Young Masculinities Research Articles

Revisiting young masculinities through a sound art installation: What really counts?

What Really Counts? was a sound art installation created in 2019 through a collaboration between a sociologist and a multidisciplinary artist, working with in-depth interviews with young men recorded as part of a British feminist social research project in 1990, exploring sexualities and the threat of HIV/AIDS. In this article, we describe the evolution and staging of the sound art installation project, situating it within interdisciplinary literatures on the use of sociological archives and reanimation of analogue media in a digital age. Working within a fractured tradition of curated sociology, we consider the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration for refreshing sociological analytic practice, revealing the unrealised potential of archived data sets and utilising temporal displacement as a generative analytic strategy for feeling history. We are working with a 30-year time span characterised by a stretching of intergenerational experience in relation to expectations for and mediation of sex/gender. The project attempts to realise the potential for an experimental sociological practice through the staging of open-ended past–present encounters.

Young Masculinities, Masculinism, Backlash, and the Complexities of Fostering Change

Young Masculinities, Masculinism, Backlash, and the Complexities of Fostering Change

Recognizing Vulnerabilities of Young Masculinities in Youth Work: Three Perspectives on Masculine Vulnerability Linking Social Structures and Agency

In this article, I discuss and analyze how vulnerabilities within the group of young masculinities can be recognized in the context of youth work. I analyze vulnerability from three different perspectives: a contextual, a performance, and a relationship perspective. The discussion is grounded on critical realism and adaptive theory focusing on how vulnerability is interconnected with social structures and social agency. The theoretical conceptualization on these three perspectives on vulnerability can be implemented in order to generate a nuanced understanding of how social groups, such as boys’ and young men’s vulnerabilities are manifested in practice. To acknowledge vulnerabilities it is essential to understand how all human life is conditioned by social structures, gender norms, and social relationships. However, being vulnerable does not exclude the dimension of human agency. Therefore, all vulnerable groups and individuals are accountable for their actions, particularly with regard to how they encounter others.

Book review: M. Peltola and A. Phoenix, Nuancing Young Masculinities: Helsinki Boys’ Intersectional Relationship in New Times

M. Peltola and A. Phoenix, Nuancing Young Masculinities: Helsinki Boys’ Intersectional Relationship in New Times. Helsinki University Press, 2022, 220 pp., £29.42 (paperback). ISBN: 9789523690660.

Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

AbstractIntroductionMental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health‐related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.AimThis study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.MethodsSemistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.ResultsThe results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.ConclusionOur results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender‐sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.

Young Masculinities and Right-Wing Populism in Australia

This paper offers insights into the nexus of youth, masculinity, and right-wing populism in Australia. Here, we make reference to a wide body of international literature that suggests some affinity between disenfranchised (white) working-class young men and radical right ideas. Survey data were collected for a project on masculinity and the far right in Australia. A total of 203 young male informants worked primarily in ‘blue collar’ sectors of the Australian labour force. Some survey responses located them partly or potentially within the field of the populist right-wing, with many expressing anti-government sentiments and the discourse of white male victimhood. The majority were nostalgic for stereotypical masculinity. While right-wing populist movements across the world certainly differ, they often share a discourse promoting traditional gender roles.

“Be a man”: boys’ talk about gender in families

ABSTRACT This paper draws from an ethnographic study of 8–9-year-old primary school boys’ construction of masculinities. We focus on a group of Indian and black school boys situated in a working class setting in South Africa. In their narratives, the family emerged as one of the central organising sites for the social production and reproduction of masculinity. While masculinities are produced within a broader social and cultural context, this paper gives significance to family dynamics in shaping and reinforcing young masculinities. We show that while boys address family in relation to the reification of gender binaries and hegemonic patterns related to gender roles, sexuality and violence, their performances of masculinities were not entirely reiterative of these norms. Instead, boys actively challenged, negotiated and resisted dominant norms hence destabilising homogenous conceptualisations of children as passive recipients of received knowledge and oppressed power. We foreground young boys’ agency in their negotiation of masculinities and further demonstrate how the broader historical and social forces of race, class and culture intersect with dominant gender discourses within the context of families to enable plural versions of masculinities.

