Representations Of Masculinity Research Articles

Bouncing off Ove: Old men's readings of the novel A Man Called Ove as a cultural representation of ageing masculinity

In recent years, there has been a rise in portrayals of greying protagonists in popular fiction, often featuring older people in humorous and heart-warming stories. An emerging genre within this literature is the “geezer and grump lit”, a genre where older people are active protagonists, and while often portrayed as grumpy “’usually turn out to have a heart of gold’” (Swinnen, 2019). A notable example of a book in this genre is the internationally bestselling novel A Man Called Ove (2012) by the Swedish author Fredrik Backman. Telling the story of the 59-year-old Ove who sets out to take his own life, the novel can be understood not only as a cultural representation of ageing, but more specifically a cultural representation of ageing masculinity. But how is this popular novel read and responded to by old men themselves? This article builds on a focus group study with Swedish men aged 65–92 who read and discussed A Man Called Ove. The aim of this article is thus to explore how men read the novel and how these readings function as ways of constructing, negotiating and challenging ageing masculinity and the old man as a gendered and aged position. Findings of the study show how discussion of the novel generated a variety of “imaginary positions” through which the participants made sense of what it means to be an old man in contemporary Sweden, including positions such as the active aspiring ageing man, the passive lonely old man, the embodied and vulnerable old man, and the dutiful old man. Future research should explore how other literary genres may provide ways of understanding how old men's gendered and aged subjectivities are constructed.

Ambiguous gaze: masculinity and the male body in Dirk Bikkembergs’ fashion and photographic production

ABSTRACT The study of masculinity has recently become relevant to the field of fashion studies. However, fashion is still underrepresented in the field of men’s studies, which hardly takes into account its importance in the cultural construction of masculinities. This article aims to build a bridge between these two fields through the analysis of fashion designer Dirk Bikkembergs. Known as part of the internationally established ‘Antwerp Six’ and for his strong representation of masculinity and the muscular body, Bikkembergs’ imagery is interesting to any scholar wishing to reflect on the cultural definitions of the male body, especially when that body is being presented on the border between normativity and homoeroticism. The article explores the evolution of the visual representation of the male body in photography, and particularly fashion photography, demonstrating how the relationship between masculinity, the male body and the gaze changed over time. We then use the proposed framework for a critical investigation of the visual imagery of Bikkembergs’ world, which revolves very much around masculinity and the male body, to pinpoint an ambiguity at the base of the brand: despite the brand’s normative narrative and orientation, we posit that its photographic production leaves space for a queer reading.

Do the Marriageable Men want to Protect and Provide? The Expectation of Black Professional Hybrid Masculinity

Gender ideologies are embedded in intersecting race, class, and gender systems. Yet Black masculinity is often defined one-dimensionally, without attention to class variation in gender enactment. Particularly, with regard to heterosexual partnering, representations of Black masculinity most often involve men enacting compensatory displays to account for having too little masculine capital to meet the dominant culture’s protector–provider prerequisites for accomplishing marital masculinity. Drawing from interviews with 42 never-married Black professional men, I explore their ideas about how masculinity ought to be done within the marital relationship—a critical site for the reproduction of gender inequality. Findings reveal that these men construct “Black professional hybrid masculinity” around a simultaneously racialized and classed compensatory strategy of masculine protection and equitable spousal sharing, resisting simple classification as either hegemonic or counterhegemonic. Rather, it is a distinctly hybrid masculine strategy. These men cherry-pick hegemonic gender norms to reconstruct gender identities that reaffirm their sense of manhood and idealize their future wives as symbols of hybrid femininity—work-devoted women who are also femininely in need of masculine protection. This research offers an intersectional extension of hybrid masculinity and illustrates the need for heterogeneous and context-varied theories of how Black men do gender.

