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5. Historical Knowledge and Masculinity

1. Tiina Männistö
University of Turku, Finnish history

Coming out of a black box. The ways of knowing about masculinity in the feminist history of technology

Feminist research on technology has been since three decades seeking for the connections between gender and technological power. After early studies by ecofeminists and liberal feminists the mainstream of research has characterised technology as male culture: socially shaped, but shaped by men and therefore leaving women outside and without possibility of influence. Lately, this view has been criticised, because it assumes the male interests to be universal as well as known in advance and leaves therefore little or no space for studying change in the gender-technology relation: the male technological power and accordingly the powerlessness of women is only seen to be reproduced and reinforced over and over again.

Newer research, aiming to take also the possibility of change into account, has turned to consider the complex interconnections between the construction of technology and building different masculinities. The poststructuralist view of technology as truly constructed in social actions chimes with the performative understanding of gender. Technology and gender are dialogically constructed in continuous everyday actions and men are constructing their masculinity in technological actions also when women are not present. Therefore all technological action can be seen as gendered and understanding masculinity becomes a central role in understanding technology. However, also this approach leaves many questions open. What is the relation between technological, masculine identities and power? Is all technological power to be seen as continuously produced or are some power relations still to be seen as more permanent? If so, on which basis? How can both essentialism and too big a relativism be avoided, so that neither technology, nor masculinity gets locked into a black box, yet some general results about their relation can be reached?

Essentialism in studying masculinity's relation to technology has proven surprisingly durable even in studies, which want to leave it behind. That is why new kinds of theoretical approaches are needed and have partially already been deployed. Besides asking how technology is gendered and connected to masculinity it would be fruitful to ask why is it gendered the way it is? This helps to bring up the different masculinities in connection to diverse technologies, interests, social groups, cultures, times and places. The shifting of gender borders and fluidity of gender identities has to be taken seriously. Research has been already done on the active efforts to connect technology and masculinity for example in upbringing, education and work life. This helps us to understand the constructed, truly historical nature of this connection. Furthermore what is needed is research taking fully into account the gendered nature of all technological activity. From this point of view technological change needs to be explained as much through gender as through other social factors, or better, even more through gender because of the specific but complex connection of masculinity and technology.

2. Marja Jalava
University of Helsinki, Department of History

Meanings as Corporal Acts: Critical Study on Men beyond Sex and Gender

My discussion brings up for a critical analysis the distinction between 'sex' and 'gender' and its derivatives 'female/feminine' and 'male/masculine', dominant in the Anglo-American feminist theory and reflected also in the West European study on women's history and the critical study on men.

Although the biological essentialism has been widely challenged, implicitly the sex/gender division still exists in the presumption that gender distinctions are produced by cultural and social factors. The metaphor of production focuses on the idea of bodily raw material being modified by the socio-cultural production process of gender. Ironically, e.g. some Finnish women's historical studies, based on discourse analysis and aimed at questioning the mind/body dichotomy, strengthen this dualism by detaching discourses from the corporality of a human subject.

My proposal for theoretically overcoming the sex/gender division is based on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and its interpretation by the Finnish philosopher Sara Heinämaa. From this angle, the embodied human subject is a giver of meanings but also their sedimentation: an ongoing process by which intentional, value-laden corporal acts are crystallized by repetition. As an alternative to the concept of 'attitude', Merleau-Ponty proposes 'posture', referring to the embodied subject's holistic way of being in the world.

From this viewpoint, 'identity' is understood as a dynamic style of being in which every new act either strengthens or deviates the meanings of former acts. Correspondingly, the sexual differentiation can be considered a stylistic differentiation, womanly and manly modalities of behavior; not what we are but how we are; something simultaneously compelling and changeable. As Merleau-Ponty puts it in Phenomenology of Perception, it is thus impossible to superimpose on man a lower layer of behavior which one chooses to call 'natural', followed by a manufactured cultural or spiritual world.

Finally, I discuss the application of this theory to historical study. As an example I use my PhD Thesis (submitted to the examination December 2004), dealing with the formation of modern subjectivity among the Finnish nineteenth-century men of letters and their styles of being in their time and place. The focus is on the process of individualization, definitions of selfhood and identity, and the relationship between the self and others. The examined men are seen as corporeal beings, realizing various manly modalities of behavior in their actions. From this viewpoint, e.g. the process of secularization is interpreted as an especially manly style of being, connected with the examined men's striving for self-sufficiency and independence, standing out from women, children, and the lower classes.

