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Tomsen, Stephen; Gadd, David --- "Beyond Honour and Achieved Hegemony: Violence and the Everyday Masculinities of Young Men" [2019] IntJlCrimJustSocDem 14; (2019) 8(2) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 17
- Introduction
-
- Results and discussion
- Intimate partner violence
- While all participants openly identified as heterosexual, only about half had a regular girlfriend and few were married or lived with
women partners. Most implied that, for them, the critical site of relevance for any questions about violence against women was in
relation to intimate partner conflict. Questions posed about intimate partners and family violence proved troubling for these young
men. These were often first met with quick repetition of official government-led campaign messages that regarded such violence as
taboo. Some also elaborated on this with their own view that there was an imperative to disengage from any heated dispute:
- However, a substantial minority of participants drawn from across racial and ethnic lines held to more traditional views about gender.
These participants subverted any pacifist or equality talk with their insistence that true men should be able to properly manage
their relations with women through firm authority. Hence, there would be no need to resort to direct physical violence:
- Further, these participants clung to traditional notions about the physical assertion of male power over women. Corporal discipline
in families and the parental correction of disobedient children were viewed as unfortunate but sometimes quite reasonable. Female
compliance was a rudimentary expectation in building a harmonious couple, and control could be used to secure a relationship that
outwardly complied with male dominance. Elements of protecting male honour and a shoring up of the relationship authority of men
as sexual partners and husbands became interwoven here:
- Very few participant remarks about domestic violence were as candid as this. The overwhelming majority of participants appeared more
ambivalent about such violence, even though their views generated an excuse for physical force and coercion. This ambivalence was
typically reflected in how personal memories or anecdotes regarding ostensibly excusable violence placed a narrative stress on overt
female provocation of events. In this way, the accounts concerned punishing and limiting shameful behaviour by women ‘troublemakers’
who had embarrassed or harmed others (e.g., by spreading a false rumour or flirting with other men), rather than any routine case
of discipline for disobedience of husbands and male partners.
- In the idealised descriptions of settled personal relations and good families given by most of these young men, there would never
be a need to exercise such violence. In particular, they spoke of ‘out-of-control’ arguments and physical fights between
young men and girlfriends as an especially hazardous aspect of finding satisfying long-term relationships. Girls and women who provoked
emotional trouble and even themselves resorted to violence—whether directed against other women or committed to manipulate
their boyfriends—were simply figures of shame and ultimately not worthy of romantic commitment. In specific circumstances,
the coercive so-called ‘restraining’ of some women could be appropriate or unavoidable because it was necessary for their
own protection. In these contexts, reasonable men might seek either to calm overly ‘emotional’ girlfriends by only using
whatever force was necessary to protect themselves or shield their partners from self-harm.
- Recreational violence between men
- Despite this collective disapproval of intimate partner and domestic or family violence in general, a minority of the men recruited
for this study were far more vocal about their involvements with public recreational violence, and proudly aggressive in their accounts
of encounters in which they felt they had protected personal masculine status in their own peer group. Conversations mostly focused
on violent clashes between men. Young men from Middle-Eastern families and the few Indigenous participants, for example, were all
adamant that they would react quickly and physically to any overt or perceived racism in their daily lives.
- An adherence to this injustice-rectifying aggression seemed most pronounced of all among young men from Pacific Islander backgrounds.
These men regularly fought with males from other ethnic groups and they referred to the indignities of casual racism—from both
Anglo-Australians and rival ethnic groups—as an explanation for much violence. They also frequently clashed with each other
over rival access to street territory. In parts of western Sydney dominated by rival Maori and Tongan gangs, clashes over access
to drug dealing territory were a regular related motive.
- The significance of this became directly apparent when one participant arrived late and still donning a hooded top that covered his
face. By way of apology, he showed a sharp knife he had brought with him. He explained that the focus group was being held in territory
he perceived as a serious risk to enter on his own, despite his large body size and fighting experience. His tone seemed to reflect
a genuine concern about personal safety rather than a cheap attempt to impress the group. A neophyte participation in the criminal
economy in an urban area with high unemployment of unskilled youth, and the pressure to be noticed by bosses in gangs led by older,
street-smart men, were the backdrop to these accounts of social disputes that sometimes escalated into serious violence with stabbings,
medical emergencies and hospital admissions.
- A minority of these young men also held to essentialist views about the links between masculinity, aggression and violence. Their
group conversation often insisted that there was an inherent or even instinctive relation between male hormones and an urge to resort
to quick physical measures if men were challenged in disputes and conflicts in their personal and broader social interactions. Among
those more inclined to violence, this seemed like a final excuse for their disposition, although ironically, it also undermined their
own sense of agency. However, these sorts of essentialist views were not unique among those more committed to very aggressive responses
to perceived insults and disrespect. Essentialist and other accounts of socially determined, or chosen and reasoned violence, were
often mixed up in the narratives about male violence and how it unfolded.
- The pressures of individual self-respect, group and community belonging, and a wider need to defend masculine honour in social interaction,
were all described as commonplace. Many of the accounts related these factors assumed the form of narratives about participation
in episodes of violence that seemed to fit the criminological blueprint of escalating conflicts over seemingly petty slights, that
are nonetheless, felt as very real matters by many young men. Recreational violence arose from occasions of playing or watching contact
sports, night-time leisure at pubs and clubs, or house parties with frequent drug use and collective heavy drinking. These were all
scenarios that our participants suggested derived from a sharpened sensitivity to disrespect and insults to honour.
- Principled violence
- The danger of these escalating disputes that appeared to be character contests over honour and reputation were obvious enough. However,
these scenarios were often viewed and mutually understood as compelling situations that, at the time, were believed to be difficult
to resist and avoid. For example, one Lebanese–Australian youth related how he attempted to protect a girl from harassing telephone
calls and sexual innuendo by another young man in their extended social circle. He did this by delivering his own telephone warning
to the caller. The harassing caller and his own friends then drove to the participant’s family house. He and his father confronted
them in a knife fight in their front driveway. This resulted in an almost fatal blow to this youth’s lower back and a deep
scar that he lowered his trousers to show us and with which to corroborate his account. Other focus group participants expressed
their relief about his lucky escape in this incident. They also commented on the cowardly nature of a knife attack from behind. This
was a distinct contrast from accepting the need for the dangerous but upfront and symbolically manly ‘face off’. There
was no questioning or criticism of his pathway to involvement in this violent incident or a mention of any alternative ways of resolving
this sort of dispute.
-
- This was regarded as a particularly perilous occasion of hard-to-avoid violence, although it was uncertain if the stabbed participant
in this group really had a solidly established link to the ‘girlfriend’ he claimed to protect. Yet, in relation to this
and similar matters, most young men in our groups believed that there was a ‘moral line’ of respect that is often crossed
in social interaction in which the unacceptable behaviour of others will finally necessitate an aggressive warning or probable violence.
