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Masculinity
Islam and manhood
Posted by Siad Darwish on December 25, 2009
From my personal experience, physical violence among men occurs far less often in the Muslim world than in western cities, at least outside political and military realms. It seems that staged forms of violence are most prevalent, both in the domestic and public sphere. To illustrate my point, let me recount a small story that I observed in three Muslim countries.
In Damascus, Syria, a heavily bearded man drives his car into a fruit seller’s stall. The vendor screams insults at the driver, who, in turn, jumps out of the car and rushes towards the vendor, shaking his fists in rage. The vendor answers with an even greater fit of anger and shakes his fists in the air. A crowd gathers around them. The driver of the car lunges forward, just as somebody standing in arms’ reach holds him back. As expected, the driver struggles theatrically, still screaming and the vendor follows suit. The performance continues for 30 minutes without any assertion of physical violence.
Pierre Bourdieu, who liked to look at the social world as a stage and humans as performers, observed a similar ‘performance’ during his work among the Berbers, an indigenous people of North Africa. Bourdieu situated masculinity in this social exchange within a framework of honor; he described ‘performed masculinity’ as a form of challenge and riposte that establishes social hierarchies. A challenge confers honor onto a man, because behind the call to contest lies an underlying assumption that the challenge requires a riposte, an act of possible injury or danger. Therefore, a challenge is only addressed to a man deemed capable of playing the theater of honor. The theatrical exchange provides an opportunity for both males to prove their belonging to the world of man.
Apart from diverting the focus away from physical violence, the concept of ‘performed masculinity’ illustrates the importance of male-male competition in the construction of Muslim masculinity. This offers a rather interesting angle, given that in an Islamic context we normally look at the power relations between the sexes and not within them.
Despite that, it is undeniable that there exists a connection between violent behaviour and dominant constructions of masculinity throughout the world. Otherwise it wouldn’t be young men who are both the perpetrators and victims of the vast majority of violent crimes globally. Although many scholars have argued that there are at least contributing biological factors to male rather than female violence, we only have to look at our televisions sets, popular role-models and leaders to understand that violence is social capital for men. The challenge we face is not one of Islam, but of manhood. To overcome the image of the Muslim men as violent, and that of men more generally, is to recognize other positive male attributes, and ultimately to live them. We have to turn to women to relearn or reclaim some of the attributes that male socialization has taken from us. We have to stand shoulder by shoulder with them and recognize that Muslim men are caring, empathetic and men enough to be different.
(Photo: CharlesFred)
Siad Darwish is a peacebuilder, civil society activist and trainer on intercultural dialogue, gender, nonviolence and conflict resolution. He is part of the Women’s Peacemakers Program’s unit on ‘masculinity, violence and peace’. Siad holds an MA in Anthropology from Sussex University, where his research focused on the relationship between HIV/AIDS and Islam. In the past years, he has lived in Germany, Spain, Guatemala, England, Syria and Lebanon.
5 COMMENTS ON THIS POST
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This is an interesting post. without illsutrations of the vast diversity in cultural expressions, we oftema ssume that our own cultural expressions are the absolute norm of the human creature. I watch a lot of films from the Muslim world, anything I can get my hands on, for many reasons. And one thing that really stands out for me, as born and raised in the US mostly, that people have scream outs at the drop of the hat, where in the US, you would only see such displays among those ready to fight to the death like pit bulls. It;s kinds of amazing, and it’s not just a Muslim world phenomena. I had a similar kind of experience in san Francisco decades ago that really taught me this lesson. I was sranding on a corner in Chinatown waiting for a bus. It was a busy corner with a lot of old Chinese people, men and women, waiting for the bus. In other parts of town, people form a line and wait their turn to get on the bus. Not in Chinatown. They form a big mass and just all try to swarm on at once. On this occassion I was shoved rudely out of the way by a woman close to 80 who put her open hand on my chest and just shoved me with a force that seemed more in keeping with a Green Bay Packer quarterback. But I had no real raction I just waited until I could find a place to squeeze in. If that had happened 5 blocks to the east in front of Macy’s, the cops would have been had to be called because a melee would have broken out. Not from me. I have seen other pronounced examples of such differences that mean very, very different things in different cultures. I am not sure I would not trade some of this stuff for what I have. Not all by any means, but maybe some mix and match would be fun. - Posted by Akenanubis on December 26, 2009 at 10:05 AM
The topic of how masculinity is understood and performed within the Muslim community is a vital one that I hope receives much more attention here on Altmuslimah.
I can’t comment on the social construction of masculinity within traditional Muslim cultures (being ethnically (primarily) European and raised in the US…but at least here in this culture the social construction of masculinity as violent is a pernicious reality.
Some great resources are put out by the Media Education Foundation.
( http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=home )
See, for example, their documentary, “Tough Guise” for a look at how media teaches boys that violence is part of what it means to be a man ... and their excellent “Killing Us Softly” for the ways in the advertising industry trains girls to accept and even celebrate violence toward them. They’ve got a bunch of other great resources too.
wasalaam,
anas - Posted by Anas Coburn (Putney, VT) on December 26, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Thanks for the post. I would also like to see more discussion on Muslim masculinity on Altmuslimah. This topic is extremely important, especially in light of the increasing cases of homegrown radicalization we’re seeing in the US. - Posted by snowday on December 30, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Dear Akenanubis, thanks for your message. I completely go with your idea of mix and match. Dispite trying to write some wrong-perceptions about the Muslim men in particular, right, I still believe that there is much wrong with masculinity in general. Which leads exactly to the articles that Anas mentions. It’s really an interesting documentary especially if you’re a man. - Posted by Siad on January 5, 2010 at 08:19 AM
There is nothing wrong with masculinity, but masculinity requires other males to “knock some sense into them” figuratively and if needed physically. Men don’t need to be women…they need to be good men. That requires judgement and control of their own strength, and that comes from other men. In fact in many parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the radicalization occurs because the male elders are killed and the radicals fill the void they’ve created.
In the west, I’m not sure what is going on. Yes there is emptiness in high individualism and a pleasure-based culture…and there is certainty in having an old-world person brainwash you. But isn’t that because there are not enough new world men to offer a model of how to live in modern culture? - Posted by ghina on February 11, 2010 at 10:55 AM
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