3. Jonas Liliequist
Umeå University, Dept of Historical Studies

Virility - a useful concept for historical analyses of masculinity

Virility has seldom been used as an analytic category in gender analysis. However, I will argue for its usefulness in capturing significant but often tacit, underlying aspects of masculinity in a given culture. Virility concerns bodily and sexual comportment as the ultimate symbols of masculine strength and vigour. I will focus on the sexual aspect of virility and the phallic model of male sexual desire which, since Michel Foucault, has dominated historical analyses of sexuality. According to this model, before the emergence of modern concepts of sexual identity in the nineteenth century, male sexual behaviour and desire was really about domination and the demonstration of social power, primarily symbolized by the active performance of penetration and submission of the penetrated partner. The aim of my introduction is to discuss the relevance of this phallic mode of masculinity from three different points of view with reference to case studies from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

First empirically, presenting and discussing interpretations of men's self-descriptions of their sexual desire and behaviour in two secret diaries from the eighteenth century, compared with public declarations, opinions and cultural stereotypes of male sexuality in popular print and oral tradition. Secondly, discussing, on a more structural level, the ways in which and to what extent a phallic and penetrative mode of male sexuality could have been reinforced by changes in the perceptions of sexual differences and the emergence of new concepts of masculinity and femininity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, as suggested by (mainly) English historians. Third and finally, suggesting how the concept of virility could be elaborated and serve as a useful tool for historical analyses of masculinity.

4. Ilkka Levä
University of Helsinki, Department of History

Emasculated Masculinity - Finnish Police Culture in Long 70's

In my paper I focus on the Masculinity of Finnish policemen in 1970's, which I term "Long 70's". I propose a new psychohistorical reading of the psychopolitical history of Finnish policemen and their culture in the Finland of 1970's. I see policemen acting as passive and repressed subjects because of the pressures from the Soviet Union to the domestic policy of Finland. Policemen felt in the level of their own experience to be emasculated. Their masculinity which was founded on being active agent in their work was forestalled and because of that they just had to follow the course of events in the field of domestic policy.

5. Atte Oksanen
University of Tampere, department of sociology and social psychology

History of written male skin: tattoos as markers of masculinity

Before tattooing became part of mainstream culture in the 1990s it had a long and conflict-ridden history. In the western world tattoos have marked bodies of slaves, criminals, prostitutes, deserters, primitive tribes and later deviant male sub-cultures. Besides rebellion and stigma they have also represented exoticism after the explorations of William Dampier and Captain Cook in 16th and 17th century.

Tattooing plays a symbolic role in the formation of hegemonic masculinity. Although tattoos have been strongly stigmatized, the opportunity to obtain a voluntary stigma has remained in exceptional cases. Soldiers departing for the crusades tattooed their bodies in the name of the holy quest. Sailors have traditionally been heavily tattooed. Even kings, emperors and dictators have had tattoos.

In the history of masculinity tattoos have functioned as symbols of transgression and violent male power. The liminal space of crusades, explorations and wars is dealt by engraving the skin: tattoos have served as anchors of a masculine self. In other words, when social world is in the state of flux, body becomes a medium.

In the beginning of 21st century majority of men tend to choose tattoos displaying symbols of power and sexist imagery. Macho-masculine tattoos are characterised by the aesthetics of violence, in which the enforcement of action, strength, and heterosexuality play a major part. Masculinity is written on the skin, when one does not find his place in the world. Permanent mark on a skin is a powerful method of identity work. The world can chance, but tattoos remain the same.

6. Kristín Loftsdóttir
Department of Anthropology, University of Iceland

Images of Masculinity and Africa in 19th Century Icleand

The various ways that European colonial rule shaped African societies and economies has been an important scholarly topic. Much less has been focused on how the contact with Africa shaped European conceptions of themselves and their society. Some theorists have in this context claimed that Africa provided an important counter-identification for Europe, being important in the shaping of contemporary European identity. European ideas of progress and civilization were, furthermore, gendered but as stressed by Ann McClintock it is surprising how many studies of colonialism have ignored its gendered dimensions.
In my presentation, I focus on several narratives written in 19th century Iceland and how their discussion of Africa is not so much concern with the continent itself or Africans, but more concern with European masculinity which is represented through descriptions of explorations and colonization. European men are generally often in the foreground while European women are almost invisible, making Africa the space of men and masculinities. I base on Mary Louise Pratt's ideas of 'brotherhood,' claiming that these narratives could have served for the Icelandic men, at that time, to visualize themselves as part of the educated European elite. It is important to note that in the middle of nineteenth century, Icelandic intellectual elite was influenced by nationalistic ideas that swept through Europe, thus creating raising nationalistic feelings and increased demands for independent Iceland. In coherence with criticism of many feminists scholars, I emphasize identity as composed of vartality.