To a critical outsider, these sorts of occasions seemed to be matters that involve a real measure of personal choice, and that also
might be managed through other means. However, even in cases that clearly involved their own obvious victimisation, reporting to
authorities was regarded as a very unlikely course of action. Participants expected no real understanding of cause and blame in such
incidents from police, security and other authorities who might witness or hear about such conflicts. Further, there was little doubt
that police would have a limited interest in prior intervention in the myriad number of such disputes that permeate an urban community,
before they each escalate into a far more serious or lethal matter (see Tomsen and Wadds 2016).
-
- The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence uncovered in other focus group research on young men’s violence
(Ravn 2018) was ever present, but also extended as a moral binary by a view of legitimate violence as heroic in form. A masculine
‘heroic’ image of self-sufficiency when in personal trouble or even as someone who regularly rescues others, is a common
way that young men and boys conceive of their own autonomous way of managing social conflict and harm (Gadd et al. 2014). This heroic
self-understanding gave a further dimension to the exclusion of seeking out any possible police or official help. The scenarios of
conflict and the narrative unfolding of action in incidents given as real-life examples did sometimes seem conveniently brave and
admirable. However, from the perspective of these young men, there was nothing wrong, and a lot that was right, with any aggressive
response to strangers fondling girlfriends, or to those making degradingly sexist or racist remarks to friends or family:
- Uncontrolled violence and the risk of injury
- Participants who offered these views were asked if these sorts of heroic narratives were simply after-event rationalisations of violence
arising from immediate concerns with masculine honour. In reply, they would only concede that there are occasions in which violence
by others, rather than their own selves, served as a measure to protect male reputation. This might also bolster personal power in
social relations, though often in a contrived way that attracted would-be ‘big men’ and ‘wankers’. Even this
ambiguous outcome could appear to confirm a male honour or masculinity enactment thesis. However, such factors were rarely proclaimed
as the positive and conscious goals in most of the violence discussed. In general, these young men expressed highly mixed views about
violence and its relation to masculinity.
- Against the simple notion that a masculine reputation can always be built on ubiquitous violence, they were scathing of those who
provoked conflicts and physical fights in an uncontrollable or ‘mad’ manner. In fact, those who engaged in this practice
with frequency were no longer invited to social occasions. Friends and companions who readily provoked such incidents were viewed
as little more than a nuisance within their own groups. This was especially the case given how such young men would set off trouble
with powerful rivals, police and other authorities, trigger bans from sports teams and sporting events, or end an enjoyable night
for others if it finished with collective barring from a pub, club or party, or worst of all, sitting late at night in a hospital
ward or a police station:
- For these young men, engagement with violence can be positively masculine if deployed to regulate social respect and protect and defend
others. They claimed that this contrasts with the violence of those who attack weak opponents and readily target women. However,
it was also the case that truly masculine men might be secure enough to walk away from some matters rather than react to all provocation.
Disengagement from violence could also be masculine when enacted by men with the confidence to withdraw from petty conflicts with
seemingly unworthy opponents:
- The use of violence had to match with shifting, but seriously felt, views about respect, justice and fairness in the treatment of
other people—women or men. Those men who were physically abusive to conventionally feminine and compliant women, or did so
without what was regarded as a serious cause, were usually held in poor regard. So too were bullies who provoked unfair fights and
appeared to target much smaller opponents, or those who attacked from the rear or fought with hidden weapons. Most of all, any occasion
of condoned violence had to conform in some way with their general but subjective understanding of substantive cause. A cause of
this sort was any open signal of unwarranted disrespect, and the tone and intent of such a social snub (e.g., verbal abuse, a rude
gesture or deliberate sneer) was often just as important than any actual level of physical harm.
- Staying vigilant
- In general, these young men were both stoic and fatalistic about their own experiences of aggression and violence in their everyday
lives. The above notions of fairness and respect guided their understanding of legitimate decisions about engagement in physical
conflicts. This meant a low interest or revulsion about participating in or viewing uneven contests. These included attacks on much
weaker or even unconscious opponents, with the latter behaviour even being akin to necrophilia:
- In popular cultural depictions of crime, a true hero is drawn from either side of the law enforcement/criminal divide, but knows how
to apply just the right amount of violence to incapacitate the bad opponent without being gratuitous or complicating any final notions
of justice (Tomsen and Hobbs 2017). The paradox in this was that while many of the men appeared to assume they had the skill to know
how to strike a blow that would be proportionate, and to refrain from violence that led to lasting damage, none viewed themselves
as safe from violence that was wholly unpredictable. In this worldview, violence was generated by the attitudes and aggression of
morally unattractive true perpetrators—dangerous, unprincipled and out-of-control men—and frequently unavoidable for
others who were drawn into social conflicts that they often could not understand. Conflicts of this sort were clashes arising in
sudden circumstances and often difficult-to-read collective interactions. They regularly included disputes in sports (soccer, basketball
etc.), eateries, pubs and nightclubs, loud house parties, crowded public transport, quick episodes of road rage, or even one ridiculous
case of mistaken identity in which a street gang cornered and bashed a participant they wrongly believed was someone who had crossed
them in a recent dispute.
- In these scenarios, young men who insisted that they had non-violent temperaments, described themselves as literally ‘walking
into’ fights that unfolded in unpredictable ways, and which they were unable to exit without some threat-making or use of physical
force of their own. Most were adamant that on occasions such as these, police, security and bystanders would in all likelihood prove
useless. Some display of aggression or a hard front was crucial to avoid serious victimisation. For these participants, coping with
such engagements was spoken of as merely enduring and progressing through daily life. These occasions could be minimised by avoiding
certain places (e.g., specific violent pubs and nightclubs, high crime areas late at night) or foreseeing some danger by always closely
watching the acts, appearance and demeanour of other men. The latter watchfulness was a process uncannily like that assumed by middle-class
citizens demanding greater policing and security to alleviate their own abovementioned fears (Gau and Pratt 2008) of young men in
urban public space. For the young men in this study, their own vigilance was the expected price of maintaining a respected public
masculinity and the risk of such conflict in everyday social interaction could never be wholly eliminated.
-
- Conclusion
- Major sociocultural explanations of violence suggest displays of physical aggression and violence are a crucial means of shoring up
and attaining masculine status and power. These concerns have major significance for young and socially marginal men responding to
perceived affronts to moral worth in their social relations and everyday interactions, or those engaged in hyper-masculine protest
in a faltering attempt to emulate the privileges secured by other men. Our analysis of how groups of young men understand their own
violence and that perpetrated by other men often resonated with these models regarding the protection of social reputation and a
seeking of masculine power and hegemony. In fact, many of these findings might be framed within more recent theoretical expansion
of local, shifting and temporarily ‘dominant’ or ‘hegemonic’ masculinities (Messerschmidt 2018). However,
our findings also signal caution with the presumption that young men widely consider that enacted violence necessarily accomplishes
masculinity or secures male honour and power.