Smoking, swearing and strong muscles: Becoming boys in the primary school

In the context of gender and sexual violence in South Africa, there are growing efforts in the country to engage with and transform harmful patterns of masculinity. Whilst efforts to promote gender equitable versions of masculinity are ongoing and highlight the role of male culpability, questions about the experiences of younger boys are rarely the focus of attention. Given the value of problematising masculinity in boyhood, this article focuses on the ways in which 8–9-year-old boys construct their masculinity in a low-income South African primary school. Adopting a feminist poststructural lens to understanding children's agency, the article shows how a group of Indian and black boys established masculine status through the identification with adult male smoking practices, verbal abuse and swearing, and the idealisation of strong muscles. These strategies and practices were performed in relation to the understanding the boys had of status, bodily strength, heterosexual domination and the disparagement of femininity. Taken together, smoking, swearing and muscularity were mobilised to produce a competitive and stylised performance of young masculinity and demonstrates the pressures that boys face to uphold hegemonic and dominant masculinities. Through paying close attention to the specific manifestation of gendered practices and performances of young boys in the primary school, the findings foreground the need for educative practices to problematise and address harmful masculine practices at an early stage.

Acute Aortic Dissection Masquerading a Rare Type of Congenital Bicuspid Aortic : A Case Report

Acute aortic dissection on bicuspid aortic valve (BAV) type 0 is a rare especially in young masculine. Risk factors like smoking and intensive sport activities can hasten their apparition especially in non-diagnosed population. Trans thoracic echocardiography is very important in the diagnosis of BAV whereas Angio CT scan helps to confirm acute aortic dissection. Treatment is based on surgery for type A Stanford classification for acute aortic dissection. We report a rare case of acute aortic dissection masquerading a rare type of BAV, type 0 in a young sportive male with no history of heart disease who presented for the first-time with acute chest pain after lifting a heavy weight metal at the complex sport center. Patient was initially placed on medical treatment before surgery for heart valve and root replacement (Bentall procedure).

Level playing field: young males, masculinity and mental wellbeing through sport

In Australia, and throughout the world, it is evident that the mental health and wellbeing of young males aged 15–24, is not a priority. In Australia suicide is the leading cause of death in people aged 15–24 years and 75% are male (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australian hospital statistics 2011–12, 2021). It is clear young males as well as those who identify as indigenous or LGBTIQ are at risk groups with respect to self arm and suicide (Drummond, MJN, et al. 2019). It is the transition period from adolescence to adluthood that is of particular concern. Often young males must pass through this phase of life with minimal guidance or direction and without a “safe space” where they can attain emotional support. Sport is a significant part of boys’ and young males' lives and offers that “safe space”. Sport can play a substantial role in protective mental health through socialization and engagement in a socially endorsed activity that seemingly has far more positive outcomes than negative ones. This research is underpinned by both quantitative and qualitative research with young males involved masculinised sporting clubs. Its aim is to provide insights into how we can create safe spaces for males and influence positive forms of masculinities that can enhance mental health promotion among young males. This mixed methods research explores issues around mental health in young males involved across two male dominated sporting codes in Australian (Australian football and cricket). Surveys and interviews with young males age 15–24 as well as parents, coaches and key stakeholders underpin this research. While the data is designed to assist in the development of educational resources for males to influence positive forms of masculinities that can enhance mental health promotion among young males involved in these sporting codes, this paper reports on the exploratory nature of the data and raises important issues emerging among young males with respect to mental health and the role of the sporting club.

Divismo, maturità e politica sessuale negli "Hollywood film" di Anna Magnani

In the 1950s Anna Magnani played an important role in the internationalization of European stardom, becoming the first Italian actress to win an Oscar in 1955. She was 46 years old and had reached international success at the age of 37. Related to the aesthetical concerns of Italian Neorealism, and considered a pioneer in modern representation of female psychology and desire, Magnani’s case puts into question the idea that, according to Edgar Morin, grace, beauty and youth are sine qua non conditions to become a star. Between 1955 and 1960 the actress participated in three Hollywood movies along with mentoring figures such as Tennessee Williams and producer Hal B. Wallis: The Rose Tattoo (Daniel Mann, 1955), Wild is the Wind (George Cukor, 1957) and The Fugitive Kind (Sidney Lumet, 1959). Magnani’s Hollywood films suggest a kind of tailor-made melodrama, concerned in documenting her unique performative style while Hollywood experiences a great renewal of dramatic patterns and acting models. These titles also share a common subject: a passionate mature woman in crisis who, attracted to a younger man, experiences a personal rebirth closely linked to the raise of her sexuality and desire. Through the analysis of these films and how they relate to Magnani’s stardom construction in the Italian postwar, this article investigates the role of the actress in the transit of the 1950s to the 1960s. A season of great transformations in world cinema in which Hollywood, apparently interested in documenting Magnani’s uniqueness, has probably ended up discussing some of the greatest taboos in classic movies: aging over women’s bodies, erotism between mature femininity and young masculinity, or the experience of sex and passion according to a female character who remains the subject of its own desire.

