral conduct and the direction of will. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was promulgated on 26 August 1789 and claimed that men were free and equal in rights, that social distinctions could only be founded on common utility, that the purpose of all political association was the preservation of the rights of man, and that the law was the expression of the general will (Black 1990: 422). However, even the articulation of this moment is a product of the discourse to emerges from the ‘natural-law’ school of philosophy and thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau (Rudè 1985: 107). Laclau (in Butler et al. 2000) and, for that matter, Laclau and Mouffe (1985), do not develop the project of the general ‘equivalent’ further than claiming it to be the symbolic representation of the chain. As such, it is not clear exactly what is meant by ‘represent’ the chain as a whole, given that, while it is symbolic, it must develop as a concrete particularity. Therefore, does this equivalent also operate in a moral and intellectual leadership capacity? Nevertheless, the logic of equivalence demands that it is ‘only by coming out of itself’, in other words, that particular identities and interests must emerge from their corporatist shells and hegemonise to ‘external elements’ that the various disparate antagonisms can become consolidated (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 182). It will be held that in a radical plural democracy the management of this task is the project of the general ‘equivalent’. Given that the general equivalent is the symbolic representative of the chain of equivalences, and drawing on Lacanian theory where the symbolic order is

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marked by a phallogocentrism, the argument made above that protest femininities is best suited to initiate, organise and represent the anti-system challenge is sustained. 8 Radical organic protest in gender 1 The idea that transformistic operations are initiated by the system to undermine the potential towards equivalence and universality is similar to the hegemonic mechanism referred to in Chapter 3 as ‘cultural disarticulation’. 2 Gramsci uses the term ‘elite’ here to refer to the revolutionary vanguard of a social class in constant contact with its political and intellectual base. 3 In Men and the Boys (2000), Connell has softened his approach to discourse in the theory of practice by recognising the importance of ‘symbolism’ as a structural model in what is now a four-fold structuring of gender relations. 9 Conclusion 1 It must be stressed that since Gender Trouble (1990), Butler’s view of hegemony has changed to now be in line with that established by Laclau and Mouffe in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985). In effect, Butler’s understanding of hegemony is of a ‘normative and optimistic moment’, which ‘consists precisely in the possibilities for expanding the democratic possibilities’ and ‘rendering them more inclusive, more dynamic and more concrete’ (Butler, in Butler et al. 2000: 13). In other words, Butler’s coalitional politics now assumes a radical plural democratic vision.

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Index

The arrangement is letter-by-letter. References to notes are prefixed by n. Act see Family Law Act 1975 Adamson, W. L. 12, 22, 23, 28 Adorno, T. W. 47–8 Agger, B. 48 aggression 74–6, 88; see also domestic violence alliance politics 5, 6, 141–2, 154–5, 159 Althusser, L. 36, 147 ambivalent femininities 67, 68–71, 129 ‘Analysis of situations: relations of force’ essay 13–16 Anderson, P. 4, 10 antagonism 131–6, 141, 142 antifeminism 50 ‘anti-system’ activity 129 Appeals Division 88n13 ‘articulation’ 125n3, 126 aspirational hegemony 9, 27, 31–2, 124–30, 134, 155, 163 assertiveness: female 76–7 Atkinson, R. L. 76n11 Australia: family laws 82–3 authorisation 63–5 authoritarianism 76 authority: crisis of 24, 29 Bailey-Harris, R. 114 Bales, R. F. 47, 56, 84 Barclay, L. 83 Barnard, F. M. 131 Behrens, J. 101, 102 Biddulph, Steve 1 Bobbio, Norberto 16, 17, 22, 132 bodies: in feminism 69–70 Bowlby, John 96 Boy Scouts 78

boys: problem 2 breadwinner role 74–5, 77–8, 88, 100–1 Breuer, J. 147 Brod, H. 74 Bryant, Diana 85 Bukharin, N. 15 Busch, R. 118n23 Butler, Judith 72, 130, 135, 136, 137, 159, 161 Butterworths’ Students Companions: Family Law 88 Buttigieg, J. A. 13, 14 Caesarism 23–24 Cammett, J. M. 11 Carrigan, T. 2, 86 ‘case for men’s studies, The’ essay 74–5 case studies: family law case reports see family law case reports ‘catharsis’ 21–2, 129 cathexis 88 Catholic Church 81 Chant, S. 102 children 77–8 ‘Child residency adjudication’ paper 96 Christian men’s movement 49–50 Church, the 81–2 civil society 16–18 Class Structure in Australian History 45, 46 ‘coalitional politics’ 159 Collier, R. 118 Commonwealth of Australia 82 Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 82

