Search Results (15)

This article examines the resurgence of fascism and white supremacy politics in Western societies through the lens of status, honor, and dignity. By focusing on the political appeal of leaders like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbán, and others, this study argues that these leaders resonate with primarily white, male supporters who feel that their social status and cultural identity are under threat. Drawing on works by Isabel Wilkerson, Ashley Jardina, and Arlie Hochschild, this analysis highlights how anxieties surrounding demographic shifts, perceived “status loss”, and narratives of cultural displacement fuel support for authoritarian policies. It posits that contemporary right-wing movements in the US, Europe, and Latin America are less about economic grievances and more about defending a social hierarchy in which white identity is paramount. This pursuit, while objectively not the same, still mirrors struggles among historically marginalized communities, as discussed by scholars like Bhimrao Ambedkar and Gopal Guru, challenging traditional rational-choice models of political behavior. Relying on an auto-ethnographic account obtained from living in one of the US’s most conservative regions, the West Texas plains, this study suggests that authoritarianism’s appeal lies in its promise to restore a social order steeped in white male dominance, showing how feelings of honor and pride can override democratic principles and fuel political polarization. Ultimately, this article cautions that a social science approach relying solely on rational actor models risks overlooking the potent influence of status anxieties in shaping modern political landscapes, with significant implications for democracy and justice. Full article

What are the political, gender, and theological implications at stake when associating Jesus with modern combat and righteous violence? Jesus is rendered in combative form across media—i.e., live-action films and shorts, animated television, sketch comedy, graphic novels, and video games. This rendition occurs at a confluence of meaning, most immediately for the sake of generating comedy through juxtaposition (in this case, rendering the meek with a sword) and/or reaffirming Jesus’ prominent cultural value through an association with other popularly mediatized entities. Beyond these initial layers of significance, however, I argue that Jesus becomes associated with violence and brutality for the sake of de/legitimizing politically conservative ideologies with respect to Christianity and American exceptionalism, redeeming the crisis of “domesticated masculinity” and fortifying traditional masculine norms, and theologically reinstituting popular paradigms of low Christology. Ideological “manhood” remains traced to one’s ability to perform traditional gender roles (i.e., family provider, community protector, and father/procreator). To capture the discrepancy that Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in canonical gospels, largely concerns none of these roles, I analyze the hypermasculine Christ, and the various weapons he employs, as part of a popular genealogy of Western value systems and discourse. Though in this article I reference some examples of non-American media, I reserve my analysis and commentary for the stakes and implications of what it means for U.S. Americans to produce and consume such content. In short, I submit that popular America idolizes itself in the form—one amidst many—of a naïve, combative, and boorish Christ: an arrogant and, at times, narcissistic man with delusional views of the world made dangerous through invasive power and authority. Western entertainment has deemed the United States (through its fictional stand-ins) as morally failing yet still chosen. Within this logic, American Christians need not reform their ways as long as they cultivate evidence of their exceptionalism. Full article

Circumcision is a long-standing and frequently performed surgical procedure which holds significant cultural significance among AmaXhosa people in South Africa. Due to cultural reasons in some parts of Africa, the integration of medical male circumcision with traditional manhood initiation rituals still lacks acceptance. This study examined the level of knowledge and acceptance of voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC) among young males in a selected high school in the Nyandeni District of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. A descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted, and a self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information on sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge of VMMC, perceptions of VMMC, and circumcision practices. One hundred participants were recruited from both grades 11 and 12, and 82% of the participants indicated that they had received information about VMMC. Most of the respondents (88%) preferred traditional male circumcision (TMC), and only 12% of respondents preferred VMMC. The participants displayed a good understanding of the distinction between VMMC and TMC. However, results from the study showed that most respondents exhibited low acceptability and knowledge towards VMMC. These findings highlight the need to develop evidence-based strategies to enhance learners’ knowledge and acceptance of VMMC. Full article

Racial analysis of photography in the canon is important when unpacking layers of racial discrimination, Black manhood, and the historical dynamics within social forces that create stereotypical perceptions of African American males. Race, religion, and sport allow scholars to unpack the perceived disposability of Black lives in contemporary society. In an effort to fully understand how sport and religion inform racialized experiences in Black manhood, the current paper seeks to advance theories of visual and racial culture in a particular context. Contextual analysis of a 1964 photograph of Malcolm X and Dr. Harry Edwards synthesizes the visual turn and offers insight into how race, sport, and religion collide to raise minority pride. A contextual analysis accounts for the ways in which visual materials function within broad social ecologies of Black masculinity. Implications are discussed for the role of sport and religion in continuing activism for racial equality. Full article

