Poststructuralism and the “Death” of the White Male

This chapter focuses on the effects of poststructuralist thinking on the analysis of white heterosexual masculinity. In questioning fixed racialized and gendered identities, poststructuralism has challenged the very existence of an (apparently) unitary concept of (white heterosexual) masculine identity. However, much scholarship continues to emphasize the relevance of identity (gender, sexual, and/or racialized) to our lives. Thus, the debate between poststructuralist and identity-based analyses of masculinity has become one of the most controversial ones, leading to the current discussion about, for example, the possibility of “nonbinary” genders or gender self-determination by trans people. While both approaches have often been regarded as antithetical, I will try to demonstrate how it is possible, and maybe also productive, to start rethinking the discussion from new theoretical perspectives. In so doing, the chapter also aims to reconcile feminist identity politics with the poststructuralist analysis of the internal fissures and contradictions of hegemonic masculinity.