Index 185 communism 71 compensation problematic 102–9 complicit masculinities 65–6, 129 Connell, R. W. 1; alliance politics 159; authorisation 63–4; categoricalism 56, 101; crisis tendencies 50–4, 76; ‘de-gendering strategy’ 5–6, 154; domination 42–5; dominative masculine hegemony 61–2, 145, 153; femininities 66, 67, 68, 70; gendered practice 57–8, 73; heterosexual reciprocity 91; historicity 40–1; liberal pluralism 142; masculinities 2–3; mass politics 141; mechanisms of hegemony 45–50; onto-formativity 39–40; power 116, 118; power–liberation nexus 42; protest masculinities 65; relationality 37–9; Restoration period 77; second-wave feminism 72; situation 35–7; structural inventory 58, 75, 88; subordinate masculinity 62–3; theory of practice see theory of practice; understanding of hegemony 42 Constitution see Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 consumerism 47 Cotterrell, R. 80 Crane, Ichabod 78 crisis: concept of 51–2; of masculine identity 76–9 crisis of authority 24, 29 crisis tendencies 35, 50–4, 76–9 critico-historical approach 89 Croce, B. 15 cultural disarticulation 45–7, 49, 64, 139n1 cultural dominance 43–4 ‘culture industry’ 47–8 Davidson, A. 13 ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man’ 135, 136, 152, 163 ‘de-gendering strategy’ 5–6, 153, 154–5, 159 Delphy, C. 83 detached hegemony 27, 28–9 Deutsch, F. M. 86n8 Dialectic of Enlightenment 47 Dialectic of Sex, The 69 Dialectics of the Concrete 39 Dickey, A. 75, 81, 83, 103, 104 dictatorship: Lenin’s notion of 11

dictatorship–hegemony nexus 9, 11 difference: logic of 144–6 Dinnerstein, D. 152 ‘disarticulation’ 36 discourse 146–7 ‘discrepancy strain’ 78 discursive dispersion 150–3 division of labour 100–1 divorce 79; family law 82–3 Dobash, R. E. 115 Dobash, R. P. 115 domestic violence 88, 89, 104, 114–22 domination 42–5 dominative hegemony 9, 27, 29–31, 42–4, 153, 154; mechanisms of control 44–50 dominative masculine hegemony 61–2 Donaldson, M. 3, 46, 63n5, 74 ecclesiastical principles 81–2, 130 ‘economic–corporative’ level: political forces 20 Economy and Society 43 Edley, N. 55, 56 education: North America 78 ‘elements’ 125n3, 126, 127 elite intellectuality 140–1 emphasised femininity 66–8, 134 equivalences 141, 142; of antagonism 133–6 equivalent, general 136–7 equivalent logic 133–6, 140, 164 essays: ‘Analysis of situations: relations of force’ 13–16; ‘Some aspects of the Southern question’ 10–12, 32, 124, 156; ‘The case for men’s studies’ 74–5; ‘The traffic in women’ 56–7 essentialism 38–9, 50 ethico-politics 22 Faludi, S. 50, 74, 76 familial multiplicity 84, 85 family, the 68, 75, 76, 78–9; in feminist literature 83–4; hegemonic 86; traditional 85–6 Family Court of Australia 83, 85 family law 158; Australian (1900–1975) 82–3; ecclesiastical influence 81–2; universality 81 Family Law Act 1975 83, 85, 101–2, 103, 109

