‘I Was Going to Be Marginalised’

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for Prostate Cancer (PCa) is associated with side effects that could lead to negative body image and low masculine self-esteem of survivors. We compared a group of PCa survivors following ADT with ADT-naïve patients, expecting the ADT group to show lower masculine self-esteem. We also expected patients with hegemonic masculinity ideals to show poorer masculine self-esteem and we hypothesized that ADT would moderate this relationship, expecting PCa patients on ADT with stronger hegemonic ideals to show the worst masculine self-esteem scores among study participants. We compared 57 PCa survivors on ADT (Mage =64.16 (7.11)) to 59 ADT-naïve patients (Mage =65.25 (5.50)), on the Masculine Self-Esteem Scale (MSES), Body Image Scale (BIS), and Hegemonic Masculinity Ideals Scale (HMIS). While the two groups did not significantly differ on masculine self-esteem (F[1, 115]=3.46, p=0.065, ηp 2 =0.029) and body image (F [1, 115]=3.46, p=0.065, ηp 2 =0.029), younger age was significantly associated with higher body image issues (F [1, 115]=8.63, p<0.01, ηp 2 =0.071, β=-0.30). Hegemonic masculinity significantly predicted more masculine self-esteem related issues (t (2, 114)= 2.31, β=0.375, p<0.05). ADT did not moderate this relationship. The results suggest that endorsing hegemonic masculinity could represent a risk factor for low masculine self-esteem regardless of ADT status and that younger age is associated with negative body image among PCa survivors. These results suggest the importance of inclusion of topics related to hegemonic masculinity when providing support to PCa survivors, both when discussing treatment side effects, as well as in the later phases of survivorship. This pilot also suggests that younger PCa survivors might benefit from body-image focused support regardless of treatment plan.

Veganism’s visibility has soared in recent years. Contemporary veganism has built a trident approach of outreach that emphasises health benefits, ethical concerns about animals, and environmentally sustainable consumption. With this growth, there have been opportunities for influencer-activists to profit from positioning themselves as movement leaders. This is often connected with thin, white, wealthy women and the wellness industry, but there is also a changing ‘meatless masculinity’ within vegan influencer-activist spaces. Hegemonic ideals of masculinity around physical strength and virility are being hyper-individualised to ‘sell’ veganism through embodied and cultural performances of ‘redemption narratives’ by vegan influencer-activist men. However, in interviews with vegan men in Britain, their relation to these meatless masculinities was found to be in tension with hegemonic masculinity. Interviewees instead related their veganism to an ungoverning of masculine bodily ideals. Veganism was revealed in the interviews as entangled with men representing themselves as part of a progressive masculinity that engages with feminist ideas, even if they are sometimes misunderstood. In this paper, I explore the prevalence and purpose of these masculinity narratives online through social media examples, before exploring a contradictory growth in the re-thinking and rejection of hegemonic masculinity within the vegan constituency through interviews. I conclude that while vegan masculinities offer the potential for men to be a little less governed by gendered norms there remains a need for vegans to more fully embrace a feminist and intersectional veganism that is not dominated by whiteness and masculinist ideals.

This article looks at the experiences and perspectives of homosexual men in Nazi Germany—in particular, at homosexual veterans of World War I. How did homosexual men perceive “hegemonic masculinity” and ideals of comradeship during the Third Reich? The central argument is that the Nazi regime's emphasis on heterosexuality as an essential masculine trait was contested by homosexual veterans, who attempted to exert agency by actively defining notions of “masculinity,” the nature of their homosexuality, as well as their status in theVolksgemeinschaft(people's community). The ways in which homosexual men perceived homosexuality in relation to hegemonic masculine norms were diverse: whereas some tried to argue for the compatibility of homosexuality and martial masculinity, those who were arrested often distanced themselves from their homosexual identity. The testimonies of veterans, available in Gestapo police interrogation records, suggest how subjective constructions of sexual identity both undermined and reinforced hegemonic masculine ideals.

Modern Western society has framed fashion in opposition to hegemonic masculinity. However, fashion functions as a principal means by which men’s visible gender identities are established as not only different from women but also from other men. This article draws on the concept of hybrid masculinities and on wardrobe interviews with Canadian men across social identities to explore how men enact masculinities through dress. I illustrate three ways men do hybrid masculinities by selecting, styling, and wearing clothing in their everyday lives. The differences between these three hybrid masculine configurations of practice are based on the extent to which men’s personal and professional social identities were associated with hegemonic masculine ideals as well as the extent to which those ideals shaped the settings in which they were situated. Although participants had different constellations of gender privilege, they all used dress to reinforce hegemonic masculinity, gain social advantages, and subsequently preserve the gender order. Failing to do so could put them personally and professionally at risk. My research nuances the hybrid masculinities framework by demonstrating how its enactment is shaped by the intersection between men’s social identities and social contexts.

