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We Are Lit Boys A poem by Ivan Ang puts a torch to hegemonic masculinity
By Ow Yeong Wai Kit
In an essay in 1937, the American teacher Doris L. Wright recounted a comment from one of her students that "all poets were sissies and so are fellows who read poetry". Wright's urgently articulated imperative was for "pupils [to] realise that poetry is not a 'sissy' subject", for them to "love it and acknowledge their love for it". Almost a century later, it seems that such anxieties about the perceived effeminacy of poetry in particular and literature in general, and its consequent implications for the literature classroom, have hardly abated. A 2009 article by Christopher Greig and Janette Hughes is memorably titled: "a boy who would rather write poetry than throw rocks at cats is also considered to be wanting in masculinity: poetry, masculinity, and baiting boys". Such concerns have been similarly echoed by Alan Sinfield, whose observations about middle-class cultural dissidence in his essay "Art and Cultural Production" (1994) posits its gendered and specifically 'feminine' quality. In contrast with the 'manliness' that inspires endeavours of commercial, industrial, and military conquests, art — including the literary arts — has been relegated to a feminine, subordinate position. Consequently, to use the terms of Louis Althusser in his essay "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970), boys who like poetry have often been 'interpellated' as feminised subjects in ideological discourses that reinforce traditional stereotypes and normative assumptions. How have such conceptions of hegemonic masculinity influenced popular perceptions of literature as a subject, in terms of how it is mediated, experienced, and articulated in contemporary Singapore poetry? In this essay, I explore one specific challenge faced by literature teachers — the perception that literature is a 'feminine' or even 'sissy' subject, that is somehow 'softer' or less demanding than the sciences or other 'hard' subjects. It is not so much about getting male students to appreciate and experience literature than it is about understanding deep-seated assumptions about literature and correcting concomitant misconceptions to uproot underlying prejudices. To explore how such assumptions have been fuelled, and by extension to consider how literature should be taught and promoted for students of any gender, I apply Sinfield's concepts of literary dissidence and Althusser's concept of ideological state apparatuses to close-read Ivan Ang's poem 'Lit Boys', which is featured in the anthology Little Things (2013) (edited by Loh Chin Ee, Angelia Poon, and Esther Vincent). As I argue, the speaker in the poem reveals an abiding insecurity, or what Sinfield describes as an "anxiety about effeminacy", exposed by the zeal with which the speaker and the marginal community for whom he speaks distance themselves from the feminine. When students are interpellated in a system that subscribes to conceptions of hegemonic masculinity, they risk succumbing to beliefs in stereotypical binaries of masculinity/femininity as rational/emotional or dominant/subordinate. Such beliefs not only threaten to constrain students' understanding of the complex realities of gender in simplistic and reductive terms but may also — more seriously — compromise their interest and passion for literature as a subject. Such perils, as hinted by the poem, point to the need for more effective 'alternative vocabularies' (as Richard Rorty puts it) that serve as ways out of binary, dichotomous thinking, and which can supplant banal, conventional, and outdated conceptions of both gender and literary studies for students today. Literary dissidence, as Sinfield highlights, involves resistance against established modes of thought, involving "invocation of a 'human' protest [that] depends on the strategic deployment of effeminacy: of culture against brutality, the spirit against the system". It demands leveraging just enough 'feminine' traits but not excessively so, lest it incur a "disabling stigma". To Sinfield, the perils of such a 'stigma' are clear: he cites Irving Babbitt's observation in 1908 that literary courses were regarded in some institutions as 'sissy' courses, in which poetry was a "pretty enough thing for wives and daughters", whereas men should study science or business since "the really virile thing to be [would be] an electrical engineer". Babbitt's cautionary note was that a man with an overt interest in literature would be "suspected of effeminacy". Such effeminacy constitutes a "misogynist construct" through which men's gendered identities are jeopardised by the perception of regression from the systematic rationality that stereotypically characterises masculinity to the feeble passivity associated with femininity. Challenging this conception of males is the speaker in "Lit Boys". The poem begins with the speaker distinguishing a particular class of boys who resist conventional collocations with scientific or mathematical preoccupations:
In its depiction of neural networks reflecting an almost robotic, mechanical 'hyperrationality' reminiscent of Mr Spock from Star Trek, the speaker highlights their contrast with this special breed of males, distancing them from mercenary instincts in a society underpinned by the ideology of neoliberal capitalism, and delving beneath the superficial ('lacquered') sheen that conceals the tedious mechanics of numerical processing ("computational / algorithms") in a data-driven world. In Althusser's terms, ideological state apparatuses have imposed and inculcated ways of seeing that 'hail' or 'transform' individuals, who are accordingly interpellated not just as profit-oriented commercial actors but as gendered subjects, such that "wirings of formulas" can be constructed as 'masculine'. Considering that naming has performative power, as Bourdieu observes, subordinate groups struggle for the right to grant preferred names upon themselves. Such performative naming of gendered identities is enacted in the second stanza:
