Abstract
ABSTRACT Boys are figured as both too fast and too slow for what’s expected of them. Too action-oriented for the classroom or for happy domestic containment. Too slow to grow up or too stalled by obstacles to their natural energies to embrace manhood. This article considers the widespread perception of boys and boyhood as characterised by a desirable energy and liveliness but, at the same time, by a problematic excess of energy and a reluctance or incapacity to channel this efficiently into mature competencies. To do so, we consider some long discursive precedents for understanding boyishness as simultaneously energetic promise and management problem: from enlightenment discourses on education through to ‘boys work’ organisations like the Boy Scouts and the YMCA; to resonant imaginations of innate boyhood energy at odds with society in popular texts; and to recent scholarship on the current cultural impasse of boys perceived as unable or unwilling to become men. In coming to grips with the resilience of this discourse on the energies of boyhood, we consider its implications for contemporary feminist analyses of boyhood and make an argument for thinking about boyhood as a more mobile designation for orientations, experiences, and bodies.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call