Experiences of female journalists in Zimbabwean male-dominated newsrooms

Baseline surveys on the gender distribution in Zimbabwe’s media industry indicate a male dominance in newsrooms in general, as well as in media leadership positions. This gender disparity reflects the persistence of patriarchy and heteronormative beliefs in the Zimbabwean society, despite the country’s constitution upholding gender mainstreaming and principles of equality. However, thereis a dearth of systematic academic studies exploring the experiences, aspirations and attitudes of female journalists in these macho newsrooms. The article is theoretically guided by Raewyn Connell’s hegemonic masculinity theory. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with purposively selected female Zimbabwean journalists to discuss their experiences and struggles in such environments. Findings indicate that gender remains an unresolved question in Zimbabwe. Due to alleged unprofessional conduct by some male journalists, Zimbabwean newsrooms resemble phallocentric and misogynistic “carnivals”. Women experience and battle against various forms of sexual harassment despite the presence of mechanisms to protect victims. Despite this violence, female journalists persevere and also find ways of speaking back to power.

An investigation into masculinity among competitive road cyclists

This article investigates masculinities among competitive male road cyclists. The resulting paper reports on a quantitative study, involving a self-report survey that was distributed to a male population of UK competitive road cyclists (n = 105). Results indicate that the sample more closely identify with an explicit notion of masculinity than seen in the general male population, and this finding was consistent across age groups. This study explores the importance of these findings through Inclusive Masculinity Theory, suggesting that competitive road cycling presents a cultural lag, relative to wider societal changes in masculinity. Implications for participation in the sport, risk-taking, and concussion, as well as sexual diversity support, are subsequently discussed.

Portrayals of gender and identity in the soundtrack of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt Red, 2019) is an award-winning role-playing video game (RPG); the third instalment of The Witcher game series inspired by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels. Centring upon the protagonist Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher 3 has been praised for developing a complex, authentic, and immersive game environment that combines magic and fantasy elements within a broadly medieval setting. A central aspect of the game’s success is its soundtrack – the fusion of music, sound, and voice – which further contributes to building the game’s overall narrative and the complex construction of its central characters. This paper explores how The Witcher 3’s soundtrack constructs identity, focusing in particular on its use of neo-medievalist signifiers and its contrasting representations of masculinity and femininity. Neo-medievalist sounds are a central concept in building the game’s identity; these sounds draw on folkloristic elements surrounding the choice of instrumentation and the recurrence of folk music throughout the game’s narrative, thus increasing the player’s immersion within The Witcher 3’s world. Regarding gender, female vocalisations are used within the soundtrack to add depth and emotion to male characters – particularly Geralt of Rivia, who due to his mutations lacks in conventional emotional capabilities. Despite the inclusion and emphasis of female voices on the soundtrack, the placement of women in influential roles is limited through other musical scoring techniques, which effectively reduces the agency of these characters, thus suggesting an imbalanced treatment oftowards gender. Through exploring these aspects, I argue that the soundtrack is a crucial part of how gender and identity are constructed throughout The Witcher 3, further exploring how these elements affect the player’s overall in-game immersion.  

I’m gonna wreck it, again: the false dichotomy of “healthy” and “toxic” masculinity in Ralph Breaks the Internet

ABSTRACT This article examines the representation of masculinity in the animated Disney film Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). Popular reviews of the film focused heavily on critiques of toxic masculinity. Often associated with homophobic and misogynistic speech, the concept of toxic masculinity ultimately serves to reinforce and rescue elements of hegemonic masculinity by painting “toxic” male behaviors as something that can be “cured” or “fixed.” To probe the troubled concept of toxic masculinity as seen in animated media, this article demonstrates how Ralph Breaks the Internet reifies a false dichotomy of healthy and toxic masculinity. Through examining the ways Ralph’s physical appearance, his behaviors, his manipulative relationships with women, and the film’s ultimate resolution reflect the current crisis of masculinity, this article argues that while reviews claim the film critiques toxic masculinity, the film itself actually reinscribes qualities of hegemonic masculinity. By invoking toxic masculinity in scholarship and reviews, critics obscure other critiques of masculinity films may put forward—positive and negative.

