Heterosexuality is long regarded as the central marker of masculinity, thus marginalizing gay men as 'unmasculine' and 'effeminate'. Reflecting and shaping the social discourse, Bollywood has reinforced this marginalization and largely confined gay men to sidekick roles, thereby preserving the hegemony of heteromasculinity on-screen, and substantially influencing the public understanding of ways of 'being a man'. However, with the evolving gender discourse in contemporary India, Bollywood's portrayal of gay men is undergoing a significant transformation. Films like Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan (SMZS), mark a departure from stereotypical representations and present gay men in an ineffeminate manner, as the lead protagonists who challenge rigid societal structures. This article examines this pivotal shift through a qualitative textual analysis of the film, as these altered representations of gay men are potent enough to shift Indian society's perception towards the ideal man and masculinity. Thus, the article explores how SMZS destabilizes the interconnection between masculinity and heterosexuality, disrupting the hegemony of heteromasculinity in India. The analysis reveals that, unloaded by effeminate stereotypes, this film deconstructs the sexual binary, critiques compulsory heterosexuality and the institution of marriage that maintain hegemonic heterosexual masculinity, projecting an alternative and inclusive model of masculinity to the Indian audience.
This paper explores the discourse in contemporary men's rights activism that masculinity itself is endangered and thus understood as contingent with Denmark as a case study. Building on both interviews and a content analysis of online posts, I demonstrate how prominent Danish men's rights activists share the sentiment that masculinity is existentially threatened in today's 'feminized' society. Furthermore, I argue that this crisis of masculinity discourse functions to support a distinct form of hegemonic masculinity and a postfeminist narrative in a Danish context. This mode of hegemonic masculinity differs from approaches that treat and uphold historical masculinity norms - such as assertiveness, aggression, risk-taking, and competitiveness - as naturally dominant. Instead, the starting point for such a contingency-aware form of hegemonic masculinity is that a certain masculine culture is under attack and must be defended. However, I also point to some degree of performative contradiction between the defense of particularly individualist assertiveness and the collective organizational practices in influential men's rights activist groups, such as The Danish Men's Council.
This study aims to unfold the fatherhood practices and experiences in rural Assam in India. Traditionally, caring roles are perceived as women's jobs, often overshadowing the men's role in them. However, in recent years, a significant transformation has been observed in caring practice, with an increased involvement of men. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 17 fathers in rural Assam, India, this study uses Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore how men negotiate caregiving within a patriarchal setting. This study investigates how men navigate caregiving duties, provide emotional support, and interpret the moral dimension of 'good fatherhood' within the enduring cultural norms of hegemonic masculinity. The findings are structured around five key themes that correspond to the lived experiences of Assamese fathers: redefining fatherhood, fathers as nurturers and caregivers, fatherhood and stigma, negotiating between traditional and modern fatherhood, and evolving masculinity. These themes offer a broader and in-depth understanding of the fathering practices and perspectives of Assamese rural fathers within their broader social and cultural contexts. The findings show how fathers transition between traditional and new fatherhood responsibilities and emphasize the uncertainty that determines contemporary fathers' roles.
This article presents findings from an evaluation of the Alberta Men's Network (AMN) Foundational Training Program - a community-based initiative designed to support facilitators working with men on gender justice, healthy and caring masculinities, and violence prevention. Grounded in transnational feminist, antiracist, and anticolonial principles, the program brought together a diverse group of participants over three sessions to engage with gender-based violence, group facilitation methods, and critical reflections on masculinity, responsibility, and community leadership. Participants were also introduced to Indigenous knowledge rooted in a Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot) worldview, which offered alternative ways of understanding masculinity, identity, and relationality. Drawing on mixed-methods data, the evaluation highlights several key outcomes: participants reported increased confidence in addressing topics such as sexual violence, gender norms, and men's mental health; greater awareness of the role of privilege and systemic inequality; and a strengthened commitment to community engagement and collaboration. Feedback also pointed to the need for longer sessions, more interactive learning, and ongoing support. Overall, the training created a space for meaningful dialogue, skill development, and peer connection. This affirms the value of culturally responsive, grassroots programming that centers Indigenous knowledge and intersectional analysis in work with men.
