Biology Ideology and Pastiche Hegemony

Abstract

As knowledge about the biological foundation of the modern patriarchal gender order is increasingly challenged within late-modern social worlds enclaves persist in which men and women can attempt to recreate understandings of the ''natural'' basis of sex difference. Within ''Power Gym,'' male boxers were able to symbolize their bodies and behaviors in such a manner. The language and logic of popular scientific discourses authored and authorized notions of an ''innate'' manhood. The ability to instrumentally deploy one's manliness in symbolically legitimate ways could then be represented and emotionally experienced as a man's biological right and obligation. Through scripted performances of ''mimetic'' violence and self-bullying, the boxers were able to experience this discursive naturalness and carve out a masculinity-validating social enclave. As such, they accessed a ''patriarchal dividend'' by securing a local pastiche hegemony in which discourses surrounding men's natural place as physically and psychologically dominant remained largely uncontested. Through the reflexive appropriation of ''science,'' within appropriate subcultural codes, these men could negotiate taboos and restrictions that are characteristic of late-modern social worlds. When considered in this way, the power of ''scientific'' truth claims to explain and justify a certain level of violence, aggression, and behaviors coded as masculine, comes to the fore.

Understanding sports violence: revisiting foundational explorations

“…However, the subsequent definition of violence used for the paper fails to engage with the complexities outlined above in any meaningful way: "Violence is defined as male-to-male physical sport-related violence, male-to-male physical out-of-sport interpersonal violence, and male-to-female physical, sexual, and emotional aggression and abuse" (2004,293). It is unclear what differences Pappas et al (2004) considered might exist between 'sport-related' and 'out-of-sport' violence, despite the fact that many other studies (e.g., Hughes & Coakley, 1991;Messner, 1990;Maguire, 1992;Matthews, 2014Matthews, , 2016Young, 2000;2012) of such phenomena emphasise complex, multifaceted, sometimes discrete and sometimes overlapping sets of experiences within and between them. Interestingly, they also appear to disregard the possibility of sexual violence occurring between men, or in any direction other than male-to-female.…”

“…With respect to the concept of mimesis, participation in sports can be understood as generative of similar emotional experiences to what we might loosely call the 'real-life' situations of which they are a selective imitation (Elias andDunning 2008 [1986]; Matthews, 2014). They have consequences which are usually less severe in an objective sense than those of their real-life equivalents, but, of far greater conceptual importance, consequences which are experienced differently by those involved.…”

“…1 There remains the possibility of conceptualising the normalised legitimacy of this (often) physically harmful behaviour as violence-as-violation if we consider the ways that many young men (in particular) are socialised into uncritically accepting the risks associated with it as they enter sporting subcultures (see Matthews, 2014;Messner, 1990). This theorising requires attention to the gendered, often racialized and commercially exploitive symbolic violences embedded within sport, and requires the presupposition that athletes are duped by the logic of sport and its proponents, rather than active agents who choose to take risks in order to play games involving 'brutal body contact'.…”

“…This staged, managed violence -which exists within context-specific formal or informal norms of acceptability -is often expressly instrumental or theatrical in nature and holds a significant symbolic and sub-cultural component (Maguire, 1992;Matthews, 2014). Such violence involves a move away from the malicious intent to cause physical or psychological harm towards action targeted at achieving some other, generally socially acceptable objective (Dunning, 2008(Dunning, [1983).…”

“…Such ritual performances are fundamentally different from the violent acts of which they are a mimesis. Importantly, participants engaging in such ritualised violence are able to engender similar emotions and sensations to those experienced during 'real life' violent encounters, while avoiding some of the typical physical, psychological and social dangers associated with them (Atkinson, 2008;Maguire, 1992;Matthews, 2014). The emotions produced during ritualised violence, "are the 'sibling' of those aroused in real-life situations" (Maguire, 1992, 105).…”