“The queers hate me because I’m too butch”: Goldilocks masculinity among non-heterosexual men

A growing body of scholarship finds that hegemonic masculinity is evolving to produce hybrid masculinities that contain elements of both dominant and marginalized masculinities. Hybrid masculinity theory argues that incorporating marginalized masculinities into the mainstream conceals inequality while continuing to reproduce it. Regarding sexuality, however, the bulk of this research has centered heterosexual men’s perspectives on non-heterosexual masculinities. Instead, I ask: How do non-heterosexual men experience masculinity? Based on interviews with 29 non-heterosexual men, I find pressures to fit within a “goldilocks zone” of masculinity, emphasizing a floor and a ceiling to idealized masculinity. The goldilocks masculinity produced by these bi-directional pressures mirrors and elaborates upon hegemonic masculinity and hybrid masculinity, including emphases on the dominant themes of race, class, and body. I situate goldilocks masculinity as a subtype of hybrid masculinity, while also focusing on how men from the margins simultaneously incorporate and distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity.

The Figure of the Martyr in Iran-Iraq Postwar Movies

Abstract This article focuses on the post–Iran-Iraq War representations of the martyr figure, with a close reading of the film Safar be Chazzabeh. The author interrogates the gendered representation of martyrdom and masculinity as central to the narration of the postwar films. She shows how postwar films continue to keep Islamic nationalism in circulation through the martyr figure by conveying a fictive yet affective time of the nation where death opens space for the continuation of life. While post–Iran-Iraq War movies collapse men's emotional relations in the war zone with their heroic martyrdom for the nation-state's sake, they aesthetically mediate the possibility of men's homosociality in the precarious and affective intensity of the war zone.

STRUGGLING AGAINST STEREOTYPE: A STUDY OF MASCULINITY IN AMERICAN GAY TV SERIES

This study aims to analyze the concept of masculinity in the gay male community and identify the image of masculinity in gay men shown in the American gay television series. Data for this qualitative research was gathered from several American gay TV series in the 2000s. The data analysis process involved representation theory in interpreting the dialogs and the scenes in the television series. The study found that masculinity does not always have to be associated with physical strength and heterosexuality because there are other essential aspects such as the ability to achieve success and to meet the needs of life that can be used to conceptualize masculinity. It also revealed that American gay television series frequently showed the representation of masculinity in gay characters to reject the stereotype through images such as physical strength in sports, attractive physical appearance, profession, and ability to achieve success.

Representations of Fatherhood and Pre-colonial Masculine Otherness in Flora Nwapa’s Idu (1970).

Drawing on Nwapa’s representations of pre-colonial definitions of West African manhood, I will examine the interrelated ways of the male characters’ perception and yet distinctive ways of responding to pre-colonial hegemonic masculinity represented in Idu. Moreover, this chapter explores the narrative irony used by Nwapa to redefine notions of producing children, contest polygamy, and interrogate indigenous pre-colonial constructions of manhood in the novel. Her interrogation of indigenous masculinity constructions encourages us to recognize that representations of contemporary masculinities are constantly linked to pre-colonial patriarchal definitions of manhood, as will be shown throughout the following chapters. Using a qualitative research approach, my research paper argues that Nwapa, in Idu, exposes that the Nigerian pre-colonial association of hegemonic masculinity with ‘virility’ proves to be harmful, too powerful to be resisted, dehumanizing, and tragic. I contend that although a woman’s childlessness is presented to be equally painful, the novel sheds more light on the complexity of male infertility, and uses the ironic narrative as a mechanism to contest pre-colonial indigenous constructions of manhood in the Igbo society, redefining the Igbos’ attachment to producing children.

Everybody wants to be a manager: On masculinity, microfascism and the manosphere

ABSTRACT The emergence of the manosphere with its online promotion of a blinkered view of masculinity associated with the alt-right, its hostility to feminism and explicit misogyny has been characterized as aberrant in relation to mainstream psychological and cultural values. Partly expanding on Guattari’s Everybody Wants to be a Fascist, this paper argues that there is instead a profound continuity between the two. They both share an ideology of resilience: a misleading notion dominating current representations of masculinity. They both share the ideology of dataism, i.e. the view that the world can be reduced to abstracted data and measurable logic. They both share practices of microfascism, i.e. a yearning for more management, order and control in relation to the intrinsic ambivalence of being human. In our post-civil-rights era of identity politics, white ‘injured’ masculinity masquerades as a ‘different’ and ‘marginalized’ identity in relation to which the bland slogans of woke capitalism and woke consumer-culture present no real opposition. At present, most cultural representations of masculinity are essentialist. Can psychotherapy theory and practice help construct new representations of masculinity as performative, fluid and as a turning point to a deeper form of inquiry?

