Hadatha, dissent and hegemonic masculinity in the short stories of Zakariyya Tamir

The exploration of masculinities in contemporary Arabic literature and the transformations in the representations of male characters in relation to political dissent has remained a relatively unexplored subject. In the case of Syria’s contemporary cultural production Samira Aghacy’s and Rebecca Joubin’s research on masculine identity in fiction and drama series respectively have established the framework to address the political significance that changing conformations of masculinities possess. Borrowing from Aghacy’s and Joubin’s approach and employing R. W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity this chapter looks at the development of Zakariyya Tamir’s (b. 1931) trajectory to explore the ways in which stories channeling different forms of dissent to past tradition, patriarchy, inequality and authoritarianism reinforce configurations of gender practice that reveal a complicit form of hegemonic masculinity. Examples from Tamir’s early short stories published between 1958 and 1978 illustrate how the marginal role female characters play, the disparate styles and images employed to represent male and female characters and men’s relationship to women implicitly reinforce patriarchy i.e. “the dominant position of men and the subordination of women”. Examples from Tamir’s latest stories on the other hand explore representations of homosexual intercourse and the ways in which they reinforce practices of hegemonic masculinity that Connell defines as marginalization and authorization.