As a self-proclaimed epithet, 'Lit Boys' — recalling Alan Bennett's The History Boys (2004) — is redolent of adolescent camaraderie, bordering on youthful machismo. The anaphora ("more … than …") reiterates the fraternity's uniquely distinctive traits even as it imbues the text with an incantatory rhythm, punctuated with the self-deprecatory humour of the internal rhyme ("more profound than physically sound"). It is the text that is 'moulded' to sculpt an image of the 'boys', with the speaker as spokesman, wryly adopting the mathematical language of addition ("sum of these parts") to reassert their masculinity, though "more understanding than calculative". Emotional sensitivity is championed here, not ruthless Machiavellianism. The first signs of literary dissidence rear their heads, as the speaker employs the strategy that Sinfield observes: "When Hermann Goering reaches for his gun, we reach for our culture". In other words, civility is our shield. Echoed here is Sinfield's recollection of Matthew Arnold's juxtaposition of "humanist sweetness and light" with "the philistines and the barbarians", though as Sinfield quips, "the latter two may be vulgar, but they do sound like real men". Perhaps this sentiment explains the speaker's strident insistence on being sufficiently male, with the very need for such an utterance exposing an insecurity about the risk of not being perceived as 'one of the boys' — a need associated with hegemonic masculinity. If "hegemonic masculinity is the standard bearer of what it means to be a 'real' man or boy" (as Jane Kenway and Lindsay Fitzclarence put it), it is in contrast with, and in resistance against, these heteronormative structures of gendered power relations with which the speaker and his comrades engage in struggle. Just as — or precisely because — dominant groups enforce hierarchies that confer what Bourdieu describes as 'symbolic capital', subordinate groups may experience the inability to resist their own subjugation. Yet the speaker in 'Lit Boys' wrests control of such 'symbolic capital', moving boldly from a tentative mode of suggestion ("maybe some of us are …") to an assertive statement of declaration:
Yes, we can — with all the certitude of a campaign slogan, the speaker assumes the first-person plural pronoun, proclaiming his tribe's long list of skillsets by wielding a whole slew of sensory verbs suggestive of a predator on the hunt for any weakness. Akin to sharks sensing blood in a sea of texts, the speaker revels in how he and his brethren are capable of a sensual engagement with language in ways that challenge commonplace, hegemonic ideologies:
Casting himself and his fellow literary mavericks as agents of linguistic alchemy who reject the 'quotidian' as it is but instead actively redefine and reshape their reality through poetic expression, the speaker enacts even as he describes his playful manipulation of language as a subversive act of resistance. By embracing ambiguity and complexity, these warriors of words celebrate their ability to defy prevailing norms by carving out a space for humorous critique, as contrasted with the crude simplicity of what Althusser would regard as dominant ideological narratives that interpellate all individuals within a repressive and constraining cultural landscape. This show of bravado, however, instantiates what Sinfield recognises to be the problem with literary dissidence: it concedes the prioritisation of a utilitarian framework as the dominant paradigm, when it "accepts the binary opposition that includes its own subordination". Any portrayal that casts all members of a gendered community as reflecting stereotypical personality traits is still sexist. In this case, it is to be complicit in the dominant depiction of males as observed by Lorraine Evans and Kimberly Davies: "aggressive, argumentative, and competitive". The danger is that such strident pride in being able to "pick out any feeble argument" presumes that other legitimate ways of reading are (in the words of Rita Felski) "sappy and starry-eyed", with "the only alternative to critique [as] a full-scale surrender to sentimentality [and] quietism". Accepting this false dichotomy would entail falling prey to the hazards of responding to being 'hailed' or interpellated as a subject, in this case a gendered one. It is to allow dominant groups to maintain what Bourdieu has termed a 'monopoly of official naming', such that their reality (as Dale Spender describes) "remains the reference point even for those of us who seek to transform it". To protect their own self-worth, and out of fear of being regarded as effeminate, such "subordinate boys" may adopt a siege mentality when threatened with names that impugn their maleness, inadvertently lending credence to heteronormativity or hegemonic masculinity. Consider, for instance, the speaker's disavowal of externally imposed labels in the fifth stanza:
In contemporary contexts, one may question just what is wrong with being 'gay' or a 'nerd'. There may be understandable pressure, when labelled with names intended to function as pejorative terms of abuse, to repudiate such epithets by adopting what Carolyn Jackson has termed a "self-worth protection strategy", with words as weapons for self-defence. But there seems to be little need to succumb to being taunted into uncontrolled 'acrid' verbal antagonism, which has been deemed as what Julia Grant has regarded as a "manifestation of the lack of self-control deemed essential to manliness". The danger is that in declaring "We know no / control", the speaker runs the risk of subscribing to the notion that true masculinity requires an absence of self-discipline or a failure to exhibit restraint, hence unintentionally reinforcing harmful stereotypes about male behaviour and identity. Sinfield informs us of Babbitt's observation that "the more vigorous and pushing teachers of language feel that they must assert their manhood by philological research". Yet if Babbitt is right in arguing that such assertions — motivated by insecurity — are unnecessary, as any "vigorous and virile application of ideas to life" is a mark of true humanism, why not reclaim the appellation of 'Lit Boys' as sufficient in itself by conferring value upon the effort of reading tattered pages, of surviving in an existential wasteland inundated by the logic of pragmatism, as the speaker declares:
