Narrative Manhood Acts: Batterer Intervention Program Graduates' Tragic Relationships

We analyze how twenty graduates of a Batterer Intervention Program constructed autobiographical stories about their relationships with women they assaulted. We focus on the presentation of gendered selves via narrative manhood acts, which we define as self‐narratives that signify membership in the category “man” and the possession of a masculine self. We also show how graduates constructed self‐narratives as a genre that was oppositional to organizational narratives: rather than adopting the program's domestic violence melodrama or preferred conversion narrative, graduates used the larger culture—especially “bitch” imagery and sometimes racialized discourse—to construct tragedies. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of narrative analysis for research on batterers' accounts and manhood acts, and also shows how oppositional genre‐making can be a method to resist organizational narratives.     

Assessing online misogyny: Perspectives from sociology and feminist media studies

Scholarly and lay publications have highlighted increasing online misogyny. We review the dominant, cross‐disciplinary analyses and conceptualizations of cisnormative, heterosexist, misogynistic discourses. From feminist media scholarship, we highlight four terms intended to describe acts of online misogyny: online sexual harassment, gendertrolling, e‐bile, and disciplinary rhetoric. We then review the nascent sociological concept of virtual manhood acts (VMA) and situate it within the broader context of critical gender theory. VMA use the tools of technologically facilitated misogyny; they occur in online social spaces and, using textual and visual cues to signal a masculine self, enforce hegemonic gender norms, oppress women, and keep men “in the box.” VMA align with the interactionist view of gender as action and emphasize that a physical body is not needed to signal manhood. The concept of virtual manhood acts acknowledges that women are the primary victims of online oppression without obscuring the problematic practices of men that are central to this subjugation.     

‘I can see it in the nightclub’: dance,capoeira and male bodies

This paper reports an ethnographic study of how Brazilians teaching capoeira in the UK use dance as a discursive and embodied pedagogic strategy both to change men's bodies and also to gauge the success of their instructional work. The theoretical framework is drawn from Herzfeld's neglected study of the poetics of manhood in Crete which is revisited in the light of his subsequent analysis of the embodiment of ethnographic practice. Ethnographic research is used to show how British men learning capoeira are enculturated into a different, Brazilian, embodiment in which dance is masculine, and dancing is one way to display a social self‐regard. Discourse about performance helps to define the appropriateness of the social self‐regard that the capoeira students acquire and display.     

Men and infertility: Insights from the sociology of gender

This review explores the framing of men and infertility in recent interdisciplinary social science research. I illustrate how men's diverse institutional roles surrounding medicalized experiences of infertility are critical for understanding inequality in reproduction. Situating research on men and infertility in the theoretical framework of gender as social structure shows how men's secondary position in reproduction can be seen across institutional roles, which include men as patients, men as partners, men as sperm donors, and men as doctors. Men's experiences with reproductive medicine often reinforce men's marginal position in reproductive medicine through institutionalized arrangements; yet, men are intimately and structurally involved in reproductive decisions. I argue that bringing gender to the center of research on infertility could make clear the many structural ways women and women's bodies are controlled, regulated, and treated by reproductive medicine.     

Positive Manhood Development: A Look at Approaches and Concerns from the Frontline

This mixed methods study, using the perspectives of administrators and frontline workers, identified the key developmental needs of African American boys involved in manhood development programs. Five conceptual themes emerged: values and behavior; men needed for guidance; successful organizations; economics and systems; and stable quality parenting. Themes from the conceptual clusters are compared to themes in the positive youth development literature, specifically the 40 developmental assets framework proposed by the Search Institute. The resulting distinctive ecological focus is rarely discussed in the youth development literature and may have implications for youth development interventions that target positive African American manhood development.     

Cool Pose,Black Manhood,and Juvenile Delinquency

The historical construct of American manhood is that of White male dominance. Black boys who realize that their access to traditional manhood is limited then shape their sub-cultural response, called Cool Pose. Cool Pose facilitates the stereotype of Black boys as both delinquent and intellectually inferior; Black boys gain acceptance and respect among peers by acting out and performing below intellectual capacity. Cool Pose is critical to the study of juvenile delinquency. Ultimately, Black boys must learn to value traditional concepts of manhood apart from those rooted in sub-cultural experiences.     

Policy and the Pregnant Body at Work: Strategies of Secrecy,Silence and Supra‐performance

This article considers how women manage their pregnant bodies at work. Through netnographic research and drawing upon feminist discussions of the leaky pregnant body, I examine the experiences of US and UK women who correspond on interactive websites or chat rooms. Drawing upon ‘expert advice’ and the experiences of employed pregnant women in this study, I suggest that the bodily manifestations of pregnancy are taboo in some workplaces. I note how these women did not appear to draw upon policy as a resource for dealing with negative reactions to pregnancy from colleagues and employers. Instead, they tended to adopt strategies of secrecy, silence and supra‐performance in order to try and blend in. In the context of these strategies, I demonstrate how women's attempts to manage and control their bodies are severely compromised during pregnancy, when the body may be leaky and unpredictable.     

