Since there was a lot of confusion about hegemony today in class I thought I would do some more research on the definition of hegemony to see if I could get a better understanding of it. The dictionary definition of hegemony is: authority or control- the control or dominating influence by one person or group, especially by one political group over society or one nation over others. Synonyms include domination, control, supremacy, dominion, power, authority. In class we are focusing on hegemonic masculinity which is the belief in the existence of a culturally normative ideal of male behavior via the encouragement by society of men to embody this kind of masculinity. It is the tendency for the male to dominate other males and subordinate females. However, there are many different kinds of hegemony and I found that understanding some of the different kinds, gave me a better understanding of hegemonic masculinity. For example I found a very interesting video on cultural hegemony as linked below. In the video, the woman explains that cultural hegemony as the sociological theory, by Marxist Antonio Gramsci, that a culturally diverse society can be dominated by one social class, by manipulating the societal culture so that its ruling-class worldview is imposed as the societal norm, which then is perceived as a universally valid ideology. I know it is not exactly the same thing that we learned in class, but I found the video to be an interesting way to demonstrate the concept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDxmzCVFLu8
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