http://www.diva-portal.

org

Postprint

This is the accepted version of a chapter published in The Palgrave Handbook of Power,
Gender, and Psychology.

Citation for the original published chapter:

Hearn, J., de Boise, S., Goedecke, K. (2023)

Men and Masculinities: Structures, Practices, and Identities
In: Eileen L. Zurbriggen; Rose Capdevila (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Power,
Gender, and Psychology (pp. 193-213). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41531-9_12

N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published chapter.

Permanent link to this version:

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-110568
ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews empirical and theoretical work within critical studies on men and
masculinities (CSMM), drawing on extensive empirical and theoretical studies relevant to
psychology and social psychology. The chapter focuses on gender relations and power
dynamics, social structures, intersectionality, bodies, practices, and identities, both individual
and collective. The chapter first maps the key theoretical developments of CSMM,
historically and conceptually, before moving to focus on two important contemporary issues:
first, the development of more egalitarian masculinities, and, second, the explanations for
various non-egalitarian masculinities, such those linked to incel and Alt-Right movements,
both online and offline.

BIOGRAPHIES
Jeff Hearn is Professor Emeritus, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; Senior Professor,
Human Geography, Örebro University, Sweden; and Professor of Sociology, University of
Huddersfield, UK. He is co-managing editor, Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and
Intersectionality book series, and a co-editor of NORMA: The International Journal for
Masculinity Studies; and was (co-)chair, RINGS: International Research Association of
Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies 2014-2020. Recent books include: Age at Work,
with Wendy Parkin, Sage, 2021; Knowledge, Power and Young Sexualities, with Tamara
Shefer; and Digital Gender-Sexual Violations, with Matthew Hall and Ruth Lewis, both
Routledge, 2022; and the co-edited Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and
Organizations, 2023. Email: [email protected]
Sam de Boise is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Music, Theatre and Art at Örebro
University, Sweden. He obtained his PhD in sociology from the University of Leeds in 2012
and since then his research has focused on men, affect and embodiment, music and gender
equality as well as music and extremism amongst the contemporary far-right. He is the author
of Men, Masculinity, Music and Emotions, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, and is managing editor
at NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies. Email: [email protected]
Klara Goedecke is Associate Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at Karlstad University,
Sweden. Her research focuses on men, masculine positions, friendships, and the gendered
politics of emotions and consumption in neoliberal times. She is the author of Men’s
Friendships as Feminist Politics? Power, Intimacy, and Change, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022,
and the co-editor of Close Relations: Family, Kinship, and Beyond, with Helena Wahlström
Henriksson, Springer, 2021. Email: [email protected]

MEN AND MASCULINITIES: STRUCTURES, PRACTICES AND IDENTITIES

Jeff Hearn, Sam de Boise and Klara Goedecke

Since the mid-1970s there has been a substantial scholarly interest in critical, feminist, and
gender research on men and masculinities, sometimes referred to under the umbrella term,
Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities (CSMM) (Hearn and Howson, 2019). CSMM
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
involves the critical gendering of men, “naming men as men” (Collinson & Hearn, 1994, pp.
5-8; Hanmer, 1990, pp. 37-38), whilst simultaneously deconstructing masculinities and men.
Critical analysis of men and masculinities involves a double move, whereby material social
realities and inequalities are recognized, but at the same time assumptions around and
constructions of men and masculinity are taken apart rather than essentialized. Whilst much
has been written by, for, and about men, the recognition of men as gendered subjects and the
influence of gender on men’s own writing was only recognized following the Women’s
Liberation Movements. Much of this work has been located within gender studies, sociology,
or cultural studies, but there is also a substantial critical literature that is psychological, social
psychological, and identity-related in orientation, and in turn orientated to problematizing
men and masculinity. Specific empirical studies range across many social sites, including
family, work, violence, sexuality, sport, and politics. Reviewing such research necessitates
attention to both individual men and masculinities, and men and masculinities more
collectively, varying across contingencies.

In this chapter, we review some of this work, drawing on extensive empirical and theoretical
studies, and with an orientation towards the psychological and social psychological. This
includes attention to gender relations and power dynamics, social structures, intersectionality,
bodies, practices, and identities, both individual and collective. More specifically, the chapter
is informed by engagement with the following questions: are masculinity, masculinities, and
men a problem? If so, how? Indeed, there has long been concern with the problems men
create and the problems men experience, for example, in relation to risk-taking, violence, and
health (Hearn & Pringle, 2006). The final part of the chapter takes up more focused studies of
two important contemporary issues: first, more egalitarian masculinities, and, second, various
non-egalitarian masculinities, such as incel and far right masculinities, both online and
offline.

In reviewing these issues, we refer to men as a social category, in terms of those who define
themselves and are defined by others as such, rather than as a bio-essentialized ontology. In
other words, men are not assumed to have an essential being defined by their biology. The
social category of men is formed within gender hegemony – whereby gender categories and
relations are taken-for-granted as given – in concrete everyday and institutional life, in
interplay with other social relations and divisions, within which men act, agentically, both
individually and as collectivities. To analyse and engage politically with this means both
naming the social category of men, as a lived social reality, and deconstructing that category.
Masculinities refer to patterns of gender practice that are structured, institutionalized,
relational, embodied, dynamic, contested, intersubjective, performed, and performative.
Masculinities are constructed in relation to societal definitions of men and males within
gender orders, and whilst analytical distinctions can be made between people called men and
males, such distinctions, as well as the term masculinity itself, are sometimes not
unproblematic. Masculinities can be performed and sustained by men, women, and further
genders, and can be understood as comprising signs, discourses, practices, and performances,
that obscure contradictions.

Historical-Theoretical Overview
From Masculinity To Masculinities: Psychoanalysis, Anthropology, Sex Roles
Modern analyses of masculinity can be traced back at least to the psychodynamic
psychologies of Freud and Adler, each of whom had a different interpretation. Freud
(1917/1993) saw identification with parents who shared an outwardly similar sex to the child
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
as key to the formation of either masculine or feminine characteristics; thus, those boys and
men who identified with their mothers were likely to become too feminine or even
overcompensating as too masculine. However, Adler (1927/1992) saw the self as composed
of both masculine and feminine components existing in varying degrees within each
individual’s psyche.

Indeed, in many ways modern debates on masculinity have been fundamentally

psychological, and often individualistic, since their inception. Psychoanalytic approaches
have argued that adult character was not predetermined by the body but was constructed
through emotional attachments to others in a turbulent process of growth. This involved a
variety of psychological and social psychological processes, including the Oedipus complex;
the gendering of the active and the passive; and the impact of the (socially masculinized)
superego (Connell, 1983, 1994).

Subsequently, anthropologists such as Malinowski (1927, 1932) and Mead (1935/1993)

emphasized cultural differences in such social processes and the importance of different
social structures and norms between different societies. By the mid-twentieth century, these
ideas had crystallized into the concept of sex roles, whereby gender is enacted through
relatively fixed, socially approved ways of being female or male. In some cases,
psychoanalytic ideas have also been used in other contexts and applications, for example, in
cultural studies of masculinity and the exploration of cross-cultural differences and
consistencies in the achievement of “manhood” (Gilmore, 1990).

