Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Film Review: Beyond Men And Masculinity–Exploring The Detrimental Effects Of Masculinity And Envisioning A New Paradigm, Raheleh Akhavizadegan

Journal of International Women's Studies

The documentary Beyond Men and Masculinity explores the negative impact of traditional masculinity on men’s mental and emotional health, as well as its broader societal implications. It advocates for a redefined version of masculinity based on vulnerability, compassion, and equality. The experts in the documentary emphasize the need for men to express their emotions, challenge traditional gender norms, and create a more just and equitable society. By redefining masculinity, the documentary envisions a future where men can thrive beyond rigid expectations and embrace their authentic selves, leading to improved mental health, reduced violence, and stronger communities.

Roan, Alex, Paige Ravenscraft

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Alex Roan is a 42 year old trans masc individual who uses he/him pronouns. He was originally from Stoughton, Massachusetts where he grew up with his family before moving to Central Maine for college and living in the Portland area through adulthood. Alex shares his experience with growing up in a Catholic family and finding himself as a trans person in college. He details what it was like to come out to his family, who was in denial at first but later in life became his biggest supporters.

Alex Roan is the founder of MaineTransNet. This interview captures the story …

Hypertrophy As Nato’S Masculinity: Out-Of-Area Operations And Enlargements In The Post-Cold War Context, Carlos González-Villa, Branislav Radeljić

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Russian intervention in Ukraine in February 2022 has served as a catalyst or actualizer of a long-standing trend in NATO: that of justifying its existence by its geographical expansion. This is both in organic terms, through the incorporation of new states into its structure, and in operational terms, through the execution of so-called out-of-area operations, and the intensification of its rivalry with Russia. This dynamic, which has been firmly established since the mid-1990s, has been overridden by the growing contradictions between the interests of its members, the successive changes in US administrations, and the transformation of the international system, …

Bollywood As A Site Of Resistance: Women And Agency In Indian Popular Culture, Sheetal Yadav, Smita Jha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article evaluates the contemporary Indian redefinition of gender norms, subjectivity, and practices by analyzing Bollywood films as a major influence upon its global audiences. This study explores how Indian cinema redefines women’s status and promotes gender-neutral entertainment by harnessing the powerful energies of current movements such as #MeToo. The article closely examines the textual and conceptual features of current women-focused movies like Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga (2019), Thappad (2020), and Paglait (2021). This examination focuses on key insights from popular Bollywood actresses’ critical feminist roles to understand their assertions of women’s power, agency, and equality. Additionally, …

Masculinist Constructions Of Nationalism In India: Gender, Body Politics, And Hindi Cinema, Nupur Ray

Journal of International Women's Studies

Nationalism is an evocative concept with multiple philosophies around its meanings, purposes and contentions. Symbols, imagery, and spectacle play an important role in cultural expressions of nationalism that sustain an emotional response. The paper argues that imaginative constructs of nationalism in India are primarily constructed around women’s bodily metaphors, sexual norms, and their maternal roles in families. Popular culture, particularly cinema, tends to reinforce power hierarchies in which women symbolizing the nation are in need of protection by men or the state as a masculine authority. Hindi cinema has been an integral part of the socio-cultural lives of people in …

Macnaughton, Daniel, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Dan MacNaughton was born in 1955 in Bangor, Maine, and raised in Hampden, Maine with his mother, father, and older brother. He came out as gay in high school with supportive teachers and classmates who were either supportive or indifferent. However, he had deeply internalized homophobic attitudes and believed that being gay meant he had very limited employment options. In college at the University of Maine Orono, MacNaughton became active in the newly formed Wilde Stein student group where he became the first Vice-Chair of the club, met Sturgis Haskins, and became involved in educational efforts on campus. He also …

Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020): A Psychoanalytic Review Of Masculinity And Rape Culture, Marjorie A. Briones

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

TW: mentions of sexual violence and rape

When it comes to the subject of sexual violence, there are systemic and cultural effects that prevents assaulters from being properly prosecuted. In the U.S., perpetrators of sexual violence largely consists of heterosexual, white men (RAINN, 2022). So, we begin to question the ways in which sexual violence and masculinity are interconnected. By conducting a psychoanalytic analysis of Emerald Fennell’s 2020 film Promising Young Woman, the ideas of toxic masculinity and “rape culture” will be deconstructed in regard to Cassie’s–the protagonist–story. Theories by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung will be connected to real-life …

We Need New Heroes: Tracing Heroic Masculinities From Homeric Epic To Contemporary Comic Cinema, Matthew Gallagher

Master's Theses

For as long as stories have been told, written, and performed heroes have been the measures of a culture. A people’s values, their fears, their hopes, their customs have all been preserved in the stories of their heroes, and in recent decades, I would argue, in the stories of their superheroes. Tracing modern depictions of cinematic superheroes back to some of the earliest extant narratives of heroes in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, we see that most of our heroes in the past three millennia have been men. And in the modern explosion of superhero movies’ success and popularity, we see …

Twomey, Danielle, Elizabeth Cantey

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Danielle Twomey is a trans woman who was born and raised in Maine. She was born into a working class home and has four other siblings. Her mother died when she was seven and her father’s second wife helped to put the family into a better class. Her father was abusive, as were her peers, and her younger years were “brutal” as she was “physically small”, “effeminate”, and “clueless” when it came to fighting. She watched the world around her to learn how to fit in. She knew she was expected to be like the little boys her age but …

Masculinity And Challenges For Women In Indian Culture, I. Sivakumar, K. Manimekalai

Journal of International Women's Studies

Construction of masculinity in India has been approached and studied from a variety of feminist perspectives. The feminist perspective focused on the discourse and gained much greater momentum during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. During the pre-independence era, the status of women in the areas of productive, reproductive, sexual health, mobility, and economic resources deteriorated to great extent owing to intense patriarchal oppression. Now in the post-colonial period sex-determination tests leading to the massacre of female fetuses, declining sex-ratio are unfavourable to women. Rapidly changing sex-ratios and increasing evidence of violence against women are the strong pointers that have justified …

The Stories We Tell Matter: Finding The Real Hero In American Pop Culture, Madisyn Dowdy

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Joseph Campbell in his historic work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, argues that the stories and myths a culture tells demonstrates the ideals, fears, and morals of that culture and the heroes they hold up are representations of the ideal human. Heroes are inherently personal role models and ideals, but the collective understanding of a hero is representative of a culture's ideals, fears, and morals.