- The young men in our study did not conflate an inclination to violence straightforwardly with an esteemed form of masculinity. In
their worldview, what they perceived as unjust and unheroic violence erodes social respect. There was no honour in being a stereotypical
‘wife-beater’ or ‘bully’. Further, uncontrolled violence is defined as irrational, unmanly and indicative
of the kind of individual madness likely to lead to the exclusion from male friendship groups. They claimed that violence was often
something to be defused or avoided and many opponents and situations were deemed too risky or simply not worth the trouble. Moreover,
much of the violence in their daily lives was spoken about as occurring in sudden and unplanned ways, rendering fights a sudden force
of necessity beyond agency and choice. In such narratives, they emphasised that a compelling need to retaliate to affronts and threats
could prove hard to resist. This may prompt the rationalising logic that a man has to do what a man has to do, and after which, violence
is recounted as an act of rational self-protection, heroic self-sacrifice or moral guardianship. Of course, the question then becomes
whether others are convinced of such a necessity and whether they also perceive such interventions as unavoidable, just or heroic,
either at the time or merely in the retelling. Necessity, justice and heroism are relative concepts and claims about inevitable violence
can be self-serving. Quite probably, the ubiquity of casual male violence in society indicates how rival participants in many conflicts
all commonly hold to an idealistic understanding of their motives and the meanings of their own violence.
- Nevertheless, young men who insisted that they do not admire, seek out or enjoy violence, and who are also acutely aware of the social
drawbacks of violence, were convinced that they experience their own engagement in these encounters in a fatalistic way. In particular,
they claimed they were well removed from conscious choice and calculations about defending honour or opportunities to claim and enhance
masculine power, especially when there was a very really chance of being hurt, and/or appearing to be the loser, even if one’s
physical strength prevails. In narratives such as these, the ‘bigger man’ was secure enough in himself to walk away.
However, the uncomfortable reality for some of these young men is that violence can be a seemingly inevitable feature of these incidents
that they had to manage, given their lack of faith in the protections afforded by police and the criminal justice system. This study
uncovered understandings and experiences of violence that were often too quick to contemplate consciously at the time and had to
be reconfigured in the aftermath, when injuries had been inflicted and/or reprisals threatened. Our participants often felt they
shared a view of their own violence as exceptional. For them, it was a measured social resource that should be used sparingly and
precisely if it was to increase honour, command respect or enhance masculinity.
- Around the globe, community violence education and prevention measures frequently target young men as likely perpetrators of violence
(Jewkes, Flood and Lang 2015). This is not inappropriate given their higher levels of involvement in assaults and disruptive social
conflicts. However, we suggest caution about any potential alienation of young men by trivialising their own concerns and understandings
as both perpetrators and victims, as merely a false claim on male respect or a mistaken struggle to win or display a level of masculine
power that exceeds their youth, social class or low level of racial and ethnic status. The apparent meanings of violence matter,
both at the scene and its narrative retelling, when it is typically recounted as necessary, proportionate and imperative, even if
somewhat regrettable. A danger for educational interventions with didactic messages that violence is in every way unacceptable is
the failure to engage convincingly with what can make it seem imperative or heroic, and the deeply embedded masculine commitment
to these views. After all, very few men ever see themselves as unfair, mean or mad enough to use violence in a wrongful way.
-
- Correspondence:
- Stephen Tomsen, Professor of Criminology, Western Sydney University, Translational Health Research Institute, David Pilgrim Avenue,
Campbelltown NSW 2560, Australia. Email: s.tomsen@westernsydney.edu.au.
-
-
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Beyond Honour and Achieved Hegemony: Violence and the Everyday
Masculinities of Young Men
Stephen Tomsen
Western Sydney University, Australia
David Gadd
University of Manchester, United Kingdom
Abstract
Mainstream criminology has stressed the importance of flawed notions of
personal honour among disadvantaged and minority group men
in interactive social
disputes that escalate into serious violence. Recent gender studies and critical
criminology have been concerned
with wider structures of power and the links
between hegemonic masculinity and violence directed against women or occurring
between
men. Our focus group study of views about violence among a mixed cohort
of young men suggests the relevance of both these approaches
as causal
explanations. Nevertheless, violence was also narrated and understood through
the sharp moral distinctions between illegitimate
and wrongful enactments, and
idealised accounts of violent events as measured, fair and just. Anti-violence
initiatives need to anticipate
the shifting ways by which young men distance
themselves and their own violence from negative meanings, along with a
continuing belief
in a category of male violence that they deem legitimate,
admirable, or even heroic.
Keywords
Gender; hegemonic masculinity; male honour; masculinities; violence.
|
Please cite this article as:
Tomsen S and Gadd D (2019) Beyond honour and achieved hegemony:
Violence and the everyday masculinities of young men. International
Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 8(2): 17-30. DOI:
10.5204/ijcjsd.v8i2.1117.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International Licence. As an open access journal, articles are free to
use with proper attribution. ISSN: 2202-8005
Introduction
Male honour
Globally, male-perpetrated violence against women and other men comprises the
great bulk of reported and recorded assaults and homicides.
Even in the most
serious or fatal cases, many of these incidents appear to arise out of what
appears to others as unjustified or
trivial reasons for involvement in intense
conflicts. To explain this paradox of apparent triviality but critical outcomes
in much
male-perpetrated violence, researchers have emphasised the significance
of retaining ‘face’, respect and social honour.
Their focus is not a
historical male code drawn from traditional notions of chivalry, but a
commonplace view among men of appropriate
social relations grounded in everyday
understandings of respect and disrespect, as these are reflected in their
interaction with
others. Many violent disputes between men arise from petty
differences and slights regarding aspects of apparently disrespectful
interaction in everyday socialising around licensed venues, open streets and
spaces, or while driving in traffic or using public
transport (Campbell 1986;
Felson and Steadman 1983; Luckenbill 1977).
In a substantial corpus of studies that have closely focused on the details
of social interactions that trigger violent encounters,
researchers have amassed
evidence about an apparent heightened sensitivity to personal affronts and
insults, and an overwhelming
need to react quickly and aggressively to these
with verbal abuse and physical violence (Felson et al. 2017). These actions
arise
from social disputes that are seemingly so minor, or so intertwined with
some illegal act or practice, that reporting and arbitration
from police or
other legitimate state authority becomes impossible. Whether the central
framework for these studies has been concerned
with the aggressive behaviour of
‘disputatious’ individuals (Felson et al. 2017), or the vexed
symbolic interaction that
occurs in everyday social relations, research in this
area reveals that the particular danger of these incidents is a sharp male
sense
of grievance and the appropriateness of a violent response to real or imagined
actions, slights, and the perceived hostile
intentions of other people
(Luckenbill and Doyle 1989).
