Destabilising Masculinism

Men's Friendships and Social Change
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-3-031-39537-6
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 198 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 281 g

This book explores how two generations of relatively privileged Australian men have navigated the complex terrain of same-gender friendship across their lives, to offer both empirically unique and theoretically significant insights into the mechanics of social change in masculinities. Applying a feminist poststructuralist lens to data from in-depth interviews with 14 pairs of fathers and sons, it details how masculinist discourses of emotion and intimacy have governed the participants’ friendship practices at three chronological timepoints: fathers’ early lives and later lives, and sons’ early lives. A clear but complicated shift emerges, such that the commitment to stoicism and self-reliance dominant in the fathers’ early lives has given way to a growing embrace of intimacy and emotional expression within their and their son's contemporary same-gender friendships. Engaging with key debates in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), this book offers an alternative to the conceptualisation of this positive change as either representative of a holistic disintegration of hegemonic structures, or a superficial behavioural shift that is largely inconsequential to the gender order. Rather, it illustrates that the increasing influence of feminist, queer-inclusion and therapeutic discourse has destabilised masculinism in the context of men’s friendships, offering men an alternative subject position that allows care, expressiveness and intimacy. This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Masculinity Studies.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ralph, Brittany

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Dekonstruktivismus, Strukturalismus, Poststrukturalismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies: Homosexualität, LGBTQ+
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgattungen, Filmgenre
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. The Significance of Men’s More Intimate Same-Gender Friendships.- 2. Theory, Debates and a Feminist Poststructuralist Way Forward.- 3. Friendship in the Fathers’ Early Lives.- 4. Friendship in the Fathers’ Later Lives.- 5. Friendship in the Sons’ Lives.- 6. Overcoming Barriers to Intimacy Through Humour, Alcohol and the Disembodied Nature of Online Spaces.- 7. Towards a Feminist Poststructuralist Account of Change in Men’s Friendships.

Über Autor(innen)

Brittany Ralph is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at The University of Liverpool, UK. She teaches, writes, and researches in the field of critical studies on men and masculinities, and has published in Men and Masculinities, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Sociology and NORMA. She has also conducted research on men's risky drinking practices, ‘healthy masculinities’ intervention programmes and victim-survivors’ experiences of coercive control.