This article focuses on a rugby organisation, in which a distinct configuration of hyper-masculinity exists as the hegemonic one. Using three storified accounts that emerged during ethnographic research, empirics show that when a player’s body fails to align him with hegemonic masculine ideals, he encounters an identity-threat and a separation from the organisational collective. In turn, a player participates in embodied remedial identity-work processes, to (re)accomplish hegemonic masculinity and (re)integrate with the organisational collective, using his body as an identity-resource to counter the identity-threat. Empirics reveals the extent to which the body underpins expressions of hegemonic masculinity, and how important the body is as a site that is used to symbolically maintain a viable organisational identity. Ontologically, it is emphasised that men whose bodies appear to fit normative organisational ideals do not necessarily encounter the embodied aspects of their organisational experiences unproblematically; rather, their bodies – like those of less normative actors – are vulnerable to identity threats and a source of exclusion. This encourages scholars to think about the relationship between embodiment, gender, hegemony and integration in organisational settings in more nuanced ways.

This thesis utilizes existing literature on gender essentialism, gender socialization, precarious manhood theory, and transphobic discrimination in order to examine the ways in which transgender men conceptualize their internal male identity and respond to threats like discrimination and violence. Transgender men have an essential male identity that does not depend on their sense of masculinity and develops during childhood while they are living in a body considered biologically female. Their experience of early gender socialization allows them to understand masculinity and femininity as concepts that exist in different levels within us all, and does not rely on hegemonic masculine ideals like anti-femininity and aggression. In fact, transgender men are very critical of hegemonic masculinity due to their early gender socializations. Paradoxically, these men also act in ways that conform to hegemonic masculinity as a method of protection against threats of transphobia and homophobia. These findings can aid healthcare professionals in their work with trans men to promote more inclusive and informed care. Transgender men's separation of manhood and masculinity also has interesting implications for masculinity studies and the precarious nature of manhood for cisgender men.

Books published on fathering and raising boys are becoming increasingly popular. These books claim simply to describe boys and fathers. However we suggest that they make only specific identities available. We make this suggestion on the basis of a critical analysis of six books published since an initial study by Riggs (2008). In this article we extend Riggs’s analysis by identifying how the books analyzed draw upon hegemonic masculine ideals in constructing boys’ and fathers’ identities. The analysis also suggests that biological essentialism is used to justify the identities constructed. Five specific implications are drawn from the findings, focusing on understandings of males as well as females, the uptake of dominant modes of talking about males, and the ramifications of biological essentialism. The findings emphasize the need to pay ongoing attention to popular parenting books since, rather than offering improved strategies for raising boys, these books present assertions of what boys and fathers should be.

Charles Dickens's examinations of sleep, dreaming, and sleep disorders illustrate a complicated negotiation between hegemonic ideals of masculinity that rest on notions of bodily control and mental acuity, but they also present an ambivalent (and sometimes adventurous) position open to expanding the definition of masculinity to include a desire to relinquish mental and physical control. Hegemonic masculine ideals are often in tension with one another, and Dickens explores the specific control–freedom contradiction in personal essays, namely “Night Walks” and “Lying Awake.” While the depiction of the bedroom as a space of male anxiety appears throughout Dickens's work, he expresses this idea most clearly and directly in the above nonfiction texts. The nonfiction essay, over and against the fictional text, allows Dickens to write about sleep disorders and their relation to male anxiety in more personal and pragmatic terms, and to represent the issue in detail without having to be concerned about plot and characterization.

Male rates of suicide exceed female rates and research findings indicate an association between particular practices of masculinity, specifically emotional constraint, and male suicide. This paper examines gender and family influences on men's wellbeing, based on in-depth interviews with a sample of fifty-two men, aged 18–30 years, who made a clinically serious or near-fatal suicide attempt and were recruited following presentation to hospital. Themes derived from the analysis included learning about masculinity which relates to the gender culture within the home, the regulation and enforcement of behavior by peers and father-son relationships. Results demonstrated that the men were generally from families where hegemonic ideals of masculinity, emphasizing strength and emotional stoicism, were practiced. This gender environment, which was reinforced in the neighborhood, restricted behavior and the expression of feeling, shaped communication between fathers and sons and affected the father's ability to emotionally engage with his son. Fathers were significant figures in these men's lives and were role models for demonstrating masculinity practices but there was an absence of positive, nurturing, relationships between fathers and sons and this influenced the son's gender learning and his wellbeing. Fathers who were emotionally distant, and particularly those who were abusive, gave rise to feelings of rejection, sadness and anger in their sons but problematic father-son relationships were not addressed nor ill-treatment in childhood disclosed due to gender-related constraints on expression. Restrictions on expression and prohibitions on revealing weakness denied the men a space to explore as well as manage the issues of their lives and prevented them from revealing distress. They coped by sublimating problems and disguising vulnerability and by seeking emotional comfort within intimate partnerships but these men were susceptible to situations which threatened their psychological security. Overall, the study demonstrated challenges for males raised in settings of hegemonic masculinity and the importance of nurturing father-son relationships for male wellbeing. The results imply the need for a focus on the benefits of positive fathering and the inclusion of more nuanced messaging relating to men's emotions in Public Health messaging.