186

Index

family law case reports 158; aims 86–8; analytical method 88–90; data selection 88; Gronow v. Gronow 95–6; marriage of Bennett 97–8; marriage of Bevan 112; marriage of Chandler 96–7; marriage of Dench 106–9; marriage of Jaegar 119–21; marriage of Jurss 92–4; marriage of Marsh 121–2; marriage of Mitchell 112–13; marriage of Napthali 109–12; marriage of Rose 94–5; marriage of Schwarzkopff 117–19; marriage of Soblusky 104–6; McMillan v. Jackson 98–100, 144–5, 149; residency case law 91–100 family law system 83 Family, Sex and Marriage, The 81 family violence 115–16; see also domestic violence fascism 23–4 fascist–capitalist alliance: Italy 30 fatherhood 49–50 father’s rights and support groups 1, 49–50 Femia, J. V. 13, 28 femininities: ambivalent 67, 68–71; emphasised 66–8; protest 67, 71–3 ‘femininities bloc’ 66–73 feminisation: of masculinity 77–8 feminism 69–71; second-wave 1, 2, 6, 68–9, 72, 84, 130, 140–1, 155, 163 feminist movement 1, 2 Finer, S. 152 Finlay, H. A. 81, 82, 83 Finocchiaro, M. A. 12 Firestone, Shulamith 69 force: use of 22–3 Fortson, Tom 49n8 Foucalt, M. 62, 116n22 foundationalism 127, 129, 142–3, 147–8 Freeman, Jo (Joreen) 69 Freud, S. 67, 78, 147 Frieden, Betty 84 ‘frontier’ 136, 140–4 functionalism 1–2 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 63n6, 64 gender: relationality of 128–9 Gender and Power 34, 37 gendered practice 57–8 gender identity 37–9 gender injustice: and the family 83–4 gender multiplicity: conceptualising 55–8

gender order 3; crisis tendencies 53 gender politics 4 gender regimes 58 gender relations: and masculinity 1 Gender Trouble 72 general equivalent 136–7, 164 German Ideology, The 71 Gilgun, J. F. 115 Goldthorpe, J. H. 88n10 Golumbia, D. 140 Goodman, Ellen 96–7 Gottfried, H. 4 Gramsci, Antonio: civil society 16–18; continuity 87; critico-historical approach 89n14; ‘cultural–social’ unity 126; elite intellectuality 141; hegemony 4, 9–12; historical materialism 58, 128; intellectual activities 49; national–popular energy 22–6; praxis 39; Prison Notebooks 4, 12–18, 32–3; relation of forces 18–22; Southern Question essay 10–12, 32, 124, 156; tripartite model of hegemony 26–32, 60, 157; war of position 129, 141, 148 Grant, J. 70 Gray, John 1 Graycar, R. 93, 102, 103, 116 Great Transformation 84 Greer, Germaine 67, 69 Habermas, J. 48, 51, 52 Harris, M. 55 Hartley, Ruth 39 Hegel, G. W. F. 17, 84 hegemonic family 86 hegemonic instability 50–4 hegemonic masculinity: concept of 5; defining characteristics 60–2; Donaldson’s description 3; and emphasised femininities 134; and social justice 154 hegemonic mechanisms 44–50 hegemonic principles 23, 74–6, 151, 153 hegemony: aspirational 27, 31–2; concept of 4–5; detached 27, 28–9; dominative 27, 29–31; meaning of 9; tripartite model 26–32 Hegemony and Socialist Strategy 124, 132, 161 hegemony–dictatorship nexus 9, 11 heterosexuality 62–3, 74–5, 88; residency case law 91–100