I stress these 19th century texts as gendered testimonies that show the interaction of various poles of identity, being written by white, Icelandic men, from a country that was marginal in European context. In my discussion, I will analyze few texts from these angles, examining the gendered implications of the narrative, along with contextualizing them in a political and historical context.

7. Alexander Maxwell, Independent Scholar

Sexual Stereotypes in the Habsburg Empire

Carole Pateman has convincingly argued that nations are "national brotherhoods," and that nationalists see women primarily in terms of their sexual characteristics as mothers and wives. As the spread of nationalism recast ideas of political legitimacy, the gendered content of national ideas had important consequences, not only in the legal spheres Pateman examined, but also regarding the social interpretation of everyday experiences. This paper takes Pateman as a starting point for examining several male authors who divided Europeans into discrete and homogenous national groups on the basis of sexual characteristics, whether as "pseudo-scientists" or would-be "connoisseurs." By nationalizing sexuality, such taxonomies introduced national categories into the thought and subjectivity of individuals far removed from political power.

This essay takes the Habsburg Empire, and particularly Hungary, as a case study in the nationalization of sexuality. The these psuedo-objective taxonomies are ambiguous and inconsistent in their content, reflecting arbitrary figments of nationalist fantasy: the only common feature is the glorification of one's own national group. The Habsburg Empire contained several different administrative structures, inhabited by diverse ethno-linguistic-racial groups, both of which were imagined as "nations." Both ethno-linguistic-racial nations and "political" nations were Patemanian brotherhoods. However, Habsburg taxonomizers associated female sexuality with cultural-linguistic-racial concepts of nationality; linking female beauty and sexual desirability to language, the rural countryside, or racial distinctiveness. Male sexuality was sometimes associated with political events, statehood or political documents.

Attitudes toward foreign sexuality, particularly from authors writing in German for a multi-ethnic audience, show a desire for cooperation within political units. Though taxonomizers glorified their own nationality, they also took a gallant and respectful attitude toward the sexuality of other groups within the political state. Thus Slavs praised the beauty of Hungarian women, and the virility of both Hungarian men, even while praising Slavic beauty manliness. The resulting "conspiracy of politeness" shows the desire for good relations between the various ethnic groups within the multi-national empire. Since most studies of national-sexual stereotypes demonstrate their potential in creating and intensifying national conflict, the emphasis on cooperation and mutual respect in Habsburg sexual taxonomies deserves careful study.

9. Kirsti Salmi-Niklander
University of Helsinki/Department of Folklore Studies

Bohemians and Factory Boys. The construction of "new masculinity" among Finnish working-class youth at the beginning of the 20th century.

The paper focuses on the construction of masculinity among the Finnish working-class youth during the first two decades of the 20th century. Analysing texts written by young working-class men I discuss the construction of masculinity as a dialogue between local mentalities, new ideologies and individual interpretations.

The first decades of the 20th century was a period of many dramatic historical events, culminating in the Finnish Civil War of 1918. It was also a period when new ideas of masculinity and femininity were intensively discussed and spread into local communities by popular movements.

The paper is based on a comparative analysis of two communties of working-class young people during the 1910s: the Social Democratic Youth Society of Helsinki and the small industrial community of Högfors (Karkkila) in Southern Finland. The basic material includes hand-written newspapers edited in these communities.

The leading figures of the socialist youth in Helsinki were young working-class writers Kössi Ahmala, Emil Lindahl and Kasperi Tanttu. They all discussed the questions of "new masculinity", personified as the fictional figure of a working-class Bohemian or a flaneur. On the other hand, they criticized the women's emancipation in the spirit of August Strindberg.

In the industrial community of Högfors, the traditional peasant culture and the working culture at the ironworks provided, apparently, explicit models for masculinity. However, some young men of the community questioned the traditional masculinity and opened up a new kind of dialogue between young men and women during the 1910s.

A key figure in both of these communities was a young latheman, Lennart Berghäll, who moved from Högfors to Helsinki at 1915 and joined the group of young working-class intellectuals.

10. Leena Paaskoski
Helsinki University / Ethnology

Naked masculinity? Forest students' professional culture portrayed in photographs and oral history

Strong masculinity has shaped the Finnish university educated foresters' profession for a century (1860-1960). Therefore, the professional culture of forest students and graduated foresters has been more or less a property of men - activities, experiences, views and values of a masculine group. Masculinity has been a norm of the profession, and therefore a part of the professional culture can better be seen through gender. This is the case especially when there are females joining the professional group.

