The Ambiguous Construction of Nondominant Masculinity: Configuring the “New” Man through Narratives of Choice, Involved Fatherhood, and Gender Equality

Abstract

This article explores the development of gender equality-oriented (heterosexual) masculinity discussing the challenges of constructing nondominant masculine identities in the context of the Danish welfare state. Combining narrative methods with the theoretical framework of masculinity as cultural repertoire, the article offers a qualitative study examining how three Danish men construct (gender) identity in relation to being the partners of career-oriented and high-achieving women. Analyzing the men’s narrative negotiations of power, gender, and self, the article identifies three central narratives produced by the men to render themselves and their family arrangements intelligible and desirable. Considering how the narratives of (1) choice, (2) involved fatherhood, and (3) gender equality work as strategies to negotiate and reconstruct the meaning of compliance and autonomy, I delineate and discuss how traditional notions of what it means to be a man are simultaneously preserved and destabilized. Thus, the article demonstrates that, while nurturing practices and the loss of traditional male breadwinner authority can be positively reconstituted within the Nordic ideals of intensive parenting and gender equality, a fear of male subordination still seems to affect the construction of masculine selves even among gender equality–oriented “new” men.

Masculinizing Care? Gender, Ethics of Care, and Fathers’ Rights Groups

“…However, they also reinscribed masculinity through their emphasis on their autonomy, decision-making, and ability to choose their work/life patterns according to their preferences in ways which tally with hegemonic masculinity and fail to challenge gendered power relations. Other studies have shown similar continuities with hegemonic constructions of masculinized identity in men's emphasis on choice, freedom, selfreliance, and control in relation to themselves as involved fathers (Bach 2017;Bjørnholt 2014;Farstad and Stefansen 2015). Swedish research, for example, suggests some (middle-class 8 ) fathers reconcile involved fathering with their masculinity by situating their decision to undertake childcare as an act of agency rather than as externally dictated (Björk 2013).…”

“…In addition, in parallel with aspects of the (R)F4J case, there is more research evidence of the partial remasculinization of care. Men sometimes make their masculine identities intelligible by drawing on essentialist ideas of gendered differences in which women and men perform feminine/masculine aspects of carework and of mothering/fathering (Bach 2017;Björk 2013Björk , 2015. In doing so, they reassert gendered, heteronormative ideals of complementarity.…”

Parental mental health conditions and use of healthcare services in children the first year of life – a register-based, nationwide study

“…These consequences include the increased use of healthcare services [1,2,11,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Although it is generally acknowledged that both fathers and mothers in uence their children's health and lives [12][13][14][15][16], the father's role has rarely been examined. In most studies of child healthcare, the father's mental health are not included at all [1,3,6,7,[9][10][11].…”

Unruly bodies and dangerous spaces: Masculinity and the geography of ‘dreadful enclosures’

“…Downsizing and de-skilling as a result of technological innovations has meant that men in non-manual professions have also been casualties of advanced capitalism's various upheavals. There are numerous studies that consider how professional males act out masculine ideals around breadwinning and family in the light of corporate layoffs and career changes (Alvesson and Due Billing 1997;Bach 2017;Borras Catala et al 2012). However, less scholarly attention has centred on middle-class men than on working-class men as a whole.…”