Findings from this literature suggest that such an inclination to quick
conflict and interpersonal violence is characteristic of younger
lower-status
males who are overwhelmingly from poor communities and the most materially
disadvantaged racial or ethnic minorities
(Oliver 1994; Stewart and Simons
2010). Such men, it is hypothesised, engage in arguments that easily escalate
and evolve into heated
character contests (Deibert and Miethe 2003) with likely
bloodshed as a result. This may be worse among those immersed in particular
urban subcultures or a street-based code of violence (Stewart and Simons 2010;
Wolfgang and Ferracutti 1967). Within such theorising,
maintaining face and
honour become the explanation as to why poor and socially marginal men decide to
engage in dangerous violence.
By implication, other men, more embedded in
mainstream cultures or the code of the office suite, are perceived as much less
prone
to responding in kind to a broad range of perceived slights.
In scenarios of both intimate partner violence and male-on-male
confrontational violence, male perpetrators often conceive of themselves
as the
dishonoured party in a shared social dispute. The most successful analyses of
this phenomenon have complemented it with a
structural dimension and sensitivity
to matters of deep social inequality. Feminist research has long revealed how
violence against
women as intimate partners can reflect a high level of
sensitivity to perceived challenges to men’s authority, control and
sexual possessiveness. It has tended to conceive of this violence as ultimately
instrumental
in securing patriarchal authority (Dobash and Dobash 1979; Stanko
1990). Masculinities researchers have become concerned with the
subjective,
multilayered and frequently less rational aspects of this engagement in
violence. Bourgois (1995) studied crack dealers
from a deprived Puerto Rican
neighbourhood in New York as men who struggled for masculine honour and respect
through their crime
and wrongdoing. Drug dealing, violence and sexual assaults
were a distorted mirror of the limited empowerment won by male forebears
in a
traditional rural patriarchy, in which protection and provision for women and
families were vital aspects of gender dominance.
Polk (1999) focused on the
sense of grievance, and the moves and countermoves that render a violent
response ultimately necessary
among working-class men faced with real or
imagined slights and hostile intentions. This typically occurs in the
context of social drinking, where violence has become normalised and
police or
criminal justice intervention is virtually non-existent.
Indeed, there is an emerging consensus that in addition to conscious matters
of honour and respect, a complex phenomenology is often
involved in encounters
in which the perpetrator feels shunned or persecuted by the victim, while almost
entirely unable to view the
world from their perspective. Hence, Ray and
colleagues documented evidence of the unacknowledged shame among hate-crime
perpetrators
who felt menaced by Asian victims, whom they regarded as acting
superior and ‘laughing at them’ (Ray, Smith and Wastell
2004).
Likewise, Gadd and Dixon (2011) detected unconscious paranoia among racial
harassment perpetrators who suspect their victims
to be muttering
incomprehensibly about them in their own languages, taunting them by dating
white women, or otherwise exposing their
own failings to secure better lives for
themselves. From their psychosocial perspective, Gadd and Jefferson (2007) drew
attention
to the degree to which domestic abuse perpetrators attempted to
silence partners who were not merely ‘nagging’, but also
articulating truths too painful to endure regarding the men’s failings as
husbands and fathers. In his ongoing work on male
sexuality and violence, Tomsen
(2009, 36) exposed the ‘unconscious and bodily grounded fears’ of
invasion, contamination
and disease behind some of the most brutal attacks on
gay/homosexual men, as well as the law’s tendency to collude with this
by
viewing same-sex approaches as a major threat to male self-respect, which
legitimises the defence of ‘homosexual advance’.
Such matters of hate crime and homicide may appear unrelated to the everyday
acts and thinking of most boys and men. However, this
broader
approach—which incorporates social structure, wider culture, collective
beliefs and even the influence of legal discourse—reflects
a relation to
key aspects of masculinity across contemporary society and the wider engagement
with levels of violence as social action,
language and uneven judgements about
the legitimacy of different perpetrators and victims. Further, this signals the
need to conceptualise
a more nuanced sets of relationships between
masculinities, specific forms of violence and the ways that they are discussed
by perpetrators
and victims. These ubiquitous defensive responses to slights,
and the ensuing escalation of quick engagement in social conflict that
follows,
have not usually been perceived as typical of men in general. Yet, attacks on
the media, immigrants, political rivals and
even whole nations deemed
disrespectful of his authority by the current President of the United States,
Donald Trump, remind us of
the defensive qualities of contemporary
masculinities, even at the very top of the class spectrum.
Hegemony
An equally influential explanation for men’s violence in contemporary
society derives from research concerned with how everyday
male social practices
and identities play out within the wider structural relations of power and
conflict between men and women,
and also importantly, between different groups
of men. In Raewyn Connell’s (1995) highly influential model that merged
elements
of Gramscian Marxism with a feminist view of gendered social power,
there is an overarching interest among men in attaining the power
and status
accorded to hegemonic masculinity. This exists at the apex of a hierarchy of
different and evolving masculinities that
are in various ways complicit,
subordinate or ostensibly opposed to the dominant pattern. Any approximation of
this hegemonic form
is highly contingent on the levels of real social power
reached in different men’s lives and it ‘is the successful claim
to
authority, more than direct violence, that is the mark of hegemony (though
violence often underpins or supports authority)’
(1995, 77). Most
importantly, for criminologists and researchers of violence, a key oppositional
form is described as ‘protest’
masculinity—a form
characteristic of men in a marginal location of social class, with a masculine
claim on power that is undermined
by economic and social weakness (1995,
116).
In reply to early critiques seeking more stress on unconscious forces and
class difference in masculinity (Hall 2002; Jefferson 1997),
both Connell (2000,
2002, 2016) and Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) have suggested considerable
theoretical refinements to this
model. They believe it does not describe either
a fixed character type or a monolithic practice that is shared by all men.
Further
contributions from or led by criminologist James Messerschmidt (2004,
2018; Messerschmidt and Messner 2018; Messerschmidt and Tomsen
2016) have
explored variation in subjectivity, identity and embodiment among men who
perpetrate crime, and the mixed and often failing
relation this has to social
patterns of male power and dominance.
Connell’s model has been a truly persuasive development in contemporary
social research. It deals readily with evidence of variation
and change in
destructive and benign masculinities in a way that is not available to
essentialist and evolutionary explanations of
gendered social phenomena.
Further, the core notion of hegemony as ‘rule by consent’ implies
the very opposite of domination
by crude violence or threats of violence. As
interpreted by some researchers (e.g., Hall 2002), this can be taken as
referring to
what Connell notes is a problematic category of ‘achieved
hegemony’ (2016), and a conscious, knowing and effective process
of
seeking male power via violent engagement. In particular, this view becomes
ambiguous as to whether violence is the means used
by some men to accomplish the
hegemonic position, or whether it is better conceived as the articulation of an
oppositional form of
protest masculinity. The personal or shared goal of seeking
hegemony can be read back into the myriad characteristics, attitudes
and actions
that exist among most delinquent boys and criminalised groups of men
(Hood-Williams 2001).