Repronormativity in cisgender men's reasons why they would not use womb transplant technology to become pregnant

Much reproductive scholarship presumes that cisgender men do not wish to become pregnant. And within scholarly discussions on womb transplant technology in particular, cis men's desires to be pregnant are constructed as ‘insubstantial’, and cis men are positioned as neither desiring nor requiring womb transplant technology. Repronormativity, including the assumption that pregnancy and gestational desire are antithetical to cis masculinity/manhood, underpins both bodies of work. As part of a study that sought to visibilise, and analyse narratives of, cis men's desires to be pregnant and/or gestational parents, six cis men were asked whether they would use womb transplant technology to enable their pregnancy if womb transplant technology included men as recipients. The majority of participants said they would not do so, giving different reasons. Using a narrative-discursive approach to analyse their responses, I argue that their varied responses disrupt and re-circulate normative discourses on sex/gender, pregnancy, parenthood, and (assisted) reproduction. Ultimately, their varied reasons trouble the normative assumption that cis men do not want to be pregnant and would not take up the opportunity to do so, because they are men.     

Institutional Pluralism,Organizations, and Actors: A Review

The institutional logics perspective holds the promise of delivering where neo‐institutionalist theory has disappointed – the ability to address key societal problems such as inequality, social discrimination, and economic insecurity – a promise that, as of yet, has been unrealized. In this review, I provide an overview of the body of work within the institutional logics perspective that addresses the co‐existence of multiple institutional logics influencing identities, values, cognitive frameworks, and practices – institutional pluralism. I demonstrate how pluralism diverges from conventional neo‐institutionalist theory in its view of institutional fields as heterogeneous spaces. I then review the implications for organizations and social actors responding to multiple logics in the institutional environment. In the discussion section, I argue that the study of pluralism, in acknowledging human agency, politics, and collective mobilization, opens the door for creative resolutions to societal problems hitherto overlooked in neo‐institutional theory. Despite the promise, I address key research areas that remain unresolved or under‐addressed in the institutional pluralism perspective.     

Gazing into a Distorted Looking Glass: Masculinity, Femininity, Appearance Ideals, and the Black Body

This article reviews socio-psychological literature on racial identity development and feminist work on the body in an effort to better understand past and present constructions of the Black body. I begin by providing a brief overview of previous research on Black identity and self-image, noting how these theories have been applied to appearance. I then historically trace the unique raced and gendered constructions of Black masculinity and femininity – showing how the experiences of Black men and women differ from the White hegemonic paradigm. Finally, I review current research on the Black body and highlight areas of inquiry where the field can be further expanded.     

Men and masculinity in men's magazines: A review

This review article provides a thematic synthesis and overview of 30 years of research into the study of men and masculinity in men's magazines. Over 100 articles, book chapters, and books were reviewed to explore how scholars have approached the study of masculinity in such magazines and identify four major areas of inquiry: the commodification of masculinity; the relationship between sexism and misogyny in men's magazines and men's attitudes towards women; the vulnerability of men to, and the role of magazines in the construction of, men's body image anxieties; and the increasing sexualisation of men's bodies. The strengths and potential limitations of these four thematic approaches are identified, including an insufficiently nuanced account of the ways in which men might actually engage with images and ideas about masculinity in such magazines; an overly singular view of male sexuality that naturalises sexist and predatory behaviour; and an overemphasis on men's bodies as sites of vulnerability, risk, or crisis at the expense of more substantive considerations of the relationship between the representation of body modification practices and technologies, and men's embodied identities. The review concludes with an overview of the present field and some suggestions for future research.     

Abuse of elderly male client: efforts and experiences in rural and urban adult protective services

Elder abuse has not been viewed as seriously as child abuse because of the emotional sensibilities attached to child abuse. Although elder abuse is experienced disproportionately by women, men also are in need of protection and engagement. An important factor for understanding the work with elderly men is the social construction of manhood. Both urban and rural settings recognize this as a significant starting point to engage men in services. This paper describes the efforts in both rural and urban Adult Protective Service agencies to identify and work with abused elderly men from a strengths and solution-focused perspective.     

“Men never cry”: Teaching Mormon Manhood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We examine the ways Mormon leaders establish “what it means to be a man” for their followers. Based on content analysis of over 40 years of archival material, we analyze how Mormon leaders represent manhood as the ability to signify control over self and others as well as an inability to be controlled. Specifically, we demonstrate how these representations stress controlling the self, emotional and sexual expression, and others while emphasizing the development of self-reliance and independence from others’ control. We draw out implications for understanding (1) how religious leaders create ideal notions of manhood, (2) what the religious interpretations of secular constructions of manhood are, and (3) how these relate to the reproduction of gender inequalities.     

