Sexuality, Men’s Rights, and The Coalitional Politics of Masculinity

• In Event: Nationalism, Patriotism, and Exclusionary Identities

Abstract

This paper theorizes masculinity as a coalitional politics of exclusion using an inductive archival analysis of gay men’s participation in the men’s movement during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. By attending to the activism of gay men in the men’s movement, I argue that the project of rehabilitating masculinity precluded the formation of larger progressive coalitions with lesbians and women’s rights advocates. As a result, I argue that contemporary efforts to distinguish “good” from “bad” (e.g., “toxic”) masculinity necessarily entail a politics of exclusion, thereby impeding progressive coalition formation.

This paper uses archival research conducted in the “Changing Men” archive at Michigan State University to offer an original analysis of gay men in the men’s movement at a pivotal time in the pursuit of gay rights in America. Through a close reading of movement literature, conference programs, and interviews, I show how these actions were rooted in a progressive desire for a more sexually free and gender inclusive society. Despite these impulses, the project of rehabilitating masculinity led to coalitions that reinscribed binary gender norms and thereby impeded their larger progressive aims.

Previous research has considered the roles of homophobia and misogyny in the ideological construction of the men’s movement, but no analysis of the political significance of gay men in the movement has yet been conducted. The history of gay men’s activity in the men’s movement offers a cautionary tale about the limits of progressive coalition-building through resuscitating binarized gender norms.

Author

• H. Howell Williams, Western Connecticut State University