Masculinity and Male Identity

Masculinity and Male Identity
Author: Justin Healey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2020
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 9781925339994

The status quo of gender-based inequality and discrimination in our society perpetuates the notion that we live in "a man's world". Traditional masculine stereotypes persist in a culture which identifies men as self-reliant, emotionally reticent, focused on work over family, and oversexed. When these beliefs are taken to extreme levels by boys and men, they result in poor relationships, mental health problems and risky behaviours. Rethinking masculinity can help men and boys to move away from narrow masculine ideals and negative role models towards healthier, more diverse approaches to male identity.This book explores what it means to be a "a real man" in Australia, questioning the masculine stereotypes which sustain gender inequality. In addition, the book examines "toxic masculinity", traditional male gender roles, misogyny and attitudes which promote violence and disrespect towards women. It also addresses the impacts of traditional masculine norms on men's health and wellbeing. What does it mean to be a man in a changing world - is there really a crisis in masculinity? How can society - and boys and men as individuals - encourage positive, healthier masculinities?

Imagined Masculinities

Imagined Masculinities
Author: Mayy Ghaṣṣūb
Publisher: Saqi Books
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2000
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Writings on gender in the Middle East have tended to focus overwhelmingly on the status of women, on the rise of Islamist politics and veiling, and on the social construction of female identity. In the process issues of male identity in a region which has seen enormous social transformations over the past thirty years have been somewhat neglected. This book looks at the process by which stereotypical male identities get constructed, reproduced and contested in different parts of the Middle East.

Masculinities

Masculinities
Author: R. W. Connell
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2005
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745634265

This is an exciting new edition of R.W. Connell's ground-breaking text, which has become a classic work on the nature and construction of masculine identity. Connell argues that there is not one masculinity, but many different masculinities, each associated with different positions of power. In a world gender order that continues to privilege men over women, but also raises difficult issues for men and boys, his account is more pertinent than ever before. In a substantial new introduction and conclusion, Connell discusses the development of masculinity studies in the ten years since the book's initial publication. He explores global gender relations, new theories, and practical uses of mascunlinity research. Looking to the future, his new concluding chapter addresses the politics of masculinities, and the implications of masculinity research for understanding current world issues. Against the backdrop of an increasingly divided world, dominated by neo-conservative politics, Connell's account highlights a series of compelling questions about the future of human society. This second edition of Connell's classic book will be essential reading for students taking courses on masculinities and gender studies, and will be of interest to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences.

The Other Half of Gender

The Other Half of Gender
Author: Ian Bannon
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0821365061

This book is an attempt to bring the gender and development debate full circle-from a much-needed focus on empowering women to a more comprehensive gender framework that considers gender as a system that affects both women and men. The chapters in this book explore definitions of masculinity and male identities in a variety of social contexts, drawing from experiences in Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. It draws on a slowly emerging realization that attaining the vision of gender equality will be difficult, if not impossible, without changing the ways in which masculinities are defined and acted upon. Although changing male gender norms will be a difficult and slow process, we must begin by understanding how versions of masculinities are defined and acted upon.

Just Between Us

Just Between Us
Author: Guillermo Núñez Noriega
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2014-05-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816598886

A photograph of two men, cowboy-hatted and -booted and discreetly holding hands, is the departure point in a groundbreaking study on masculinity and homosexuality in Mexico. Just Between Us, an ethnography of intimacy and affection between men, explores the concept of masculine identity and homoeroticism, expressing the difficulties men face in maintaining their masculinity while expressing intimacy and affection. Using fieldwork from rural Sonora, Mexico, Guillermo Núñez Noriega posits that men accept this intimacy outside gender categories and stereotypes, despite the traditional patriarchal society. This work contests homophobia and the heterosexual ideal of men and attempts to break down the barriers between genders. The photograph Núñez Noriega uses to explore the shifting attitudes and perceptions of sexuality and gender provokes more questions than answers. Recognizing the societal regulations at play, the author demonstrates the existence in contemporary Mexico of an invisible regime of power that constructs and regulates the field of possibilities for men’s social actions, especially acts of friendship, affection, and eroticism with other men. The work investigates “modes of speaking” about being a man, on being gay, on the implicit meanings of the words homosexual, masculine, trade, fairy, and others—words that construct possibilities for intimacy, particularly affective and erotic intimacy among men. Multiple variants of homoeroticism fall outside the dominant model, Núñez Noriega argues, a finding that offers many lessons on men and masculine identities. This book challenges patriarchal definitions of sex, gender, and identity; it promotes the unlearning of dominant conventions of masculinity to allow new ways of being.

