Raewyn Connell

Agora

Raewyn Connell

b. 1944

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

There are many ways of being a man, one of which dominates the others – and social theory must listen to the global South instead of speaking only from the North.

Placement

Sociology & Social Theory · Oceania · Society & History, Gender & Feminism, Epistemology

Australian sociologist who developed the concept of hegemonic masculinity and, in “Southern Theory”, asked why social theory claims universality while being made almost entirely in the global North.

Key ideas

Hegemonic masculinity
Gender order
Southern Theory
Critique of Northern universalism

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Influence

Influenced by 4

Karl Marx

influenced by
Connell began with Marxist class analysis of Australia’s ruling class and its cultural hegemony (Ruling Class, Ruling Culture, 1977), before extending structural analysis of power to gender. R. W. Connell, Ruling Class, Ruling Culture (1977); R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History (1980); Gender and Power (1987)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Antonio Gramsci

influenced by
Connell adapted Gramsci’s hegemony to gender: hegemonic masculinity is the culturally exalted form that legitimates men’s dominance over women and subordinates other masculinities (Gender and Power, 1987). R. W. Connell, Gender and Power (1987); Masculinities (1995); R. W. Connell and J. W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”, Gender & Society 19 (2005); SEP “Antonio Gramsci”
Evidence: AI draft
Antonio Gramsci › 1891–1937
Ali Shariati

influenced by
In Southern Theory (2007) Connell discussed Shariati’s call for a ‘return to the self’ against Western domination as one Iranian source for a social science beyond the metropole. R. Connell, Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science (2007); A. Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam, trans. H. Algar (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Ali Shariati › 1933–1977
Paulin Hountondji

influenced by
In Southern Theory (2007) Connell discussed Hountondji’s critique of ethnophilosophy and of the extraversion of African science, dependent on Northern centres, as a resource for global social science. R. Connell, Southern Theory (2007); P. J. Hountondji, Sur la « philosophie africaine » (1976); Endogenous Knowledge: Research Trails (1997)
Evidence: AI draft
Paulin Hountondji › 1942–2024

Criticism

Criticizes 3

Talcott Parsons

criticised
Connell rejected the sex-role theory Parsons built on instrumental and expressive family roles, arguing that it naturalises gender and leaves power and change unexplained (Gender and Power, 1987). R. W. Connell, Gender and Power (1987), ch. 3; T. Parsons & R. F. Bales, Family, Socialization and Interaction Process (1955)
Evidence: AI draft
Talcott Parsons › 1902–1979
Pierre Bourdieu

criticised
Connell argued that Bourdieu’s reproduction theory explains stability through a ‘black box of habit’, leaving social change and struggle unexplained (Which Way Is Up?, 1983). R. W. Connell, “The Black Box of Habit on the Wings of History”, in Which Way Is Up? (1983); Southern Theory (2007), ch. 2
Evidence: AI draft
Pierre Bourdieu › 1930–2002
Anthony Giddens

criticised
Connell read Giddens’s structuration theory as metropolitan general theory claiming universal validity while ignoring colonial experience and the global South (Southern Theory, 2007, ch. 2). R. Connell, Southern Theory (2007), ch. 2 (on Coleman, Giddens and Bourdieu)
Evidence: AI draft
Anthony Giddens › b. 1938

Works

2007Southern Theory
Social theory claims universal validity but is written from the metropole; Connell reads thinkers from Africa, Iran, India and Latin America as theorists in their own right.

Position

Connell’s work spans class, education, gender and the global politics of knowledge. In studies of Australian schools in the early 1980s she and her colleagues found that boys and girls do not simply learn fixed “sex roles”, as functionalist theory had assumed, but negotiate a gender order structured by power. From this came the concept of hegemonic masculinity, developed in Gender and Power (1987) and Masculinities (1995): in any society one form of masculinity is culturally exalted and legitimates men’s dominance over women, while other masculinities – gay, working-class, colonised – are subordinated or marginalised. Most men do not embody the hegemonic ideal, but they benefit from it through a “patriarchal dividend”. The concept became a foundation of masculinity studies worldwide. In Southern Theory (2007) Connell turned to the geography of knowledge itself. Classical and contemporary “general” theory, from the founders of sociology to James Coleman, Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu, claims universality while being produced in the metropole and largely silent about colonialism. She set beside it thinkers from Africa, Iran, India and Latin America – among them Paulin Hountondji, Ali Shariati, Veena Das and Raúl Prebisch – as resources for a genuinely global social science.

Life & context

Raewyn Connell was born in Sydney in 1944. She studied at the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, taking her doctorate at Sydney, and was active in the student and New Left movements of the 1960s. In 1976 she became the founding professor of sociology at Macquarie University in Sydney, a post she held until 1991. After several years in the United States, including a professorship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she returned to the University of Sydney, where she was University Professor from 2004 until her retirement in 2014 and is now professor emerita. Connell is a trans woman who transitioned later in life; her earlier books appeared under the name R. W. Connell, and she has published as Raewyn Connell since 2006. She remains active as a researcher and writer, not least on the politics of universities.