Discourses Of Hegemonic Masculinity Research Articles

Framing War Disability through Masculinity: The Disabled Soldiers of the First World War in Portugal

The First World War deployed means of combat that brought about devastating effects on the minds and bodies of the men who fought it. In keeping with the sources available for the study of Portuguese soldiers, this article aims to explore the ways in which war disabilities were perceived and represented within the post-war context, stemming from the hegemonic discourses of masculinity. Overlapping masculinity and disability, I show how the ideals of the former (preceding the conflict and being mobilised by it) were subsequently invoked by disabled Portuguese veterans in their public demands for recognition. I also demonstrate the continuity of pre-war cultural representations of masculinity and disability despite the deep impacts inflicted by the conflict on the men and Portuguese society.

Performing return: victims, criminals or heroes? Senegalese male returnees engaging with the stigma of deportation

In Senegal, migration can both be a stigma and a privilege; it can increase social standing but also lead to stigmatization and suffering following aborted migration projects. This article uses performativity as an analytical lens to explore how Senegalese male migrants narrate and perform their return to Senegal in reaction to diverse social expectations. It focuses on men who were deported from Europe or who lived there under threat of deportation before returning voluntarily. Despite appeals by migration scholars to go beyond a limited discourse of victimhood, few studies explore returnees’ agency and even fewer the agency of deportees. Based on almost a year of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Senegal, we examine multiple simultaneous performances and narrations by returnee men. Despite the numerous difficulties they experience, returnees narrate success post-return by engaging with hegemonic masculine discourses of being a provider, protector and devout Muslim. But ambiguity about return is common, including silencing of suffering in public and private spaces. Performing return as an agentic act, regardless of the duration of return or whether it was voluntary, can enable returnees to conceive of belonging to Senegalese society. By recognizing returnees’ agentic performativity, this article moves beyond common categorizations of deportees as victims or criminals.

“Feminists really are crazy”: The Isu Station incident and the creation of an androcentric, misogynistic community on YouTube

ABSTRACT Controversy followed news of an altercation in a Seoul bar between a group of women and men; this was later dubbed the “Isu Station incident.” Cellphone video complicated the women’s account, providing discursive space to air men’s grievances and to discipline recent feminist challenges. The YouTube-distributed video and comments advanced an argument of “enlightened sexism” in which users argued for gender equality while demonizing feminism and claiming reverse sexism. Drawing on hegemonic masculine discourses in South Korea, they created an affective, androcentric, and misogynistic space in which they construct themselves as idealized, tolerant victims of feminist excess.

Rewriting the stars: Surface tensions and gender troubles in the online media production of digital deepfakes

This article examines a cross-section of viral Deepfake videos that utilise the recognisable physiognomies of Hollywood film stars to exhibit the representative possibilities of Deepfakes as a sophisticated technology of illusion. Created by a number of online video artists, these convincing ‘mash-ups’ playfully rewrite film history by retrofitting canonical cinema with new star performers, from Jim Carrey in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) to Tom Cruise in American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000). The particular remixing of stardom in these videos can – as this article contends – be situated within the technological imaginary of ‘take two’ cinephilia, and the ‘technological performativity of digitally remastered sounds and images’ in an era of ‘the download, the file swap, [and] the sampling’ (Elsaesser 2005: 36–40). However, these ‘take two’ Deepfake cyberstars further aestheticize an entertaining surface tension between coherency and discontinuity, and in their modularity function as ‘puzzling’ cryptograms written increasingly in digital code. Fully representing the star-as-rhetorical digital asset, Deepfakes therefore make strange contemporary Hollywood’s many digitally mediated performances, while the reskinning of (cisgender white male) stars sharpens the ontology of gender as it is understood through discourses of performativity (Butler 1990; 2004). By identifying Deepfakes as a ‘take two’ undoing, this article frames their implications for the cultural politics of identity; Hollywood discourses of hegemonic masculinity; overlaps with non-normative subjectivities, ‘body narratives’ and ‘second skins’ (Prosser 1998); and how star-centred Deepfakes engage gender itself as a socio-techno phenomenon of fakery that is produced – and reproduced – over time.

