Hegemonic masculinity can be defined as the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legit… - Raewyn Connell

IN the established gender order, relations of cathexis are organized mainly through the heterosexual couple.

Arguments that masculinity should change often come to grief, not on counter-against reform, but on the belief that men cannot change, so it is futile or even dangerous to try. Mass culture generally assumes there is a fixed, true masculinity beneath the ebb and flow of daily life. We hereof 'real men' 'natural man', the 'deep masculine'. This idea is now shared across an impressive spectrum including the mythopoetic men's movement, Jungian psychoanalysts, Christian fundamentalists, sociobiologists and the essentialist school of feminism.

In gender terms, fascism was a naked reassertion of male supremacy in societies that had been moving towards equality for women. To accomplish this, fascism promoted new images of hegemonic masculinity, glorifying irrationality (the 'triumph of the will', thinking with 'the blood') and the unrestrained violence of the frontline soldier. Its dynamics soon led to a new and even more devastating global war.