As a consequence, in the 1960s and 1970s masculinity was understood mainly as an

internalized role, identity, or (social) psychological disposition, reflecting a particular (often
US, Western) cluster of cultural norms or values acquired by learning from socialization
agents (e.g. Eagly, 1987). In masculinity-femininity (m-f) measurement scales, certain items
were scored as ‘masculine’ (such as ‘aggressive’, ‘ambitious’, ‘analytical’, ‘assertive’, and
‘athletic’) compared with other items scored as ‘feminine’ (such as ‘affectionate’, ‘cheerful’,
‘childlike’, ‘compassionate’, and ‘flatterable’). The most well-known of these scales are
various formulations of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) (Bem, 1974). Masculine and
feminine characteristics were initially seen as mutually exclusive, then in later formulations
as overlapping, related to, sometimes determined by, a priori sex, whilst being socially
learned behaviors. However, while in many senses m-f and sex role approaches to
masculinity can be a social antidote to purely biological approaches, they can be seen as
(re)producing essentialism, psychologism, and individualism. To put this simply, such
approaches have the advantage of allowing consideration of the social, but their disadvantage
is that they do not attend sufficiently to social contextualization and social construction.

M-f and sex role approaches to masculinity were critiqued in the 1970s and 1980s for
obscuring differences between cultural ideals and practices, ignoring the fact that the people
assessing sex roles were themselves differentially gendered, lacking a power perspective,
being biased from relying on mostly student samples in their construction, and being
ethnocentric, especially US-centric (Eichler, 1980). Across cultural and historical contexts,
there were variations in men’s behavior and in social expectations of men, so there was no
way of defining what counted as a male role. Importantly, both psychologically-framed m-f
scales and more socially-derived sex role theory bring together an ambiguous mix of
essentialism and context-specific assessment and measurement of gender. Since the 1980s,
masculinity scales have been refined, in terms of, for example, gender orientation, age,
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
cultural context, and ethnic sensitivity (Levant et al., 2020; Luyt, 2005; Thompson & Pleck,
1995). Interestingly, both the psychoanalytic and the social psychological can be seen as
presupposing or explaining “a relatively fixed and unitary “normal” masculine personality,
the result of a successful oedipal resolution in its psychoanalytic variant, the result of
successful “sex-role” learning in its social psychological one.” (Jefferson, 2005, p. 215).
These traditions – psychoanalytic, anthropological, sex role, and m-f scales – can be said to
provide a backcloth to recent debates (cf. Connell, 1995, p. 5).

From Masculinity To Masculinities: Patriarchy And Power

At the same time as sex role theory and m-f scales were being critiqued, men were being
analyzed societally, structurally, and collectively through various feminist theorizations of
patriarchy. These theories of patriarchy have emphasized men’s structural, social, power, and
often dominant, relations to women, in terms of, for example, biology, reproduction, politics
and culture, family, state, sexuality, economy, and combinations thereof. By the late 1970s,
however, some feminist and profeminist critics were suggesting that the concept of
‘patriarchy’ was too monolithic, ahistorical, biologically determined, and dismissive of
women’s resistance and agency.

The two broad sets of critiques around masculinity/male sex role and patriarchy in many
ways laid the conceptual and political foundations for a more differentiated approach to
masculinities. Building on critiques of both sex role theory and deterministic social structural
accounts, social constructionist perspectives highlighting complexities of men’s social power,
of different scales and scopes, have emerged. In debates on masculinities the work of Raewyn
Connell and colleagues (Carrigan et al., 1985; Connell, 1995) has been central, framed in
relation to theorizing patriarchal relations, with the concept of “hegemonic masculinity” seen
as a political category, an aspiration never to be fulfilled. This thinking developed from
research on the relations of patriarchy and capitalism, the reproduction of class and other
inequalities in education and schooling, conceptualizations of body and practice, and derived
inspiration from gay and some queer scholarship that critiqued heteronormativity (Connell &
Messerschmidt, 2005). The hegemony at issue in relation to masculinities is hegemony in the
patriarchal system of gender relations.

The first substantial discussion of the idea of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ was in the paper
“Men’s bodies”, originally published in 1979, and republished in 1983 (Connell, 1983). It
discussed the social construction of the body in boys’ and adult men’s bodily practices. In
discussing “the physical sense of maleness”, Connell marks out the importance of sport as
“the central experience of the school years for many boys” (1983, p. 18), emphasizing the
practices and experiences of taking and occupying space, holding bodily tension, skill, size,
power, force, strength, physical development, and sexuality. In addressing the bodies of adult
men, the differential importance of physicality within work, sexuality, and fatherhood were
noted. Psychological and social dynamics of masculinity were foregrounded, integrating
psychodynamics in analysis of patriarchal relations. Connell stressed that “the embedding of
masculinity in the body is very much a social process, full of tensions and contradiction; that
even physical masculinity is historical, rather than a biological fact. … constantly in process,
constantly being constituted in actions and relations, constantly implicated in historical
change.” (p. 30). Later, Connell (1995, p. 77) went on to define hegemonic masculinity as
“… the configuration of gender practice which embodies the currently accepted answer to the
problem of legitimacy of patriarchy, which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant
position of men and the subordination of women.”

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
In identifying forms of domination by men, of women and of groups of men categorized as
“subordinate” or “marginalized”, the concept of hegemonic masculinity has been notably
successful, with many theoretical, empirical, and policy applications (see Connell &
Messerschmidt, 2005). Among the most significant has been Messerschmidt’s (1993, 1997)
work on masculinities, crime, and violence. Increasingly, different masculinities have been
interrogated not as singular, but plural – as in hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and
marginalized masculinities. Here, complicit masculinity refers to masculinity practices
whereby men benefit from the social dominance of men, while not actively seeking to
oppress women; subordinated masculinity refers to masculinity practices that are
subordinated by virtue of gender and/or sexual positioning, identity or expression, for
example, gay masculinity; marginalized masculinity refers to practices in which the gender
order interacts with other social orders, especially socio-economic, ethnic, and racialized
order, as, for example, with black masculinities.

Much work has emphasized multiple masculinities both as ways of being men and as forms
of men’s collective and individual practices. There has been strong emphasis on
interconnections of gender with other social divisions, including age, class, disability,
ethnicity, nationality, racialization, and sexuality. For example, relations of gender and class
can mean different class-based masculinities both challenge and reproduce gender relations
among men, with both cooperative and conflictual relations between men, and between
women, men, and further genders (de Visser & McDonnell, 2013). Such relations are
complicated by contradictions and resistances: intrapersonally, interpersonally, collectively,
structurally. Much empirical research on men and masculinities has been produced within the
global North. However, increasingly non-Western and global perspectives have become
significant, as reflected in rethinking hegemonic masculinities in relation to global capitalism,
and questions of geography, place, and space (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005).

To summarize, some of the key features of the framework developed by Connell and
colleagues for examining masculinities that have become much more mainstream are as
follows. First, the framework builds upon the critique of sex role theory (e.g., as theoretically
inconsistent and not dealing with power relations sufficiently), moving to the use of a power-
laden, plural notion of masculinities, and recognizing social structures rather than an
individualized concept of masculinity. This places as central the insights of feminist,
gay/queer scholarship, and sexual hierarchies more generally, including relations between
men and women, and between men. More specifically, the distinctions made between
hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and marginalized masculinities operate at different
levels of analysis, notably, institutional/social, interpersonal, and intrapsychic
psychodynamics) aspects of masculinities. In addition, this framework emphasizes
transformations and social change; contradictions, ambivalences, and at times resistances;
intersections of gender/masculinity with other social divisions; and geopolitical locationality.

Having outlined a major and dominant approach to masculinities (plural), as opposed to

masculinity, male, or masculine (singular), it must be emphasized that the term,
masculinities, has been used in many, sometimes very different, ways; this can be a
conceptual and empirical difficulty (Clatterbaugh, 1998). The concepts of masculinities and
specifically hegemonic masculinity have assisted researchers, activists, commentators, and
policy-makers in having a conversation about “something”, but not always about the same

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
thing. Definitions and usages of terms have varied, and not all usages are consistent with the
masculinities framework outlined here.

