In recent years, questions about men and boys have aroused remarkable media interest, public concern and controversy. Across the world, health services are noticing the relevance of men’s gender to problems as diverse as road accidents, diet and sexually transmitted disease. Teachers are increasingly preoccupied with the poor educational performance of boys, and criminologists have begun to explore why men and boys continue to dominate the crime statistics. In this timely new volume, one of the world’s leading authorities on masculinity helps us to understand these developments, and make sense of the multiplying issues about men and boys. Five years on from the publication of the seminal study
Masculinities, this book reflects on the growing social scientific research in this area. Connell assesses its strengths and weaknesses and explores its implications for contemporary problems from boys’ education and men’s health to international peacemaking. Written in a lively and accessible way, this book will be essential reading for all students of sociology, politics and gender studies, as well as anyone interested in the future of gender relations.
Table of Content
PART 1 EXAMINING MASCULINITIES 1
1 Debates about men, new research on masculinities 3
Issues about men and boys 3
The new social research on masculinity 6
Key conclusions of recent research 9
2 New directions in theory and research 15
Current debate: Concepts of gender and approaches to masculinity 16
The gender relations approach 23
Conceptualizing masculinities 29
Agenda for research 32
PART 2 GLOBALIZATION 37
3 Masculinities and globalization 39
The world gender order 40
The repositioning of men and the remaking of masculinities 43
Globalizing masculinities 46
Masculinity politics on a world scale 52
4 Globalization and men’s bodies 57
Understanding men’s bodies 57
Imperialism and men’s bodies 60
Contemporary globalization and men’s bodies 62
Implications for gender reform 65
PART 3 BODIES AND DESIRES 67
5 An iron man 69
Being a champion 70
Soft path, hard goal 74
The body and the self 76
Wanting to win: The ideology of competitive sport 80
Reflections 83
6 ‘I threw it like a girl’: Some difficulties with male bodies 86
Looking at jelly: Adam Singer 87
Burning up the body: Tip Southern 94
Reflections 99
7 Man to man: Homosexual desire and practice among working-class men (written with M.D. Davis and G.W. Dowsett) 102
The working-class setting 104
The social framework of male-to-male sex 108
Sexual practice 114
Desire and identity 118
The HIV/AIDS epidemic 122
Reflections 126
PART 4 PRACTICALITIES 129
8 Cool guys, swots and wimps 131
Getting into trouble 133
Knowing where you stand 136
Over the hump 139
Dry sciences 141
Reading feminism 143
Reflections 145
9 Teaching the boys 148
Schools and gender 150
Schools as agents in the making of masculinities 155
Pupils as agents, school as setting 161
Educational strategies in work with boys 164
The process of change 172
10 Men’s health 177
Research evidence on men’s health 178
Sex differences in health 179
The health of specific groups of men 182
How some masculinizing practices damage bodies 184
Attempts to make men’s bodies healthy 188
The ‘cradle to grave’ health disadvantage of men 192
Reflections 194
PART 5 CHANGING MASCULINITIES 197
11 The politics of change in masculinity 199
The historical moment 201
Men’s interests 202
Purposes 205
A men’s movement? 208
12 Arms and the man: The question of peace 212
Why war? 212
The problem of men and violence 213
Implications of masculinity research 216
Global patterns 220
Peace strategies and masculinities 223
Acknowledgments and sources 227
References 231
Index 247
About the author
R. W. Connell is Professor of Education at the University of Sydney.
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