Mental health and health promotion research and practice have consistently revealed the social and structural inequities that boys and men of color (BMoC) face. Moreover, scholarship highlights the importance of gender, especially the concepts of masculinity and manhood, in understanding inequities that are experienced. Providers and community leaders are finding culturally relevant ways to foster healing and restoration while addressing racial trauma and the adverse community environments tied to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). This article introduces the restorative integral support (RIS) model to promote connectivity through networks and to acknowledge the contextual differences BMoC experience when suffering from trauma and adversities. RIS is a framework used to address adversities and trauma while increasing societal awareness and advancing equity. This community-based, multidimensional approach is offered to enhance individual, agency, community, and policymaking leadership, raising awareness of mental health concerns and trauma while offering a flexible guide to developing safe spaces and support for recovery from ACEs and trauma. This article offers an in-depth appreciation of the real-life contexts within which BMoC overcome histories of adversity and trauma, demonstrating how the RIS model is applied to advance structural transformation while fostering community resilience. Full article

This paper is based on an empirical study using in-depth qualitative interviews that examines how Roman Catholic undergraduate seminarians in the United States understand gender, sexuality and masculinity. The findings describe how seminarians reject interactionist and social constructionist models of gender, and rely on a strict biological based model where sex/gender are seen as a unified concept. This leads them to adopt an “essential male inclusivity”, where they argue that all people assigned male at birth have equal claim to “manhood”, which eases pressures on them to act in gender normative ways. The social-psychological and identity-based motivations of these beliefs are examined in connection to their life in the seminary and other anticipated occupational characteristics. In contrast, the seminary’s mandates around both celibacy and compulsory heterosexuality, make sexuality more fraught than gender for seminarians. The larger consequences of these perspectives are also explored in regard to gender inequality, homophobia, and the lack of acceptance for the LGBTIQ+ community. Full article

A critical analysis of the discourse of female sex workers residing in the Antofagasta region in northern Chile is presented. It highlights the discursive constructions of female sex workers on the commercial, affective, and sexual bond with male mineworkers. From this discursive production emerges the image of a whore–mother, of a woman who, encouraged by a monetary transaction, knows how to embody what her client–miner needs beyond sex: to reinforce his manhood while welcoming him and recognizing him as an affectively deprived subject. Such a role fulfills a function of repairing the virile force of work, sustaining a balance that affects the miner’s functioning and performance in the mine. Full article

This paper explores how the intersection of masculinity and religion shapes workplace well-being by focusing on Christianity and the social construction of masculinity among factory workers in a city in China. While existing work on public and occupational health has respectively acknowledged masculinity’s influences on health and the religious and spiritual dimensions of well-being, there have been limited efforts to examine how variegated, and especially religious, masculinities influence people’s well-being in the workplace. Drawing on ethnography and in-depth interviews with 52 factory workers and 8 church leaders and factory managers, we found that: (1) Variegated masculinities were integrated into the factory labor regime to produce docile and productive bodies of workers. In particular, the militarized and masculine cultures in China’s factories largely deprived workers of their dignity and undermined their well-being. These toxic masculinities were associated with workers’ depression and suicidal behavior. (2) Christianity not only provided social and spiritual support for vulnerable factory workers, but also enabled them to construct a morally superior Christian manhood that phytologically empowered them and enhanced their resilience to exploitation. This paper highlights not only the gender mechanism of well-being, but also the ways religion mediates the social-psychological construction of masculinity. Full article

In the early months of 1916, Charles Robb a retired shipping clerk in the East End of London, England, wrote a series of letters to his 19-year-old son Arthur, an army private awaiting embarkation to the Western Front. Charles Robb was my great grandfather and Arthur Robb was my grandfather. The letters offer an intriguing glimpse of one man ‘doing’ fatherhood under conditions of traumatic separation and extreme anxiety. This paper presents an analysis of the letters from a psychosocial perspective, exploring the ways in which the writer exhorts his son to live up to the ideals of Christian manhood, while managing the anxiety of separation by presenting a reconstruction in language of the familiar world of home and church. Full article

Country music remains one of the most popular genres in U.S. American society but is historically under-researched compared to rock, rap and other styles. This article extends the social science literature on the genre by examining themes of masculine identity in popular country hits of the current century. A content analysis of 35 top country hits from the last 15 years of the Billboard charts reveals three key masculine archetypes: the lover, the family man and particularly the country boy, which is the dominant masculine image within the last few years of the genre. Together, the three create a life-course narrative where the rambunctious country boy will eventually settle into monogamous heterosexual romance, with marriage and fatherhood presented as the ultimate achievement of successful manhood. A fourth, lesser, archetype, the roughneck, presents an “arrested development” version of the country boy, fully-grown but rejecting the social and familial responsibilities of the other archetypes. These narratives simultaneously challenge some aspects of hegemonic masculinity (urbanity, white-collar labor) while reinforcing others (whiteness, heterosexuality). Full article