Debates on masculinities have raised many more general questions and critiques. These
include the dangers of possible idealism and relativism; uncertain connections between
cultural representations, everyday practices, and institutional structures; the relations between
contrasting and dominating ways of men, notably tough/aggressive/violent, on one hand, and
respectable/corporate/controlling of resources, on the other; the implications of broad-based
historical, (de/post)colonial and transnational critiques; and the impact of queer, trans and
non-binary critiques, as around heteronormative dichotomies. These multiple critiques also
provide grounds for deconstruction of the taken-for-granted category of ‘men’. In noting such
questions (Demetriou, 2001; Hearn, 1996; Howson, 2006; MacInnes, 1998; McMahon, 1993;
Moller, 2007; Schippers, 2007), we recognize the need for specification in terminology on
masculinities, such as between psychodynamics, practices, structures, discourses, and
identities, as well as an openness to taking on board diverse theoretical approaches.

Further Psychological Threads

As noted, psychoanalytic approaches – of different kinds – have been influential in both the
early development of theorizing masculinity, and more critical approaches to masculinities.
In the UK and elsewhere, object relations theory (following Melanie Klein and Donald
Winnicott) became influential by the 1980s (Frosh, 1994; Metcalf & Humphries, 1985). This
was partly linked to moves from group-based consciousness-raising to feminist therapy,
(pro)feminist group therapy, and individual psychoanalytic work. An insightful commentary
on these issues was Ian Craib’s (1987) discussion of the contrast between Nancy Chodorow’s
(1978) model of masculinity, which tended to emphasize its “bullying”, over-compensatory
nature, with an over developed superego, against Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach’s
(1983) version of more “fragile” and under-developed masculinity.

Meanwhile, consciousness-raising and materialist analysis (MacKinnon, 1978), rather than

psychoanalysis, were evident influences in much writing on men and masculinities.
Consciousness-raising has influenced analysis of men’s relations to patriarchy, particularly
the critique of Marxism through materialist critique and its neglect of reproduction in favor of
production (Hearn, 1987), collective memory work (Pease, 2000), and critical life history
work (Jackson, 1990). The critical auto/biographical turn represents another strand of
theorizing on men and masculinities following the logics of consciousness-raising. In
epistemological terms, such approaches raise questions of how men’s/male subjectivities may
be construed and reproduced as “objectivity”, despite the historical and political situatedness
of knowledges.

Poststructuralist, Discursive, And Psycho-Discursive Critiques

Another major influence, from the late 1980s, on the construction of men’s selves, identities,
and subjectivities has come from feminist poststructuralist, ethnographic, and discourse
analyses of men’s talk and self-(re)presentations, providing close-grained descriptions of
multiple, internally complex masculinities. Some of these could be labeled critical discourse
analysis, others more psychoanalytical-orientated discourse analysis. These represent both
development and critique of the masculinities framework as developed initially by Connell
and colleagues.

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Margaret Wetherell and Nigel Edley (1999), striving to understand how norms are taken up,
enacted, and negotiated in men’s lives, identified three specific imaginary positions and
psycho-discursive practices in negotiating hegemonic masculinity and identification with the
masculine positions: heroic, “ordinary”, and rebellious. The first in fact conforms more
closely to Connell and colleagues’ notion of complicit masculinity: “... it could be read as an
attempt to actually instantiate hegemonic masculinity since, here, men align themselves
strongly with conventional ideals” (emphasis in original) (p. 340). The second distances itself
from certain conventional or ideal notions of the masculine; instead “ordinariness of the self;
the self as normal, moderate or average” (p. 343) is emphasized. The third is characterized by
its unconventionality, with the imaginary position involving flouting social expectations.
With all these self-positionings, especially the last two, ambiguity and subtlety, even
contradiction, are present in self-constructions of masculinity, hegemonic or not. Indeed, one
feature of the hegemonic may be its elusiveness: the difficulty of reducing it to a set of fixed
positions and practices (Connell, 2001; Speer, 2005).
Key interventions in these debates include Tony Jefferson’s (1994) explication of
psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and discourse analysis in theorizing masculine subjectivity
– clearly influenced by Wendy Hollway’s (1989) writing and precursor to their joint work.
Since the late 1980s, Jefferson has written, within the field of criminology, on the need to go
beyond what he calls “the social break with orthodoxy: power and multiple masculinities”
(2005, p. 217-218). Rather, he has favored feminist poststructuralist engagements with
feminist psychoanalytical theorizing: “the psychoanalytic break with orthodoxy:
contradictory subjectivities and the social.” (pp. 218-219). Arguing that Connell has not
realized her project of “grasp[ing] the structure of personality and the complexities of desire
at the same time as the structuring of social relations, with their contradictions and
dynamisms” (Connell, 1995, p. 20-21), Jefferson has made a clear distinction between “the
social break with orthodoxy: power and multiple masculinities” and “the psychoanalytic
break with orthodoxy: contradictory subjectivities and the social.” Accordingly, he placed
himself against accounts of crime founded in more structuralist analysis and the
accomplishment of gender in social practice, notably those of James Messerschmidt (1993;
1997), and those which he characterizes as of “a purely discursive turn” (Collier, 1998) which
may be interpreted as playing down social structures. He re-emphasizes why it is particular
men that do particular crimes, via pre-discursive psychodynamics that are located more
deeply in the body, albeit socially constructed, and the need to acknowledge contradictory
subjectivities of individuals within social contexts. This combination of psychoanalysis,
poststructuralism, and discourse analysis employed by Jefferson has similarities to the
combined or composite theoretical perspectives used in some media and cultural analyses
(e.g., Nixon, 1997).

The example above illustrates wider moves towards accounts of men and masculinities that
span macro-micro, structure-agency, and material-discursive analyses (Bourdieu, 2001;
Chambers, 2005; Haywood & Mac an Ghaill, 2003; Hearn, 2014). Indeed, distinctions
between more micro, post-structuralist and more macro, structuralist, or materialist critiques
around men and masculinities are not always so clearcut (Speer, 2001, p. 111; Wetherell &
Edley, 1999).

