The Tyranny of the Male Preserve

Abstract

Within this paper I draw on short vignettes and quotes taken from a two--year ethnographic study of boxing to think through the continuing academic merit of the notion of the male preserve. This is an important task due to evidence of shifts in social patterns of gender that have developed since the idea was first proposed in the 1970s. In aligning theoretical contributions from Lefebvre and Butler to discussions of the male preserve, we are able to add nuance to our understanding of how such social spaces are engrained with and produced by the lingering grasp of patriarchal narratives. In particular, by situating the male preserve within shifting social processes, whereby certain men's power is increasingly undermined, I highlight the production of space within which narratives connecting men to violence, aggression and physical power can be consumed, performed and reified in a relatively unrestricted form. This specific case study contributes to gender theory as an illustration of a way in which we might explore and understand social enclaves where certain people are able to lay claim to space and power. As such, I argue that the notion of the male preserve is still a useful conceptual, theoretical and political device especially when considered as produced by the tyranny of gender power through the dramatic representation and reification of behaviours symbolically linked to patriarchal narrations of manhood.

'Pink Gloves Still Give Black Eyes': exploring 'alternative' femininity in women's combat sports

“…This was particularly the case for the women who practiced full-contact 5 kickboxing, muay thai, and MMA -so-called 'hard' martial arts jointly characterised by a comparatively higher risk of injury and an inclination towards competitive fighting rather than self-defence or any other training goals [see Mierzwinski and Phipps 2015]. This is perhaps unsurprising given that, among all MACS, these types of disciplines are highly 'sportised' and are considered to most closely approximate 'real' fighting, two things popularly imagined as the preserve of men [Matthews 2016]. When asked about what they thought of the 'masculine' image of these combat sports, some agreed that this label was fitting in certain respects and were happy to lay claim to having a 'masculine side' themselves.…”

“…This is unsurprising given the gendered character of combat-oriented activities in general and MACS in particular. Commonly viewed as 'quintessentially masculine' [see Mennesson 2000 andGammel 2012], such activities often serve as cultural sites through which masculinity is symbolically articulated as the male embodiment of strength, toughness, and physical power [Matthews 2016]. Thus, women's successful entry into these symbolically 'masculine' spaces has the potential to pose particularly dramatic challenges to wider social discourses of male superiority, owing to the way in which female fighting ability and the combat-ready female body destabilise patriarchal gender norms and women's concurrent symbolic subordination to men [Hargreaves 1997;McCaughey 1997;Gammel 2012;Channon and Matthews 2015b].…”

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.…”

Re-establishing the ‘outsiders’: English press coverage of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup

“…Here, the position of certain groups 'are not exclusively determined by objective elements (such as economic position)', but, rather, 'assumptions and representations' play a prominent role in shaping human relations (Petintseva, 2015). This is often achieved through the enactment of 'common sense' understandings of gender, which maintain the boundaries between male and female participants (Matthews, 2016). These boundaries are used by groups to mark their difference as well as that of others.…”