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How do we understand masculinity?

Gender can be understood in sociological terms as a ‘master status’ in that it forms a key part of our identity, shapes how others relate to us and influences the roles and opportunities that are made available or deemed ‘appropriate’ for us.

As part of this master status, gender norms send powerful messages about how people should look, feel and act.  If we try to meet prevailing expectations, this can mean privilege, inclusion and cultural validation.  If we can’t meet expectations or if we actively resist these norms, we may face stigma, marginalization and violence.

In this project, a diverse group of forty-one participants explored how their experiences of intellectual disability, physical illness (MS and Fibromyalgia) and mental ill health have shaped their views and experiences of gender and masculinity in particular.  Using visual arts, they explore different understandings of what masculinity means.

In this project, we understand gender using the following ideas:

Gender is relational

Masculinity is defined in relation to femininity. Those things society associates with femininity are, by definition, ‘unmanly’, and vice versa. At the same time, different forms of masculinity are defined in relation to one another. In a given society, certain types of masculinity are valued more highly than others.

Gender is influenced by other parts of our identity

Meanings of masculinity are not created in isolation.  Instead, issues like class, race/ racialization, sexuality, nationality, health and disability shape how we understand gender.  Masculinity is also not exclusive to men and male bodies.  As the figure of the ‘tomboy’ makes clear, female bodies can be seem as masculine just as male bodies can be (voluntarily or involuntarily) understood as feminine.

Gender is characterized by continuity and change

Gender norms can influence society for long periods of time.  Messages about money and paid work (‘breadwinning’), physical strength and virility, stoicism, and independence have shaped ideas about ‘real men’ for a long time, even though many men don’t value or embody these ideals.

At the same time, understandings of gender are subject to change.  We can think of the success of the feminist movement in challenging assumptions about women’s ‘place’ in the home or recent activism to recognize the identity and rights of transgender people.