Working Across Boundaries: Material-Discursive Analyses

Over the last 20 years, many further perspectives have gained ground in CSMM, including:
de/postcolonial, critical race, body, violence, queer, transgender, posthuman, new materialist,
affect, science and technology studies (STS), studies of information and communication
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
technologies (ICTs), and ecological/environmental studies. Many of these moves can be
understood as part of material-discursive analysis, which is a type of analysis which considers
the institutional, structural, societal, material, and discursive contexts and constitutions of
men’s practices and masculinities. Many of these developments have paralleled broader
feminist debates, not least because of the strong presence of feminist scholars in CSMM.
Working across the material-discursive boundary has also become increasingly important,
indeed obvious, in comparative, global, transnational, and de/postcolonial research and
analyses (Hearn & Pringle, 2006; Hearn et al., 2015; Ratele, 2014, 2016). Such approaches
make clear the diverse historical social structures operating transnationally between and
across societies and national and regional levels, whilst connections are made to levels of
individual psychology, identity, and practice. These matters are placed within geopolitical
change, such as around the environment, globalization, and neoliberalism (Enarson & Pease,
2016; Garlick, 2016). Intersections of social divisions have been very important in theorizing
within critical race studies, postcolonialism, transnational studies, and kindred fields (Morrell
& Swart, 2005; Ouzgane & Coleman, 1998; Ouzgane & Morrell, 2005; Pease & Pringle,
2002; Ruspini et al., 2011). Men and masculinities are formed societally and transsocietally
across trans(national)patriarchies (Hearn, 2015). Examples here are the impact of history,
geography, and social, cultural, and discursive dynamics on experiences and constructions of
migration and refugees, racism, nationalism and xenophobia, and transnational popular
culture online/offline.
We now turn to this interplay of the material and the discursive, the material-discursive, by
way of two more specific, contrasting contemporary developments: first, towards more
egalitarian masculinities, and, second, towards more inegalitarian masculinities.
Two Contrasting Contemporary Developments
“New”, Egalitarian Masculinities And Masculine Positions
Parallel to imageries of men as hard, competitive, rational, unemotional, and violent, other
imageries appear. Various scholars have in recent years indicated a “softening” of
masculinity (Anderson, 2009; Forrest, 2010; Roberts, 2013). The empirical support in
Western contexts for this has been based on men’s and boys’ perceived increasing comfort
with displays of physical tactility with other men, media images of fathers active in childcare,
and men who define masculinity in terms of “showing” emotions previously theorized as
antithetical to Western constructs of masculinity. Scholars have sought to capture
developments in how masculine positions are performed and formulated using terms such as
“new”, “egalitarian”, “alternative”, “caring”, “inclusive”, “nondominant”, “hybrid” or
“postfeminist” men or masculinities (Beynon, 2002; Gill, 2014; Hanlon, 2012; McCormack
& Anderson, 2010). What these diverse scholars attempt to capture are changes in
expectations, ideals, and to some extent practices in, for example, family life and personal
relationships (Goedecke, 2022; Lupton and Barclay, 1997; McQueen, 2017), along with
changes in how men are represented (Becker, 2014; Nixon, 1997) and men’s views on
equality and homophobia (Barrett, 2013; Bridges & Pascoe, 2016).

Those emphasizing change have not necessarily advocated a wholesale rejection of

patriarchal norms but rather “a co-existence of persistence and change … [leading]
contemporary masculinity to be somewhat attenuated or softened” (Roberts, 2013, p. 672),
but the general explanation offered is a notion of change from “worse” to “better”. Other
scholars are more sceptical on how far such practices represent “change”, and are instead
critical of a depoliticized tendency to argue for historical novelty (de Boise, 2015; de Boise &
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Hearn, 2017; O’Neill, 2015). Understanding power as normative and productive, ever-
changing and adaptable (Foucault, 1976), it follows that even “new” and “alternative”
positions and behaviors that do not overtly oppress, forbid, or violate must be scrutinized as
expressions and products of power.

“New” masculine positions must thus be discussed critically to examine whether they
indicate actual change in gendered and other power relations or whether such changes are
superficial and are merely ways to make existing gendered power relations more legitimate.
Such notions of “new” men have been analyzed as delineated, typically by gaining meaning
from being compared to “old” men, associated with tradition, patriarchy, and authority.
Indeed, the idea of the “new man” has existed in some form since at least the 1700s, often
invoked during periods of social change without necessarily changing uneven distributions of
economic or political power (Kimmel, 1987). “New” or egalitarian positions, seen by some as
enlightened, modern, and progressive, involve construing other(ed) positions as lesser: a
process often referring to divisions along lines of class and race.

Such processes of projecting oppressiveness onto othered groups have been noted by
Australian, European, and US researchers (Barrett, 2013; Bridges & Pascoe, 2016;
Hondagneu-Sotelo & Messner, 1994; Nordberg, 2005). Pierette Hondagneu-Sotelo and
Michael Messner (1994) critically discuss the “new man” in the US context and argue that he
is produced through differentiation with, for example, Mexican immigrant men, a distinction
built on racist and classist biases and obscuring of class, race, and gender privileges. The
creation of new men should, they argue, be viewed as “strategies to reconstruct hegemonic
masculinity by projecting aggression, domination, and misogyny onto subordinate groups of
men” (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Messner, 1994, p. 215).

Drawing similar conclusions about anti-homophobic statements among Australian men,

Timothy Barrett (2013, p. 71) nevertheless points out that rejections of homophobic positions
and behaviors “have a political significance at the level of stated attitude”. Changes in
opinions and attitudes, such as Barrett’s interviewees’ wish to position themselves as
“tolerant” of homosexuality, are not meaningless, but their significance is unclear, and
changes in practice are more difficult to find. This has also been discussed in research about
fathering, where “new” fatherhood ideals have been shown to proliferate, especially in the
middle-classes in the Western world, but where most of the hard, repetitive, thankless work
of parenting still falls to mothers.

These debates are mirrored in those concerning men and feminism. Men’s (relations to)
feminism have been described as “oxymoronic” (Kahane, 1998, p. 214) and “wretched and
intractable” (Nelson, 1987, p. 153). Yet, there are multiple examples, historical and
contemporary, of men opposing their own gendered privileges and supporting the case of
feminist women, and Bob Pease (2000) suggests that men are not only able but obliged to
contribute to feminist analyses. Two often-discussed problems are: men’s gains from
patriarchy, and their lack of experience needed to formulate feminist thought. Men gain
power and advantages from living in a patriarchal society, by virtue of the “patriarchal
dividend” (Connell, 2005). Denouncing this – in an absolute way – is only partly possible, as
it is given by others reading the person as a man, and the status that accrues, as well as how
the individual behaves. Even feminist men gain from being men, which might undermine
their feminism. However, pluralist accounts of men show that the patriarchal dividend is
unequally distributed among men, as from various racialized and classed groups, which

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
complicates the argument. Also, patriarchal dividends from being a man in patriarchal society
are accompanied by uneven costs, such as health problems, ineptitude in relationships,
violence, and incarceration, according to class and racialization, for example. In this view,
men’s feminism becomes less of an oxymoron, as feminism provides theories and methods
for men to confront certain undesirable realities.

Some feminists, emphasizing experience as the base for feminist knowledge and positions,
argue that men as a group lack the experiences of gendered subordination, exploitation, and
sexual threat and violence that form the base of any feminist consciousness. The centering of
experience is important to the evolution of feminist theorizing, knowledge, and analyses of
the radical feminist movement but also to feminist epistemologies, which have often
discussed women’s standpoints as central to feminist thought. However, as Harding (1998)
points out, experience is an important source of knowledge but not a short-cut that
automatically leads to understanding. Feminist epistemologies hold potential of learning from
and listening to others’ experiences. This should theoretically make it possible for men to
learn from others’ experiences and produce feminist knowledge, through strenuous work.

The growth of intersectional and queer theorizing during the 1980s and 1990s, along with
poststructuralist gender theories, has complicated many of these arguments. As Cary Nelson
points out, discussing “men’s” relations to “feminism”, “appears to fix[ate] [...] relationships
that are plurally and unstably constituted and immensely contextual” (1987, p. 153). Pease
argues that poststructuralist understandings and tools, such as developing alternative
discourses about what it means to be a man, how to relate to sexuality and to women, may
assist in constructing new masculine positions. The question of whether changing gender
relations is in men’s interests will have to be reformulated; he suggests men’s interests are
themselves formulated within patriarchal discourses, and that men can reposition themselves
and formulate their interests differently (Pease, 2000, p. 142). Poststructuralist perspectives
emphasize differences between men along lines of race, sexuality, and class, as well as
problematizing taken-for-granted connections between male, masculine, masculinity, and
men (Halberstam, 1998), that is, meanings of masculinity may change when not performed
by cis men. While such masculine performances may undermine normative articulations of
masculinity as well as gendered power relations, they could also reproduce connections
between masculinity and power (Nguyen, 2008). This renders arguments about men’s
positions, costs, gains, and experiences more complex still.