Contesting Brexit Masculinities: Pro‐European Activists and Feminist EU Citizenship*

AbstractAlthough Brexit campaigns mobilized discourses of hegemonic masculinity that marginalize women, women seemed to be at the forefront of pro‐EU campaigns post‐referendum. I explore to what extent pro‐EU activists make claims to EU citizenship that contest the masculinities of Brexit. Combining Isin's approach to citizenship as ‘performed subject positions’ with intersectional feminist theory, I argue that masculinity became a site of EU citizenship contestation, which nevertheless reproduced racialized and class‐based exclusions. Drawing on interviews with grassroots pro‐EU activists, I argue that activists reject militaristic discourses of British identity by asserting multiple embodied identities, demand rights relating to the intimate sphere, and participate in informal, local and non‐hierarchical ways. Yet, they reveal a white cultural European identity, a European exceptionalism in demands for rights, and a failure to break with the whiteness of traditional social movements. These findings demonstrate the need for feminist and intersectional analysis within EU public opinion research.

Undisclosed reality: harassment of gay male employees in Sri Lankan heteronormative workplaces

ABSTRACT This exploratory study aims to understand the ways in which gay male employees are harassed due to their sexual orientation in Sri Lanka, a developing Asian country, within a culture of hegemonic heterosexual masculinity. Using qualitative research approach, in-depth semi-structured interviews with sixteen self-identified gay male employees were carried out. Within the backdrop of stigma and masculinity theories, the findings revealed how the hegemonic discourses of masculinity and heterosexuality as well as sexual stigma had led to enacted hegemonic masculinity and enacted stigma against gay male employees through microassault, organizational exclusion, and sexual harassment. The manifestation of socially constructed and institutionalized systems of power was also evident in these harassment experiences. With many studies on harassment of gay male employees being conducted in the Western context, the current study provides an in-depth understanding of how harassment is manifested in the Asian context with its distinctive cultural norms and values.

What makes hegemonic masculinity so hegemonic? Japanese American men and masculine aspirations

ABSTRACT Research on ‘hegemonic masculinity’ needs to more specifically examine its hegemonic properties by analysing how masculine ideals embodied by white men have become pervasive and widely-accepted by men of colour through their voluntary compliance and consent. This paper analyses the influence of hegemonic masculinity on the lives of Japanese American men. Because they have adopted hegemonic masculinity as an idealised standard that they aspire to, but cannot attain, their subordinate masculinity is construed as inferior and effeminate, constraining their romantic power over women. Such negative assessments are shared by Japanese American women, who are also under the pervasive influence of hegemonic masculinity. In response, some Japanese American men attempt to appropriate the qualities of an idealised manliness in public performances, indicating how they continue to conceive of their masculinities in hegemonic terms. Although a few of them valorised Asian American manhood in order to challenge hegemonic conceptions, such alternative masculinities may eventually be appropriated by hegemonic masculine discourses to perpetuate pre-existing racial inequalities.

White hot heroes: Semiotics of race and sexuality in Hollywood ninja films

While the properties of gender across different cultures have degrees of overlap, representations of Japanese men in popular Western media are characterized by distinctive elements. This article discusses popular Hollywood action films featuring ninja and tracks its portrayal in Anglophone media. We pay particular attention to cinematic constructions of masculinity and sexuality from the integrated theoretical viewpoints of sociolinguistics, masculinity studies, and film semiotics. Based on the notions of linguistic and visual enregisterment, we employ concepts of mediation and simulation to illustrate two points— (1) a widely accepted martial arts typecasting of the ninja is a ‘copy without an original’ in Hollywood productions, and (2) characteristics of heroic and villainous ninja are conventionalized via dominant discourses of hegemonic masculinity based on race.

