Masculinity as a Project: Some Psychoanalytic Reflections

In this article Karlsson discusses the question of phallic masculinity from a subjective perspective, more specifically from a psychoanalytic perspective supplemented with phenomenological reflections. A vantage point for this discussion is the distinction between sex/being a male and gender/masculinity. The focus is on the boy's/man's striving for a phallic masculine identity a striving that can be described in terms of a 'project'. The term 'project' indicates that phallic masculinity is a striving for a possibility that is not yet realized and will never be realized, since it essentially entails a denial of our existential conditions such as our vulnerability, transience and dependence. The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion conceives of phallic masculinity as a repudiation of the feminine/motherly containment. The phallic masculine project has alienating consequences, but an escape form this trap is possible only through a phenomenological revision of masculinity a revision that leads from transcendence to immanence.