Hegemonic Masculinity in the Tradition of Women Proposing Marriage

European Union (EU) enlargement and the later shaping of its relationships with its new Eastern neighbours through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) have had a significant impact on communities outside the EU’s borders. As the EU has sought to control flows of people, money and goods through these new borders, it has also become a destination for irregular migrants and small-scale traders from its eastern neighbours. This article draws upon participant observation in one such community in western Ukraine, where continuing levels of high unemployment and low wages and pensions drive dependence on flows of remittances from migrants to southern Europe, but also revenues from small-scale trade with neighbouring EU members, such as Romania. New forms of transnational mobility have emerged, which are not gender-neutral. The article asserts that, while hegemonic masculinities exist in both Ukrainian and Romanian communities, gender relations in Romania are restricted by sexualised discourses. As male and female Ukrainian traders interact with Romanian border officials and local distributors and intermediaries, hegemonic masculinities in Ukraine are re-affirmed and female traders are unable to advance and develop their trade in the same way as their male counterparts. In doing so, the article expands research on gender and transnationalism in post-enlargement Europe beyond migration and demonstrates not only how encounters at the EU’s borders are shaping gender relations in communities outside the EU, but that involvement in cross-border economic activities is determined by the gendered discourses and performance that take place at the border.

Dismantling men: Crisis of male identity in<i>father, son and Holy War</i>

Purpose – The burgeoning literature on gender and immigration has largely abandoned atavistic conceptualizations of gender. Instead, migration scholars have integrated an understanding of gender that is relational, contextual, and mutually constitutive with migration. Most of this research has focused on the ways in which migration shapes gender relations, with much less focus on the ways in which gender relations contribute to migration flows. Additionally, the integration of gender analysis in migration studies has contributed significantly to our understanding of migration but has not informed gender theory to nearly the same extent. In this chapter, we synthesize the extant literature on gender and migration, as it relates to the dynamics that precipitate migration.Methodology/approach – We conducted a review and synthesis of the extant literature that examines the relationship between gender and the decisions and opportunities to migrate.Findings – Through this synthesis, we identified four gendered institutions that precipitate migration: (1) global labor markets, (2) family and care work, (3) social networks, and (4) violence.Practical implications – We contribute to the development of gender theory by examining the structural dimensions of gender, thus illuminating the connections between gender relations operating at macro and micro levels.Originality/value of paper – Although other scholars have reviewed the literature on gender and migration, previous reviews (and most empirical studies) have focused on how migration has shaped gender relations. No reviews to date have focused on how gender relations shape migration. Additionally, most scholars fail to recognize the relationship of gendered violence to other precipitates of migration.

This study explores the experiences of vegetarian men in the context of a meat-based food culture strongly associated with hegemonic masculinity. The aim is to uncover how vegetarian men navigate the dominant configurations of masculinity in food choices and how they resist these practices. Using a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach, the study provides an in-depth explanation of the experiences of vegetarian men in Bandung, chosen due to the presence of a vegetarian lifestyle community in the city. The study is grounded in the theories of hegemonic masculinity and masculine bloc. The findings reveal that vegetarian men challenge hegemonic masculinity through the practice of masculinity hybridization, an innovative form of power that still supports male authority. The study also finds that this hybridization practice reproduces patriarchal masculine culture, highlighting the perpetuation of this culture even amidst resistance to hegemonic masculinity.Keywords : hegemonic masculinity, vegetarian men, masculinity hybridization, food consumption, patriarchal culture