This article demonstrates that masculinity-related stigma management strategies can emerge in response to geopolitical events and among men who do not meet conventional definitions of marginalisation. I substantiate this by analysing how a diverse sample of Russian men living in Russia and abroad respond to the Western condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and to the stigma of belonging to an 'aggressor state'. I show that geopolitical stigmatisation generates intense anxieties about status, strength, and recognition among the participants with masculinity functioning as a key site where geopolitical humiliation, status loss, and imperial nostalgia are processed and negotiated. Building on scholarship that theorises stigma as a form of power, the article identifies three stigma management strategies: 'splitting and blaming', 'disclaiming agency', and 'turning to counter-discourses' all of which show that masculine subjectivities are entwined with imperial imaginaries. I offer the concept of geopolitical stigma, as a crucial but overlooked form of power relations in Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities, and argue that masculinity functions as a key mechanism through which global coloniality and inter-imperiality are reproduced and normalised in everyday life.
Gender beliefs are characterised by undergoing constant transformation with different implications for men and women. This research is based on analysing masculinity gender beliefs (MGB) in young people aged between 18 and 24 in two different cities in Mexico and Spain within the framework of the so-called post-feminist context. Based on a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews, the results highlight that both countries coincide regarding the predominance of hybrid models of masculinity where aspects such as responsibility in fatherhood, emotional openness and non-violence towards women are valued. Furthermore, physical strength, leadership, being respectable and sexual attraction are validated. In Spain, MGB are oriented towards the freedom for each person to be masculine in their own way. In Mexico, fatherhood prevails as a reference for masculinity. The presence of discursive ambivalences among young people in both countries suggests processes of change in MGB, although there are differences related to the characteristics of the contexts.
In this article, we explore teenage masculinity in a Norwegian context with a workshop-based project using arts-based methods with four teenage male participants. Surprisingly, in one of the workshops, a teddy bear emerged as a significant actor in exploring masculinity, opening conversation, elaboration and exploration around the topic. Taking departure from an agential cut (Barad, 2014) - the introduction of a teddy bear - we engage in collaborative knowledge production and exploration of multiplicities in entanglements of stuffed animals, gender, youth and masculinity through an analysis where nostalgic threads of childhood are central. Our study shows the potential of a material-discursive and arts-based approach by looking at how the materiality of the teddy bear opens up to many understandings of masculinity. In doing so, we engage in collaborative analytical explorations using diffraction (Barad, 2014), disorientation (Ahmed, 2006b), and 'plugging in' (Mazzei & Jackson, 2012).
This article introduces the concept of reflective masculinities to explore how Black adolescent boys in a peri-urban South African community make meaning of masculinity in ways that defy dominant, deficit-based representations. Drawing on a critical African masculinities framework and participatory visual methodologies, the study engaged 15 teenage boys through photo-elicitation and focus group discussions to examine how they navigate gender in relation to aesthetics, spirituality, friendship, and future aspirations. Rather than framing masculinity as inherently hegemonic or violent, the paper foregrounds the everyday, agentive strategies boys use to rework gendered expectations within contexts shaped by racialised inequality, poverty, and post-apartheid transitions. The findings reveal complex, often contradictory performances of care, ethical self-fashioning, and relational identity, which challenge monolithic constructions of Black boyhood. By centreing boys as co-constructors of knowledge, the article contributes to gender-transformative youth scholarship in the Global South and calls for more nuanced, youth-led approaches to studying masculinities.
This article explores how embodied power manifests in the lives of ageing men working in managerial professions. Building on critical studies on men and masculinities, we examine how power within gender and organisational hierarchies is lived and embodied by men whose careers took shape in the Czech Republic during the transition from state socialism towards neoliberalism. Based on 13 in-depth interviews, this study demonstrates that although these men frequently achieved success, they also faced substantial physical and mental health crises associated with embodied power, understood as the compulsive and normative drive to control diverse aspects of their lives. Moments of collapse sometimes prompted reflection and gradual shifts towards self-/care and boundary-setting. Yet participants framed these changes as individual lifestyle choices, rarely accompanied by a critique of the hierarchies that had both catalysed their crises and enabled their success. We argue that power not only affects those in less powerful or marginalised positions but also undermines the health of those who wield it. Ageing thus emerges as both a site of vulnerability and a potential space for redefining masculinity, provided such shifts are personally reflected and analytically situated within broader structural critique.