In line with the intention of the key scholars who generated and have refined
this theoretical model, studies reject such reductionism
and acknowledge major
variations in violent and other masculinities and contradictory official
responses to them (see Connell 2016;
Messerschmidt 2018). For example, these
discovered that the criminal justice system itself has been complicit with the
production
of violent masculinities among the general population when
downplaying male violence directed against women and other men perceived
as
illegitimate victims—including assaults treated as an institutional means
of fostering hardened masculine identities among
the general male population
(Tomsen and Wadds 2016). Critical criminologists illuminate how corporate
capital still relies heavily
upon the maintenance of a workforce embodying a
sexist and violent masculinity that was most prized in the industrial age
(Carrington,
McIntosh and Scott 2012; Hobbs et al. 2003).
Most importantly, any conflation of violence and masculinity in general is
not merely an issue for research and analysis in criminology.
Law enforcement
strategies that sharply reflect the insecurity and fears of urban elites and the
middle class in the global metropole,
can rely on clichéd images of
violent masculinity. In this framework, it is the ostensibly rough appearance
and manner of
youths and men from poor and minority backgrounds that serve as
the early public warning signs of criminal risk and danger. In fact,
the
monitoring, policing and control of this sort of unsettling masculine deportment
can feature as a major crime-fighting task in
institutional law enforcement and
middle-class demands for security and protection from public disorder and
incivility (Gau and Pratt
2008).
Given this frequent confusion between the likelihood and occurrence of
serious violence and the corporeal presence and indecorum of
working, underclass
and minority group males in urban space, fostering this sort of negative imagery
is a particular hazard of conducting
research in this field. In what follows, we
attempt to avoid this pitfall by exploring how young men’s narratives of
fairness,
protection and moral guardianship often conceal the fear,
vulnerability, confusion and disarray that permeate the enactment of violence.
A
circular reading that implies an achieved hegemony in the meanings of violent
acts is not necessary if one is prepared to accept
that motives for violence and
the recounting of rationalisations for it are frequently two different
factors.
Research and analysis
In 2014–2017, a series of 14 focus groups was organised and conducted
in and around Sydney with exploration and analysis of
the experience and
attitudes towards engagements with violence in young men’s daily lives.
The first phase of this study comprised
eight groups with 47 participants who
were all aged between 16 and 25 years. These groups were conducted in the
western suburbs of
the city. Participants included those with Anglo-Australian,
Indigenous, Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern, South Asian, South-East Asian
and
Pacific Islander family backgrounds. Some of these groups have been publicly
stereotyped as more inclined to fighting and petty
delinquency (see Noble, Tabar
and Poynting 1998). However, this was not viewed as a reason to exclude such
groups from the study
and our recruitment reflected the broader racial and
ethnic composition of western Sydney.
In a post-industrial city economy characterised by high levels of young adult
jobs in service sectors, and mass enrolment in tertiary
education, the
identification of many participants as ‘working class’ was even more
problematic than in studies of male
violence drawing on a regional and rural
cohort (see Tomsen 2005). It is also difficult to equate this descriptor
exclusively with
unskilled and skilled forms of manual work. Nevertheless, the
recruited mix of those with student, manual trade, sales and hospitality,
information technology, junior professional and administrative roles, could
mostly be referred to as young men from the employed
and respectable working
class or lower–middle class in this large post-industrial city.
Participants in this phase were openly recruited on the basis of their
willingness to discuss any recent (i.e., within the previous
year) experience or
witnessing of a violent incident or threat of violence. This was done to provide
discussion material about real-life
experience of violence and conflict, but
with caution about how it might skew research results by deterring involvement
from those
with no experience to report. Participation and discussion were
encouraged, no matter the apparent level of seriousness of any experience
of
violence or direct involvement in it. With guarantees regarding privacy and
anonymity, each focus group was conducted and recorded
in private rooms at
accessible city and suburban commercial premises in mid-week early evenings.
Participants were asked about, and
in detail discussed aspects of, involvements
with violence in everyday circumstances in their personal relationships with
partners,
family and friends, at home, in work and education, public recreation,
sport and nightlife settings. Questions and discussions also
drew out the
distinction between direct participation in violence (as a perpetrator, victim
or both) and the more indirect role of
talking about and viewing violence from
other people and via watching a range of visual media including television,
film, electronic
games and internet clips.
Focus groups mostly ran for one to one-and-a-half hours each. This variation
reflected the pattern of participant willingness to talk
freely and their level
of effective group engagement with the topic and questions. All participants
were asked for their views on
key issues, with care taken to prevent any one or
a few voices from dominating discussion. Sessions were recorded, transcribed and
closely read for the prominence of key themes and regular use of discourse about
different occasions and understandings of violence.
These included the
distinctions between the private and public and the individual and group
contexts of violence, key notions of
understanding including respect, blame,
risk and fairness, and the gendered elements of participation or withdrawal from
violence.
Results and
discussion
Intimate partner
violence
While all participants openly
identified as heterosexual, only about half had a regular girlfriend and few
were married or lived with
women partners. Most implied that, for them, the
critical site of relevance for any questions about violence against women was in
relation to intimate partner conflict. Questions posed about intimate partners
and family violence proved troubling for these young
men. These were often first
met with quick repetition of official government-led campaign messages that
regarded such violence as
taboo. Some also elaborated on this with their own
view that there was an imperative to disengage from any heated dispute:
Deal with it without hitting each other. (Jamie, Group 3)
Defuse the situation and if you can’t defuse it, then what’s the
point in being in the situation. (Tom, Group 4)
Leave, or they’ll leave the house and then you break
up—there’s no point in getting into that violence. (Ashan,
Group
4)
However, a substantial minority of participants drawn
from across racial and ethnic lines held to more traditional views about gender.
These participants subverted any pacifist or equality talk with their insistence
that true men should be able to properly manage
their relations with women
through firm authority. Hence, there would be no need to resort to direct
physical violence:
It’s [domestic violence] different in the sense that you know them better
and you should know how to handle them. (Jamie, Group
3)
Further, these participants clung to traditional notions
about the physical assertion of male power over women. Corporal discipline
in
families and the parental correction of disobedient children were viewed as
unfortunate but sometimes quite reasonable. Female
compliance was a rudimentary
expectation in building a harmonious couple, and control could be used to secure
a relationship that
outwardly complied with male dominance. Elements of
protecting male honour and a shoring up of the relationship authority of men
as
sexual partners and husbands became interwoven here:
In extreme circumstances, if you’re there having some fight and she goes
on, then you will have to ... not beat the shit out
of her of course, but if it
escalates to that extreme point, well its ‘this is full on, I’ve got
to do something to stop
it’. (Anton, Group 5)
Very few participant remarks about domestic violence
were as candid as this. The overwhelming majority of participants appeared more
ambivalent about such violence, even though their views generated an excuse for
physical force and coercion. This ambivalence was
typically reflected in how
personal memories or anecdotes regarding ostensibly excusable violence placed a
narrative stress on overt
female provocation of events. In this way, the
accounts concerned punishing and limiting shameful behaviour by women
‘troublemakers’
who had embarrassed or harmed others (e.g., by
spreading a false rumour or flirting with other men), rather than any routine
case
of discipline for disobedience of husbands and male partners.