Being Subordinate Men: Paul’s Rhetoric of Gender and Power in 1 Corinthians by Brian J. Robinson

Reviewed by: Being Subordinate Men: Paul’s Rhetoric of Gender and Power in 1 Corinthians by Brian J. Robinson Vien V. Nguyen brian j. robinson, Being Subordinate Men: Paul’s Rhetoric of Gender and Power in 1 Corinthians (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. xii + 269. $110. This book is a revised dissertation submitted to Fuller Theological Seminary (2017), supervised by Love L. Sechrest. In the book, Brian J. Robinson analyzes Paul’s appropriation of feminine imagery in his self-presentation to deconstruct the conventional assumptions and expectations of the hegemonic masculinity model, which was inconsistent with the values of the Corinthian community and contributed to discord in the community. Thus, he argues, “Paul’s rhetoric in 1 Corinthians subverts masculine ideals and intentionally recasts the appropriate masculinity and status of the men in the community in order to promote unity in the face of increasing factionalism” (p. 4). Utilizing gender criticism, R. advances his argument in six chapters. In chap. 1, R. outlines the scope of his research, discusses the contemporary scholarship on the Corinthian correspondence relevant for the study, and provides an overview of the study. In chap. 2, R. traces the development and influence of gender studies and employs them as a methodological approach to examine discourses of masculinity and gender in Greek and Roman literature. He then presents common assumptions about masculinity and addresses the intersection between masculinity and power. In Greco-Roman patriarchal societies, a man must embody the socially constructed expectations of the idealized masculinity, that is, self-control/mastery and domination over others. He must maintain and defend his masculinity before his peers via the proper presentation of the male body. A failed masculinity would result in personal attacks and charges of femininity, which would lead to loss of social and legal standing in the community (p. 38). Chapter 3 focuses on alternative masculinities found in first- and second-century c.e. texts. R. discusses the categories of masculinity: hegemonic, complicit, and subordinate. Of specific attention are complicit and subordinate masculinities. Complicit masculinity refers to men who lack key aspects of hegemonic masculinity (i.e., lower-class freemen) but who could still participate in the patriarchal power structures. Subordinate masculinity refers to those who manifest feminine characteristics (i.e., eunuchs) and who would be excluded from the patriarchal power structures (p. 66). In his examination of the writings of Favorinus, Josephus, and Philo, R. demonstrates how these authors engage in hegemonic gendered discourses to reformulate perceptions of masculinity, transforming what was perceived as subordinate masculinity into complicit or hegemonic masculinity. In chaps. 4 and 5, R. deals with Paul’s call to imitate him by adopting subordinate masculinity. In chap. 4, R. analyzes Paul’s description of himself in 1 Corinthians 1–7 as a failed orator (1:17–18; 2:1–5), a wet nurse (3:1–3), a shameful father (4:14–15), and a celibate man (7:1–7). All these imageries, perceived as feminine and subordinate, would diminish his standing before other “manly” men and restrict his access to spheres of power and influence reserved for hegemonic and complicit men (p. 146). Moreover, Paul implores the Corinthians to imitate his subordinate persona to subvert destructive and oppressive forms of masculinity, to confront factionalism, and to protect the congregation’s unity. In chap. 5, R. elaborates on Paul’s call to “misperform” discourses of hegemonic masculinity to destabilize patriarchal structures that legitimize oppression. He examines the various commands in Paul’s paraenesis to the Corinthian believers: becoming fools (1:1–4:20), not bringing [End Page 523] each other to Roman courts (6:1–8), adopting the diets of the weak (8:1–11:1), husbands submitting to their wives and wives to their husbands (7:1–6), being subordinate men (16:13). In chap. 6, R. recapitulates his argument and attempts an interpretive test of Paul’s commands on head coverings (1 Cor 11:2–16) in light of Paul’s rhetoric of gender and power in 1 Corinthians. This summary does not do justice to R.’s comprehensive work. The thesis is carefully researched and cogently argued. The book contains a wealth of indispensable material, and...

