Miscellaneous

Matt Stewart posits some strategies to address Australia's disturbing record in this area.

A right to good health? Men's health or men's rights? Ben Wadham talks about the focus on men's health rights in the emerging men's health discourse.

Issues of justice and accountability are central to the development of men's health policy and practice. Steve Golding puts men's health into context and calls for partnership with women's health, spelling out the key features for men's health policy.

Note that a PDF version of the article is available below.

Men's health problems are not to do with being powerless or being discriminated against. Murray Couch uses the Proudfoot case to show that the real problem in men's health is men's power and masculinity.

Breaking the barriers to desire: Polyamory, polyfidelity and non-monogamy - new approaches to multiple relationships

Edited by Kevin Lano and Claire Parry

Five Leaves Publications, 1995.

Australian author Stephen Biddulph has written a best-selling book about men but Gerry Orkin believes that Manhood misses the mark.

Men can be a ‘problem’ for women’s studies in at least three ways: as objects of feminist scholarship, as students of feminist scholarship, and as agents of this scholarship. First, studying men is an established and desirable aspect of feminist research. But to what extent does the emergent literature on men and masculinities extend or undermine the insights of feminist theory? Second, what issues does male students’ participation in Women’s Studies classes raise for feminist pedagogy? Third, can men themselves produce and teach feminist theory? While “Men’s Studies” has failed to engage with the complexities of feminism, I argue that men can develop pro-feminist or anti-patriarchal knowledges. I explore these issues with reference to my qualitative research on young heterosexual men’s understandings and practices of safe and unsafe sex, and my experience as a student and teacher in Women’s Studies.

In this chapter, I argue first that the term “masculinity” is used in diverse and contradictory ways. I note three problems in these applications of “masculinity”: a slippage from norms concerning or discourses about men to the practices and relations of actual men, the reified representation of masculinity as a fixed character type, and difficulties in identifying multiple masculinities. Second, I argue that the designation “masculinity” and a related one, “hegemonic masculinity”, are employed to refer to cultural norms and ideals, powerful men and patriarchal authority, or both, and that such definitions are potentially at odds. Third, there are times when it is more useful to focus on men, men’s practices and relations. Finally, I acknowledge that neither category “masculinity” nor “men” can be taken as given, and I question the assumed link between masculinity and men.

Citation: Flood, M. “Between Men and Masculinity: An assessment of the term “masculinity” in recent scholarship on men.” Manning the Next Millennium: Studies in Masculinities. Ed. S. Pearce and V. Muller. Black Swan Press, 2002.