امیرحسین وفا

This study traces James W. Messerschmidt’s concept of hegemonic masculinity in two post-9/11 novels, The Submission (2011) by Amy Waldman and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (2008) by Porochista Khakpour. Messerschmidt’s Structured Action Theory considers hegemonic masculinities as surreptitiously omnipresent or social constructs whose main purpose is rendering unequal gender relations possible. We believe that this theory can help us better understand the transformations the masculinities of these novels undergo after the 9/11 attacks. In analyzing the novels, we argue that characters who manifest pre-9/11 ideals of American hegemonic masculinity and who are symbolically disempowered by the attacks endeavor to regain their hegemonic status by establishing the hyphenated Middle Eastern and South Asian masculinities as their racial Other and subordinating them in the post-9/11 landscape. In other words, we will focus on the former group’s symbolic emasculation and their subsequent remasculinization in light of the 9/11 attacks and the impact of this transformation on immigrant men in the United States. Moreover, by applying the Structured Action Theory to the aforementioned novels, we aim to show how American hegemonic masculinities, previously defined as strong, untouchable, and invincible, are reconstructed, after the 9/11 attacks, around the ideals of revenge; besides, we explore the responses of the Middle Eastern and South Asian men to their unequal position. Ultimately, we analyze the varying intersections of gender, religion, nationality, race, class, and age which are at work to reconstruct such identities.