Key Concepts and Approaches in Studies of Masculinity

Abstract

Over recent decades there has been a rapid expansion in studies of men and masculinities in theoretical, empirical, and policy domains. The original impulse for contemporary studies of masculinity came from the flourishing field of feminist scholarship where, from the 1970s, analyses of gender dynamics made masculinity a visible object for study and critique. In the 1980s, masculinity studies crystallised as an independent research field, with empirical analyses focusing on multiple masculinities and attending to hegemony and hierarchy not only between men and women, but also amongst different groups of men. In the following decades, empirical studies began to encompass global perspectives and to draw from poststructuralist approaches on the discursive construction of men and masculinities.