Boys and bullying in primary school: Young masculinities and the negotiation of power

In this article, we draw on data from focus group discussions to examine the ways in which some young boys in a South African township primary school construct and negotiate hegemonic masculinity through bullying, and other forms of violence, within the school. Deviating from the simplistic victim-bully binary, we draw from critical masculinity studies to show how younger boys exert power over girls through violence but are, themselves, also victims of violence which, they say, is perpetrated by girls. Boys are often identified as bullies at school, but when we gave them the opportunity to talk about what it meant to be a bully, we gained a far more complex picture of how bullying behaviour manifests between learners at school. Indeed, our participants’ accounts of violence at school gave us great insights into the complexities of gender violence and highlighted the broader socio-cultural and economic conditions that produce it. We conclude that it is vital to understand the mechanisms of gender power relations among primary school learners, if primary school violence prevention interventions are to be effective.

Leisuring Masculinities in British Indian Childhoods

In this article, I draw upon a qualitative study with 11- to 12-year-old middle-class British Indian boys and their parents to unpack the ways notions of young masculinities are negotiated within the context of children’s leisure. Taking a relational approach, I argue that leisure-based masculinities of children are simultaneously generationed and gendered. By interrogating the intersection of what Raewyn Connell theorizes as “gender order” and what childhood sociologists call the “generational order,” I demonstrate that leisure-based young masculinities are forged within children’s inter- (parent-child) and intra- (child-child) generational relationships around leisure. I conclude with a call for greater engagement with intersectional frameworks in the study of boys’ masculinity that simultaneously recognizes the gender and the generational structures of children’s everyday lives.

‘I mean, in my opinion, I have it the worst, because I am white. I am male. I am heterosexual’: questioning the inclusivity of reconfigured hegemonic masculinities in a UK student online culture

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines how gendered hierarchies and relations, particularly those between hegemonic masculinities and non-hegemonic gendered identities, manifest between students at a university in North West England in and through forms of online harassment, using data collected from a large-scale study (N= 810) conducted in this institutional context. Key findings indicate that some young masculinities subordinate non-hegemonic gendered identities, namely those who identify as female and transgender, in and through gendered and sexualised forms of online harassment or are complicit in these practices. Male research participants are more likely than any other gendered group to use ‘free speech' discourses to legitimate online harassment directed at transgendered and cis-female subjects. Some white, heterosexual males, who occupy a dominant position in Britain's gendered and racial social order, appropriate discursive practices associated with identity politics, which have historically been used by non-hegemonic gendered identities to challenge social inequities, to claim they are ‘victims’ of this society. We argue that these new emerging forms of hybridised hegemonic masculinity, which appropriate and reconfigure the discursive practices of non-hegemonic gendered identities, reproduce and conceal patriarchal systems of power in digitised spaces. We suggest more research is needed to better understand these practices, their relationship to alt-right influencers and men's rights activists, and their implications for digital hegemonic masculinities at the local level of UK university campuses.

Navigating the Tensions of Normative Masculinity: Homosocial Dynamics in Australian Young Men’s Discussions of Sexting Practices

Building on research identifying sexting as an important aspect of contemporary youth cultures, this article critically explores the ways that homosocial bonding is bound up with, and produced in the context of, young adult men’s discussions of sexting. Drawing on a focus-group study with 37 undergraduate young men based in Melbourne, Australia, we find both deviations from and continuations with the literature that has emphasised men’s homosocial bonding as being predicated on women’s sexualisation and subordination. Discussions of sexting prove to be a site where young men navigate being ‘lads’ prioritising homosocial relations over relations with female partners and objectifying women to demonstrate masculine status, while simultaneously wanting to be respectful men who call out bad behaviour and emphasise trust and mutuality in their relations with women. We make sense of this by drawing on the concepts of ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ homosociality, and by attending to the symbolic boundary work that the young men undertake. In our concluding discussion, we consider the potentially productive, disciplinary role of – and limits to – digital technologies in regulating the production and performance of young masculinities that still rely on the articulation of hierarchies that legitimate gender inequality, even when young men espouse progressive views.

