Abstract
Elliott’s book concerns questions of change: changes both in theories about men and boys, and in men’s and boys’ experiences and ideas around masculinity. The book is based on interviews with 28 Australian and German men in Berlin and in an unnamed Australian city, and it adopts a cross-nationally comparative, empirical approach that is often lacking in critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM). In doing so, Elliott’s impressive, empirical work challenges the kind of methodological nationalism that has long affected the field, engaging with these issues in a way that is highly readable and accessible. The focus on what precarious labor means for men’s privilege is an especially important, recurring feature throughout the book. Whilst assuming a model that takes individuals’ current employment (as opposed to family wealth) as a marker of class, Elliott treats the tensions between economic privilege, precarity, and experience with sensitivity and nuance, never fully subscribing to the notion that demographically privileged men are either entirely privileged or relying on their self-assessments.
Elliott’s theoretical approach divides masculinity conceptually in two: “open masculinities”—which prioritize emotional expression, care, and openness toward partners, friends, and family—and “closed masculinities”—which emphasize a kind of stereotypical emotional stoicism, lack of involvement in family life, and largely work-oriented lifestyle. She insists that moves toward “open masculinities” come from the margins, taking issue with scholars who point to changes in masculinity as coming from privileged men (pp .2, 21). However, in contrast to more unreservedly optimistic approaches, and perhaps overly critical approaches (a staple feature of CSMM given its roots), Elliott strikes a careful balance between optimism and caution for men’s potential to change. Indeed, her model is indebted to bell hooks’ metaphor of the margin and center, and whose often-overlooked (2004) book on men and change receives well-deserved attention here.
Grouping masculinities into “open” and “closed” is however a particular issue for me. Typologies can be useful, but they miss the messiness and complexity which is where, I would argue, Elliott’s strength lies. She notes (pp. 15, 46) that these types should not be understood as binaries (ideal types perhaps?), but in this case it is not clear that the conceptual binary is necessary in the first place. She identifies the existence of numerous contradictory discourses, within these men’s narratives, which indicate persistence and change. Yet these fit simultaneously into definitions of open and closed. Notably, Ashley’s (an Australian man in Berlin) comments on feminism as “mostly positive” but having gone “too far” (p.127) emphasize the central theme of the book, which is ambivalence around “new” masculinity. Elliott is consistently careful not to assert that masculinity is, rather that it is constructed as, but this makes the insistence that masculinities can be grouped into open or closed forms more puzzling.
Second, whilst the book deals with change, whether some of the trends she describes are either historically unique or progressive is questionable. Elliott states that “masculinities have traditionally been considered closed, bounded, unitary” (p.55). Leaving aside the issues in talking about “traditional masculinity,” the idea that men’s power has been derived solely from autonomy, rationality, and emotional stoicism overlooks how “authentic” emotional expression have also been seen as signs of freedom for young men particularly. The discussions of openness in Chapter 5 (young men realizing who they “really are” and leaving life behind to move to Berlin) echo tropes reminiscent of Goethe or Rousseau’s Confessions, 1950s beat authors’, or the 1980s “new man,” not to mention discourses around emotional authenticity, masculinity, freedom, and creativity as central to rock, romantic, or jazz cultures.
Whilst this book details the complexities of young men navigating contemporary masculinities, it is primarily about the freedoms and anxieties of young, privileged men, who make up the majority of Elliott’s sample (something she notes on p.181). This is valuable. However, despite insisting that change in masculinity comes from the margins (p.27), this claim is only really substantiated by a lone German queer, working-class respondent, Manni, who is discussed in relation to “caring masculinities” in Chapter 6 and who is atypical of her sample. As such whilst she observes that moves toward openness are linked to class (p. 193), she leaves the issue of how material-cultural, rather than cultural factors alone, influence possibilities for openness, tantilisingly open-ended.