Male Agency and Masculine Performance in the Baal Cycle

Abstract

10 See Stephen Wilson's recent analysis of the use of the multiple masculinities theory in the study of the Hebrew Bible (Wilson 2019; cf. Macwilliam 2019). 63 in privileged positions of power, and complicit masculinity, that is, the masculine performance of men who are not able to live up the ideal but who nevertheless support the hegemonic ideal. 11 Since the hegemonic model, which as such is variable, 12 may fail to make visible the articulations of masculinity that do not conform to the hegemonic ideal, Raewyn Connell categorized two further types of masculinity: subordinate masculinity signifying a lower status in masculine hierarchy, lacking some crucial characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, and marginal masculinity, which is a non-authorized type of male performance that appears as illegitimate for the dominant group and is typically associated with some kind of male otherness. 13 Even if multiple masculinities are recognized, the different forms of masculinity are defined in relation to hegemonic male performance-the complicit and subordinate type in terms of male hierarchy and the marginalized type in terms of authorization. The yardsticks of masculinity have usually been