Men and Masculinities

In the early 1960s, a wave of extremely successful Hollywood surfing and beach party films captivated the imagination of American teenage cinema audiences. This essay analyzes the Hollywood beach party cycle as part and parcel of the exotification of youthful white masculinity, a phenomenon that has received no scholarly attention to this date. Films like Gidget (1959), Beach Party (1963), Blue Hawaii (1961), or Ride the Wild Surf (1964) represented their male protagonist, the surfer, as a natural, rugged, and rebelliously masculine type unspoiled by domesticity and suburban conformity. While being exceedingly white, the figure of the surfer evidences postwar America’s ongoing fascination with racial difference. The surfer’s superior manliness depended on his association with the exotic. Simultaneously, however, it was this very association that threatened both the surfer’s masculinity and his whiteness.

Carole Pateman’s idea of the “sexual contract” can be adapted to study the nationalist imagination. If a society defined through a sexual contract is equated to the “civic nation,” then the sexual basis of an “ethnic nation” might be called the “gentleman’s agreement.” The terms of the gentleman’s agreement, while never articulated as clearly as the sexual contract, nevertheless reveal themselves in cultural practices. Hungarians presupposed a nation consisting of ennobled men capable of seducing women to the “national brotherhood.” Hungarian ideas about the nation evolved during the nineteenth century, and Hungarian ideals of masculinity also changed: a manliness of strength increasingly gave way to a masculinity of education or refinement. Although the different types of masculinity implied different attitudes toward women, they both rested on similar cultural assumptions. This article links the cultural history of Hungarian national masculinity to everyday practices, notably moustaches, cigars, and sexuality.

Social trends show that contemporary fathers are spending increased time with their children and that active play and outdoor recreation are important features of their relationships. Dominant ideals of masculinity can differ by settings, which in turn guide men’s understandings and practices of fathering regarding the functions of and opportunities afforded by active play. This article draws on individual interview data from a study of fathers residing in three Canadian settings—large urban, small urban, and rural—to elucidate father masculinities and highlight similarities and differences in how men describe connections between fathering and active play with their children. Findings suggest that for large urban, small urban, and rural fathers, respectively, play functions as a means of emotional engagement, development of capacity for outdoor activities, and teaching children survival skills. We propose that the sociostructural and cultural dynamics of place shape masculine identities and influence men’s understandings of fathering.

In this article, we examine gender representations in secular and religious media. Based on comparative content analysis of six secular and religious magazines, we analyze how both types of media represented manhood in ways that facilitate the elevation of men at the expense of women. Specifically, we demonstrate how religious and secular magazines represented fatherly and spousal manhood by emphasizing inherent gender differences, male leadership, protection and control, and reasons to excuse men for failing to live up to familial and marital expectations. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding the importance of comparative analyses of secular and religious media, the insights that such analyses provide for the study of contemporary secular and religious dynamics, and the reproduction of gender inequalities.

It is generally accepted that pornography is widely consumed by young men and that mainstream heterosexual pornography is characterized by a dynamic of male sexual dominance and female submission. What is less agreed upon is whether such pornography is a source of “sexist education” (Flood 2010) for men or whether men engage with it in an empathic and ethical manner. In this study, we discuss findings from interviews with twenty-one young men about pornography and its consumption. They described it as normative for men to watch pornography and they described “extreme” content as “normal.” It was clear that they were unused to having to account for the appeal of pornography. Men’s discussion of male sexual dominance and female submission, and violence against women, within pornography was characterized by detachment. Most of the men did not take up the challenge to notice and critically respond to the sexism within the material they described. There were some exceptions, with a minority of the participants reflecting on the ethical dilemmas posed by their consumption of such pornography.