Constructions of sexuality and HIV risk among young people in Venda, South Africa: implications for HIV prevention

The study explored constructions of sexuality among young people of Venda in Limpopo, South Africa, and cultural practices that can be used to develop context-specific HIV prevention programmes. HIV prevention can be promoted by including some cultural practices in prevention programmes and changing some aspects of culture that may contribute negatively to health. Six focus group discussions were held with school-going young people (Grades 10 to 12) in urban and rural areas to explore their constructions of sexuality and HIV risk. Four focus group discussions were held with community leaders in the same areas to explore their constructions of young people’s sexuality and cultural practices relevant to HIV prevention. Through discourse analysis, the following dominant discourses that influence young people’s sexual risk behaviour were identified: rite of passage, the male sexual drive discourse (sex is natural and unavoidable); discourse of hegemonic masculinity (sex to prove masculinity); sex as a commodity; non-adherence to cultural practices; and HIV is normalised (AIDS is like flu). Some alternative constructions and shifts in gender norms were noticed, especially among female participants. The constructions of young people were not culture-specific but similar to those identified in other South African cultures. Community leaders identified a few cultural practices that could be considered in HIV prevention, for example, reinstating the rite of passage to provide age-appropriate sex and HIV education (behavioural intervention), and promoting traditional male circumcision (biological intervention). Cultural practices that contribute negatively to health should be challenged such as current constructions of gender roles (masculinity and femininity) and the practice that parents do not talk to young people about sex (both structural interventions).

Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan by Emma E. Cook

Reviewed by: Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan by Emma E. Cook Futoshi Taga (bio) Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan. By Emma E. Cook. Routledge, London, 2016. xvi, 207 pages. $160.00, cloth; $51.95, paper; $51.95, E-book. Against the background of Japan's prolonged recession and deregulation of the employment system since the late 1990s, the increased number of young irregular employees attracted public attention and caused a moral panic over youth independence, while also giving rise to the prevalence of the newly named furiitā (freeter). Although the term generally describes young male and female part-time workers aged 15–34, who are neither students nor housewives, "freeter" has accrued various meanings beyond a mere employment category. The word has highly gendered connotations, and criticism of freeters has been directed primarily at male workers because the meaning of adult manhood has been linked so closely in postwar Japan to full-time labor and male breadwinning, as represented by sarariiman (salaryman). While prevailing discourses on freeters are extremely simplified—whether as immature boys lacking a work ethic or victims of a changing employment system—details of their living conditions are less than well known, especially to international readers. Now, however, thorough the anthropological approach of Reconstructing Adult Masculinities: Part-time Work in Contemporary Japan, Emma E. Cook provides a detailed picture [End Page 456] of how young male part-timers negotiate the meaning of masculinity and adulthood in their daily lives. Cook's study is based on ethnographic research conducted intermittently in Hamamatsu from 2006 to 2013. Qualitative uniqueness and abundance of locally collected narratives are just part of this study's attractions. As a participant observer, Cook worked as a part-timer with freeters at a nine-screen cinema. Becoming a member of and developing rapport with the target group, she interviewed more than 100 men and women, including nonfreeters. The fieldwork location is particularly significant for Cook's topic. Existing major surveys on freeters have been conducted in and around Tokyo. However, Tokyo is not a typical area but a very special place in Japan as a whole. Indeed, the majority of young part-timers are born and live in local areas with stronger community ties and more limited occupational choices than in metropolitan areas. Selecting the provincial city Hamamatsu as a research site "where social pressures can be amplified as men continue to live in the neighborhoods of their childhoods" (p. 17), Cook depicts lively interactions between young male part-time workers and their parents, for example, how sons tried to persuade their parents to accept them as freeters and the influence parents' expectations had on their sons' life courses (chapter 3). In addition to these ethnographic features, the study is also characterized by how masculinities are understood. While acknowledging the importance of the salaryman as a symbolic figure and of hegemonic discourses of masculinity in male part-timers' narratives, Cook refuses to look at masculinity as a static type, seen for example in the mutually exclusive categories of "salaryman masculinity" and "freeter masculinity." Instead, she adopts an alternative approach that "explore[s] how individuals draw on different aspects and dimensions of masculinities in different spheres of their lives—at the level of both discourse and practice—that shape their adult masculine identities in particular ways at particular points in time as they age" (p. 6). Based on such an understanding of masculinities, Cook proposes an ingenious and suggestive analytical frame: a pair of concepts she terms "aspirational masculinity" and "restrictive masculinity." On the one hand, aspirational masculinity illuminates the ways in which men try to construct and practice their masculine selves through future-oriented aspirations, especially within the sphere of labor. On the other hand, "restrictive masculinity" refers to how men "make concessions with regards to their pursuit of labor aspirations… according to their expectations of future marriage" (pp. 7–8). In this context, young male part-time workers face difficulties, which Cook has dubbed the male "freeter failure dilemma": "[I]f they gave up on their aspirations they felt they would be failing to achieve something that they felt in part defined them, that was constitutive...