Like characters in an absurdist play, the speaker and his confederates may be interpellated as subjects governed by dominant practices and rituals, but they defy the powers that be — which employ the language of utility and practicality — by means of sheer existence:
'Still', 'still', and 'still' — survival is a kind of victory, especially when encircled and confined, or even when rendered voiceless like the mutilated Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, but this time through self-inflicted muting, or when subjected to attempted emasculation. Even if muted groups (in the words of Elaine Showalter) "must mediate their beliefs through the allowable forms of dominant structures", the speaker and his fellow subalterns persist in their struggles to unmask what Gayatri Spivak famously termed the "epistemic violence" that silences their voices:
Presenting a forceful denial of conformity, the speaker issues a concluding declaration that also serves as a manifesto for literary dissidence, distinguishing his band of brothers from the henchmen of oppressive societal structures that seek to marginalise them. In this brave front of solidarity and collective identity forged through an active reclamation of identity, the speaker positions his motley crew of insurgents as engaging in a form of activism against systemic forces that attempt to stifle their right to self-expression, therefore disrupting what Laura Scholes, Nerida Spina, and Barbara Comber have described as "dominant discourses around boys and reading that often homogenize young males" as antithetical to literature. Instead, steadfast commitment to the practices of reading, writing, and speaking manifests as literary dissidence against a system of hegemonic masculinity, which is repressive not just towards females but also males perceived as failing to live up to the standards of its demands, or who refuse to be interpellated in ways constructive or faithful to their identities. Yet despite their vulnerability, suggested by the image of internment, the speaker and his fellow dissidents mount a valiant effort to resist the aggressive impulses of, as Sinfield reminds us, "the brutality of the system". What then are the implications of literary dissidence and its gendered nature for the literature classroom? Felski cites Richard Rorty's suggestion that "the best way of redirecting an established line of thought is not to take up arms against it … but to come up with inspiring alternatives and new vocabularies". I suggest that Ang's sobriquet of 'Lit Boys' suffices as an instance of such a new vocabulary term, without having to distance oneself from stereotypically feminine traits or 'normatively perform' traditionally masculine behaviours, which would be tantamount to complicity with hegemonic masculinity. If all students — male or female — are to develop to their full potential, they need to be taught that it is acceptable to exhibit a diverse range of characteristics and express a wide variety of interests, whether labelled 'masculine' or 'feminine'. Just as girls can study science, boys can study 'lit'. Similarly, students should be exposed to multiple ways of reading, which need not be inherently gendered. Interpretation need not involve, as Felski describes, "riding roughshod over a text, stamping a single 'metaphysical' truth upon [it]". Rather than a swashbuckling show of marking intellectual territory, it can be (as Felski rightly notes) "a less muscular and macho affair" than usually perceived. Students also ought to learn that literary knowledge and skills are not the exclusive domain of the 'feminine'; it is not reducible to (as Sinfield bluntly puts it) "soppy, girls' stuff"; rather, such knowledge and skills are vital for all students if they are to learn to read texts critically and proficiently. Even while outdated conceptions of masculinity are still embroiled in normative discourses about poetry as a "culturally gendered genre" (Scholes et al.'s observation) that contribute to misconceptions about poetry as incompatible with masculinity, a shift towards pedagogical practices that avoid stereotyping and essentialising boys would help to surface a more nuanced understanding of both boys and girls as readers capable of developing a long-term engagement with poetry and other genres of literature. If "[t]he World is our Text", as the poem's speaker observes, all students should be able to read the world and its texts as "creative meaning-makers" (to use a phrase from the Singapore Ministry of Education's 2019 Literature in English syllabus document), and regardless of gender. (Given the optics involved in the portrayal of boys, it is also important to depict — and heartening to observe — the balance and diversity of perceived genders even in the photographs of students and teachers depicted in the syllabus document.) It remains crucial for all students to be able to empathise with others — even if empathy is often represented as a typically female trait (as Suzanne Keen observes) — just as they would need to be able to adopt diverse perspectives, draw connections between the texts they read and the social reality around them, as well as reflect on their own (gendered) identities. Perhaps what Felski terms as 'post-critical reading' would be helpful; students could avoid (as she puts it) "opposing thought to emotion or divorcing intellectual rigour from affective attachment". The most perceptive students would also be able to see through the false binaries, boundaries, and hierarchies of hegemonic masculinity that limit individuals' potential, and perhaps one day even strive to dismantle social structures that reinforce dominance and subordination. If they can strive to be 'lit' in the contemporary colloquial sense of being "amazing, impressive; fun, exciting" (the latest definition added to the entry for the word 'lit' in the Oxford English Dictionary), they may even come up with what Felski has enjoined — "inspiring alternatives and new vocabularies" of their own. This would be a future in which "Lit Boys" would be "Lit Boys" not just because they are boys, but because they understand that 'Lit' is 'lit'. QLRS Vol. 24 No. 1 Jan 2025_____
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