Men's health and lifestyle magazines are a popular medium through which hegemonic ideals of masculinity are displayed, influencing the way men behave and think about health (Crawshaw, 2007, Soc Sci Med, 65, 1606; Stibbe, 2004, Men Masc, 7, 31). This study conducted a critical discourse analysis of Australia's most popular men's health and lifestyle magazine, Men's Health, in order to understand how health is presented to men. Six issues were examined, from April 2016 to September 2016. Three themes supporting hegemonic masculine discourses were revealed: a forged physique, (hetero)sexual prowess and career dominance. A fourth theme, the new man, was also identified revealing a shift in attitudes towards nutrition and style. Despite this shift in the representation of masculinity, hegemonic ideals remain dominant in the construction of Australian masculinity in this popular men's health and lifestyle magazine. SO WHAT?: This study highlights the utility of Men's Health magazine in promoting health and brings into question whether the current representation of masculinity works towards improving or decreasing the health of Australian men.

Images of women as they age are strongly influenced by social, economic and historical forces. Questionnaires which purport to measure the subjective health of older women have been influenced by these images in terms of their design and content, the concepts underlying item selection and the interpretation of responses. There has been a failure within both medicine and outcome measurement to distinguish between those experiences which are a consequence of biology and those which stem from co-terminous events including the cultural significance of the menopause and moral and normative constructs. It is evident that not all problems attributed to menopause are actually caused by it. With respect to both prevention and measurement a more careful and thoughtful targeting of relevant issues is needed, with more attention being given to the values, hopes and fears of healthy women as they age, together with cross-cultural investigation of these phenomena, leading to the development of testable models which would guide the selection and interpretation of questionnaire content.

By considering the case of J. B. Middlebrook, this article sets out to consider the interrelation between masculinity and male bodies as seen through the lens of male physical disability during the First World War in Britain. In considering the impact of a sudden physical impairment it is clear that disabled men were able to renegotiate their masculine identity with reference to their altered corporeal state. Within this process, hegemonic masculine ideals are able to embrace new conceptions of the self, which indicates the dynamic and flexible notion of this dominant form of gender identity. This counters the claim that disability is necessarily emasculating. It is also increasingly important to embed, where appropriate, our understanding of gender identity within the physical body.

This article analyzes how Uruguayan cinema portrays the vulnerability of masculine bodies when they are consumed, objectified, and erotized as models of traditional masculinities to build and reproduce the national epic of soccer. Both children in youth soccer in Mi mundial (Carlos A. Morelli, 2017) and adults of marginal masculinities in the documentaries Mundialito (Sebastián Bednarik, 2010), Maracaná (Sebastián Bednarik and Andrés Varela, 2014), and Sangre de campeones (Sebastián Bednarik and Guzmán García, 2018) enter the heroic Uruguayan narrative by following hegemonic masculine ideals, but are then discarded after fulfilling their role. As a counterpoint to the hard and athletic bodies, the soft bodies in some visual fictions show their wounds and some transgressions, such as compassion and kindness in Una forma de bailar (Álvaro Buela, 1997), Rincón de Darwin (Diego Fernández, 2013), and Una noche sin luna (Germán Tejeira, 2014).

Gothic monsters have recently experienced a period of focused scholarly analysis, although few studies have engaged with the werewolf in terms of its overt alignment with masculinity. Yet the werewolves of young adult fantasy fiction both support and subvert dominant masculine discourses through their complex negotiation with emotional repression and violence. These performative masculine practices are the focus of this article, which analyses how hegemonic masculine ideals are reinforced or rejected in a corpus of young adult fantasy texts, including Cassandra Clare's young adult series The Mortal Instruments (2007–2014) and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga (2005–2010). Both texts feature masculine characters whose lycanthropic experiences implicitly comment upon gender norms, which may shape young adult audiences' understanding of their own and others' gender identities.

This ‘emotionography’ of the slaughterhouse elucidates how the identities of both human and non‐human individuals are constructed by line and lairage workers. Hegemonic masculine ideals that underpin slaughterhouse work mean that the emotions of workers as well as the emotional experience of cattle are either denied, diminished or repressed. Based on fieldwork in an Irish slaughterhouse, I articulate how the industrial slaughter of animals entangles human and non‐human life in metamorphic processes that seek to diminish the emotionality of individuals, maintaining the boundary between human/non‐human animals. These transformations simultaneously pacify the emotional toll of killing non‐human individuals and reinforce perceptions of cows as sellable, killable and edible in the commodification of bovine bodies. Amidst the relative absence of emotions in slaughterhouse ethnographies, this article reveals how emotions emerge, erupt and confound the act of slaughtering cattle for slaughterhouse workers unsettling categorizations of masculinity and ‘animals as food’.