Destiny overshadowed: masculine representations and feminist implications in a South African men’s magazine

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers a multimodal discourse analysis of the representation of masculinity and its relation to femininity in Destiny Man, a popular South African magazine for men. The approach taken looked at the content in the magazine and identified themes that were present in most of the issues. Through the lens of hegemonic masculinity and feminism, discursive practices that Destiny Man employs when discussing issues of gender relations are explored. Furthermore, these discursive practices are also considered in the context of race in post-apartheid South Africa. To understand how women are spoken about and represented in the man-targeted magazine, three articles and five images published in the eight 2014 issues were analysed using a multimodal text analysis (Lindy). We conclude that the discourses presented in the magazine tend to portray women as needy, emotionally dependent and possessing limited agency in relationships. We argue that these portrayals have implications for man/woman relations in contemporary South Africa and require a rethinking in order to advance both feminist and masculinity studies.