Masculinity and neoliberalism:

A queer analysis of news discourse

Fbio Santiago Nascimento

(Stony Brook University/Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina)

Neoliberalism as political movement or philosophy that supports free market principles and
corporate structures has been extremely pervasive in contemporary society, promoting a view of
freedom based on the defense of self-interests and individual choices. It produces the breaking of
bonds and reproduces a male paradigm (the survival of the fittest) in the workplace, embodied
as a corporate transnational hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2005), which prevents women,
people of color and queers of attaining positions of power. Masculinity therefore is as important
feature for the establishment and maintenance of homosociality (Sedwigck, 1985) and the
reproduction of power relationships. Considering this scenario, this paper attempts to point out
ways discourse can contribute for social change and the production of positive expressions of
masculinity. To achieve this goal, I highlight the potential of queer theory (Butler, 1993) for the
deconstruction of homo/heteronormativity in combination with the theoretical and analytical
framework of critical discourse analysis (Chrouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999) through the analysis
of one piece of news from the Huffington Post on gay sexuality and the workplace. The analysis
indicates that neoliberalism produces a form of homonormativity, a model of gay identity that
aims to reprivatize queer desires and assimilate queer people to the family social structure.
Key-words: masculinity, queer theory, neoliberalism, critical analysis of discourse