Multipurpose masculinities: Gender and power in Low Countries histories of masculinity

Abstract

This article introduces the contributions to a BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review special issue on Low Countries masculinities. It outlines a shared theoretical framework that focuses on what historian Mrinalini Sinha has called, 'the rhetorical and ideological efficac'y of notions of masculinity 'in underwriting various arrangements of power'. The article's central argument is that the history of masculinity should move 'beyond masculinity' by analysing the deployment of masculinity in the making, legitimisation and contestation of not just power relations of gender, but also other power relations. It points to the origins of this framework in post-structuralist strands of women's and gender history and evaluates critically the usefulness of the notion of 'hegemonic masculinity' for such an approach.