639 BOOKS IN REVIEW Undermining hegemonic masculinity is also the subject of the first half of the fourth chapter. It further considers the role that typically marginalized characters play in sf cinema. Kac-Vergne addresses some of the problems with the theory of hegemonic masculinity by examining black male antagonists: the Predator in Predator 2 (1990) and Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) in Demolition Man (1993). The author argues that these characters are positive depictions of “black violence as a form of resistance and an assertion of power by the disenfranchised over a ‘civilisation’ always defined as white” (134). The chapter’s strength is, once again, its clear development of the volume’s thesis. I greatly appreciate the discussion of Demolition Man, a film that deserves more praise than it has so far received. Not all black male stars in sf action cinema resist hegemonic masculinity, however. In an fascinating reading of Will Smith’s sf cycle, Kac-Vergne asserts that his character’s “safe” blackness, as portrayed in I, Robot (2004), and his display of hegemonic masculinity in After Earth (2013), highlight the ways in which black heroes “tend to integrate into the system and assimilate its values whereby empowerment comes from material success and the domination of others” (155). Kac-Vergne concludes her fourth chapter by noting that Smith’s characters, complicit with hegemonic masculinity, are lonely at the top—contemporary sf cinema is almost exclusively populated by whites. Thus Smith’s vehicles are a step backward for sf action cinema’s politics, as in the author’s conclusion in the third chapter about the roles women play in this genre. Due to the radically disparate themes, stars, and plots of contemporary sf cinema, Kac-Vergne does not make many strong conclusions about overcoming hegemonic masculinity, although her analyses tend to suggest that some films attempt it. Nevertheless, the author’s evidence and arguments clearly indicate the role hegemonic masculinity plays in this period of film history. At first, I was concerned by Kac-Vergne’s decision not to introduce the theory of hegemonic masculinity in detail in the Introduction. As the chapters progress, however, the author gives us a nuanced account of that theory and we are able to understand its implications through her discussion of the films. This said, the book is of more interest to film studies scholars than to gender studies scholars as it lacks a critical engagement with the field of masculinities studies (however exceptional the author’s use of hegemonic masculinity theory may be). One glaring oversight is that while Masculinity and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema provides a breadth of analyses, it largely relies on action cinema characters at the expense of the men and women who do not resort to physical confrontations in other feature films (e.g., Moon [2009] and Her [2013]). But this shortcoming does not detract from this very readable and insightful volume. With Kac-Vergne’s study in hand, the field of masculinity and sf cinema studies is well poised to tackle films in the next era of sf blockbusters.—Troy Michael Bordun, Concordia University and Trent University An Impossible Good Book. Silvia G. Kurlat Ares. La Ilusión Persistente: Diálogos entre la Ciencia Ficción y el Campo Cultural. Pittsburgh, PA: Insituto Internacional de Cultura Iberoamericana, 2018. 430 pp. $30.00. 640 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) Silvia G. Kurlat Ares’s La Ilusión Persistente appears in the NUEVO SIGLO [New Century] series published by the prestigious Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, founded in Mexico in 1938 but currently based at the University of Pittsburgh. This information is pertinent to introduce an extremely ambitious volume that intends to bridge different cultural strata, but that is aimed for the most part at a highly specialized readership possibly more familiar with Latin-American culture than with science fiction. Kurlat, an independent scholar with an extensive CV, has taught at Johns Hopkins University, George Mason University, and the Universidad de Buenos Aires; she is also the editor of the forthcoming Latin American Science Fiction Studies Companion (Peter Lang). She is extremely well-positioned to connect the English-language field of science fiction and her native Argentinean context, which...

Men have long been associated with dominance, strength and confidence and the issue regarding being compliant to the acceptable masculine ideal has always been part of a culture’s social identity. This study focuses on the critical discussion on masculinity studies in the classic fiction of D.H Lawrence. Drawing on narrative data from his novel Sons and Lovers (1913) , the study examines how hegemonic masculinity is conformed by the male protagonist, Walter Morel, in his gendered relationship. More specifically, the analysis focuses on how the male character aligns himself with the hegemonically authoritarian philosophy of ‘tough’ masculinity. The effects of social practices and socio-historical context in which Lawrence wrote these novels are also examined. The study utilises Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity to explicate Lawrence’s depiction of dominant masculinity through his character. The findings reveal that Lawrence aligns his male protagonist to the dominant role by sanctioning aggressiveness, autonomy and violence. Keywords: Hegemonic Masculinity, Dominant Masculinity, Patriarchy, Gender, Power

