Hybrid Masculinities: New Directions in the Sociology of Men and Masculinities

Abstract

Hybrid masculinity refers to men's selective incorporation of performances and identity elements associated with marginalized and subordinated masculinities and femininities. We use recent theorization of hybrid masculinities to critically review theory and research that seeks to make sense of contemporary transformations in masculinity. We suggest that research broadly supports three distinct consequences associated with recent changes in performances and politics of masculinity that work to obscure the tenacity of gendered inequality. Hybrid masculinities (i) symbolically distance men from hegemonic masculinity; (ii) situate the masculinities available to young, White, heterosexual men as somehow less meaningful than the masculinities associated with various marginalized and subordinated Others; and (iii) fortify existing social and symbolic boundaries in ways that often work to conceal systems of power and inequality in historically new ways.Hybrid Masculinities 247

Full Issue

“…Feminist scholars studying anti-Trumpist movements warn that when we engage in resistance we need to be careful about what it looks like (Barber, 2017). They point out that perhaps unwittingly pro-feminist activism can actually reinscribe some of the problematic social order it seems to be critiquing, as is the case with some men's movements against gender based violence (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014;Pascoe & Hollander, 2016). Gendered "resistance…is fraught with danger…sometimes it challenges the gender order and sometimes it seems to bolster it" (Pascoe, 2007, p. 15).…”

“…Similarly, participants in men's Walk a Mile in Her Shoes marches, as Tristan Bridges' research demonstrates, mock femininity even while advocating an end to gender-based violence (Bridges, 2010). Campaigns like this discursively separate "good" men who support gender equality from "bad" men who oppose it (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). This framing also symbolically purifies men participating in these movementsrendering them in the words of the Gaurdian, "decent men."…”

“…The My Strength is Not For Hurting anti-sexual assault campaign aimed at men, for example, encourages men to use their (presumed) strength for good (Masters, 2010;Murphy, 2009). This campaign aligns non-rapist men with a good masculinity through framing "real" and "strong" men as fundamentally different from (presumably weak and unmanly) rapists (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). The recent "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" campaign sought to shame men into not participating in sex trafficking.…”

“…President Trump, in casting immigrant men of color as rapists, exploits the gendered flexibility of identity afforded privileged groups (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). He "moblizes rape" distancing himself from his own sexually predatory behavior by projecting it on to other, less masucline men Hollander, 2016).…”

The appropriation of hegemonic masculinity within selected research on men's health

“…A further hope is that by highlighting specific examples of the need to appraise the relevance and adequacy of HMT as a conceptual frame of lived experiences, we might encourage researchers to access the multitude of different theoretical positions that might speak to the lives of men. For example, Atkinson's (2011, Matthews, 2014) discussion of pastiche hegemony, MacInnes' (1998) problematisation of the masculinity concept, Anderson's (2009) inclusive masculinity andArxer (2011) and Bridges and Pascoe's (2014) hybrid masculinities might all feature as prominent components within literature reviews for those wishing to explore the contemporary lives of men. In this way, I agree with Sparks (1992, pp.…”