Masculinity Politics, Myths and Boys' Schooling: A Review Essay

This essay reviews two recently published American books about masculinity politics—Michael Kimmel's pro-feminist Manhood in America and his edited collection The Politics of Manhood —in order to comment critically on the current debate underway in various parts of the world on 'boys' and their schooling which sees them as the 'new victims' of the educational process.     

‘Dangerous presumptions’: how single‐sex schooling reifies false notions of sex,gender, and sexuality

Due to the recent changes in federal regulations about gender equity in education in the USA, some policy makers have resurrected single‐sex public education. Because single‐sex schooling ignores the complexity of sex, gender, and sexuality, it sets up a ‘separate but equal’ system that is anything but. Discounting the ways in which gender is negotiated, constructed, and performed, and the variability of anatomical sex, current arguments for single‐sex schooling reify the false binaries of sex and gender, rely on assumptions of heteronormativity and, in turn, negate the existence of multiple sexes, genders, and sexual orientations.     

Working-class boys’ relationships with reading: contextual systems that support working-class boys’ engagement with,and enjoyment of,reading

Drawing on interviews with 15 boys attending schools in low socioeconomic communities in Australia, this paper examines the multiplicity of contextual influences on boys’ everyday reading experiences. Implementing an ecological metaphor, boys’ narratives about (i) their attitudes towards reading at school (microsystem); (ii) parental beliefs about reading (mesosystem); (iii) masculinities within low socioeconomic communities (exosystem), and; (iv) reading as socially valued knowledge (macrosystem) are explored. The paper illustrates the textured nature of immediate and broader influences on boys’ engagement with, and positioning of, reading. In particular, the paper challenges dominant discourses about working-class boys’ reading practices, contributing to research into literacy in-situ to make visible the immediate and broader contextual systems that influence the ways working-class boys engage with, and enjoy, reading.     

Should educators and parents encourage other-gender interactions? Gender segregation and sexism

We investigated gender differences in the association between gender-segregated peer preferences and sexism in adolescents (15–17 years, 60 boys and 85 girls). To assess gender-segregated peer preferences, adolescents nominated peers for interaction in two contexts: ‘hanging out’ at home and working on a school project. The Modern Sexism Scale [Swim, J. K., K. J. Aikin, W. S. Hall, and B. A. Hunter. 1995. “Sexism and Racism: Old-Fashioned and Modern Prejudices.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (2): 199–214] measured two dimensions of sexism: Antagonism towards Women's Demands (believing feminist issues are unimportant) and denial of continuing discrimination (believing gender discrimination no longer exists). For boys, Antagonism towards Women's Demands was associated with gender-segregated peer preferences in the school and home context. For girls, Denial of Continuing Discrimination was associated with gender-segregated peer preferences in the home context. Results are informative for educators and for other professionals interested in reducing inequality and sexism among adolescents.     

We don’t play with gays,they’re not real boys … they can’t fight: Hegemonic masculinity and (homophobic) violence in the primary years of schooling

Whenever masculinity and school violence are considered in South African research, the focus is often on the high school. In this paper, we consider a different direction by drawing on Connell’s (1995) concept of hegemonic masculinity to understand the workings of power and violence amongst a group of South African primary school boys. Little is known about how forces of hegemonic masculinity operate to shape every day gender relations amongst younger boys. Against this background, this paper focuses on a particular group of boys, between 10 and 13 years old, who attend a ‘black’, working-class primary school in South Africa. In addition, they identify themselves as ‘real boys’, where being a ‘real boy’ is inextricably linked to violent ‘performances’ of hegemonic masculinity on the school playground during break time. The paper explores how these boys use forms of violence to claim control of the playground space and to exclude, marginalise and denigrate the other group of boys whom they construct as ‘unmasculine’ and ‘gay’. The findings raise implications for ways of curbing the violence, such as working with the boys to promote non-violent interpretations of performing, being and becoming a ‘real boy’.     

Possibilities in the Boy Turn? Comparative Lessons from Australia and Iceland

Recognising that there is now a globalised educational discourse about “failing boys” circulating in the privileged nations of the global north, this article provides a comparative perspective on educational policy responses to the “boy turn” in Australia and Iceland. Specificities of the responses to the boy turn in the two societies offer interesting insights into this policy domain. For instance, Australian policy has been state‐centric with the media playing a significant role in backlash politics and with federal government funding interventions for boys, and Iceland was the only nation in which girls outperformed boys in all areas of mathematics in the PISA 2003 study. The article concludes by arguing the need for a renewed feminist and profeminist agenda to challenge dominant constructions of masculinity and for the establishment of a more equal gender order.     