"Becoming the man you always wanted to be": Exploring the representation of health and masculinity in Men's Health magazine.

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.

Extreme violence against women in Peru: The role of the State and health professionals

Violence against women occurs in all latitudes, countries and cultures, and represents a public health problem. In Peru there is currently a wave of extreme violence against women, which must be understood as a very recurrent phenomenon, but not sufficiently reflected. Citizen movements from social networks and civil society have manifested the alarming number of occurrences of this problem and the media evidence more and more cases of women being violated and even killed with mechanisms as cruel as incineration. This article reflects on the role of the State and health institutions in the attention of violence against women and how through the discourse of hegemonic masculinity, as well as that of the pathologization of the victimizer, can even encourage its perpetuation. This analysis includes those components related to the professional training of health service providers and provides some ideas to improve the sociocultural understanding of the phenomenon of violence against women.

Pathways to Inhumane Care: Masculinity and Violence in a South African Emergency Unit.

Inhumane treatment of patients by health care providers is reported around the world. A range of explanations has been proposed, indicating the complexity of the multiple factors involved. This article reports on an ethnographic study conducted in a South African public sector emergency unit, exploring the possible contribution of hegemonic discourses of masculinity to delivery of inhumane care in this context. Using ethnographic methods, including participant observation, interviews, audio-recordings of verbal interaction, and narrative analysis, the study on which this article reports explored the discursive practices surrounding incidents of abuse. The article argues that the pressure doctors experience to display strong masculine identities and simultaneous feelings of powerlessness in the face of material realities generates the potential for inhumane acts. It concludes that understanding the metaphors through which doctors interpret their experiences is important both to comprehending and subverting the forces that drive inhumane care.

The myth of the tough men’s burden: reproducing a hegemonic masculinity at the Turkish National Police

ABSTRACTDespite the common acceptance of masculinity as a foundation of policing, little research has explored the relation between masculinities and the police. Based on the fieldwork, including 35 in-depth interviews with police officers, this paper analyzes the construction of masculinities within the Turkish National Police (TNP). It aims to unpack how practices and discourses of hegemonic masculinity are embedded and (re)produced at a state institution, the TNP. Drawing from critical masculinity studies literature, this paper asks how does the police as a state institution reproduce an ideology of hegemonic masculinity and how do male and female officers’ concrete practices and discourses construct an order of gender relations within the institution? The findings suggest the centrality of heterosexuality and masculinities in reproducing the institutions of Turkish Republic in the context of modern police force. I also found that what I call the ‘institution of vocational brotherhood’ (mesleki abilik), and the associated ‘respectable sisterhood’ as distinctly Turkish phenomena carry significant implications for TNP members and contributes to hegemonic police masculinity in Turkey by bringing police work closer to the structure of family and making policing more paternalistic for all its members.