Through the lens of feminist theoretical questions and gender studies, this paper explores the relationship between voice and body and the emotional and physical distance that occurs between genders in Marie de France’s Laustic. As a medieval woman writer, Marie provides a textual space to examine the emotional closeness and psychological distance that occurs within the patriarchal structure that delineates gender relations within the convention of marriage. This lai or poetic narrative articulates the loss and pain incurred by segregation and the designation of woman as other, as well as the empowering pleasure that can be realised when one’s voice is accepted and heard. The reciprocal space that is created when speaking and listening is equally exchanged transcends physical distance and allows a unique sense of emotional proximity to be established and explored. Although this medieval text offers a perspective which may seem far removed from the present cultural environment, it illuminates the existing affective dynamics between men and women with a poignant view of gender relations. Through the combined use of literary and cultural disciplines, this paper will navigate the different ranges of emotional intimacy and psychological detachment between genders in patriarchal social structures. To read or download this article, please follow this link: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1469469/ DOI: 10.14324/111.2057-2212.024

Despite the growing recognition of gendered approaches to artistic and creative work, research exploring how men perform their gender through artistic work, or how work in the arts intersects with masculinity, remains limited. This article aims to fill this gap. Drawing on biographical interviews with Japanese classical musicians, it explores how men construct their gender identity through work in a feminized environment, navigating the oppressions of the father-provider model of masculinity prevalent in Japanese society. I show that by embodying behaviors and attitudes coded as feminine and unmanly, Japanese musicians hybridize their masculinities. Man and masculinity scholars have found that while the hybridization of masculinity is a manifestation of social change in gender relations, it tends to obscure existing inequalities and reproduce systems of power and dominance. This article examines whether hybrid masculinities also entail a reworking of gender, thereby promoting a more equitable gender order. To account for the potential change in the system of inequalities, I bring the concept of hybrid masculinity into conversation with a performative theory of (re)doing gender. I show that while the enactments of hybrid (hegemonic) masculinities among Japanese musicians often result in the restoration of the system of dominance, some performances can be interpreted as anticipating change, especially in the realm of reproduction. I argue that in order to make sense of the hybridization of masculinities, we should also consider the socio-cultural context in which they are situated.

Literature can be the window to discern new perspectives about life and broaden the reader’s horizons. Botchan by Natsume Soseki is a novel that has a big theme about morality which can be comprehended by the archetypes of the people from a big city and remote area, yet the polemic that appeared is rooted in the discrepancy of the characters’ dispositions. The writers attempt to analyze it in the frame of gender study which later gets elaborated with the hegemonic masculinity in two questions: “In what way does Botchan represent hegemonic masculinity?” and “How do the hegemonic masculinity dispositions within Botchan affect Botchan’s relations with Hotta, Mr. Yoshikawa, and Red Shirt?” The writers utilized the close reading method alongside the gender study approach. The hegemonic masculinity from Botchan attracts the character with a similar disposition (Hotta) and dissociates with Red Shirt and Mr. Yoshikawa that do not embody hegemonic masculinity dispositions. The indicator for hegemonic masculinity is determined by multiple factors, such as strength, competitiveness, assertiveness, confidence, and independence. Hegemonic masculinity is a glimpse of the extensive range of the definition of masculinity, therefore it is fenceless for arguments from other notions.

