`Wham Bam, am I a Man?': Unemployed Men Talk about Masculinities

Willott, Sara; Griffin, Christine

doi:10.1177/0959353597071012

Cited by 113 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…It can also be taken up by boys who have little choice: those who inhabit bodies and dispositions that are so distant from the physically powerful masculine subject that they cannot recognise themselves (nor can they be recognised by others) as that particular version of the subject 'boy'. But for many working-class boys, the triumphant sportsman is a powerfully attractive emblem of how they could come to access the fortune, fame and power held out to them as possibilities by the football business and other gendered apparatuses of twenty-first-century consumer capitalism (Willott & Griffin, 1997;Kenway & Bullen, 2001).…”

Section: Consuming Competition: Gender Physical Education and Culturmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

Schreer

Nind

Hall

et al. 2003

British Journal of Sociology of Education

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Section: Consuming Competition: Gender Physical Education and Culturmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

Schreer

Nind

Hall

et al. 2003

British Journal of Sociology of Education

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“…There is, therefore, a lack of specification on how hegemonic masculinity might The ambiguities are compounded by the relative absence of detailed empirical research on masculine styles (although see Edley and Wetherell, 1997;in press;Gough, 1998;Willott and Griffin, 1997). Connell's (1995) own work on life history is mainly concerned with categorising groups of men into types dependent on their shared collective positioning in relation to gendered practices.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: Imaginary Positions and Psycho-Discursive Practices

Wetherell

Edley

1999

Feminism & Psychology

723

689

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In this paper we provide a critical analysis of the concept of hegemonic masculinity.We argue that although this concept embodies important theoretical insights, it is insufficiently developed as it stands to enable us to understand how men position themselves as gendered beings. In particular it offers a vague and imprecise account of the social psychological reproduction of male identities. We outline an alternative critical discursive psychology of masculinity. Drawing on data from interviews with a sample of men from a range of ages and from diverse occupational backgrounds, we delineate three distinctive, yet related, procedures or psycho-discursive practices, through which men construct themselves as masculine. The political implications of these discursive practices, as well as the broader implications of treating the psychological process of identification as form of discursive accomplishment, are also discussed.KEYWORDS: male identity, hegemonic masculinity, identification, gender categories, the imaginary, discourse analysis, discursive practice, discursive psychology. 3This paper focuses on the discursive strategies involved in negotiating membership of gender categories. Specifically, we are interested in how men position themselves in relation to conventional notions of the masculine. How do men take on the social identity of 'being a man' as they talk, and what are the implications of the typical discursive paths they follow? We concentrate on responses to interview questions such as "Would you describe yourself as a masculine man?" and "Are there moments in everyday life when you feel more masculine than at other times?", and on men's responses to magazine photographs of possible role models. To help make sense of these moments of self-assessment and identification, we introduce notions of 'imaginary positions' and 'psycho-discursive practices' and initiate a dialogue with the feminist sociology of masculinity developed by Robert Connell and his colleagues (Carrigan et al., 1985;Connell, 1987;.According to Connell, the task of 'being a man' involves taking on and negotiating 'hegemonic masculinity'. Men's identity strategies are constituted through their complicit or resistant stance to prescribed dominant masculine styles. Connell's (1987) analysis of this process of identification is an anti-essentialist one. He argues that masculine characters are not given. Rather, a range of possible styles and personae emerge from the gender regimes found in different cultures and historical periods. Among the possible variety of ways of being masculine, however, some become 'winning styles' and it is these with which men must engage.Connell's conception of hegemony draws on Gramsci's (1971) 4Connell's formulation of hegemonic masculinity and men's complicity or resistance has a number of advantages. First, this approach allows for diversity. Masculine identities can be studied in the plural rather than in the singular. Second, this is an analysis deeply attentive to the problematic of gender power....

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“…Frey & Carns, 1988); racism at school and work (Hughes & DuMont, 1993); poverty (e.g. George, 1996;Jarrett, 1994); social class (Walkerdine, 1996); and unemployment (Willott & Griffin, 1997). 9.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Focus Groups in Health Research

1998

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Focus group method is becoming increasingly popular among qualitative researchers. After introducing focus group method and briefly overviewing its use in health research, this article shows that the distinctive (and under-used) feature of focus group method is its generation of interactive data. Illustrating my argument with examples from healthrelated focus group research (including my own data on breast cancer), I argue that this feature makes focus groups an ideal method for gaining access to research participants' own meanings. Interactive data result in enhanced disclosure, improved access to participants' own language and concepts, better understanding of participants' own agendas, the production of more elaborated accounts, and the opportunity to observe the co-construction of meaning in action. Focus groups are, then, an ideal method for exploring people's own meanings and understandings of health and illness.

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`Wham Bam, am I a Man?': Unemployed Men Talk about Masculinities

Cited by 113 publications

References 12 publications

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

Moments of Inclusion and Exclusion: pupils negotiating classroom contexts

Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity: Imaginary Positions and Psycho-Discursive Practices

Focus Groups in Health Research

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