Representing Masculinity: Male Citizenship in Modern Western Culture

The idea that citizenship was the right of all humanity emerged during the French Revolution. However, this right was limited by gender, class and race. Studying Europe and its colonies and the United States, this book analyzes images of masculine citizenship in political rhetoric, culture, and various political struggles from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Politicians manipulated the rhetoric of masculine citizenship, using images of paternity and fraternity. Art represented competing images of the masculine citizen, ranging from the black revolutionary to the neo-Greek white statue. Political subjects in empires and colonies appropriated and subverted these western ideals, revealing the exclusions in the rhetoric of masculine citizenship.