The Centrality of Gender to Understanding Turkish Politics

Gender and Leisure: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Cara Carmichael Aitchison. London: Routledge Publishing, 2003.Gender and can no longer just be considered nouns used to describe a category of people and a segment of time. Instead, Cara Carmichael Aitchison tells readers that these words have shifted to verbs: Gender and leisure are practiced, achieved, and maintained. In Gender and Leisure: Social and Cultural Perspectives, Aitchison describes shifts in our understanding of gender and highlights the role of leisure as a significant site and process in the creation and contestation of gender relations.Gender and Leisure is presented in two parts: The first half of the book reviews key theoretical concepts related to gender study and provides a chronology of research relating gender and leisure. The second portion of the book uses a series of case studies to explore the role of policy, education, and management of leisure in shaping gender and leisure relationships. The final chapter synthesizes the previous seven chapters. Additionally, the final chapter highlights how the interaction of social and cultural forces has created and reinforced gender relations through leisure.The meat of the book, chapters two through eight, each contain adequate depth and could stand alone as literature reviews or journal articles. However, an important thread ties together each chapter and makes the book worth more than simply the sum of its parts. This thread is Aitchison's concept of a social-cultural nexus. The social-cultural nexus refers to the site or process in which social policies and management interact with the cultural norms and to shape the experience of gender. In each chapter the author revisits the idea of the social-cultural nexus to emphasize that it is the interrelationship between structures and cultures that often serve maintain gender inequity within leisure relations. Taken together, the chapters represent a comprehensive review of gender and leisure studies applied to women's lives, leisure studies curricula, management, and policy.Following an introductory chapter to orient the reader, Gender and Leisure begins by describing and evaluating the key social and cultural ideologies that have underpinned theoretical understandings of gender and leisure. This hefty second chapter provides a primer on the philosophy of science, outlines major paradigms (positivism, phenomenology, structuralism, and post-structuralism), describes and critiques different feminisms (liberal, socialist, Marxist, radical, post-structural, post-colonial, and Black feminism), and builds the foundation for the author's description of a social-cultural nexus. It is at this point that Aitchison identifies her own theoretical approach: post-structural theory. The author, however, makes the book palatable for structuralists by acknowledging the role patriarchy and capitalism in shaping gender relations:It has been argued that postmodernism may be a theory whose time has come, but only for men. As men have had their Enlightenment they are in a position of strength from which to deconstruct and de-center themselves. For women to take on such a position risks weakening what is not yet strong. . . . The challenge for this and other discussions of gender and leisure, then, is to provide a broad analysis of the cultural fragments and differences in the inter-relationships between gender and leisure while simultaneously attending to the broader structural relations of power, (p. 33)Chapters Three and Four turn the reader's attention from broad ways of knowing to a survey of gender and leisure research. Aitchison begins her third chapter by outlining the range of meanings given to leisure: as free time, activity, psychological state, and more recently, as a liminal moment or metaphysical space. Although it remains unwritten, Atchison implies that the latter conceptionalization of leisure is the only option for readers who are concerned with women's access to leisure. …

Arianne Gaetano, Out to Work: Migration, Gender and the Changing Lives of Rural Women in Contemporary China, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2015, 232 pp.In this volume, by looking at domestic labour and service work in offices and hotels the author sets out to study what kinds of cultural, social, and political impact mobility brings to bear on the identity and agency of rural migrant women and how mobility shapes gender roles and relations. The book aims to shed light on whether and how migrant women's migration improves gender equality in post-Mao China. In her endeavour, Arianne Gaetano draws on multifaceted and longitudinal methods that enable her to explore the complex and changing interplay of structure and agency by considering rather long periods over the course of her informants' lives and by documenting how these people reflect differently at these various stages on their experience of migration. The ethnographic study was conducted through fieldwork carried out in Beijing and in each of the 11 key informants' hometowns from 1998 to 2000 and in 2002, and annual trips in 2006- 2010 and 2012, combined with frequent contact through email, cell-phones, airmail correspondence, and instant messages. Gaetano anchors her work upon a solid body of scientific literature in the field of migration and gender studies, as well as in social theory (structure/agency). This enables her to produce a fine-grained ethnography of the life trajectories of rural migrant women. She manages to simultaneously take into account the structuring role of three sets of forces: at the macro level, the historical transformations of gender norms and roles, the role of the Party-state in shaping gender relations in contemporary China, the ideological and institutional construction of rural-urban differences, etc.; at the meso level, forces such as the patrilineal-patrilocal family system or the gender-based division of labour; and micro forces such as the aspirations and goals embodied by migrant women themselves. Providing ample space the unfolding of the narrative of migrant women's experiences, she shows vividly how the measure through which migrant women are empowered is situational, contextual, and also temporal (p. 9).Chapter One (pp. 14-27) provides a broad and useful historical overview of the political-institutional as well as discursive structures that have both produced and legitimised the service sector and more particularly the domestic worker labour market in post-Mao China. The author highlights the excessive concentration of migrant women workers within the informal and unregulated sector of domestic services. Gaetano also points to the core role of the state-sponsored provision of a cheap and flexible female rural migrant labour force in guaranteeing economic growth: by the urban labour force, particularly urban working mothers, female rural migrants have contributed to maintaining high levels of urban consumption in the midst of state retreat from social welfare provisions (p. 25). While post-Mao economic reform and opening have provided rural migrant women with myriad possibilities for self-determination and wage she points out, the Party-state, neoliberal forces, and the rural patriarchal system have joined to strongly constrain the conditions realisation of self-determination (p. 27).Through a migrant-centred ethnography, Chapter Two (pp. 28-45) explores rural migrant women's complex mixture of aspirations pursuing a more independent and self-determined life outside the village and their willingness to conform to their gender duties within the family. Gaetano argues that the combination of urban-rural and gendered differences in post-Mao China provides room the empowerment of rural migrant women while also producing particular gendered patterns of migration that reflect and also perpetuate such difference and inequality (p. 29). This chapter also documents the process of devaluation of rural life and agricultural work, which is anchored within historical representations of modern China and also strengthened within the broad ideological and institutional patterns of post-Mao political economy. …

