Embodied Masculinities: Reconfiguring the Hegemony
Feminist scholar Peggy Phelan (1993) famously said that “visibility is a trap” and argued for the immense power of the unmarked. Such a theory of the unmarked finds utmost relevance in the case of what R.W. Connell calls hegemonic masculinity, which often maintains its superiority by being the norm and thus abstract, untraceable. However, material bodily practices among marginalized groups of men often subvert such invisibility tactics, expose the nodes of hegemonic and normative masculinities, and articulate a language of resistance. For example, dance scholar Mark Broomfield (2024) observes that black gay male dancers in America use “straight acting” as a way of passing and surviving in a world where white heterosexual masculinity is the norm.