The incredible, ageless Reeves: aging celebrity, aging fans, and nostalgia

ABSTRACT As a star, Keanu Reeves is timeless. As a celebrity, ageless. Drawing on Jerslev and Petersen’s (eds, 2018) special issue of Celebrity Studies, this article reads Reeves’ star image through the lens of research on ageing celebrities, and ageing fans. While his iconic action roles centre Reeves as an ageing, yet ageless celebrity, the memeification of Reeves has been essential to his resurgent star image with younger fans. As a star notoriously private about his personal life, Reeves’ first public appearance with partner Alexandra Grant in November 2019, and the subsequent shock at the ‘age appropriate’ pairing (rather than the more common image of ageing male star, much younger starlet) added another layer to the discourse around ageing male stars. Finally, Reeves’ reprisal of his role as Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan in Bill and Ted Face the Music (BATFTM) (2020) speaks both to his age/lessness and star image, in addition to the nostalgia of his ageing fans. In sum, this paper will interrogate Reeves’ star image as an atypical representation of ageing celebrity masculinity – and how this contributes to his ongoing appeal to ageing fans.

Oh Father, My Brother: Reflections on Psychoanalysis, Class and Masculinity

ABSTRACT In this paper, I begin by exploring the Freudian and Lacanian theories of masculinity and how they revalorise the role and law of the father and his patriarchal power. I perform a criticism of these theories by using Castoriadis’ emphasis on the importance of brotherly co-operation in the formation of community. I then move on to critically examine how Lacanian theorists have excluded considerations of class in their account of the origins of the Law and its application which prohibits an adequate redressing of social injustice. I conclude by providing a brief account of the life of my father as a working-class man and how I performed a similar exclusion of class oppression from my theoretical and practical considerations as a way of creating distance from him. This account is an attempt to reconnect with a man who was not only my father, but also my ‘brother in suffering’.

Normal People (2020) and the New Post-Celtic Irish Man

ABSTRACT TV mini-series and international hit Normal People (2020) introduced the character of Connell Waldron to the world. Connell’s character was not only well-received but he also created a following of his own. From his clothes, to his looks, to his character, Connell became an obsession for many. An analysis of the character of Connell with regard to the portrayal of his masculinity is presented in this article. The purpose of this is to situate Connell within a typology of Irish masculinities and, in doing so, to examine the sociocultural context within which such a masculinity emerged. As such, both the conditions that enabled this new type of masculinity to develop and the implications of such a portrayal for Irish society are discussed. Using Raewyn Connell and James Messerschmidt’s hegemonic masculinity as well as Eric Anderson and Mark McCormack’s inclusive masculinity theory, the contribution of Connell Waldron to the promotion of a society in which gender-related hegemonic inequalities fade away is examined.

Intimations of Futurity: Masculinities, Traumatic Memories and Spatial Dynamics in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2004)

Drawing on an eclectic theoretical formulation, this paper explores how African writers reconfigure futurity by focusing on representations of masculinities, space and trauma using Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. The central animating principle in this paper is that scholarship on gender relations within the last decade have shifted from placing the female at the centre of discourse to more diversified discussions – particularly to frame the experiences of the male as a site for a counter-discourse. Emerging debates, have largely focused on the heterogeneity of the masculine experience, de-affirming the oppressive patriarchal default of being and spatial markers that define maleness. There is also now a new surge of scholarly interests on the relevance of trauma in postcolonial contexts mainly focusing on trauma and related themes such as testimony, trauma and power, memory and survival. While these studies serve as critical interventions within the literature, the seemingly neglect of re-reading the interconnectedness between masculinities, spatiality and post-colonial traumas deprives us of a better appreciation of the critical utopias in African literary imagination.