Index 187 heterosexual reciprocity 91–2, 100–1 Heyward, A. 131 historical materialism 14–16, 58 historicity 40–1 Hogg, M. 55 Holmes, D. 88n12 home ownership: ideology of 47 homophobia 50 homosexuality 62–4, 75 Honderich, T. 115 Horkheimer, M. 47–8 Horrocks, R. 76 Hoyle, Caroline 119 idealism 14–15 ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) 36 ideology: and reproduction 36 Ingleby, R. 116 intellectual activity 24–5, 49–50 intellectuality: elite 140–1 intellectuals 25–6, 49–50 ‘interpenetration’ 84 Irving, T. H. 45 ISAs see ideological state apparatuses Jessop, B. 36 Joll, J. 23, 32 Jones, E. 67 Joreen (Jo Freeman) 69 justice, social see social justice Kaufman, M. 98 Kilduff, M. 75, 115 Kimmel, M. S. 51, 57, 76, 77, 78 Kinsman, G. 62 Kosìk, K. 39, 41 Kozlov, G. A. 35 labour 88; division of 100–1 Laclau, Ernesto: absent completeness 149–50; antagonism 131–3; discourse 146; discursive dispersion 150–3; equivalence 131–6; ‘general’ equivalent 136; overdetermination 148; postmarxist paradigm 124–30; totality 144; transformistic operations 139 Langman, L. 44, 45 law: and social justice 80–1 legal normativity 80, 87, 122 legitimacy 47–9, 80 legitimation 47–9 Legitimation Crisis 51, 52

Lenin, V. I. 9 Leninism 124 Leonard, D. 83 Levant, R. F. 76, 78–9 liberal-democracy 131–3 liberalism 131–3 liberal pluralism 142 Lloyd, Genevieve 84 logic of difference 144–6 logic of equivalence 134, 164 Lupton, D. 83 Luxemburg, Rosa 148 McCartney, Bill 49 McGee, C. 120 McKay, J. 88n11 Mackinnon, Catherine 69 McLeod, L. 115 Manhood 1 Mann, Horace 78 Man of Reason, The 84 Marcuse, H. 40–1 Marks, Louis 12 marriage 76–7; family law 82–3 Marriage Act 1961 83 Marx, K. 14, 15, 17, 56–7, 71 Marxism 18, 70, 124, 125, 156; extension of 10–11 Marxist theory 35–6 masculine ideal 3 Masculinities 34 masculinities: complicit 65–6; hegemonic see hegemonic masculinity; marginilised 63–5; multiple 2–3; protest 65–6; subordinate 62–3 masculinities schema 59–60, 72, 73–4, 127, 134, 139, 158 masculinities theory 5, 57, 60–6, 141, 157–8; femininities 66–73 masculinity 53; feminisation of 77–8; interest in 1 materialism 14–15 maternal deprivation thesis 96 Matrimonial Causes Act 1959 83 mechanisms: of hegemony 44–50 Mehra, A. 75, 115 Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus 1 men’s movements 1 Messner, M. 63 Middlemiss, I. 88n11 military forces: relation of 19–20 Millet, K. 2

188

Index

Mitchell, Juliet 68, 70, 72n9, 83, 84 Modern Prince and Other Writings, The 12, 14 Moge v. Moge 112 ‘moments’ 125, 126, 127 Morgan, J. 93, 102, 103, 116 mother principle 93, 152 Mouffe, Chantal 29, 70, 72–3, 124–33, 137, 138, 142, 146, 150–3

Pringle, K. 115, 117 Prison Notebooks 4, 10, 12–18, 32–3, 128, 156 progressive force 22–3 Promise Keepers, The 49–50 protest 73–4 protest femininities 67, 71–3, 143–4, 161, 163 protest masculinities 65–6, 129

Naffine, N. 80, 81, 89, 107–8 ‘national–popular collective will’ 23, 24 Nemeth, T. 12 Nicholson, Alastair 84, 101 ‘nodal points’ 151, 153 no-fault principle: marital breakdown 83, 114 normativity: legal 80, 87 North America: crisis of masculinity 76, 77–8 notebooks: Gramsci’s see Prison Notebooks Nygh, Peter 114

queer identities 63–5

objective knowledge 14–15 O’Donovan, K. 104, 107 onto-formativity 39–40 oppression 134–5; of women 70 organic intellectuals 25–6, 49–50, 140 overdetermination 144–50 papers: ‘Child residency adjudication’ 96; ‘Sex-role pressures and the socialisation of the male child’ 39 Parker, S. 82, 83, 102, 116 Parsons, T. 47, 56, 84, 86 patriarchy 5, 61 ‘permanent revolution’ 18 Petersen, A. 2, 38, 76 Phenomenology of Spirit 84 Pleck, J. H. 75, 76, 77, 78, 98, 115 pluralism 142 political forces: relation of 20–2 political society–civil society nexus 16–18 ‘politico-juridical’ level 20–1 post-industrialism 1 Post-Industrial Society, The 128 postmarxism 124, 136 Poulantzas, N. 36 power 88 praxis 39 Preobrazhensky, E. 15 Prince family 37–8

