Men on the Menu
Norway has done it, and now Iceland and Denmark are doing it: appointing special men’s panels with the aim of getting men onto the gender equality scene. But what issues should the Nordic men be focussing on? Read more
Nordic men for the care sector
Men are also capable of providing care. This, however, is a rare sight in the labour market. New research report presents Nordic examples of efforts made to attract men to the typical “women’s jobs” – industries in which the future job opportunities are predicted to be better and more stable. Read more
The Hiding Men in Prostitution
Men as prostitution clients have been provided with an opportunity to remain faceless and anonymous while it has been a female prostitute, or rather, an image of her that has been the figurehead of prostitution business. This representation, built upon gendered and often ethnisized stereotypes, has also had an impact on public perception and awareness of prostitution and trafficking. Here invisibility reflects a position of power. Read more
Idealised Fathers and Murderous Moms. Parenthood in Murder-Suicide News
When a man kills his children and himself he is often portrayed as a caring parent. A woman is a “killer mom”, her act is “a murder”, and her personality is described in the light of the deed. Read more
Speeding Boys and the Romantics of Destruction
Every year, thousands of young people, fresh driver’s license holders, join a variety of car cultures in Finland. Working class youths of the motorsports-loving nation embrace weekend lifestyles such as cruising, speeding and street racing. On Friday and Saturday Nights, these youths take to the streets to manifest their driving skills, to be with their peers, to meet girls and to encounter their enemies in “close combat” in traffic. Success in this car culture is a priority since the boys do not feel they can truly warrant sex unless they have achieved status in the subculture, which is judged by other men. Read more
Wild Duck Fathers
In the play The Wild Duck Henrik Ibsen illustrates three fathers by presenting three different forms of fatherhood: the patriarchal father, the fallen father, and the loving, but helpless father. They are significant forms of fatherhood in Ibsen’s drama that correspond to actual father roles in Ibsen’s time. Read more
Queering Me Softly – or Expanding Masculinity?
She on the far left feels like Martin. He beside her is Madeleine. He says that emotions are the most important confirmation of who one is, and he feels insulted if someone doesn´t treat him as a woman. They are participating in a panel along with Don Kulick, who feels like a queer-expert and a known lesbian who is afraid of using wrong terms, when everything stands and falls with the right name: man, woman, HBT: homo, bi, trans. Another person in the panel is uncomfortably confused: “When we in the homo-movement don’t know who is what, how can we then know who the enemy is?’ For everyone in the panel self-definition is vitally important, so important that they demand that “others“ only perceive what they have decided they should perceive. Read more
Making Violent Fathers Invisible
For a number of years it has been documented trough research and practice that men’s violence against women is an issue of direct concern for children living in the family. Most children have seen or heard violence – and have thereby been subjected to emotional abuse – and many have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence themselves as well. Furthermore, it is clear that that some men continue to use violence (including threats of violence) against both women and children post separation or divorce. Read more
Fear of Falling
The concept of unmanliness contributes to a deeper understanding of the emotional and personal costs that specific male ideals can cause individuals or groups of men. Seeing and exploring these circumstances does not necessarily mean ignoring those dimensions of power characterizing the relations between the sexes within a certain gender order. Read more
September 11 and Male Violence
The world faces a new global battlefield upon which terrorist deeds are met with a war against terrorism, unregulated violence with regulated violence. It is said that the world will never be the same after September 11. But what has changed - and for whom? How could September 11 be interpreted from a gender perspective? And is there a connection between global violence and terrorism on the one hand and the violence of individual men towards women on the other? Read more
Looking at Men through Literature
Literary analyses show how the problematisation of masculinity is closely connected with the idealisation of women in the works of important European modernists. There are no ideal models of masculinity in these texts. The creation of difference between men is also essential in male hegemonic practices. The definitions of manly and unmanly prove to be continuously floating and changing. The notion knapsu, meaning womanish, which the author Mikael Niemi ponders over in his book Popular Music, is the actual definition of the limit for male actions and behaviour. Read more
“Home alone” Fathers
The radical changes in the Norwegian parental leave system that have taken place during the last 10 years, have also included giving fathers exclusive rights to parental leave. The father’s quota of the parental leave has been considered a success since 80 percent of fathers who have earned the right to parental benefits, utilize this right. But the intention of the fathers’ quota, which was to strengthen the contact between child and father, seems mainly to be achieved when the father is “home alone” with the child. Read more
Mirrored Masculinity? Turning the Perspective of Sexualization and Representation Around
In the public domain a certain female body is the most commonly spread eroticised symbol for desires such as consumption, and representation of sexuality. But this form of sexualization is also, and maybe more significantly, a representation of ideas about masculinity. Read more
Critical Studies on Men in Four Parts of the World
Men are gendered, just as gendered as women. Recent years have seen the naming of men as men and the deconstruction of masculinity. Alongside social changes affecting men in society, parallel changes have occurred in academia, with considerable growth in research and publishing on men and masculinities over the recent years. Read more