In the idealised descriptions of settled personal
relations and good families given by most of these young men, there would never
be a need to exercise such violence. In particular, they spoke of
‘out-of-control’ arguments and physical fights between
young men and
girlfriends as an especially hazardous aspect of finding satisfying long-term
relationships. Girls and women who provoked
emotional trouble and even
themselves resorted to violence—whether directed against other women or
committed to manipulate
their boyfriends—were simply figures of shame and
ultimately not worthy of romantic commitment. In specific circumstances,
the
coercive so-called ‘restraining’ of some women could be appropriate
or unavoidable because it was necessary for their
own protection. In these
contexts, reasonable men might seek either to calm overly
‘emotional’ girlfriends by only using
whatever force was necessary
to protect themselves or shield their partners from self-harm.
Recreational violence between
men
Despite this collective disapproval of
intimate partner and domestic or family violence in general, a minority of the
men recruited
for this study were far more vocal about their involvements with
public recreational violence, and proudly aggressive in their accounts
of
encounters in which they felt they had protected personal masculine status in
their own peer group. Conversations mostly focused
on violent clashes between
men. Young men from Middle-Eastern families and the few Indigenous participants,
for example, were all
adamant that they would react quickly and physically to
any overt or perceived racism in their daily lives.
An adherence to this injustice-rectifying aggression
seemed most pronounced of all among young men from Pacific Islander backgrounds.
These men regularly fought with males from other ethnic groups and they referred
to the indignities of casual racism—from both
Anglo-Australians and rival
ethnic groups—as an explanation for much violence. They also frequently
clashed with each other
over rival access to street territory. In parts of
western Sydney dominated by rival Maori and Tongan gangs, clashes over access
to
drug dealing territory were a regular related motive.
The significance of this became directly apparent when
one participant arrived late and still donning a hooded top that covered his
face. By way of apology, he showed a sharp knife he had brought with him. He
explained that the focus group was being held in territory
he perceived as a
serious risk to enter on his own, despite his large body size and fighting
experience. His tone seemed to reflect
a genuine concern about personal safety
rather than a cheap attempt to impress the group. A neophyte participation in
the criminal
economy in an urban area with high unemployment of unskilled youth,
and the pressure to be noticed by bosses in gangs led by older,
street-smart
men, were the backdrop to these accounts of social disputes that sometimes
escalated into serious violence with stabbings,
medical emergencies and hospital
admissions.
A minority of these young men also held to essentialist
views about the links between masculinity, aggression and violence. Their
group
conversation often insisted that there was an inherent or even instinctive
relation between male hormones and an urge to resort
to quick physical measures
if men were challenged in disputes and conflicts in their personal and broader
social interactions. Among
those more inclined to violence, this seemed like a
final excuse for their disposition, although ironically, it also undermined
their
own sense of agency. However, these sorts of essentialist views were not
unique among those more committed to very aggressive responses
to perceived
insults and disrespect. Essentialist and other accounts of socially determined,
or chosen and reasoned violence, were
often mixed up in the narratives about
male violence and how it unfolded.
The pressures of individual self-respect, group and
community belonging, and a wider need to defend masculine honour in social
interaction,
were all described as commonplace. Many of the accounts related
these factors assumed the form of narratives about participation
in episodes of
violence that seemed to fit the criminological blueprint of escalating conflicts
over seemingly petty slights, that
are nonetheless, felt as very real matters by
many young men. Recreational violence arose from occasions of playing or
watching contact
sports, night-time leisure at pubs and clubs, or house parties
with frequent drug use and collective heavy drinking. These were all
scenarios
that our participants suggested derived from a sharpened sensitivity to
disrespect and insults to honour.
Principled
violence
The danger of these escalating
disputes that appeared to be character contests over honour and reputation were
obvious enough. However,
these scenarios were often viewed and mutually
understood as compelling situations that, at the time, were believed to be
difficult
to resist and avoid. For example, one Lebanese–Australian youth
related how he attempted to protect a girl from harassing telephone
calls and
sexual innuendo by another young man in their extended social circle. He did
this by delivering his own telephone warning
to the caller. The harassing caller
and his own friends then drove to the participant’s family house. He and
his father confronted
them in a knife fight in their front driveway. This
resulted in an almost fatal blow to this youth’s lower back and a deep
scar that he lowered his trousers to show us and with which to corroborate his
account. Other focus group participants expressed
their relief about his lucky
escape in this incident. They also commented on the cowardly nature of a knife
attack from behind. This
was a distinct contrast from accepting the need for the
dangerous but upfront and symbolically manly ‘face off’. There
was
no questioning or criticism of his pathway to involvement in this violent
incident or a mention of any alternative ways of resolving
this sort of
dispute.
This was regarded
as a particularly perilous occasion of hard-to-avoid violence, although it was
uncertain if the stabbed participant
in this group really had a solidly
established link to the ‘girlfriend’ he claimed to protect. Yet, in
relation to this
and similar matters, most young men in our groups believed that
there was a ‘moral line’ of respect that is often crossed
in social
interaction in which the unacceptable behaviour of others will finally
necessitate an aggressive warning or probable violence.
To a critical outsider,
these sorts of occasions seemed to be matters that involve a real measure of
personal choice, and that also
might be managed through other means. However,
even in cases that clearly involved their own obvious victimisation, reporting
to
authorities was regarded as a very unlikely course of action. Participants
expected no real understanding of cause and blame in such
incidents from police,
security and other authorities who might witness or hear about such conflicts.
Further, there was little doubt
that police would have a limited interest in
prior intervention in the myriad number of such disputes that permeate an urban
community,
before they each escalate into a far more serious or lethal matter
(see Tomsen and Wadds
2016).