Studying “new” or feminist men or masculine positions is an interesting but complex

endeavor. Rhetorical allegiance to feminist or egalitarian values may rely on distinctions
between different groups of men, which need to be deconstructed and whose political,
material and discursive consequences need to be studied in themselves (Bridges & Pascoe,
2016; Nordberg, 2005). Hondagneu-Sotelo and Messner (1994) propose that analyses of
masculinities should start in the lives of subordinated groups of men. Such a modus operandi
would mean that research would be conducted using new groups of men’s lives as points of
departure, that intersections would automatically be the focus of the research, and that such a
focus would be less about lifestyles and instead concern power and politics.

Angry White Men? Alt-Right, Incels, And Anti-Feminists

In direct contrast to the notion of softening masculinity, recent years have seen increased use
of the notion of “toxic masculinity”, even if, like notions of role, the term does not in itself
highlight how masculinity needs to be understood as formed in gender power relations.
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Contemporary media and policy debates around masculinity have often been related to
changes in economy, labor markets, loss of or threat to entitlement, and even feelings of
powerlessness, alongside positionings of power. Such themes have been offered as an
explanation for the rise of the far-right in global Northern countries (Ging, 2019; Gotell &
Dutton, 2016; Grant & MacDonald, 2020; Kelly, 2017), as well as a more general resurgence
of misogynistic, masculinist, and anti-feminist movements.

Attention has focused particularly on participation in the so-called “Alt” Right movement,
beginning around 2012, and tending to attract young, white, relatively affluent men from both
Anglophone and non-Anglophone nations. Their most visible manifestation has been the
“tiki-torch” marches in the US in 2017, peaking after the death of anti-fascist protestor
Heather Heyer at a counter protest in Charlottesville the same year. Here, white men in their
late 20s to 40s visibly made up the core of protestors, as well as media spokespeople. The
Alt-Right is xenophobic and anti-feminist, with strong links to white nationalist movements.
Its popularity has generally been attributed to the architecture of user-generated content as
part of Web 2.0 and the “culture wars” backlash against a perceived political correctness (PC)
which President Trump successfully harnessed during the 2016 US election (Winter &
Mondon, 2020). As Nagle (2017) argues, the appeal of the Alt-Right is indebted to gaming
culture and similar contexts where young men and boys are prevalent. Indeed, one of the first
orchestrated campaigns linked to the emergence of the Alt-Right was directed against two
prominent feminist gamers: the 2012 “gamergate” movement. The term “manosphere”, which
has supported the Alt-Right’s development, has been used to capture the essence of online
spaces which are so vitriolically misogynist they become largely the preserve of men (Ging,
2019).

It is appealing to frame young men’s ideas of being inherently subversive through their
rejection of a more general cultural zeitgeist against “PC culture”, as an anti-feminist
backlash (Faludi, 1992) indebted to the rise of Web 2.0. However, younger men tend to be
more drawn, quantitatively, to radical political movements of almost every shape (Immerfall,
1998; Messner, 1997), and white nationalist groups attract men in far greater numbers than
women. Xenophobic and racist movements have often increased during economic crises
(Mellström, 2016) and far-right movements have always had direct links with a patriarchal
conservatism and essentialist notions of gender. This means that there is often a good deal of
overlap between anti-feminist and far-right movements by virtue of the types of behaviors
that fascist movements emphasize (Blais & Dupuis-Déri, 2012). Empirical studies, based on
big-data, have shown significant overlap in the users of anti-feminist and white nationalist
communities (Horta Ribeiro et al., 2020; Mamié et al., 2021) as well as the importance of
essentialist ideas of masculinity on white nationalist forums (Sunderland, 2022).

Far-right movements have often made recourse to an idea of some “eternal masculine”
(Ferber, 2000) whereby the idea of strength as a form of moral right, indelibly linked to
masculinity, is desirable as a male character trait (Mosse, 1996). By extension, essentialist
beliefs around the inherent immutability of masculine and feminine characteristics entail
notions that being able to physically “protect” women (often as wife or mother) is what men
should strive for. This encompasses notions of hierarchies between men dependent on their
relationship to heterosexual reproduction and physical strength, most clearly in the language
of “alpha” and “beta” males in their web-fora (Ging, 2019); everyone in Alt-Right circles
wants to be, or claims to be, alpha male. Such individuals tend to prioritize group dominance

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
behaviors and espouse notions of demographic threat to white populations (Forscher &
Kteily, 2020).

To this end, the explanations for the popularity of the Alt-Right amongst young men are no
different from theories about men’s attraction to previous far-right incarnations. This suggests
that technologically deterministic arguments about social media as the main driver behind the
popularity of the current far right are wanting. The current incarnation invokes many of the
same ideas as Mythopoetic and Promise Keeper movements of the 1990s (de Boise, 2023)
which plays off of broader forms of cultural misogyny. As Faludi (1992) noted, visible gains
made by feminist movements are often met with a rise in counter-progressive tendencies.
However, against economic determinism, it should be noted that anti-feminist movements
have existed in some form since the early 1900s and their recent resurgence as a global
political force has occurred across the world (Chowdhury, 2014; Johansson & Lilja, 2013;
Wojnicka, 2016) rather than only where the 2007/2008 global recession hit hardest.
Transnational cultural factors surrounding notions of masculinity undoubtedly in part shape
the form that Alt-Right politics take and its success amongst young men at this point in time.
In this respect, the specific historical conditions which have seen the increased visibility of
feminist arguments online at a time of profound technological change where male-dominated
subcultures have flourished online (Banet-Weiser & Miltner, 2016), should be taken into
account.
However, whilst conservative “culture warriors” and anti-feminist tendencies have a long
history, incel (“involuntarily celibate”) subcultures represent a contemporary online
manifestation of misogynistic violence not easily explained by concepts of patriarchy or
hegemonic masculinity alone. Incel-subcultures have been defined largely through a self-
belief that they are on the lowest rungs of any imaginary sexual hierarchy and embrace an
inward-directed self-loathing at their perceived inability to fulfill normative expectations of
masculinity (Ging, 2019). This has resulted in self-harm, including suicide, and also violence,
specifically towards women (Grant & MacDonald, 2020; Scaptura & Boyle, 2020). Such
online communities have exacerbated problems of self-harm and suicide more prevalent
amongst men in many societies.

The concept of “aggrieved entitlement” (Kimmel, 2013) has sought to explain the
motivations of white men in particular in participating in white nationalist groups in the 21st
century. Young men’s tendency to become involved in “identitarian” movements is explained
as stemming from notions of socialized privilege that are implicitly an extension of
patriarchal norms. This suggests that “masculinity” is not a structural position-taking at all
but operates as an imaginary construct which leads to feelings of rage stemming from an
ideal that becomes an obstacle to personal fulfillment. Again, notions of masculinity, in the
singular, as either aggrieved entitlement or “cruel optimism” (Allan, 2018, p. 175) suggest a
caricature of how men experience gendered socialization. Whilst incels and the Alt-Right
spring from similar worldviews, the way in which they express gendered behaviors are often,
though not exclusively, very different.

Crucially, both cultures are similar in their identification of a feminism which they see as
having become a dominant ideology and unfairly giving women more sexual freedom,
control, and choice. They also divide men into “alpha” and “beta” subcategories (incels refer
to alphas as chads) and the rise of both cultures can be attributed to belonging to the same
user-spaces such as 4Chan and 8Chan. They differ inasmuch as, despite popular opinion,
incels appear to span different racial groups and political persuasions1 whereas Alt Right
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
adherents are more deeply steeped in white nationalist and right-wing ideologies (Hawley,
2017). Furthermore, incels self-identify as “beta males” and often emphasize their lack of
sexual success as related to their own weakness in the face of a society which privileges
strength. Alt-Right proponents, by contrast, identify as dominant and treat society as
privileging weakness as a result of feminism.

