This article interrogates the concept of “political masculinities” in terms of its usefulness as an analytical category. The article covers four major areas associated with the concept. First, some critical questions concerning the dichotomy between studying “men in politics” and “political masculinities” are offered. Second, concerns are raised regarding specific terms used in the current definition of political masculinities. Third, probing queries are presented on the conceptual utility of political masculinities as an analytical category. Finally, the article closes with a discussion of ex-US President Donald Trump, illustrating his distinct type of dominating masculinity and how this masculinity illuminates the substance and meaning of his “politics.”

The rise of second-wave feminism – originating in the 1960s – challenged this masculinist nature of criminology by illuminating the patterns of gendered power that had been all but ignored. As a result of feminism, not only is the importance of gender to understanding crime more broadly acknowledged but it has also led to the critical study of masculinity and crime. The major theoretical perspective in this endeavour is James W. Messerschmidt's structured-action theory. Arguably, hegemonic masculinities have no meaning outside their relationship to femininity – and non-hegemonic masculinities – or to those forms of femininity that are practised in a complementary, compliant and accommodating subordinate relationship with hegemonic masculinity. Structured-action theory is not without its critics, who centre their criticisms primarily on the concept of hegemonic masculinity. Jefferson suggests that, when applied to crime, hegemonic masculinity results in a narrow view of true masculinity as a wholly negative set of personal attributes.

The concept of hegemonic masculinity maintains a distinctive status within the social sciences and humanities. Yet there never has been an examination of Connell’s changing conceptualizationof the term throughout her scholarship, and specifically when and why she integrated ‘legitimation’ into her definition of hegemonic masculinity. The authors address this oversight by providing a detailed retrospective on the concept from its embryonic conceptualizations to its eventual reformulation. Within this historical assessment, the authors further consider Connell’s broader feminist theory of gender and how legitimation of the hegemonic masculinity/emphasized femininity relationship is central to that theory. The concepts of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity and the theory in which they areembedded developed in tandem over time. The paper emphasizes that during this dual development, legitimation of unequal gender relations became the theoretical linchpin for conceptualizing hegemonic masculinity and eventually its relationship to emphasized femininity as a part of Connell’s larger gender theory. The paper also demonstrates that over time Connell progressively changed the meaning of hegemonic masculinity in significant ways and concludes with a discussion of recent ‘legitimation processes’ that have appeared in the literature, and how each contributes unique ways of conceptualizing the legitimation of unequal gender relations.

Contemporary theoretical tools in the social sciences and humanities hinder an understanding of the dynamic interplay between reflexivity and routine in the formation of sex, gender, and sexual identities. In A Kaleidoscope of Identities, James W. Messerschmidt and Tristan Bridges build on the work of feminist sociologists in examining the relationship among situational interaction, accountability, and relational and discursive social structures to uniquely conceptualize sex, gender, and sexual practice as both reflexive and routine. Drawing on nuanced and powerful life-history interviews, Messerschmidt and Bridges present a new theoretical framework situating reflexivity and routine in a much more symbiotic relationship than has been previously acknowledged. Without privileging either, Messerschmidt and Bridges explore this relationship through a novel analysis of the ways reflexivity and routine collaboratively shape sex, gender, and sexual identities over time and across space. A Kaleidoscope of Identities provides a fresh, accessible, and provocative argument advancing our knowledge on the changing nature of sex, gender, and sexual identity formations alongside transforming systems of power and inequality.

Contemporary theoretical tools in the social sciences and humanities hinder an understanding of the dynamic interplay between reflexivity and routine in the formation of sex, gender, and sexual identities. In A Kaleidoscope of Identities, James W. Messerschmidt and Tristan Bridges build on the work of feminist sociologists in examining the relationship among situational interaction, accountability, and relational and discursive social structures to uniquely conceptualize sex, gender, and sexual practice as both reflexive and routine. Drawing on nuanced and powerful life-history interviews, Messerschmidt and Bridges present a new theoretical framework situating reflexivity and routine in a much more symbiotic relationship than has been previously acknowledged. Without privileging either, Messerschmidt and Bridges explore this relationship through a novel analysis of the ways reflexivity and routine collaboratively shape sex, gender, and sexual identities over time and across space. A Kaleidoscope of Identities provides a fresh, accessible, and provocative argument advancing our knowledge on the changing nature of sex, gender, and sexual identity formations alongside transforming systems of power and inequality.