‘Dicks are for chicks’: Latino boys,masculinity, and the abjection of homosexuality

Employing social constructivist theories and the concept of abjection from gender studies, this article examines how and why a group of low-income, USA-born Dominican and Puerto Rican middle-school boys constructed masculine identities by invoking and repudiating homosexuality. Ethnographic data from a 2.5-year study indicate that the abjection of homosexuality was a place of performativity wherein the boys utilised their bodies, cultural referents, and bilingualism to delineate masculinity, reiterate heteronormativity, and distance themselves from homosexuals, who they perceived as a threat to their sexuality, personal safety, and physical dominance. At school, the boys enacted a hypermasculine, heteronormative variant of their ethno-racial identities. As a result, their gender construction was heavily influenced by dominant gender practices present in their neighbourhoods and in segments of the broader US, Dominican, and Puerto Rican cultures. Together, these cultural influences shaped the gender regime within the boys' school peer group. This article concludes with a call for additional research examining the intersection of ethno-racial identity, sexuality, gender, and class.     

父权制下的两性生存困境——《伊坦·弗洛美》的女性主义解读

《伊坦·弗洛美》是美国女作家伊迪丝.华顿最著名的中篇小说之一,它描述了新英格兰乡村地区弗洛美一家的爱情悲剧故事。从女性主义视角出发进行分析可见,小说中的三个主要人物形象反映了父权制二元性别观及其构建的理想家庭对女性自我的戕害和男性发展的抑制,揭示了美国二十世纪之交的两性生存困境。     

Time to confront Willis’s lads with a ballet class? A case study of educational orthodoxy and white working‐class boys

This is a retrospective study tracing the longer term effects on identity and aspiration of white working‐class boys from an area of high social deprivation. The boys were members of an acclaimed boys’ dance company and have been retrospectively interviewed as young men in their twenties. Documentary and film material dating from the time they were 14 year olds and the film Billy Elliot were used in the interviews. A media discourse driven by a view of boys ‘in crisis’ that is blind to social class and the difficulties faced by some girls was uncovered. This is found to pervade the entire Billy Elliot discourse, which focused on the sensation of a boy performing ballet rather than on the class background and historical context of the miners’ dispute. The paper questions the discourse of laddishness and the social identity that is attached to the term ‘lad’.     

‘We're the mature people': a study of masculine subjectivity and its relationship to key stage four Religious Studies

Critical theory and research has shown that subjects carry gendered meanings. Numbers opting for Religious Studies (RS) have remained skewed towards girls. Drawing from post-structuralism and masculinities theory, this article critically analyses data from interviews with a group of key stage four boys who had opted for Religious Studies in contrast to the majority of their male peers. Interview data demonstrate that these boys were able to use Religious Studies as a discursive resource, constituting themselves as emergent critical ethical subjects and developing their own relationship to existential questions of meaning and purpose. The boys demonstrated reflexive self awareness as they were also able to negotiate socially successful identities through their relationship to the dominant masculinising forces of sport, physicality and authority and engage with Religious Studies. This article concludes that subjects such as Religious Studies which create spaces for criticality also act to create masculine subjectivities outside of restrictive gendered norms.     

Feminist struggles to mobilise progressive spaces within the ‘boy‐turn’ in gender equity and schooling reform

This article presents the stories of two Australian feminist educators, ‘Kath’ and ‘Kim’. Drawn from a small‐scale interview‐based study, the stories highlight these women’s struggles to mobilise progressive spaces within the current boy‐focused equity and schooling agenda. Such struggles are located within the new possibilities for feminist intervention enabled by current educational trends in Australia. The stories focus on Kath and Kim’s experiences leading the professional development of teachers from several schools in Queensland (Australia) as part of the $19.4 million national initiative, Success for Boys. The article draws on feminist understandings of ‘progressive’ spaces and highlights the requisite conditions necessary for mobilising such spaces. In particular, Kath and Kim’s stories bring to light the powerful role emotions continue to play in both enabling and constraining gender reform and the continued significance of attending to, and working with, such emotions to enhance the pursuit of gender justice in schools.