These differences speak to one particularly important issue in the face of the current anti-
feminist and misogynist backlash; namely the way that online misogynist, Alt Right, and
incel cultures use psychological arguments and the genuine social problem of taking men’s
mental health seriously as a tool to appeal to young men especially. Jordan Peterson, a
clinical psychologist from Canada, whose bestselling 12 Rules for Life became a touchstone
within the Alt-Right and amongst young men generally, blends self-help advice with anti-
feminist and conservative polemic. In part, its success can be located in the more general
neoliberal imperative which emphasizes mastery over one’s emotional life as a project for
which the individual is solely responsible (see Illouz, 2007). However, the book also draws
from Jungian notions, which treat order as masculine and chaos as feminine (Peterson, 2018)
whilst arguing for men to reclaim the former. In this respect, his method builds off of similar
tactics to those adopted by Mythopoetic men’s movement writers such as Robert Bly, in
appealing to the notion of strength and domination as inherently masculine virtues whilst
dividing the human psyche between masculine and feminine components (de Boise, 2023).
Whilst the book clearly resonated due to its simple self-help guidance (e.g., treat yourself as
you would advise others to do), it lays the blame for what Peterson argues is men’s
denigration and men’s mental health problems generally, at the feet of left-wing liberalism,
feminism, and increasing cultural “decadence”.

Similarly, more recently, social media influencer Andrew Tate’s popularity amongst young
men cannot only be explained in terms of his extreme misogyny, which is well-documented,
but must be understood through the perspectives of his followers as focusing on men’s mental
health issues (Ging, 2023). Tate’s arguments, as with Peterson, rely on the same kind of
combination of firmly gendered, rationalist solutions – self-mastery through the application
of will alone – with quasi-sociological assertions about how men are disadvantaged in society
because they do not feel powerful. These arguments appeal because they provide easy targets
and straightforward solutions. Nevertheless, they do a huge disservice to men in their
denigration of the gains made in addressing men’s mental health as a result of feminism, as
well as neglecting the disproportionate power and wealth accumulated by men worldwide.

Concluding Discussion
Given these emergent, clearly gendered, forms of misogynistic and white nationalist violence,
tendencies toward explaining a singular masculinity or various masculinit/ies as either
“softening” or “toxic”, or as more egalitarian or definitely not so, may create some confusion.
How can men be becoming “softer” according to some, and, on the other hand, increasingly
attracted to more extremist ideologies? The co-existence of both discourses speaks more
broadly to theoretical and conceptual issues in how to define masculinity in the singular,
namely, that multiple contradictory ideas about what masculinity is and how men should
behave may exist in a given society. This is indeed a central tenet of hegemonic masculinity.

Yet against hegemonic masculinity theory, these diverse supposedly “softer” or toxic
behavioral patterns do not necessarily map neatly onto structural inequalities or intersections
of class, race, or sexuality; arguably, how men are labelled by such intersections is
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
increasingly fragmented in academic discourse and public perceptions. Theories which pin
down masculinity into neat, discrete traits, which offer taxonomies of different types of
masculinities in the plural, or resort to apolitical discussions of archetypes, are inadequate in
helping to think through complex intersections of power and privilege. Whilst masculinity
may operate as an imaginary discursive construct which may motivate some men’s
attachment to certain ways of behaving, it is less useful as a way of explaining empirically
why men do what they do.

In this case, it is more useful to think of the “hegemony of men” (or even hegemonies)
(Hearn, 2004, 2012) rather than only hegemonic masculinity or to proclaim a wholesale or
one-way shift in the architecture of some cohesive historic bloc. The social category of
“men” is far more hegemonic than a particular form of masculinity, hegemonic or not.
Focusing more explicitly on the hegemony of men seeks to address the double complexity
that men are both a social category formed by the gender system, and dominant collective and
individual agents of social practices. Critique by way of examination of the hegemony of men
can bring together feminist materialist theory and cultural deconstructive queer theory, as
well as modernist theories of hegemony and ideology, and poststructuralist discourse theory.

To conclude, it is necessary to both name men as men, as both a powerful societal structural
reality and a social category, and de-naturalize and deconstruct men, to make the familiar
strange – just as postcolonial theory deconstructs and de-naturalizes the white subject. There
can be dangers in focusing primarily or only on masculinities, and de-naturalizing
masculinities in such a way that men are re-naturalized. Studies of men and masculinities
need to be placed within political, economic, societal, and biological/natural/ecological
analysis, while also giving attention to the importance of the psychological, the social
psychological, and matters of identity. Thus, the psychological may be contextualized and
elaborated in the process of deconstructing men and masculinities, and their material contexts
and constitutions.

Note
1. A poll carried out by moderators of incel.co in 2020 found that 55% identified as white
caucasian but 45% identified as another racial(ized) category. Though the accuracy of this poll
is obviously dubious and cannot be treated as fact, it gives some indication as to ethnic and
political diversity. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/online-poll-results-provide-new-
insights-incel-community

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
 References
Adler, A. (1927/1992). Understanding human nature. Oxford: Oneworld.
Allan, J. A. (2018). Masculinity as cruel optimism. NORMA: The International Journal for
Masculinity Studies, 13(3-4), 175-190. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2017.1312949
Anderson, E. (2009). Inclusive masculinity: The changing nature of masculinities. Oxford:
Routledge.
Banet-Weiser, S., & Miltner, K. M. (2016). #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and
networked misogyny. Feminist Media Studies, 16(1), 171-174. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2016.1120490
Barrett, T. (2013). Friendships between men across sexual orientation: The importance of
(others) being intolerant. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 21(1), 62-77. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.2101.62
Becker, R. (2014). Becoming bromosexual: Straight men, gay men and male bonding on U.S.
TV. In M. DeAngelis (Ed.), Reading the bromance: Homosocial relationships in film
and television (pp. 233-254). Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Bem, S. L. (1974). A measurement of psychological androgeny. Journal of Clinical
Psychology, 42(2), 155-162. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036215
Beynon, J. (2002). Masculinities and culture. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Blais, M., & Dupuis-Déri, F. (2012). Masculinism and the antifeminist countermovement.
Social Movement Studies, 11(1), 21-39.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2012.640532
Bourdieu, P. (2001). Masculine domination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bridges, T., & Pascoe C. J. (2016). Masculinities and post-homophobias?. In C. J. Pascoe &
T. Bridges (Eds.), Exploring masculinities: Identity, inequality, continuity and change
(pp. 412-423). New York: Oxford University Press.
Carrigan, T., Connell, R. W., & Lee, J. (1985). Toward a new sociology of masculinity.
Theory and Society, 14(5), 551-604. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00160017
Chambers, C. (2005). Masculine domination, radical feminsm and change. Feminist Theory,
6(3), 325-346. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700105057367
Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Chowdhury, R. (2014). Conditions of emergence: The formation of men’s rights groups in
contemporary India. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 21(1), 27-53. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521513511199
Clatterbaugh, K. (1998). What is problematic about ‘masculinities? Men and Masculinities,
1(1), 24-45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X98001001002
Collier, R. (1998). Masculinities, crime and criminology. London: Sage.
Collinson, D. L., & Hearn, J. (1994). Naming men as men: Implications for work,
organizations and management. Gender, Work and Organization, 1(1), 2-22. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.1994.tb00002.x
Connell, R. (1983). Which way is up? Boston: Allen & Unwin.
Connell, R. (1994). Psychoanalysis on masculinity. In H. Brod, & M. Kaufman (Eds.),
Theorizing masculinities (pp. 11-38). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Connell, R. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity.
Connell, R. (Ed.) (2001). Special Issue. Men and masculinities: Discursive approaches.
Feminism & Psychology, 11(1).