Discussions of Fantasy Characters and Demonstrations of a Defensive Hybridity in Gamer Masculinity

This paper situates gamer discussions of the fantasy race the drow, or dark elves, in masculinity theory. I examine threads from a Facebook group discussing the topic, and code the reactions of men participating. I discuss how some gamer masculinities that are displayed reinforces a belief of epistemic privilege among White men that allows for hegemonic responses to discussions that involve structural racism. I propose larp gamer masculinity as a hybrid masculinity, complicit in its support of hegemonic models but appropriating elements of subordinated populations to allow individuals to feel like an “outsider.” In these gaming discourse spaces, men employ an anti-intellectualized form of digital hooliganism as a rationale for their claims. These men dismiss claims of discrimination as they see those as characteristics outside the scope of the game. The resistance exhibited by these men reacting to changes should be viewed differently than extremist discourses.

‘In a hospital bed or … out doing Indiana Jones’: older Irish men's negotiations of cultural representations of ageing

AbstractThere is a growing body of interdisciplinary literature on the representation and construction of ageing masculinities; however, there is a lack of specific analysis of older men's responses to cultural images of ageing. It is important to examine how cultural meanings around ageing may inform older men's lived experiences, an underexplored aspect of gender and social relations. This article does so and contributes to social gerontology and masculinity studies. It draws on focus group discussions and follow-up interviews or reflective diaries with seven men aged 65–73 years, varying in terms of relationship status and sexual orientation. The research forms part of an international study. It discusses the initial thematic findings, interpreted with reference to literature on ageing in culture and society, and hegemonic masculinities. The analysis identifies five primary themes: underrepresentation and stereotyping in media; diminishment of family role; transition from work to retirement; agency as opposed to confinement; and ageing as engaged and autonomous, illustrating some of the issues involved in the fluidity of masculinity over a lifetime. It highlights how representation can inform perceptions and experiences of growing older, and shows shifting masculine identities that negotiate hegemonic expectations as well as discourses about ageing. This study demonstrates how the participants’ modifications of hegemonic masculine and ageing identity interrogate and broaden these discourses, and opens avenues for future investigation.

Superior, Violent and Aggressive: Hegemonic Masculinity in Arabic Music Videos

Free access to music videos on YouTube has allowed generations of consumers to be exposed to songs from their favorite artists on a daily basis. Presented in the form of music videos, these songs contain visuals that carry several themes including the glorification of violence and the dominance of men over women (Sherman and Dominick 1986), and the sexual objectification of women (Kozman et al. 2021). The effects of this exposure on people have been shown to affect day to day attitudes and behaviors, especially among the youth (Johnson et al. 1995). Although Western music videos have been the subject of numerous research studies, research on Arabic music videos is nearly non-existent. This study sought to examine the prevalence of the violence and aggression of men in Arabic music videos using Gramsci’s theory of hegemonic masculinity. The study performed a qualitative textual analysis on a sample of 10 Arabic music videos that are popular for containing instances of violence and supremacy of men. The analysis returned three themes that reflect basic tenets of hegemonic masculinity: the patriarchal values and superiority of men, female subordination, and violent behavior.

What’s masculinity got to do with it? The COVID-19 pandemic, men and care

Early data from several countries regarding the gendered implications of COVID-19 suggest that men are more likely to die as an effect of infection. This has been explained by biological factors but also by behavioral and life-style issues characteristic mostly for men. What has not been widely discussed, however, is the analysis of the relationships between men’s responses to the crisis, their (lack of) care activities, and certain models of masculinity that persist in many societies. In this paper, I use a three dimensional model of care – a) self-care, b) care for others, and c) care for one’s society – in order to analyze how certain masculine behaviors, rooted in socially constructed gender performances, resonate with the COVID-19 pandemic. The data used in this paper are of secondary character and will serve to analyze the most common responses of men within the three dimensions of care mentioned above. The theoretical framework utilizes the notion of caring masculinity supported by an emerging theory of protective masculinity.