Masculinities at the Margins of “Middle Adulthood”

The intersections of masculinities and age have attracted relatively little theorizing. This article examines the theoretical implications of young/old age and masculinities by bringing together two bodies of literature (young age and masculinities and old age and masculinities) and two research studies (one with pre-teenage school students in Australia and one with grandfathers in the United Kingdom). We focus on two key themes: caring practices and relations and the divide between physical activity and intellectual pursuits. Drawing on these themes, we show how age allows for gender transgressions and practices of gender equality and how young boys and old men can also uphold a discourse of hegemonic masculinity, despite age-related tensions. We conclude by arguing that a consideration of age has much to offer in terms of thinking about how gender is socially constructed and illuminates the complex power relations of age and gender categories.

Reframing concussions, masculinity, and NFL mythology in League of Denial

ABSTRACTThis article explores how the PBS Frontline documentary League of Denial reframes the “concussion crisis” in three ways that contest the rationalization of injury and the normalization of violence in the hegemonic masculine discourses (visual, written, oral) produced about professional football. First, the film problematizes the notion of head injury as merely “part of the game” and a risk that players ostensibly understand when they enter the National Football League. Second, the film’s depiction of Mike Webster’s “unruly” body further de-naturalizes concussions and contests the masculine ideal of bodily sacrifice in pro football. Third, the film explicitly critiques the role of sports media in constructing a mythology and spectacle of pro football that contributed to the cultural context in which the concussion crisis has emerged.

Masculinity and men’s participation in colorectal cancer screening.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common cancer and an ideal target for early detection and prevention through screening. The Australian National Bowel Cancer Screening Program currently provides free testing to Australians at 5-year age intervals between the ages of 50 and 65. Despite the effectiveness of screening, participation in the program is suboptimal, with men participating at a significantly lower rate than women. Men’s reluctance to use health services and seek help for health problems is a common concern across Western cultures, often attributed to “traditional” masculine traits such as stoicism, strength, and independence. In this qualitative study we interviewed 35 older men (50 to 74 years) who had been invited to screen for CRC through participation in a randomized controlled trial, and explored the extent to which the men’s discussions of screening for CRC were consistent with theories of masculinity. Using theoretical thematic analysis we identified that men drew on discourses of responsibility, risk, rationality, and control in discussing their views of screening for CRC, demonstrating an interconnection between discourses of hegemonic masculinity and dominant discourses of neoliberalism.

‘I never felt like she was just doing it for the money’: Disabled men’s intimate (gendered) realities of purchasing sexual pleasure and intimacy

Scholarly enquiry into the interrelationships of disability and commercial sex remains seriously under-represented within disability and sexuality research. This article, however, draws upon the sexual stories of heterosexual disabled men in order to explore their embodied realities of purchasing of sex, pleasure and intimacy from non-disabled female sex workers. A thematic analysis of these sexual stories revealed multiple and complex motivations for, and experiences of, purchasing of sex, pleasure and intimacy; a purchase ultimately shaped by men’s social and political positioning as disabled and, as with the motivations and experiences of heterosexual non-disabled men, by discourses of hegemonic masculinity and heteronormative sexuality. Given the dearth of research in this area, a number of questions are identified which make important contributions to transdisciplinary knowledges of disabled sexualities, commercial sex work and disabled sexual citizenship.

COLLUDING WITH OR CHALLENGING HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY?

Research about masculinities in schools often focuses on hegemonic masculinity. This can have the effect of reinforcing the privilege associated with hegemonic masculinity, as well as overlooking differences amongst boys and the plural practices individual boys engage in. Drawing on empirical research in two South Australian primary schools with students aged 6–7 and 11–13, this article examines the complex ways in which boys engaged in plural gender practices. Practices differing from a discourse of (local) hegemonic masculinity related to three key themes: displaying ‘intelligence’ and being studious; involvement in traditionally ‘feminine’ activities; and being caring, loving family and friends, and engaging in cross-gender friendships. This article utilises these themes to argue that practices could work alongside or present challenges to practices relating to a discourse of hegemonic masculinity. An examination of how age and masculinities interweave suggests that a divide between hegemonic and other masculinities and practices is not as distinct as has often been theorised.