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Connell, R., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the
concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829-859. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243205278639
Craib, I. (1987). Masculinity and male dominance. The Sociological Review, 35/4), 721-743.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1987.tb00563.x
de Boise, S. (2015). I’m not homophobic, “I’ve got gay friends”: Evaluating the validity of
inclusive masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 18(3), 318-339. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X14554951
de Boise, S. (2023), The affective appeal of nature for masculinist movements. In U.
Mellström and B. Pease (eds.) Posthumanism and the man question: Beyond
anthropocentric masculinities. Abingdon: Routledge.
de Boise, S., & Hearn, J. (2017). Are men getting more emotional? Critical sociological
perspectives on men, masculinities and emotions. The Sociological Review, 65(4),
779-796. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026116686500 Field Code Changed
de Visser, R. O., & McDonnell, E. J. (2013). “Man points”: Masculine capital and young
men's health. Health Psychology, 32(1), 5-14. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029045
Demetriou, D. (2001). Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: a critique. Theory and
Society, 30(3), 337-361. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017596718715
Donaldson, M. (1993). What is hegemonic masculinity? Theory and Society, 22(5), 643-657.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993540
Eagly, A. (1987). Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-role interpretation, New
York: Routledge.
Eichenbaum, L., & Orbach, S. (1983). What do women want: Exploding the myth of
dependency, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Eichler, M. (1980). The double standard: A feminist critique of feminist social science.
London: Croom Helm.
Enarson, E., & Pease, B. (Eds.) (2016). Men, masculinities and disaster. London: Routledge.
Faludi, S. (1992). Backlash: The undeclared war against american women. London: Chatto
& Windus.
Ferber, A. L. (2000). Racial warriors and weekend warriors: the construction of masculinity
in mythopoetic and white supremacist discourse. Men and Masculinities, 3(1), 30-56.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X00003001002
Forrest, S. (2010). Young men in love: The (re)making of heterosexual masculinities through
“serious” relationships. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 25(2), 206-218. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/14681991003660260
Forscher, P. S., & Kteily, N. S. (2020). A psychological profile of the alt-right. Perspectives
on Psychological Science, 15(1), 90-116. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619868208
Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality. Volume. 1 The will to knowledge.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Freud, S. 1917/1993). The case of the Wolf-Man: From the history of an infantile neurosis.
San Francisco: Arion. Reprinted from the standard edition of the Complete
psychological works of Sigmund Freud, Volume 17. London: Hogarth.
Frosh, S. (1994). Sexual difference: Masculinity and psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.
Garlick, S. (2016). The nature of masculinity. Vancouver: University of British Columbia
Press.
Gill, R. (2014). Powerful women, vulnerable men and postfeminist masculinity in men’s
popular fiction. Gender and Language, 8(2), 185-204. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.185
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Gilmore, D. (1990). Manhood in the making: Cultural concepts of masculinity. New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press.
Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere.
Men and Masculinities 22(4), 638-657. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X177064
Ging, D. (2023). Boys seduced by Andrew Tate's bombastic shtick would do well to listen to
Blindboy. Available online: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/01/24/why-
influencers-like-andrew-tate-want-your-sons-attention/ (Accessed 18th February 2023).
Goedecke. K. (2022). Men’s friendships as feminist politics? Power, intimacy, and change.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gotell, L., & Dutton, E. (2016). Sexual violence in the ‘manosphere’: antifeminist men’s
rights discourses on rape. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social
Democracy 5(2), 65-80. Doi: https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.310
Grant, J., & MacDonald, F. (2020). The alt right, "toxic" masculinity and violence. In F.
MacDonald, & A. Dobrowolsky (Eds.), Turbulent times, transformational
possibilities?: Gender and politics today. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Halberstam, J. (1998). Female masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hanlon, N. (2012). Masculinities, care and equality: Identity and nurture in men’s lives.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hanmer, J. (1990). Men, power and the exploitation of women. In J. Hearn & D. Morgan
(Eds.), Men, Masculinities and Social Theory (pp. 21-42). London: Unwin
Hyman/Routledge.
Harding, S. (1998). Can men be subjects of feminist thought? In T. Digby (Ed.), Men doing
feminism (pp. 171-195). New York: Routledge.
Hatfield, J. E. (2018). Toxic identification: #Twinks4Trump and the homonationalist
rearticulation of queer vernacular rhetoric. Communication, Culture and Critique,
11(1), 147-161. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcx006
Hawley, G. (2017), Making sense of the Alt-Right. New York: Columbia University Press.
Haywood, C., & Mac an Ghaill, M. (2003). Men and masculinities: Theory, research and
social practice. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Hearn, J. (1987). The gender of oppression: Men, masculinity and the critique of Marxism.
Brighton: Wheatsheaf; New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Hearn, J. (1996). ‘Is masculinity dead?’ A critical account of the concepts of masculinity and
masculinities. In M. Mac an Ghaill (Ed.), Understanding masculinities: Social
relations and cultural arenas (pp. 202-217). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Hearn, J. (1998). Theorizing men and men’s theorizing: Men’s discursive practices in
theorizing men. Theory and Society, 27(6), 781-816. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006992624071
Hearn, J. (2004). From hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men. Feminist Theory,
5(1), 49-72. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700104040813
Hearn, J. (2012). A multi-faceted power analysis of men's violence to known women: from
hegemonic masculinity to the hegemony of men. The Sociological Review, 60(4),
589-610. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02125.x
Hearn, J. (2014). Men, masculinities and the material(-)discursive. NORMA: The
International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(1), 5-17. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.204.892281
Hearn, J. (2015). Men of the world: Genders, globalizations, transnational times. London:
Sage.
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Hearn, J., & Howson, R. (2019). The institutionalization of (Critical) Studies on Men and
Masculinities: Geopolitical perspectives. In L. Gottzén, U. Mellström, & T. Shefer
(Eds.), Routledge International handbook of masculinity studies (pp. 19-30). London:
Routledge.
Hearn, J., & Pringle, K., with members of Critical Research on Men in Europe. (2006).
European perspectives on men and masculinities. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hearn, J., Ratele, K., & Shefer, T. (Eds.) (2015). Special issue. Men, masculinities and young
people: North-South dialogues, NORMA: The International Journal for Masculinity
Studies, 10(2).
Hollway, W. (1989). Subjectivity and method in psychology: Gender, meaning and science.
London: Sage.
Hondagneu-Sotelo P., & Messner, M. A. (1994). Gender displays and men’s power: The
“new man” and the Mexican immigrant man. In H. Brod, & M. Kaufman (Eds.),
Theorizing masculinities (pp. 200-218). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Horta Ribeiro, M., Blackburn, J., Bradlyn, B., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., Long, S.,
Greenberg, S. and Zannettou, S. (2020), The evolution of the manosphere across the
web. ArXiv.org.
Howson, R. (2006). Challenging hegemonic masculinity. London: Routledge.
Illouz, E. (2007), Cold intimacies: The making of emotional capitalism. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Immerfall, S. (1998). Conclusion: The neo-populist agenda. In H.-G. Betz, & S. Immerfall
(Eds.), The new politics of the right: Neo-populist parties and movements in
established democracies(pp. 249-261). New York: St Martin’s.
Jackson, D. (1990). Unmasking masculinity: A critical autobiography. London: Unwin
Hyman/Routledge.
Jefferson, T. (1994). Theorising masculine subjectivity. In T. Newburn, & E. A. Stanko
(Eds.), Just boys doing business: men, masculinities and crime (pp. 10-31). London.
Routledge.
Jefferson, T. (2005). Crime. In P. Essed, D. T. Goldberg, & A. Kobayashi (Eds.), A
companion to gender studies (pp. 212-238). New York: Blackwell.
Johansson, E., & Lilja, M. (2013). Understanding power and performing resistance: Swedish
feminists, civil society voices, biopolitics and “angry” Men. NORA, 21(4), 264-279.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2013.858569
Kahane, D. J. (1998). Male feminism as oxymoron. In T. Digby (Ed.), Men doing feminism
(pp. 213-236). New York: Routledge.
Kelly, A. (2017). The alt-right: reactionary rehabilitation for white masculinity. Soundings.
66, 68-78. https://doi.org/10.3898/136266217821733688
Kimmel, M. S. (1987). The contemporary “crisis” of masculinity in historical perspective. In
H. Brod (Ed.), The making of masculinities: The new men’s studies (pp. 121-153).
Boston: Allen & Hyman.
Kimmel, M. S. (2013). Angry white men: American masculinity at the end of an era. New
York: Nation Books.
Levant, R. F., Webster, B. A., Stanley, J. T., & Thompson, E. H. (2020). The Aging Men’s
Masculinity Ideologies Inventory (AMMII): Dimensionality, variance composition,
measurement invariance by gender, and validity. Psychology of Men & Masculinities,
21(1), 46-57. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000208
Lupton, D., & Barclay L. (1997). Constructing fatherhood: Discourses and experiences.
Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.
Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,
The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Luyt, R. (2005). The Male Attitude Norms Inventory – II: A measure of masculinity ideology
in South Africa. Men and Masculinities, 8(2), 208-229. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X04264631
McCormack M., & Anderson, E. (2010). ‘It’s just not acceptable any more’: The erosion of
homophobia and the softening of masculinity at an English sixth form. Sociology,
44(5), 843-859. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038510375734
MacInnes, J. (1998). The end of masculinity: The confusion of sexual genesis and sexual
difference in modern society. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mamié, R., Ribeiro, M. H. and West, R. (2021). Are Anti-Feminist Communities Gateways to
the Far Right? Evidence from Reddit and YouTube. 13th ACM Web Science
Conference 2021, Virtual Event, United Kingdom.
McMahon, A. (1993). Male readings of feminist theory: The psychologization of sexual
politics in the masculinity literature. Theory and Society, 22(5), 675-696. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00993542
McQueen, F. (2017). Male emotionality: ‘Boys don’t cry’ versus ‘it’s good to talk’, NORMA:
The International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 12(3-4), 205-219. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2017.1336877
Malinowski, B. (1927). Sex and repression in savage society. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul.
Malinowski, B. (1932). The sexual life of savages in North-Western Melanesia. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Mead, M. (1935/1963). Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. New York: William
Morrow.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1993). Masculinities and crime: Critique and reconceptualization of
theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Messerschmidt, J. W. (1997). Crime as structured action: Gender, race, class, and crime in
the making. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Messner, M. (1997). Politics of masculinities: Men in movements. Oxford: Alta Mira.
Metcalf, A., & Humphries, M. (Eds.) (1985). The sexuality of men. London: Pluto.
Moller, M. (2007). Exploiting patterns: a critique of hegemonic masculinity. Journal of
Gender Studies, 16(3), 263-276. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09589230701562970
Mosse, G. L. (1996), The image of man: The creation of modern masculinity. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Nagle, A. (2017). Kill all normies: Online culture wars from 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump
and the alt-right. Alresford: Zero.
Nelson, C. (1987). Men, feminism: The materiality of discourse. In A. A. Jardine & P. Smith
(Eds.), Men in feminism (pp. 153-172). New York: Methuen.
Nguyen, A. (2008). Patriarchy, power, and female masculinity. Journal of Homosexuality,
55(4), 665-683. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00918360802498625
Nixon, S. (1997). Exhibiting masculinity. In Hall, S. (Ed.) Representation: Cultural
representations and signifying practices (pp. 291-336). London: Sage.
Nordberg, M. (2005). Jämställdhetens spjutspets?: manliga arbetstagare i kvinnoyrken,
jämställdhet, maskulinitet, femininitet och heteronormativitet. Doctoral dissertation.
Göteborg: Arkipelag.
O’Neill, R. (2015). Whither critical masculinity studies? Notes on inclusive masculinity
theory, postfeminism, and sexual politics. Men and Masculinities, 18(1), 100-120.
Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X14553056

