This paper addresses the issue of relationality between man and woman and how this
can undermine the forms of masculine hegemony in the society. Simmel’s relational
approach, rooted in an essentialist vision of gender construction, and Bourdieu’s
constructivist realism, seem not effective in questioning the gender relation in itself.
Indeed, both are more concerned to how hegemony works in crystallizing gendered
roles in the society and less on how this changes or can change. The binary scheme that
informs Simmel’s and Bourdieu’s efforts in understanding power in gender relations is,
2
in line with Marianne Weber’s statement, the main obstacle that hides relations
generative of social transformations. Nowadays the symbolic negotiations between the
pluralities of gender configurations require a focus on the relationality and we share this
analytical perspective. Indeed, it is from the point of view of the social construction of
gender that it seems to be possible to approach the hegemonic masculinity and how it
changes in different times and places