The distinction
between legitimate and illegitimate violence uncovered in other focus group
research on young men’s violence
(Ravn 2018) was ever present, but also
extended as a moral binary by a view of legitimate violence as heroic in form. A
masculine
‘heroic’ image of self-sufficiency when in personal
trouble or even as someone who regularly rescues others, is a common
way that
young men and boys conceive of their own autonomous way of managing social
conflict and harm (Gadd et al. 2014). This heroic
self-understanding gave a
further dimension to the exclusion of seeking out any possible police or
official help. The scenarios of
conflict and the narrative unfolding of action
in incidents given as real-life examples did sometimes seem conveniently brave
and
admirable. However, from the perspective of these young men, there was
nothing wrong, and a lot that was right, with any aggressive
response to
strangers fondling girlfriends, or to those making degradingly sexist or racist
remarks to friends or family:
For me any stupid little thing like someone bumping into me or spilling my
drink—I don’t give a shit move on, but if
someone abuses a friend or
a sister or a girlfriend, or abuses my own values, like I hate racism and I see
a lot of it when I go
out, if someone is racist towards me, I treat everyone for
face value if you treat me good, I’ll treat you good. (Chris, Group
5)
Even if someone calls you the worst name possible, if you’re with a girl
you just ignore it because you want to be good with
them ... But if you’re
with your girlfriend and someone calls her an ugly slut or something you
don’t. (Jarrod, Group
6)
I think I have a lot of bad luck in my life. I tend to get disrespected in a
cross-the-line kind of way a lot of times. I’m
not a violent person. I
don’t necessarily like to hurt people you know. But if someone crosses
that boundary I will. (Andre,
Group 6)
In these accounts, the excusable compulsive violence was that of a superhero
with no choice but to act, rather than of a troublemaker
or sadistic thug with
no control over their temper and a general desire to inflict pain. Such violence
was perceived as measured,
proportionate and precise, and necessary to defend
someone else’s honour, rather than their own fragile ego—used to
instil
a moral lesson rather than maim, mutilate or murder. The superhero uses
violence to incapacitate and redirect those who bully weak
opponents, are
racist, target women, and are just plain crazy. He does so in a self-sacrificing
way, not because he enjoys it (Sparks
1996).
Uncontrolled violence and the risk of
injury
Participants who offered these views
were asked if these sorts of heroic narratives were simply after-event
rationalisations of violence
arising from immediate concerns with masculine
honour. In reply, they would only concede that there are occasions in which
violence
by others, rather than their own selves, served as a measure to
protect male reputation. This might also bolster personal power in social
relations, though often in a contrived
way that attracted would-be ‘big
men’ and ‘wankers’. Even this ambiguous outcome could appear
to confirm
a male honour or masculinity enactment thesis. However, such factors
were rarely proclaimed as the positive and conscious goals in
most of the
violence discussed. In general, these young men expressed highly mixed views
about violence and its relation to masculinity.
Against the simple notion that a masculine reputation
can always be built on ubiquitous violence, they were scathing of those who
provoked conflicts and physical fights in an uncontrollable or ‘mad’
manner. In fact, those who engaged in this practice
with frequency were no
longer invited to social occasions. Friends and companions who readily provoked
such incidents were viewed
as little more than a nuisance within their own
groups. This was especially the case given how such young men would set off
trouble
with powerful rivals, police and other authorities, trigger bans from
sports teams and sporting events, or end an enjoyable night
for others if it
finished with collective barring from a pub, club or party, or worst of all,
sitting late at night in a hospital
ward or a police station:
The main reason I avoid fights, I’m not scared of getting punched but
I’m shit scared of getting stabbed or fucking shot
which happens too often
these days so I tend to avoid a fight nine times out of ten ... I don’t
know who I’m fucking
fighting ... this bloke could be a fucking lunatic.
(Michael, Group 5)
We know that getting into a fight is just going to ruin the night for everyone.
If you get banned from playing sport, you have a
passion for basketball why ruin
it, why ruin something you love just for a few moments of anger? (Caleb, Group
8)
I think you realise the consequences ... that’s the difference between
people who fight and don’t fight is the moment
of realisation. Some people
have it right from the beginning, some people have it as it’s about to
kick off or as a couple
of punches are being thrown ‘oh this is going to
be bad’. (Jack, Group 8)
You get kicked out at soccer you get sent off, your team loses so everyone hates
you for that. (Lucas, Group 6)
For these young men, engagement with violence can be
positively masculine if deployed to regulate social respect and protect and
defend
others. They claimed that this contrasts with the violence of those who
attack weak opponents and readily target women. However,
it was also the case
that truly masculine men might be secure enough to walk away from some matters
rather than react to all provocation.
Disengagement from violence could also be
masculine when enacted by men with the confidence to withdraw from petty
conflicts with
seemingly unworthy opponents:
My mentality is you know if you’re going to fire up to every Tom, Dick and
Harry that fires up at you—you’re going
to be in a fight every
single week. If you walk away it’s not your pride, it’s you being a
bigger man by saying you’re
a fuckwit, I’m not going to get into
trouble because of your shit. (John, Group 7)
The thing that goes in my head is if I end up in a fight now I’m going to
end up going home pretty much, shirt will be ripped,
face will be bloody and I
think it’s not worth it. I’d rather say fuck off, walk away bend my
pride a bit and go out
and have a good time with my mates because about 10
minutes later I’ll forget about it. (Jett, Group 7)
If I’ve just looked at the person and gone they’re drunk as
what’s the point, I’m not going to wreck my night
just because some
guys said something to me and he’s drunk. [You must be] man
enough—‘you’re a joke, you’re
pathetic’. (Lucas,
Group 7)
I’m not going to waste my time—[if] you’re just a piece of
trash ... I don’t want to waste my time. (Gamal,
Group
7)
The use of violence had to match with shifting, but
seriously felt, views about respect, justice and fairness in the treatment of
other people—women or men. Those men who were physically abusive to
conventionally feminine and compliant women, or did so
without what was regarded
as a serious cause, were usually held in poor regard. So too were bullies who
provoked unfair fights and
appeared to target much smaller opponents, or those
who attacked from the rear or fought with hidden weapons. Most of all, any
occasion
of condoned violence had to conform in some way with their general but
subjective understanding of substantive cause. A cause of
this sort was any open
signal of unwarranted disrespect, and the tone and intent of such a social snub
(e.g., verbal abuse, a rude
gesture or deliberate sneer) was often just as
important than any actual level of physical harm.
Staying
vigilant
In general, these young men were
both stoic and fatalistic about their own experiences of aggression and violence
in their everyday
lives. The above notions of fairness and respect guided their
understanding of legitimate decisions about engagement in physical
conflicts.
This meant a low interest or revulsion about participating in or viewing uneven
contests. These included attacks on much
weaker or even unconscious opponents,
with the latter behaviour even being akin to necrophilia:
Trading blows is sometimes interesting to watch but I don’t want to see a
guy get his head split open when it’s clearly
over ... If you knock
someone out clean, or even if they’re not knocked out but they drop down,
you’ve won it, walk away!