This article investigates how male property owners in flood-affected regions of Denmark respond to increasing climate change-related extreme flood events. Drawing on 39 qualitative interviews with walk-along elements, it explores how gendered flood risk management practices shape men's ways of imagining climate change. Findings show that men were expected to assume primary roles as protectors against floods, emphasizing technical competence, localized solutions, and emotional restraint. The article connects this to another widespread tendency toward discursive and emotional distancing from broader climate concerns. Contrary to assumptions that direct experience with extreme weather fosters climate engagement, most participants maintained sceptical or emotionally distanced views. However, the study also finds signs of men's flood responses unsettling system-stabilising norms of stoicism and techno-optimistic imaginaries, revealing tensions between lived experiences of floods and dominant narratives of control and climate resilience. The article illuminates how ecomodern masculinity as a Global North discourse is both reinforced and challenged through the gendered practices of the flood-affected men. The study argues that addressing climate inaction in high-emission societies requires not only improved policy and communication but also critical engagement with gendered emotional norms that are shaping climate futures. This includes the often 'unmarked' forms of Nordic middle-class hybrid masculinity that underpin climate adaptation practices and sustain dominant imaginaries of control and continuity.
This paper examines the concept of green fathering, addressing a gap in research on how the climate crisis influences men's views on fatherhood and fathering practices. Based on a qualitative study of fathers who live in Danish eco-villages, we explore their concerns, aspirations and commitments to raising children 'the green way'. Drawing on theories of alternative hedonism and ecological masculinity, we analyse how green fathering is constituted, motivated and practiced across five interrelated dimensions. First, it is shaped through a redefinition of 'the good life' grounded in alternative hedonism; second, through a future-oriented ethic of care that emphasises the cultivation of ecological virtues in children; third, through linking visions of 'the good, green childhood' to nature, freedom, and autonomy; fourth, through a deep commitment to care and community; and fifth, through challenging dominant masculinity scripts and advocating for men's emotional and ecological accountability. We discuss how green fathering represents a critical, transformative approach, that is distinctive in these father's concern to give priority to new modes of thinking about personal as well as paternal fulfilment in order to promote positive social change for both current and future generations.
The entanglement of hegemonic masculinities with the exploitation/consumption of nonhuman animals is substantially contributing to, and presents a significant barrier to addressing, overlapping ecological crises. A just transition beyond the (m)Anthropocene is therefore reliant on egalitarian/ecological masculine transformation that is inclusive of a reorientation of (hu)Man-animal relations. Drawing on Life History interviews with self-identifying vegan activist men, this article explores whether the vegan activist movement in the United Kingdom provides a site for such masculine ecologisation. I argue that involvement in the vegan activist movement can act as a transformative moment in the way men perform masculinities, towards an ethic of care for nonhuman animals and marginalised humans. However, the article will show that the movement can simultaneously reinforce hegemonic masculinities, stemming from a lack of intersectional/feminist awareness among some men/organisations. I argue that when such hegemonic masculinities go unchallenged, due at least in part to organisational inequality regimes, both the movement's effectiveness and transformative potential are reduced.
Over the past two decades, the MenEngage Alliance, active in 92 countries, has played a key role in advancing gender-transformative work with men and boys. The Alliance has mobilised diverse individuals across sectors and regions to build a community of practice dedicated to engaging men and boys for gender justice across intersecting issues, including climate change. This is the focus of the MenEngage Climate Justice Working Group, amidst growing recognition that environmental crises are gendered - not only in their disproportionate impacts on women and other marginalised groups, but in men's contributions and responses to them. This paper is founded upon reflections from the Working Group, who conducted 15 interviews with MenEngage members working for environmental and gender justice worldwide. These interviews provided insights into how practitioners became involved in this field, engage boys and men in change, hold men in positions of power to account, and face challenges in their work, including patriarchal backlash and gaps between policy and practice. The paper highlights the tensions of male allyship for gender and climate justice, arguing that men need to simultaneously recognise their roles and responsibilities as allies, beneficiaries, and agents of change, who work towards systemic as well as personal transformations.
In some digital spaces inhabited by men, hatred and ridicule are directed towards out-groups, such as women, feminists, and the left, while the victimhood of white cisgender heterosexual men is emphasized. This dynamic has also shifted to discussions about food: digital spaces focusing on meat attract men, some of whom defend meat consumption as a waning cultural form threatened by veganism and associated intersectional groups. Yet, the perceptions of men who create meat-centered digital spaces and content have remained underexplored. Drawing on interviews with 11 Finnish men who create content on meat or hunting on social media, this article explores their affective meaning-making around content creation, its intended goals, and its reception. In their narratives, undisturbed digital spaces that enable the sharing of knowledge and pleasures related to meat and hunting were accompanied by a promise of happiness. Male influencers engaged in respectability politics by providing visibility for ecological and ethical meat production. Concurrently, they mobilized ridicule, anger, and victimhood towards commenters who introduced identity-political oppositions into their content or attacked the consumption of meat, as these comments threatened both the central role of meat within the ingroup and its potential respectability among outgroups.
