Men and Masculinities

Many men report a profound experience associated with the abortion of a fetus they coconceived. Yet the meanings of abortion for men remain underinvestigated. Using data from in-depth interviews with twenty men involved in thirty abortions, this article explicates a masculinist discourse of abortion. By examining how men account for the process of deciding to terminate an unintended pregnancy and the meanings of the experience, this article demonstrates how the abortion experience is bound by men's understandings of competent fatherhood and dominant meanings of masculinity. In accounting for the decision to terminate the pregnancy, men consider their relative desire to reproduce themselves, their evaluation of self in relation to idealized fatherhood, and whether they feel ready to take on the role of the provider and head of household. Taken together, these narratives reveal the cultural dominance of narrowly defined expectations of fatherhood and how men articulate a desire for traditional family formation.

Juvenile reoffending is a costly and perplexing social problem. However, research and theory concerning juvenile reoffending have neglected to examine how young men's gender identities are constructed in the context of a juvenile justice system in which behavior reform through various therapies is a primary goal. This study draws on observational fieldwork in two residential correctional facilities and interviews with incarcerated juvenile male offenders to understand how masculinities are shaped within these institutional settings. They find that in the two settings, hegemonic forms of masculinities involving competition, hierarchy, stoicism, sexism, and homo-phobia were reinforced through institutional and interpersonal mechanisms. While alternative gender identity expressions were offered through various therapies, they were largely suppressed. This illustration of how masculinities are constructed in juvenile corrections provides a new way to examine the inner workings of institutions that are geared to change the attitudes and behaviors of the young men whom they serve.

In this article, we explore Swedish men's relations to fatherhood in general and in particular to the new ideal of the caring and present father. We argue that the image of contemporary hegemonic masculinity is gradually changing. Reforms and informational strategies are used to enhance and create the “new father.” In this article, we explore and analyze how four different groups of Swedish men—Christian men, psychotherapists, a male network, and immigrant men—relate to and discuss issues concerning new gender ideals, the modern father, and fathers as important caretakers. These issues are explored through four focus group interviews. The results from the study point toward the influences of factors such as age, social background, and religion. We also see that the ideology of gender equality has a strong general influence on men's ways of relating to and phrasing these issues.

Using a cultural studies approach, we connect recent theories on rural masculinities and nostalgia to show how a particular variety of rural Alaskan masculinity becomes dominant and struggles to maintain its dominance even in late capitalist urban spaces. This Alaskan masculinity, we argue, is embedded in landscape and frontier nostalgia, through discourse, images, and practices surrounding the “real Alaskan.” Our examples come from both reflective nostalgia found in classic and contemporary literature about Alaska and restorative nostalgia found in the modern tourist industry. The real Alaskan, a cultural symbol deeply coded as masculine, rural, and white, repudiates—or at least marginalizes—that which is feminine, urban, and Native. We argue that it is not only part of the nation's imagination but also one in which many Alaskans are invested.

Our understanding of power relations in domestic and global settings is crucially informed by analyses of the gendered character of contemporary societies and global politics. Hegemonic masculinity is a crucial concept in such analyses. However, this concept has also been the subject of debate. The concept is currently used to stand in for a singular monolithic masculinity, a global hegemonic form on a world scale and is understood to refer to transnational business masculinity to an elite group of socially dominant men. This conceptualization is reconsidered and an alternative approach presented. Rethinking the term hegemonic masculinity is necessary to produce a more nuanced understanding of privileged legitimating conceptions of manhood, and of relations between different masculinities in the global/national nexus. Such a rethinking provides a means to rethink how gendered global politics, how (gendered) globalization may be conceived.