El concepto de masculinidad hegemónica ha influenciado los estudios de género en varios campos académicos, pero también ha generado serias críticas. Les autores rastrean el origen del concepto en una convergencia de ideas de principios de la década de 1980, y mapean su aplicación cuando se expandió la investigación sobre hombres y masculinidades. Al evaluar las principales críticas, les autores defienden el concepto subyacente de masculinidad, que en la mayoría de las investigaciones no se utiliza de forma reificante ni esencialista. Sin embargo, las críticas sobre los modelos de rasgos de género y las tipologías rígidas han tenido mucho eco. El abordaje del tema en la investigación sobre masculinidad hegemónica puede ser mejorado con la ayuda de recientes modelos psicológicos, aunque deben reconocerse límites a la flexibilidad discursiva. El concepto de masculinidad hegemónica no equivale a un modelo de reproducción social; se debe reconocer los conflictos sociales en los que las masculinidades subordinadas influencian a las formas dominantes. Finalmente, les autores revisan lo que ha sido confirmado desde las primeras formulaciones (la idea de múltiples masculinidades, el concepto de hegemonía, y el énfasis en el cambio) y lo que debe ser descartado (el tratamiento unidimensional de la jerarquía y el modelo de rasgos de género). Les autores sugieren reformular el concepto en cuatro dimensiones: complejizar el modelo de jerarquía de género, enfatizando la agencia de las mujeres; reconocer explícitamente la geografía de las masculinidades, enfatizando la interrelación entre los niveles locales, regionales y globales; un tratamiento más específico de la encarnación en contextos de privilegio y poder; y un mayor énfasis en las dinámicas de la masculinidad hegemónica, reconociendo las contradicciones internas y los posibles avances hacia la democracia de género.

This article discusses US president, Donald J. Trump and what the author labels his "dominating masculine necropolitics". Dominating masculinity involves commanding and controlling specific interactions, and exercising power and control over people and events-"calling the shots" and "running the show". Differing from hegemonic masculinities, dominating masculinities do not necessarily legitimate a hierarchical relationship between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and among masculinities. In that sense, then, dominating masculinities are often, but not always, analytically distinct from hegemonic masculinities. Trump's specific form of dominating masculinity involved commanding and controlling specific interactions, and exercising power and control over people and events;he called the shots and ran the show, demanded strict obedience to his authority, and displayed a lack of concern for the opinions of others. Throughout Trump's presidency, this dominating masculinity centered on several critical features, which were emphasized or de-emphasized depending upon the context. The arrival and spread of Covid-19 around the world provided a new and dangerous context within which Trump's dominating masculinity has been increasingly constructed through novel necropolitical practices. Although Trump's medical experts continued to advocate for mitigation in order to minimize the spread of the virus, Trump unwaveringly stayed on message by continually downplaying the danger of the virus. Trump's dominating masculine necropolitics especially involved flouting guidelines for mask wearing. The culprit for the staggering spread of Covid-19 and premature death within the United States is Trump and his dominating masculine necropolitical discourse and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

This chapter provides a critical focus on the relationship between masculinities and widespread forms of interpersonal violence. The chapter begins by discussing the contribution of second wave feminist criminology in securing disciplinary attention to the study of gender and its relation to crime, and how the growth and maturation of theory and research on specific masculinities and crime followed logically from this feminist work. As part of this development, examination of masculine perpetrated violence initially commenced with Messerschmidt’s (1993) influential account of masculinities and crime in his book of the same name, and was further expanded through a range of historical and contemporary criminological studies on masculinities and interpersonal violence. The authors discuss the origins and history of critical masculinities theory, its relation to social understandings of interpersonal violence, and how these have shaped criminological research interest and findings. Masculinities are linked intricately with struggles for social power that occur between men and women and among different men, but they vary and intersect importantly with other dimensions of inequality. The authors utilise this conception of masculinities to discuss research on various forms of interpersonal violence, from men’s physical and sexual violence against girls and women, attacks on sexual minorities, violence between/among boys and men, and to the ambiguities of gender, sexualities, and violence by girls, women and men.

