Masculinities and Violence

Masculinities refer to the culturally constructed social norms for behavior, comportment, and characteristics assigned to men and boys. Scholars talk about multiple masculinities instead of a singular masculinity because the category varies according to context, culture, geographic location, and historical period. Masculinities are relevant to interpersonal violence because the research indicates that establishing and defending a masculine sense of self is fundamentally important to many men's use of violence. Much of men's violence is perpetrated in response to threats to the man's sense of masculinity. This response is true of violence against strangers, acquaintances, and intimates. It is especially important to distinguish between sex and gender when studying human behavior such as violence because this distinction has implications for the prevention of violence as well as for effective interventions.

In the most simplified terms, sex refers to biological sex, as conventionally determined by the appearance of genitalia at birth. Sex is commonly thought of as a binary system, although this understanding is a conceptual oversimplification that excludes intersex and transgendered people. Intersex babies are born with nonstandard genitals that do not identify them accurately and immediately as male or female. Transgender individuals perform a gender that is different from the one they were assigned at birth, with or without having surgery or taking hormones to facilitate the performance. Gender refers to the culturally specific set of characteristics and behaviors associated with biological sex in a given culture. Male and female are sex categories, and masculine and feminine are gender categories.

Gender is a continuum of attributes ranging from feminine traits, those traditionally associated with women and girls, to masculine traits, those stereotyp-ically associated with men and boys. Gender is often essentialized. In other words, femininity and masculinity are thought of as the natural expression of a person's biological identity. However, gender varies significantly across time and geography, and it is therefore recognizable as culturally constructed, or shaped by the culture in which it is produced. This construction does not mean that there are no biological differences between women and men, only that the differences that exist are small in comparison with the social factors that magnify their significance.

Masculinity is normative for men, meaning that men are expected to display more of the traits that are associated with masculinity than femininity. Some stereotypically masculine traits include toughness, power, strength, stoicism, leadership, rationality, and virility. Pressure to conform to these stereotypes has negative implications for men and can promote behavior that puts men at greater risk of violence perpetration and victimization than women. For example, men are more likely to drink to excess and drive recklessly, behavior that can put them at disproportionate risk of causing or experiencing injury or death. Since gender is often essentialized, some people think of stereotypically masculine characteristics as biologically determined in men. However, social scientists point to variation in gender performance as evidence that culture shapes and magnifies the manifestation of sex differences.

There are formal and informal social sanctions for men who fail to display appropriately gendered behavior. For example, sexist and homophobic taunts are often directed at men and boys who do not perform their masculine role in accordance with hegemonic [Page 436]expectations. Violence against gay men and transgen-der people are examples of severe forms of social punishment for violating gender norms.

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