Young men and masculinities in Japanese media: (Un-)conscious Hegemony, Ronald Saladin

Young men and masculinities in Japanese media: (Un-)conscious Hegemony, Ronald Saladin

Boys negotiate violence and masculinity in the primary school

In this paper, we contribute to the understandings of young masculinities by turning attention to the South African schooling primary school context. In the context of scarcity of interventions around violence in the primary school, we focus on how young boys construct, negotiate and experience violence. Notwithstanding dominant discourses around childhood innocence we argue that young boys are active participants in violent gendered cultures at school. We show how boys’ bodies are key sites for the enactment of violence and is especially a valuable resource in the context of food insecurity. The paper also shows the fluidity of masculinity as boys who are regarded as ‘victims’ can also defend and resuscitate masculinity that endorses violence. Implications for addressing young masculinities in the primary school within local context are considered in the conclusion of the paper.

A climate terrorism assemblage? Exploring the politics of climate change-terrorism-radicalisation relations

Despite a series of claims from Bernie Sanders (2015), Barack Obama (2015), and others arguing that climate change, radicalisation, and terrorism are connected by complex causal relationships, there is very little academic examination of the politics of these claims. Building on DeLanda’s (2006) account of assemblages and social complexity, this paper conceptualises climate change-terrorism-radicalisation relationships as a ‘climate terrorism assemblage’. A ‘climate terrorism assemblage’ is a complex, emergent ‘whole’ formed from a heterogeneous range of interacting geopolitical components (e.g. climatic factors, migration, think tanks and academic publications, and a discourse of ‘climate security’). Specifically, a climate terrorism assemblage is characterised by ‘strategic territorialisations’: context-specific, multi-scalar points at which political claims of causal links between climate change, terrorism, and radicalisation are crystallised. Strategic territorialisations are produced in two, interrelated contexts. First, using the case study of the Syrian Conflict, a climate terrorism assemblage reveals an intricate, contested politics of ‘drawing lines’ which link climate change, terrorism, and radicalisation. Secondly, the paper argues that, at the points at which causal links are constructed between climate change, terrorism and radicalisation, a climate terrorism assemblage territorialises around intersectional subject formations, in particular a young masculine subject vulnerable to potential radicalisation and terrorism. Overall, the paper concludes that a climate terrorism assemblage provides a productive analytic frame to investigate the contested power relations of climate change-radicalisation-terrorism connections.

Young men, poverty and aspirational masculinities in contemporary Nairobi, Kenya

Building on recent calls for more focus on street-level optimism about life and the world, we address the question of ‘aspirational masculinities’ among poor urban young men in Kenya. Our data and material come from ethnographic work with young men in two slum communities in the country’s capital city, Nairobi. While acknowledging that, in their neighborhoods, ‘proper’ masculinity is constituted in traditional terms of marriage, hardiness, provisioning, breadwinning and self-reliance, youth in our study aspired to masculinities characterized by ‘abler’ breadwinnerhood, caring, positive emotions, relationality, and the rejection of violence. The masculinity aspirations of poor Nairobi youth are complex; fashioned at the crossroads of structural constraints and agentive projects for a good life, and simultaneously supportive and resistive of traditional hegemonic manliness ideals. These aspirations are limited by and reflect an objective condition of everyday and enduring inequality while also signifying a deep unmet yearning for positive social and livelihood changes.

Young masculinities across five European countries: performing under pressure

ABSTRACT We present an analysis of young masculinities based on young peoples’ perspectives derived from a project on sexual bullying. Our qualitative data are based on 41 focus groups with 253 young people (male and female) aged 13–18 across five European countries (Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia, Slovenia and England) as well as questionnaire responses. The data were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun, V., and V. Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101). Our analysis pointed to the prevalence of sexist and homophobic behaviours among young men, who were themselves concerned with their ‘masculine’ reputations by appearing physically tough, (hetero)sexually active and emotionally closed. The young women in our sample also depicted many young men as immature, naïve and superficial. At the same time, the young men were portrayed as more calm, rational and resilient compared to their female counterparts, with young men insisting that any ‘problematic’ or ‘bullying’ behaviour amounted to harmless fun. Our analysis suggests that young men are performing gender and sexuality under the influence of conventional norms which prioritise homosociality, humour and status, which shy away from challenging sexist or homophobic practices, and which inhibit reporting themselves as victims of bullying. The implications for young masculinities and social change are discussed.