Recent feminist scholarship on femininities favorably incorporates into research notions of what Raewyn Connell (1987) labeled "emphasized femininity," yet some scholars have concentrated on "hegemonic femininities," either conceptualizing hegemonic femininities in relation to hegemonic masculinities, or casting hegemonic femininity as a free-standing, non-relational concept that can only properly be understood through an intersectional analysis. In this article, I critically reflect on two representative articles on hegemonic femininities, authored by Carrie Paechter (2018) and Laura T. Hamilton et al. (2019). I first argue that both papers misrepresent the work of Connell. Following that, I augment the two articles through a delineation of recent research on various types of femininities, especially scholarship on emphasized femininities and "dominant femininities." I conclude the paper by examining how further scholarly work has enlarged upon and contributed new insight to the relationship among femininities, hegemonic masculinities, and intersectionality.

In this article the author builds on the arguments articulated by Raewyn Connell in her seminal work The Men and the Boys (2000) by summarizing and analyzing a case study of an adolescent boy who was identified at school as a "wimp" and who eventually engaged in sexual violence. Such subordinated boys rarely are-if at all-discussed in childhood education, sociology, and feminist literatures on violence. The synopsis reveals the interrelationship among in-school bullying, reflexivity, embodiment, and the social construction of dominant and hegemonic masculinities through the commission of adolescent sexual violence. The analysis demonstrates the continued relevance of Connell's work, and the author builds on and expands on Connell's formulation through, in particular, an examination of reflexivity, dominant masculinities, different types of hegemonic masculinities, and intersectionality.

In this article the author builds on the arguments articulated by Raewyn Connell in her seminal work The Men and the Boys (2000) by summarizing and analyzing a case study of an adolescent boy who was identified at school as a “wimp” and who eventually engaged in sexual violence. Such subordinated boys rarely are—if at all—discussed in childhood education, sociology, and feminist literatures on violence. The synopsis reveals the interrelationship among in-school bullying, reflexivity, embodiment, and the social construction of dominant and hegemonic masculinities through the commission of adolescent sexual violence. The analysis demonstrates the continued relevance of Connell’s work, and the author builds on and expands on Connell’s formulation through, in particular, an examination of reflexivity, dominant masculinities, different types of hegemonic masculinities, and intersectionality.

This article argues that the concept of “hegemonic masculinity” remains highly salient to critical masculinities studies. The author outlines Raewyn Connell's initial formulation of the concept, how that initial model of hegemonic masculinity has been historically misinterpreted, the reformulation of the concept by Connell and Messerschmidt, and the recent scholarly amplification of the concept. The author concludes that Connell’s original emphasis on the legitimation of unequal gender relations remains essential to both the concept and to the field of critical masculinities studies.

Feminist sociologist Joan Acker is most commonly cited as one of the first to theorize how gender gets institutionalized in organizations and workplaces. But this project was actually an application of a more general theoretical turn in the field Acker was promoting. Acker was centrally involved in an important feminist sociological conversation about whether we should continue to theorize and study 'patriarchy' or whether our focus should shift to 'gender'. She argued for the latter and played an influential role in convincing the field to follow this suggestion.

This article examines for the first time the jihadist global hegemonic masculinity of Osama bin Laden. Based on Bin Laden’s public statements translated into English, the authors examine how in the process of constructing a rationale for violent attacks primarily against the United States, he simultaneously and discursively formulates a jihadist global hegemonic masculinity. The research adds to the growing interest in discursive global hegemonic masculinities, as well as jihadist masculinities in the Middle East, by scrutinizing how Bin Laden’s jihadist global hegemonic masculinity is produced in and through his public statements. The authors close their discussion by demonstrating how Bin Laden’s discursive practices are embedded in a clash of competing global hegemonic masculinities on the world stage.