radical feminism 69 radical intellectuality 140–4 radical organic protest: clear frontier 140–4; objective 155; overdetermination 144–50; paradox 149–50; principles of 139–40; radical intellectuality 140–4; unrealisibility 161–2 radical pluralism: antagonism 130–3, 159–60; aspirational hegemony 124–30; equivalent logic 133–6, 160; universality 136–8 Rawls, J. 132 reciprocity 91–1, 100–1, 134 relationality 37–9; of gender 128–9 relation of forces 18–22 repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) 36 reproduction, social 35–7 research, academic 1–2 residency adjudication 88, 89 residency case law 91–100 Restoration period 76–7 Return of the Political, The 72 rights 135, 152, 163 Risorgimento 28 Roberts, J. M. 81 Roberts, K. A. 55 Robertson Elliot, F. 55 ‘roles’ 78–9, 86 role theory 2, 39, 56 Rostow, W. W. 84n6 Roszak, B. 69 Roszak, T. 69 RSAs see repressive state apparatuses Rubin, Gayle 56 Salvadori, M. 9 Sarantakos, S. 88 Saxon, S. E. 86n8 second-wave feminism 1, 2, 6, 68–9, 72, 84, 130, 140–1, 155, 163

Index 189 Seddon, N. 114 Segal, R. A. 47, 76, 83, 85 Selections from the Prison Notebooks 14 self-knowledge 6, 15, 128–9 sex-role norms 115 ‘Sex-role pressures and the socialisation of the male child’ paper 39 sex-role theory 2, 56 sexual violence 39 Sifris, A. 102, 103, 109, 111 Silverstein, L. B. 49, 50 single-parent households 102 situation: theory of practice 35–7 situationality: of hegemonic principles 61–2 situational thematic 35, 157 Smart, B. 71 Smyth, B. 101, 102 social change 40–1 social constructivist school 55, 56–7 social forces: relation of 18 social formations 52 socialist feminism 69–70 social justice 3–4, 6, 34–5, 42, 87–8, 122–3, 142, 154; family law 81 ‘social reproduction’ 35–6, 52 socio-biological school 55–6, 58 socio-human reality 39–40 ‘Some aspects of the Southern question’ essay 10–12, 32, 124, 156 Sousa Santos de, B. 82 spousal maintenance 88, 89; family law case reports 101–13 State Family Courts 83 Stone, Lawrence 81, 93 structural models 58 structures of expectations 80 subordinate masculinity 62–3 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 63n6, 64 ‘system’ activity 129

42–5; hegemonic mechanisms 44–50; historicity 40–1; masculinities schema 59–60; onto-formativity 39–40; practice–history nexus 34–5; relationality 37–9; situation 35–7, 157; subversion 135 Tomison, A. 120 Tong, R. 69 Touraine, Alain 1n1, 128 ‘traditional family’ 85–6 traditional intellectuals 25–6, 49–50 ‘Traffic in women, The’ essay 56–7 transformistic operations 139–40 tripartite model of hegemony 26–32, 60, 147, 157, 159 Turin Communists 9–10

Telò, Mario 128n7 theory of practice: crisis tendencies 50–4; and discourse 143; domination

Zaretsky, E. 47, 84 Zerilli, L. M. 137 ‘zero-sum’ scenario 127, 129–30

universality 136–8 universality/particularity distinction 149–50 Vance, C. S. 56 Vaughan, G. 55 violence 39, 74–6; and dominance 43 see also domestic violence war of position 129, 141 Waters, M. 35 Weber, Max 43 Weedon, C. 70 Wernick, A. 63 Western cultures: gender politics 1 Wetherell, M. 55, 56 Whole Woman, The 67 Wickersham, J. 4 Wilson, Edward 55 Wollstonecraft, Mary 135 women’s rights 135 working-class men 46 Young, Iris Marion 132n13