Regenerating Masculinity in the Construction of Hindu Nationalist Identity: A Case Study of Shiv Sena

With the help of a case study of the Hindu nationalist party, Shiv Sena, I show that there is a strong connection between the Hindu nationalist discourse of Shiv Sena and masculinity. I demonstrate that Shiv Sena's Hindu nationalist rhetoric deals with a perceived threat to masculinity. I argue that Shiv Sena's rhetoric seeks to recover manhood by constructing nationalism from a masculine perspective. Although this is a single case study of the Shiv Sena party, the results of this study are consistent with the larger literature on nationalist identity and gender.     

The Erotic Gaze in the NFL Draft

The National Football League (NFL) draft is an annual meeting where professional teams claim contract rights to college players. It has recently become a major media event, previewed extensively by scores of magazines, newspapers, and websites, and televised in its seventeen-hour entirety by ESPN. A critical reading of these discourses finds frequent expressions of desire for the bodies of draft prospects. The paper situates this homoerotic commentary in the historical context of American white supremacy in order to explain why the mostly black prospects are available for this kind of perusal and assessment, especially given the taboos against homosexual desire that suffuse the culture of elite football; while explaining how such practices affirm inter-male dominance based on a hierarchy of race by deploying the patriarchal strategies of the male gaze.     

The Politics of NASCAR Dads: Branded Media Paternity

The figure of the NASCAR dad emerged in the 2002 and 2004 campaign seasons to signal the importance of white, male Southern voters to politicians and their political parties. Analysis of television news coverage of NASCAR dads shows that it privileges patriarchal masculinity, the Republican Party, and corporate consumerism—all of which were propelled to high visibility by the NASCAR Corporation's place in these stories. Television news produces NASCAR dads as an “emotional brand,” a population of citizen-consumers representing the appropriation of patriotism, Christianity, and fatherhood, deployed in a politically conservative fashion.     

Gender,Rhetoric, and International Political Systems: Angela Merkel's Rhetorical Negotiation of Proportional Representation and Party Politics

This article assesses the ways in which electoral systems present unique rhetorical challenges for women running for elective office, using German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a case study. In proportional systems, much of the rhetorical work occurs at the level of the party, requiring the political woman to capitalize on the rhetorical resources of the party structure in which she finds herself, advancing to party leadership, and eventually localizing the national election via the party structure. However, Merkel's performance demonstrates that the presence of women and of feminine norms of communication can sometimes mask the hegemonic masculinity that continues to govern democratic electoral systems. The authors conclude by considering the utility of the theory of “feminine style.”     

Elder men’s bromance in Asian lands: normative Western masculinity in Better Late than Never

Better Late than Never is a remake of a Korean reality T.V. travel show, which aired on N.B.C. in August 2016. The show’s premise features four elder celebrity men – Henry Winkler, William Shatner, Terry Bradshaw, and George Foreman – with their mid-30s companion Jeff Dye as they travel through the “exotic” lands of East Asia. Through the use of two popular narrative tropes, the bromance and the Western journey for self-discovery in Asia, the show argues that the interaction with the Asian other is beneficial primarily in masculine self-discovery and masculine homosocial bonding. Borrowing from Steeves’s use of the hybrid encounter, I argue that B.L.T.N. positions the strange Asian other as valuable only as a reference for becoming reacquainted with the U.S. American self and emotionally connected to his fraternal companions. Thus, B.L.T.N. rejects hybridity and reinforces U.S. American masculinity through the reification of ideologically preferred contact with the other that is shallow and that benefits the Western traveler.     

“I Am Who I Am”: Black Masculinity and the Interpretation of Individualism in the Film Barbershop

This essay will provide further insight into how Black audiences interpret a popular culture text by focusing upon how a group of young black men construct Black masculinity as depicted in the film Barbershop. Interestingly, a rhetorical community of young Black men discussed the representations of the characters in the film from a perspective of Black individualism rather than reaffirming identity through a collective orientation toward the culture. This reading contrasts with much of the “ghettocentric” film literature by highlighting how a Black audience's interpretation of a text can focus on individualism rather than on cultural representations and stereotypes.     

Cold Steel,Weak Flesh: Mechanism,Masculinity and the Anxieties of Late Victorian Empire

This article considers the reception and representation of advanced military technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It argues that technologies such as the breech-loading rifle and the machine gun existed in an ambiguous relationship with contemporary ideas about martial masculinities and in many cases served to fuel anxieties about the physical prowess of the British soldier. In turn, these anxieties encouraged a preoccupation in both military and popular domains with that most visceral of weapons, the bayonet, an obsession which was to have profound consequences for British military thinking at the dawn of the First World War.     

Facework in Syria and the United States: A cross-cultural comparison

“The first rule when communicating with people from the Arab world is not to let them lose face” said J. Al-Omari. Face or one's social identity is cultural. A face threat is a situation which threatens to create a loss of face. When experiencing face-threats people guard their face with facework – behavioral actions enacted to protect one's face. Since facework varies across cultures, this study analyzed how cultural collectivism, power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance influence direct, indirect, competitive, cooperative, hostile, and ritualistic facework in Syria and the United States, employing a MANCOVA design with gender as the covariate. Significant findings (n = 336) showed that: (a) US Americans reported using more direct, competitive, and hostile facework strategies than Syrians while (b) Syrians reported using more indirect, cooperative and ritualistic facework strategies than US Americans (c) US American facework strategies corresponded to individualistic, weak power distance, masculine, and low uncertainty avoidance cultural dimensions while Syrian facework corresponded to collectivistic, high-power distance, moderately masculine, and high uncertainty avoidance and (d) VSM 94 results showed Syria to be more individualistic than Hofstede's original rankings.