Precarious manhood beliefs portray manhood, relative to womanhood, as a social status that is hard to earn, easy to lose, and proven via public action. Here, we present cross-cultural data on a brief measure of precarious manhood beliefs (the Precarious Manhood Beliefs scale [PMB]) that covaries meaningfully with other cross-culturally validated gender ideologies and with country-level indices of gender equality and human development. Using data from university samples in 62 countries across 13 world regions ( N = 33,417), we demonstrate: (1) the psychometric isomorphism of the PMB (i.e., its comparability in meaning and statistical properties across the individual and country levels); (2) the PMB’s distinctness from, and associations with, ambivalent sexism and ambivalence toward men; and (3) associations of the PMB with nation-level gender equality and human development. Findings are discussed in terms of their statistical and theoretical implications for understanding widely-held beliefs about the precariousness of the male gender role.

Discussions about men’s victimization by their female intimate partners have gained increased visibility in the last two decades. These discussions put victim positions on offer for men that stand in stark contrast to more widespread associations between masculinity and perpetration of violence. This article examines how these contradictory positionings play out and are discursively negotiated in Finnish online discussions of female-inflicted intimate partner violence (IPV). Two recurring types of positioning of men were identified in the analysis: neglected victims and naturally superior perpetrators. The analysis illustrates how gendered differences between men and women in relation to violence are both reiterated and denied in the processes of enacting, balancing, and rhetorically employing these positionings. Thereby, light is shed on the multiplicity of complex and fluid ways in which masculinities are constructed and customized in the context of meaning-making surrounding the issue of IPV.

This article explores the ways in which lethal intimate partner violence perpetrated by both men and women is made sense of in news reports in Finnish tabloids. An analytical approach drawing upon critical discursive psychology, complemented with tools from membership categorization analysis, was adopted for distinguishing recurring patterns in accounting for violence and use of gendered categorizations in the news. Two recurring interpretative repertoires of violence were identified. The first constructs violence as originating from interactional or relationship problems, while the second relies upon characterizations of the perpetrators as pathological or deviant to explain violence. The analysis accords particular attention to the ways in which the ideal of gender-neutrality that is prevalent in Finnish society is drawn upon in these repertoires, 2 and how this ideal entwines with the circulation of gender-specific assumptions. The analysis also illustrates how categorizations often work in the reports to preserve the normality of men as perpetrators of lethal intimate partner violence while attaching deviance and moral questionability to women both as victim and as perpetrators, thus maintaining the taken-for-grantedness of gendered differences in relation to violence.

This article examines how Finnish tabloids portray women who have used violence. The aim is to look at the ways in which violence committed by women is made sense of in relation to culturally shared conceptions and expectations regarding the relations between gender categories and violence. The analysis of the data draws on sociosemiotics and distinguishes modalities as discursive devices that attach meanings and different levels of agency to violent action. By focusing on descriptions of women's violent agency, the analysis attempts to dissect the ways in which the identities of 'feminine women' and 'violent women' are dialectically constructed. A recurring theme in the positioning of women in the analysed news articles is the attachment of deceptiveness to them and their actions. Especially in the reporting of the most sensationalized cases, women as perpetrators of violence are often portrayed in the data as strong agents with an antisocial will to hurt others, and with the capacity to potentially escape being held responsible for their violence. These findings are discussed in relation to the Finnish cultural context and the prevalent discourses on gender, violence and equality in it.

Social role theory posits that binary gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in less egalitarian countries, reflecting these countries’ more pronounced sex-based power divisions. Conversely, evolutionary and self-construal theorists suggest that gender gaps in agency and communion should be larger in more egalitarian countries, reflecting the greater autonomy support and flexible self-construction processes present in these countries. Using data from 62 countries ( N = 28,640), we examine binary gender gaps in agentic and communal self-views as a function of country-level objective gender equality (the Global Gender Gap Index) and subjective distributions of social power (the Power Distance Index). Findings show that in more egalitarian countries, gender gaps in agency are smaller and gender gaps in communality are larger. These patterns are driven primarily by cross-country differences in men’s self-views and by the Power Distance Index (PDI) more robustly than the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). We consider possible causes and implications of these findings.

Men’s victimisation is a central topic in online discussions, particularly in the manosphere, where its emphasis is often combined with a strong anti-feminist stance. This article examines the interplay of affects and discourse in meaning-making around men’s victimisation both in online discussions and among social and crisis workers asked to comment upon meanings circulating online. By using the concept of affective-discursive practice, the analysis shows how this meaning-making reiterates socially shared interpretative repertoires and positionings that mobilise affects based on sympathy, anger and hate. Furthermore, the article demonstrates how the practitioners respond to these affective meanings by adopting positions of responsibility, while also redirecting and neutralising online affect. The article contributes to knowledge on the interaction between online and offline meaning-making around men’s victimisation, and to building an understanding of affects and discourse in seemingly moderate meaning-making around this topic that however resonates and links with the more extreme anti-feminism of the manosphere.

The article examines online discussions in Finland that focus on violence committed by Finnish women, on one hand, and non-white migrant men, on the other. Drawing on the perspective of sociology of value, the article illustrates how these discussions function as sites of struggles over moral worth in a contemporary context characterised by crises of both male and white hegemony. The authors suggest that, through the discussions, these current crises are projected on migrant men and certain groups of women, who thereby become construed as morally reprehensible. The analysis sheds light on processes of (re-)legitimating the moral virtue historically attached to both masculinity and whiteness, and thereby shows how gendered and racialised hierarchies are reproduced in the context of meaning-making around the issue of violence. Also discussed is how these dynamics and the process of reproduction via discourse draw upon historically recurring meanings and evaluations while simultaneously tailored to contemporary circumstances. The tailoring is performed via explicit reference to the value of gender equality, which serves a dual function: re-inscribing moral value in white masculinity while excluding from the circuits of value both racialised masculinities and Finnish women portrayed as doing gender and whiteness in the ‘wrong’ way. These processes give the discussants room for justifying hate and violent exclusion of such women and migrant men while also muting any dissenting voices attempting to resist circulation of the derogatory meanings.

In this article, I draw on arts-based approaches and new materialist affect theory in order to explore possibilities to attune research outputs to researcher vulnerability. These approaches and theorisations challenge conventional research practices geared toward creating distance between the researcher and their research, and work towards dissolving hierarchical distinctions between assumedly invulnerable researchers and vulnerable participants. In doing so, they pave the way for attuning research work to the complex interplay of difference and sameness as it unfolds and surfaces in the process of researching gendered vulnerabilities. By presenting a piece of poetic writing that engages with research encounters within a project on sexual harassment and young people, I tap into the troubled affect, the constant interplay of difference, shifting alignments, and ultimate entwinements between the researcher, the phenomenon of sexual harassment, and the research participants and other involved actors. Based on my inquiry, I propose attending to vulnerability through affect theory as an encompassing and dynamic state of being affected and affecting others, both in violent ways and in ways that aim to build solidarity and empathy.