Saturday, January 24, 2015

Grit, Guts, and Vanilla Beans: Godly Masculinity in the Ex-Gay Movement

Okay.  I think this is an actual article, and not a parody.  But...but....wow.  First of all, "the Ex-Gay Movement"?  What the heck?  But of course I'm just ignorant, and it's a thing.  It may be a good thing, or a not-so-good thing (I'm skeptical), but it's definitely a thing.  A history, though one with a clear perspective.

Anyway, there are apparently distinctions that had not occurred to me:

Grit, Guts, and Vanilla Beans: Godly Masculinity in the Ex-Gay Movement 

Lynne Gerber 
Gender & Society, February 2015, Pages 26-50 

Abstract: Ex-gay ministries, like many evangelical groups, advocate traditional gender ideologies. But their discourses and practices generate masculine ideals that are quite distinct from hegemonic ones. I argue that rather than simply reproducing hegemonic masculinity, ex-gay ministries attempt to realize godly masculinity, an ideal that differs significantly from hegemonic masculinity and is explicitly critical of it. I discuss three aspects of the godly masculine ideal — de-emphasizing heterosexual conquest, inclusive masculinity, and homo-intimacy — that work to subvert hegemonic masculinity and allow ministry members to critique it while still advocating for innate gender distinction and hierarchy. I conclude by arguing that gender theorists need to be more precise in distinguishing conservative religious masculinities from hegemonic ones. 

I had not seen "masculinity" used as a plural before, and certainly not with three different competing adjectives.  I think I'll just go watch some football.

1 comment:

Tom said...

Use of the adjective godly* bespeaks a lack of seriousness. Surely the author must know that "godly" means different -- sometimes radically different -- things to different people.

Oh, wait... Now I recall: Fundamentalists are SO sure of their beliefs that no thought of anything contrary is welcome in their heads. Is this what UC Berkeley has become?

*Godly looks like it wants to be an adverb. But it's used as an adjective here.