Masculinity in Crisis

Masculinity in Crisis
Author: R. Horrocks
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 219
Release: 1994-08-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230372805

This book argues that masculine identity is in deep crisis in Western culture - the old forms are disintegrating, while men struggle to establish new relations with women and with each other. This book offers a fresh look at gender, particularly masculinity, by using material from the author's work as a psychotherapist. The book also considers the contrubtions made by feminism, sociology and anthropology to the study of gender, and suggests that it must be studied from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Masculity is seen to have economic, political and psychological roots, but the concrete development of gender must be traced in the relations of the male infant with his parents. Here the young boy has to separate from his mother, and his own proto-feminine identity, and identify with his father - but in Western culture fathering is often deficient. Male identity is shown to be fractured, fragile and truncated. Men are trained to be rational and violent, and to shut out whole areas of existence and feeling. Many stereotypes imprison men - particularly machismo, which is shown to be deeply masochistic and self-destructive.

Theorizing Masculinities

Theorizing Masculinities
Author: Harry Brod
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 315
Release: 1994-06-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803949049

A new field of inquiry and growing interdisciplinary area, men's studies, is just now beginning to develop its own distinctive methodologies and perspectives as demonstrated in the pages of Theorizing Masculinities. This first major compilation of new theoretical work on men begins by presenting ideas borrowed from the disciplines that have fostered the study of masculinities: sociology, psychoanalysis, ethnography, and inequality. The following chapters explore many issues central to the study of men such as power, ethnicity, feminism, and homophobia. The contributors also provide theoretical explanations of some of the institutions most closely identified with men, such as the military, sports, and the men's movement. The contributors to this volume come from disciplines as diverse as sociology, political science, industrial relations, philosophy, education, anthropology, gender studies, and literature. Together, they make this benchmark volume the guiding set of theories on masculinities. Theorizing Masculinities is a comprehensive volume that will appeal to a wide range of students and scholars, especially those interested in gender, sociology, social theory, family studies, counseling, and psychology.

Masculinity and Its Discontents

Masculinity and Its Discontents
Author: Michael J. Diamond
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2021-06-24
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000405826

Offering a uniquely psychoanalytic developmental perspective on male gender identity and the sense of maleness, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the development of masculinity in childhood and its continued evolution throughout a man’s life. Drawing on classical Freudian theory, as well as on more contemporary psychoanalytic theories, this book explores early infancy and child development, preoedipal factors and the oedipal complex, the influence of parenting and the unconscious transmission of gendered factors both by mothers and both biological and symbolic fathers, the male ego ideal, social, cultural, and biological influences, the role of inherent psychic bi-genderality in the context of gender binaries, and the inherent gendered tensions and challenges experienced as an individual progresses into adult and later life. This book is original in its characterization of the male developmental trajectory as underpinned by psychoanalytic principles pertaining to conflict and inherent tensions that continue throughout the life cycle and strongly impact other areas of life. Deeply rooted in the unconscious, a man’s multiply determined sense of masculinity requires deconstructing the mother, the feminine, and the other in the male psyche. As the text illustrates via clinical vignettes, an awareness and an understanding of these areas can improve the clinical work of psychoanalysts working with men who struggle with the intrinsic conflicts in their sense of maleness. This book will be of great clinical value to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners, and will stimulate the thinking of scholars in such areas as gender theory, psychodynamic and sociocultural aspects of gender roles, and the changing social definition of masculinity.

Men, Masculinities and the Care of Children

Men, Masculinities and the Care of Children
Author: Martin Robb
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2019-11-21
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1315306611

Sharing the care of children in families is increasingly becoming the norm in modern-day society as more mothers enter paid work and government campaigns endeavour to increase the number of men working in childcare. However, running alongside debates of gender imbalance in childcare, there has also been mounting anxiety from the media and public about the risks of child abuse, often perceived as being mostly perpetrated by men and calling for firmer regulation of men’s involvement with children. This book asks whether men’s care for children, both as fathers and practitioners, actually differs at all from the care provided by mothers and female carers? In what ways do men and concepts of masculinity need to change if they are to play a greater role in the care of children or are such societal perceptions based on outdated gender stereotypes? Bringing together cutting-edge theory, up-to-date research and current practice, this book analyses the role of both fathers and male professionals working with children and highlights the implications of this for future policy and practice. It also examines dominant notions of masculinity and representations of male carers in the media and popular culture, asking how our societal expectations may need to evolve if men are to play an equal role in the care of children as demanded by current policy and wider social developments.

Masculinities and Identities

Masculinities and Identities
Author: David Buchbinder
Publisher: Melbourne University
Total Pages: 114
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780522845457

Why does masculinity find itself in crisis nowadays? This book traces some causes of this crisis, the developing interest in masculinity, and the creation of men's studies as an academic subject. Issues discussed include the effects on men of patriarchal ideologies, phallocentrism, male sexuality (both heterosexual and homosexual), and marginal identities such as the cross-dresser. Different strands of masculine discourse are identified and examined in a variety of texts, ranging from the early decades of the 20th century to the present. Opera, film and current news stories provide examples for exploring the ways in which we construct masculinity.