‘Man the hunter’ is a central metaphor in the construction of masculinities—both symbo-lically and practically. It serves to explore, explain and justify patriarchal social dynamics, in particular to justify the ‘naturally’ predatory instincts of men in relation to animals and women, both of whom are seen as prey in both private and public contexts (Bergman 1996). Historically men have served as hunters and soldiers since ancient times. In modern nuclear families, however, the metaphor naturalises the male breadwinner/female dependent model of relationships which ultimately privileges men. It re-emerges in contexts as diverse as 1950s scientific discourse in which ‘Man the Hunter’ was codified by the United Nations as the basis of a universal human experience supported by the new physical anthropology (Haraway 1992) and contemporary ‘wild men’ movements, in which urban middle-class men are seen to reclaim their essential masculinity as hunters. Sports hunting has always been male dominated and serves as a resource for men to construct a masculinity based on militarism and to ‘bond’ in ways that continuously demonstrate men’s superiority to women, immigrants and nature, i.e. the ‘Other’ (Herman 2003). Kalof et al (2004) point out that the sexualisation of animals, women and weapons which occurs in such contexts is a form of sexual objectification used to construct traditional masculinities. Kalof and Fitzgerald (2003) reiterate this with their discussion of the othering of animals which takes place in hunting magazines and serves to posit animals as objects that confirm the hunter’s place as a ‘real man’ via the display of animal bodies as trophies. Competing feminist perspectives on women hunters show how masculine practices have been contested by women, though with limited effects (Fitzgerald 2005).
Hunting both practically and discursively reaffirms a’man’s’ right of unfettered access to nature and to women.
References and further reading
Bergman, C. (1996) Orion’s Legacy, New York: Penguin.
Fitzgerald, A. (2005) ‘The emergence of the figure of “woman-the-hunter'”, Women’s Studies Quarterly, 33:1–2.
Haraway, D. (1992) Primate Visions, London: Verso.
Herman, D. (2003) ‘The hunter’s aim’, Journal of Leisure Research, 35 (4).
Kalof, L. and Fitzgerald, A. (2003) ‘Reading the trophy’, Visual Studies, 18 (2): 112–22.
Kalof, L., Fitzgerald, A. and Baralt, L. (2004) ‘Animals, women, and weapons’, Society and Animals, 12 (3): 237–51.
SHANE HOPKINSON
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