What more do you need to prove? (Tom, Group
4)
It’s just not on, [striking an unconscious body] ... would you have sex
with a dead person? It’s the same thing. (Lorenzo,
Group
2)
In popular cultural depictions of crime, a true hero is
drawn from either side of the law enforcement/criminal divide, but knows how
to
apply just the right amount of violence to incapacitate the bad opponent without
being gratuitous or complicating any final notions
of justice (Tomsen and Hobbs
2017). The paradox in this was that while many of the men appeared to assume
they had the skill to know
how to strike a blow that would be proportionate, and
to refrain from violence that led to lasting damage, none viewed themselves
as
safe from violence that was wholly unpredictable. In this worldview, violence
was generated by the attitudes and aggression of
morally unattractive true
perpetrators—dangerous, unprincipled and out-of-control men—and
frequently unavoidable for
others who were drawn into social conflicts that they
often could not understand. Conflicts of this sort were clashes arising in
sudden circumstances and often difficult-to-read collective interactions. They
regularly included disputes in sports (soccer, basketball
etc.), eateries, pubs
and nightclubs, loud house parties, crowded public transport, quick episodes of
road rage, or even one ridiculous
case of mistaken identity in which a street
gang cornered and bashed a participant they wrongly believed was someone who had
crossed
them in a recent dispute.
In these scenarios, young men who insisted that they
had non-violent temperaments, described themselves as literally ‘walking
into’ fights that unfolded in unpredictable ways, and which they were
unable to exit without some threat-making or use of physical
force of their own.
Most were adamant that on occasions such as these, police, security and
bystanders would in all likelihood prove
useless. Some display of aggression or
a hard front was crucial to avoid serious victimisation. For these participants,
coping with
such engagements was spoken of as merely enduring and progressing
through daily life. These occasions could be minimised by avoiding
certain
places (e.g., specific violent pubs and nightclubs, high crime areas late at
night) or foreseeing some danger by always closely
watching the acts, appearance
and demeanour of other men. The latter watchfulness was a process uncannily like
that assumed by middle-class
citizens demanding greater policing and security to
alleviate their own abovementioned fears (Gau and Pratt 2008) of young men in
urban public space. For the young men in this study, their own vigilance was the
expected price of maintaining a respected public
masculinity and the risk of
such conflict in everyday social interaction could never be wholly
eliminated.
Conclusion
Major sociocultural explanations of violence suggest
displays of physical aggression and violence are a crucial means of shoring up
and attaining masculine status and power. These concerns have major significance
for young and socially marginal men responding to
perceived affronts to moral
worth in their social relations and everyday interactions, or those engaged in
hyper-masculine protest
in a faltering attempt to emulate the privileges secured
by other men. Our analysis of how groups of young men understand their own
violence and that perpetrated by other men often resonated with these models
regarding the protection of social reputation and a
seeking of masculine power
and hegemony. In fact, many of these findings might be framed within more recent
theoretical expansion
of local, shifting and temporarily ‘dominant’
or ‘hegemonic’ masculinities (Messerschmidt 2018). However,
our
findings also signal caution with the presumption that young men widely consider
that enacted violence necessarily accomplishes
masculinity or secures male
honour and power.
The young men in our study did not conflate an
inclination to violence straightforwardly with an esteemed form of masculinity.
In
their worldview, what they perceived as unjust and unheroic violence erodes
social respect. There was no honour in being a stereotypical
‘wife-beater’ or ‘bully’. Further, uncontrolled violence
is defined as irrational, unmanly and indicative
of the kind of individual
madness likely to lead to the exclusion from male friendship groups. They
claimed that violence was often
something to be defused or avoided and many
opponents and situations were deemed too risky or simply not worth the trouble.
Moreover,
much of the violence in their daily lives was spoken about as
occurring in sudden and unplanned ways, rendering fights a sudden force
of
necessity beyond agency and choice. In such narratives, they emphasised that a
compelling need to retaliate to affronts and threats
could prove hard to resist.
This may prompt the rationalising logic that a man has to do what a man has to
do, and after which, violence
is recounted as an act of rational
self-protection, heroic self-sacrifice or moral guardianship. Of course, the
question then becomes
whether others are convinced of such a necessity and
whether they also perceive such interventions as unavoidable, just or heroic,
either at the time or merely in the retelling. Necessity, justice and heroism
are relative concepts and claims about inevitable violence
can be self-serving.
Quite probably, the ubiquity of casual male violence in society indicates how
rival participants in many conflicts
all commonly hold to an idealistic
understanding of their motives and the meanings of their own violence.
Nevertheless, young men who
insisted that they do not admire, seek out or enjoy violence, and who are also
acutely aware of the social
drawbacks of violence, were convinced that they
experience their own engagement in these encounters in a fatalistic way. In
particular,
they claimed they were well removed from conscious choice and
calculations about defending honour or opportunities to claim and enhance
masculine power, especially when there was a very really chance of being hurt,
and/or appearing to be the loser, even if one’s
physical strength
prevails. In narratives such as these, the ‘bigger man’ was secure
enough in himself to walk away.
However, the uncomfortable reality for some of
these young men is that violence can be a seemingly inevitable feature of these
incidents
that they had to manage, given their lack of faith in the protections
afforded by police and the criminal justice system. This study
uncovered
understandings and experiences of violence that were often too quick to
contemplate consciously at the time and had to
be reconfigured in the aftermath,
when injuries had been inflicted and/or reprisals threatened. Our participants
often felt they
shared a view of their own violence as exceptional. For them, it
was a measured social resource that should be used sparingly and
precisely if it
was to increase honour, command respect or enhance masculinity.
Around the globe, community violence education and
prevention measures frequently target young men as likely perpetrators of
violence
(Jewkes, Flood and Lang 2015). This is not inappropriate given their
higher levels of involvement in assaults and disruptive social
conflicts.
However, we suggest caution about any potential alienation of young men by
trivialising their own concerns and understandings
as both perpetrators and
victims, as merely a false claim on male respect or a mistaken struggle to win
or display a level of masculine
power that exceeds their youth, social class or
low level of racial and ethnic status. The apparent meanings of violence matter,
both at the scene and its narrative retelling, when it is typically recounted as
necessary, proportionate and imperative, even if
somewhat regrettable. A danger
for educational interventions with didactic messages that violence is in every
way unacceptable is
the failure to engage convincingly with what can make it
seem imperative or heroic, and the deeply embedded masculine commitment
to these
views. After all, very few men ever see themselves as unfair, mean or mad enough
to use violence in a wrongful way.
Correspondence:
Stephen Tomsen, Professor of Criminology,
Western Sydney University, Translational Health Research Institute, David
Pilgrim Avenue,
Campbelltown NSW 2560, Australia. Email:
s.tomsen@westernsydney.edu.au.
David Gadd, Professor of Criminology, University of Manchester, Centre for
Criminology and Criminal Justice, School of Law, University
of Manchester,
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom. Email:
david.gadd@manchester.ac.uk.
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