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.
Ouzgane, L., & Coleman, D. (1998). Postcolonial masculinities: Introduction. Jouvert: A
Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2(1). Doi:
http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v2i1/con21.htm
Ouzgane, L., & Morrell, R. (Eds.) (2005). African masculinities: Men in Africa from the late
nineteenth century to the present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pease, B. (2000). Recreating men: Postmodern masculinity politics. London: Sage.
Pease, B., & Pringle, K. (Eds.) (2002). A man’s world: Changing men’s practices in a
globalized world. London: Zed.
Peterson, J. (2018). 12 rules for life: An antidote to chaos. Toronto: Random House Canada.
Ratele, K. (2014). Currents against gender transformation of South African men: Relocating
marginality to the centre of research and theory of masculinities. NORMA: The
International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(1), 30-44. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2014.892285
Ratele, K. (2016). Liberating masculinities. Pretoria: HSRC Press.
Roberts, S. (2013). Boys will be boys … won’t they? Change and continuities in
contemporary young working-class masculinities. Sociology, 47(4), 671-686. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038512453791
Ruspini, E., Hearn, J., Pease, B., & Pringle, K. (Eds.) (2011). Men and masculinities around
the world: Transforming men's practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Scaptura, M. N., & Boyle, K. M. (2020). Masculinity threat, “incel” traits, and violent
fantasies among heterosexual men in the United States. Feminist Criminology, 15(3),
278-298. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/155708511989
Schippers, M. (2007). The feminine other: masculinity, femininity, and gender hegemony.
Theory and Society, 36(1), 85-102. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s 11186-007-9022-4
Speer, S. A. (2001). Reconsidering the concept of hegemonic masculinity:
Discursive psychology, conversation analysis, and participants' orientations.
Feminism and Psychology, 11(1), 107-135. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353501011001006
Speer, S. A. (2005). Gender talk: Feminism, discourse and conversation analysis. London:
Routledge.
Sunderland, J. (2023). Fighting for masculine hegemony: Contestation between alt-right and
white nationalist masculinities on Stormfront.org. Men and Masculinities, 26(1), 3-23.
Doi: https://doi.org/1097184X221120664
Thompson Jnr., E. H., & Pleck, J. H. (1995). Masculinity ideologies. A review of research
instrumentation on men and masculinities. In R. F. Levant, & W. S. Pollock (Eds.), A
new psychology of men (pp. 129-163). New York: Basic.
Wetherell, M., & Edley, N. (1999). Negotiating hegemonic masculinity: Imaginary positions
and psycho-discursive practices. Feminism and Psychology, 9(1), 335-356. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353599009003012
Winter, A., & Mondon, A. (2020). Racist movements, the far right and mainstreaming. In J.
Solomos (Ed.), Routledge international handbook of contemporary racisms. London:
Routledge.
Wojnicka, K. (2016). Masculist groups in Poland: Aids of mainstream antifeminism.
International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 5(2), 36-49. Doi:
https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.306

Chapter for: Eileen Zurbriggen and Rose Capdevila, editors,

The Palgrave Handbook of Psychology, Power and Gender, Palgrave Macmillan.