The first woman became a forest student at the University of Helsinki in 1918. Before the Second World War only six women had chosen the same profession. The amount of women started to rise gradually but before the strong increase of the 1970s there were at most one or a few females in each study group.

The basic idea of the university trained foresters' education was to combine theory and practise. The academic forest examination was aimed at a practical profession based on forest sciences. The theoretical education was carried out at the university and the practical training in countryside. In particular, the three months lasting practise period in the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station in Orivesi was the most central factor in forming the common professional culture and the spirit of togetherness in a study course. This spirit was called a forester spirit (metsämieshenki). In the professional group of university educated foresters it was more or less a question of maintaining the forester spirit by recollecting the memories of the undergraduate days.

In my paper I focus in the positions of male and female forest students in their professional culture before the 1970s. The central material of my ethnological Ph. D. thesis is the biographical interviews of university educated foresters; the material was collected at the turn of the 21st century. Also a number of photographs from different decades preserve
memories of the undergraduate days at a university. Both oral history and photographs concentrate especially on the practise period in the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station.The interviews give a very clear picture of the forester spirit created in Hyytiälä and maintained later in a profession by regular course meetings. The photographs tell about working, living and leisure time in the Forestry Field Station. The objects of photographs were certainly important and worth of remembering. As a material evidence of memories, the photographs have also maintained the spirit of togetherness.

Through these materials I will analyse how the first women in a profession found their place in a masculine group and what kind of common or distinctive experiences they had with their male fellow students. What was a place of men and women according the interviews and in the photographs or even behind the camera? What are the features of the professional culture that are especially shown by gender? By analysing the contents I will consider the nature of historical knowledge and sources.

11. Ville Kivimäki:
Department of History, University of Joensuu

Spheres of Being and Not-being a Man. Problems in Using "Repatriation Literature" as a Source of Manliness

In my dissertation I study the home-coming experience of the Finnish war veterans and the women of the war-generation after the Second World War, 1944-1950. My focus is on the concepts of manliness and the re-constitution of a manly citizen-subject in the post-war social breakage. Main source of the dissertation is the so-called "repatriation literature", a genre which flourished immediately after the war and was highly subjective by its grasp as the authors were veterans and their near relatives themselves.

Repatriation literature seems to offer an ideal source to study manliness and citizenship. The authors cope with the questions of sexual morals, ideals of manliness, and being a manly citizen-subject almost explicitly. "Fervour to say" - caused by the traumatic war-experience and the anxieties in the society - overshadows high-literary ambitions, and makes the novels very open in descrition. Theories of hegemonic masculinity, gender construction, and psycho-historic object relation are well-suited for analyzing the texts.

Nevertheless, as the repatriation literature concentrates on the dramatic tensions between the ideal manliness and the manly subject constitution, a dilemma of proportioning manliness to the other forms of being and not-being remains disturbingly open in my research. Studies on men can be criticized of seeing manliness everywhere and exaggerating the influence of cultural ideals on subjective experiences and realities of men.

This problem becomes even more apparent, when one takes into account an un-discursive nature of the war-experience. The shock and trauma could be something indescribable by words, and so those who might have had most to say, remained silent.

In short, my conference paper aims at developing a methodological reading to describe the re-constitution of manly citizen-subjects in the post-war period. Texts of repatriation literature tell about authors' efforts to build up a reunion between the state, ideals of manliness / feminine, and one's self. At the same time, they introduce the war-experience into this process. To reflect my research I also ask, what is the explanation potential of the repatriation literature concerning the subjective experiences and social praxis of manliness and repatriation?

12. Anders Ahlbäck
Åbo Akademi/Historia

Beyond middle-class manliness? Popular notions of masculinity in the Finnish conscript army 1919-1939

Historical research on masculinities has been heavily dominated by middle-class notions, ideologies and rhetorics of manliness. This is probably a consequence of the fact that middle and upper class men have produced the most easily available historical sources suitable for qualitative analysis of gender issues. However, there is a risk that the heavy emphasis on the ideological rhetoric of a handful of middle-class writers, journalists and moulders of public opinion will distort our picture of the past and obscure from view popular notions and practices constituting masculinities among broader groups.

In my paper, I compare the official army rhetoric and public literary discourse on manliness in the interwar period in Finland (1919-1939) with "ordinary men's" recollections of military service in the same period, as retold in a large ethnological survey made in 1972-73. I discuss the discrepancies of rhetoric and practices, the fragmented and complex nature of notions of masculinity in a historical era, the difficulties of getting past middle-class articulations and definitions of the Zeitgeist, and how historians should deal with the obvious need for generalizations on masculinities in specific historical periods.