Hegemonic Masculinity
This chapter argues that any ethnographic study of masculinity must begin with R.W. Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity. It has been incredibly influential in masculinity research since the 1980s, and has greatly influenced some early work of Egyptian masculinity and sexuality. As the only social constructionist analytic developed specifically for studying masculinity, hegemonic masculinity has been widely used since its 1985 introduction. Drawing explicitly from feminist theory and Marxist sociology, Connell sought to reconcile the lived reality of inequality among men with the fact of men's group dominance over women. This new theory sought to examine hierarchical inequality among men, relate analysis of masculinity to feminist insights on the social construction of gender, and resist the dichotomy of structure versus the individual plaguing contemporary studies of gender and class.