Over the years, media has been invoking 'hegemonic masculinity’ and producing a one-tone representation of men, who are linear, flat, and in line with the traditional definition of manliness. Such unrealistic images of men lead to the reinforcement of prejudice against other genders, which also has damaging repercussions on men. However, there is a noticeable silver lining with the entry of Over the Top (OTT) platforms as they are challenging such representations. These platforms chart out the basic premise of the theory of social construction of reality that helps construct new realities of masculinity, defying 'hegemonic masculinity.' This paper aims to critically examine and evaluate masculinity's representation in various Indian OTT platforms' content and understand how the Indian OTT content is blurring masculinity images instead of what the cultural products are portraying. The paper also intends to analyse the male lead characters and their positioning, which does not compartmentalise men's attributes into the existing patriarchal male image, representing them as real and relatable. This paper substantiates the method of discourse analysis. Three content from Indian OTT platforms are selected with the purposive sampling method - 'Little Things' – Season 1 &amp; 2 on Netflix, 'Made in Heaven' on Amazon Prime, and 'Yeh Meri Family' on TVF Play, to analyse along variables formulated to justify the hypothesis – 'Indian content on OTT platforms is blurring the one-tone representation of masculinity. The paper proposes a revised study of men and masculinity, challenging the patriarchal framework of gender and power for future development in the study. The study posits that OTT platforms have taken a step towards bringing equality among and within genders through their representation to make a difference and build acceptance in society for heterogeneity within masculinity.

Hijas, novias y esposas: Familia, matrimonio y violencia doméstica en el Valle Central de Costa Rica (1750–1850)

This is an excellent and timely addition to the literature on Gender and Women's Studies. Each chapter explores contemporary questions and dilemmas in feminist theory and research, assessing the impacts of past research and feminist actions. Leading scholars discuss such topics as the state of women's and gender studies, feminist epistemology, cultural representations, globalization and the state, families, and work. This book is sure to be an essential resource for gender scholars and students' -Joan Acker, University of Oregon`This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies.This volume offers not only a reference manual to what we now know about gender relations as social forces but also gives impetus to future thinking in imaginative and utopian ways about questions of gender, power and knowledge' - Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison `This is a timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and wmoen's studies in the west by three eminent feminist scholars who have been centrally involved in feminist struggles and scholarship for some time. They have an acute understanding of what matters to feminism and bring together a wide range of essential new readings on gender works and gender troubles. Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism they provide a contextual and political understanding of change and sustained normativity in gender relations. The Handbook ends with a call for gendered trouble making. Following the achievemnent of this handbook, it seems to be the least we as readers can do' - Professor Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths College`The Handbook gives a pedagogically well structured and thoroughly updated overview over discussions of central issues in contemporary women's and gender studies, including critical studies of men and masculinities. The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women's and gender studies. It fulfills an obvious and pressing need for easy accessible overview of the literature. The Handbook strikes a good balance between overview and critically situated analysis, relevant for courses in Women's and Gender Studies on many levels' - Nina Lykke, Director of Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, Linkoeping University Gender and women's studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences- the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate.The Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the `cultural turn' and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women's and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics.Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.··see Sample Chapters & Resources for pdf copies of the Introduction and Chapter Two··