Gender‐based violence and young homeless women: femininity,embodiment and vicarious physical capital

This article discusses how the gender‐based violence of homelessness contributes to young women engaging in bodily alliances with men as a strategy for physical protection. The embedding of individualized and postfeminist discourses through the conditions of neoliberalism and the structural disadvantage of homelessness have meant that young women are required to adopt self‐regulatory practices and take personal responsibility for their physical safety. Drawing on Bourdieu's social capital theory and its development by Skeggs and Shilling, and based on qualitative research undertaken with fifteen young women who had experienced homelessness in Australia, I suggest that feminine capital is mobilized through necessity by young homeless women through the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships with men to access a sense of safety in an environment that is hostile to the female body. However, as the narratives presented here demonstrate, the value and privilege ascribed to (certain) male bodies is only accessible vicariously to young women, it is inherently precarious, it can undermine access to other types of capital and these intimate relationships can also be a source of gender‐based violence.     

VISIBLY QUEER: Body Technologies and Sexual Politics

Queer body modification is a site for investigating the possibilities and limitations of agency in body practices. This article considers the use of new and recirculated body modification technologies—many of them modeled after practices of indigenous, non-Western groups—by members of gay, lesbian, and trasngendered communities. Through presenting and interpreting the interview-gathered narratives of six body modifiers, I describe body modification as a practice imbued with agency by subjects. By creating anomalous bodies that provoke shock and consternation, body modifiers not only underscore the body's symbolic significance as a site of public identity but also conceive it as a resource for opposing (hetero) dominant culture. Body modification, even though it tests social tolerance, is not guaranteed in its subversive effects. I approach the narratives from a perspective informed poststructuralism, and I understand body modifiers' agency as limited by and constituted within regulatory regimes of power, such as heteronormativity, pathologization, and colonialism. I describe how such deployments engage symbols embedded in historic systems of representation and thus raise important questions regarding agency.     

Men's Aging Amidst Intersecting Relations of Inequality

Men age under the pressure of age relations and their intersections with such other inequalities as gender, race, class, nation, and sexuality. We review findings of research on masculinity, inequalities, and social gerontology, and argue that a theoretically informed combination of all three offers the best understanding. We theorize that many men are privileged by their claims on occupational niches and family care and that age relations disrupt those privileges. Age relations exacerbate inequalities among men and reverse many claims to high status. Old men find themselves doing more care work, with less recognition, and suffering effects of the activities that had maintained status in younger years. Economic dependency, loss of status, declining health, isolation, and increasing invisibility shape old manhood even as other relations shield many from the lowest status.     

Othering the ‘leaky body’. An autoethnographic story about expressing breast milk in the workplace

In this paper, I present an autoethnographic story about my experiences of expressing breast milk at a Dutch university department. My story illustrates how interrelated and conflicting discourses about gender, motherhood, breastfeeding, embodiment and professionalism raised issues about (in)visibility, embodied control, spatiality and discipline of my body and shaped my experience as a newly maternal employee. This paper thus aims to include bodies and embodied experiences in organization studies and highlights the need to consider spatiality as an important topic of research. I address these issues in my writing and use insights from feminist poststructuralism to show how the experiences I describe are part of a larger cultural framework of power structures that produce the ‘leaky’ maternal body as the Other, subject to (self-)discipline and marginalization. I hope my story inspires reflexivity and empathic understanding of the complex reality of experiences related to expressing breast milk in the workplace.     

Masculinity and Sexual Violence: Assessing the State of the Field

Despite strong evidence that men perpetrate most acts of sexual violence, little is known about the factors that lead some men to commit such harmful acts. A growing body of feminist scholarship has begun to explore this question, although the disciplinary and geographic breadth of these studies has prevented the development of a cohesive research agenda. This literature review contributes to this task by reviewing the major theoretical contributions to the study of masculinity and sexual violence, detailing some of the ways in which sexual violence aids in the production of masculine individuals, groups, and states. Taken as a whole, we argue that this body of scholarship views sexual violence as a mechanism through which social constructions of masculinity are produced and reproduced, although the forms that this violence takes vary by context. We conclude with a discussion of some of the theoretical and empirical limitations of this research and consider the implications of these findings for public policy.     

Explicating Relationship Management as a General Theory of Public Relations

Although the relationship management perspective of public relations is the focus of a substantial body of scholarship, a theory of that perspective has yet to be articulated and explicated. Herein, I review the emergence of the relational perspective, summarize the relevant literature, and construct a theoretical statement of that perspective. I then argue for relationship management as a general theory of public relations and offer suggestions for future research within a relational paradigm.