Two studies evaluating the same behavioural intervention were conducted in two areas in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa using a randomized pre-test post-test control group design for study 1 (peri-urban) and a pre-test post-test design without a control group for study 2 (rural). The intervention included discussions and skills training on: (1) notions of masculinity, manhood, and responsibility, (2) personal and sexual relationships, (3) general communication skills, and (4) alcohol and other substance use. The intervention was aimed at men between 18 and 35 years of age. Measures of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and intention for condom use, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing, reduction of alcohol and drug use, avoiding sex while intoxicated, and avoiding sex with intoxicated people were assessed using a facilitator-administered questionnaire. The results for study 1 showed that 4 of the 19 variables scored significantly different at baseline and that all 19 variables showed no significant changes between pre-test and post-test. For study 2, one significant difference was found for attitude towards avoiding sex when one is intoxicated. Overall, the intervention had minimal success with just one area of positive effect. Further development and testing of this programme is recommended before it can be considered for broader scale implementation. Full article

Black men experience disproportionate mental health challenges due to their exposure to severe psychosocial stressors. Yet, the mental health challenges of Black men have largely been left out of national conversations. Strong theoretical frameworks are important when generating dialogue about the mental health of Black men, as it helps to validate the work on a larger scale while also grounding the work for more practical use. This paper presents the conceptual framework for a five-year initiative aimed at improving the living, learning, and thriving of young Black men through a social media intervention that improves their mental health, expands their definitions of manhood, and helps them to engage in social support. The Young, Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) project is a social media-based, health promotion program that targets mental health (e.g., depressive symptoms), masculine norms (e.g., definitions of manhood), and social support for young Black men using culturally-sensitive, age-appropriate, and gender-specific popular culture. The YBMen project has been successfully implemented with over 150+ Black men since 2014; findings demonstrate improved mental health outcomes, progressive definitions of manhood, and stronger social relationships. Reflections from the past and projections for the future are discussed. Full article

South Africa leads the world with the number of people infected with HIV. Even with all attempts that have been made to curb HIV, it is still evident that new infections are on the rise. Condom use remains one of the best tools against this challenge yet a small number of sexually active men use them. This study investigates the psychosocial correlates of the intention to use condoms among young men in KwaZulu-Natal province. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework, hierarchical linear regression models were used to determine the unique contribution of the study measures in explaining the overall variance of intention to consistently use condoms. Subjective norms and perceived behavioural control towards consistent condom use explained 46% of the variance in the intention to use a condom, suggesting that health behaviour interventions should focus on targeting the normative beliefs as well as control beliefs of the target population. Furthermore, subjective norms and intentions towards reducing alcohol and marijuana use explained an additional 7% to the final model in intentions to condom use, implying that substance use and condom usage may influence each other. No significant contributions were found for beliefs underlying cultural aspects of responsible manhood. Full article

A growth in cultural ideologies concerned with men and masculinities in contemporary American society has recently emerged. Men’s rights activist (MRA) groups embody a movement emphasizing the crisis of masculinity. Despite men’s privileged societal status, MRAs seek to establish resources for men to utilize in elevating their perceived subordinated position in society in relation to women and social minorities. Little research has systematically investigated MRAs on the Internet, which is rapidly becoming a primary source of information and social connectedness for people. Through a content analysis of the 12 most prominent MRA websites, we explore the various strategies used by contemporary men’s groups designed to provide support for men in their pursuit of social legitimacy and power. Two primary categories of MRAs with distinctive ideological strategies emerged from this analysis: Cyber Lads in Search of Masculinity and Virtual Victims in Search of Equality. Though both groups promoted men’s entitlement to social power, Cyber Lads utilized themes of explicit aggression towards and devaluation of women, while Virtual Victims adopted political and social movement rhetoric to address men’s issues. The implications of these websites are discussed in terms of gender equality and their potential effects on individual men and women. Full article

This article is based on written accounts posted on an online forum called Flashback. The purpose of the study was to explore how participants in this community negotiated the meanings of fitness doping and how such negotiations could be understood in terms of masculinity. The findings indicate that the Internet community studied in this article can be read as an example of a transformational process in which ordinary rules are questioned and partly put out of play. In the world of the bodybuilder, the marginal masculinity is, in certain senses, dominant. On the one hand, achieving a muscular and well-trained body is regarded as a core aspect of manhood within the community. Marginal masculinity is thus momentarily transformed into dominant and hegemonic masculinity. On the other hand, however, the findings also indicate that a drug-using, muscular masculinity is constructed in negotiation with other central masculine ideals, such as the employable man and the responsible father. Found within the community is a complex and dynamic interplay between intersecting discourses of manhood. Full article