So, what does it say when a culture's heroes are usually violent, traditionally attractive white men? And what does it mean when a culture rejects heroes with non-traditional values and traits, specifically traits coded …

Robedee, Matthew, Hannah Gorham, Jason White

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Matthew (Mat) Robedee is a 35-year-old gay man who lives in Portland, Maine. For seven years, he was a health and outreach worker and former prevention programs manager for the Frannie Peabody Center, in Portland. He has also worked with organizations such as Portland Pride and Equality Maine and is currently a real estate agent.

Mat grew up in Buxton, Maine. In elementary school, he revealed to a friend that he thought he was gay. His friend reprimanded him, telling him never to tell anyone about his secret. That event set the tone for years to come, and Mat hid …

Drew, Gia, David Kersey, Katie Prior

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Gia Drew is a 52-year old transwoman who serves as the director of Equality Maine: an organization in Portland, Maine that provides educational programs to support the LGBTQ+ Community of Maine. Her life experience has greatly prepared her for this role, and she shares that with us in this interview. Her story is vast as it spans over several topics (as indicated in the “keywords” section), several different states, and two very different regions of the country. Gia struggles with coming out as trans for her entire young adult life as she navigates bisexuality, hypermasculinity, social pressure in K-12 schools, …

Sexual Assault On College Campuses: The Links Between Hegemonic Masculinity, College Sports, And Sexual Violence, Vanessa Iroegbulem

Sexual Ethics

This paper seeks to explore the social and neurobiological factors that shape men into sexual aggressors by rewarding violent behaviors. It will critique the exploitation and the commodification of male bodies through sports, namely football.

‘Red Amazons’? Gendering Violence And Revolution In The Long First World War, 1914-23, Matthew Kovac

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article seeks to position gender theory as critical to making sense of one of the First World War’s largest remaining historical problems: the persistence of mass violence after November 1918. While Robert Gerwarth and John Horne’s pathbreaking work on veteran violence has challenged the standard 1914-18 periodisation of the war, their focus on military defeat and revolution obscures the centrality of gender relations to the continuation of violence after the formal end of hostilities. By putting their work into conversation with that of feminist theorists, I argue that countries which experienced more extreme gender dislocation or ‘gender trouble’ witnessed …

“The Most Muscular Woman I Have Ever Seen”: Bev Francisperformance Of Gender In Pumping Iron Ii: The Women, Cera R. Shain

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The question of what constitutes femininity has been widely debated, not only in gender studies, but also in the broader social world. A venue for this debate is the 1985 documentary, Pumping Iron II: The Women, in which gender and femininity in particular become part of the central plot of the film when Bev Francis, a woman bodybuilder more muscular than any other competitor, enters the competition. While feminist scholars have analyzed gender and sport from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, little attention has been paid to female bodybuilding in particular. To fill this gap, this thesis will examine the …

Degoosh, Milo, May Hohman

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Milo Degoosh is a 28 year old FTM transgender adult. He works at Bard Coffee Shop in Portland, and competes in National Barista competition. He elaborates on how the Queer community has influenced the Barista competition and how he is a Queer figure in this environment. Milo has two moms and big family, all of which have helped him in his transition. He started hormones in 2015 and has had many changes since, such as mood, attitude, and work ethic. Milo participating in the National Campaign for Marriage Equality by knocking on doors. The necessity and cost for transition …

Bushler Bay And Hood View, 40 Years On: Gender, Forests And Change In The Global North, Carol Jean Pierce Colfer

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In 2017, Carol Colfer revisited the communities of Bushler Bay and Hood View on the Olympic Peninsula, where she had spent three years doing ethnographic research in the 1970s. The purposes were two-fold: to test several rapid rural appraisal techniques and, as emphasized here, to assess the changes that had taken place in the interim. The ultimate goal was to contribute to USFS efforts to collaborate more effectively with women and men in forest communities. Her findings suggest that changes occurred in three (or more) spheres: livelihoods, demography, and gender relations, each of which is discussed below for each time …

Female Autistic Perspectives: Limits In Diagnosis And Understanding, Alexandra Helmers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder has increased dramatically within the last two decades, with males being diagnosed, on average, four to five times more than females. Although researchers in the medical community have searched for a biological explanation for this discrepancy, no definitive cause has been found. I argue that our understanding of autism is primarily a social and cultural construction, in addition to a diagnosable medical disorder. The gender disparity in diagnosis reflects cultural narratives surrounding social interaction and the widespread belief in two distinct gender roles. Furthermore, narratives surrounding the topic of autism tend to unintentionally highlight …

Investigating Female Indigenous Leadership In Latin America, Roseangela G. Hartford

Spanish Summer Fellows

This project investigates gender constructs and the complex assigned gender roles in settings of female indigenous leadership in Latin America. It examines two distinct indigenous communities, including the BriBri society in Yorkín, Costa Rica and the Maya peoples in Santa Anita, Guatemala that demonstrate the circumstantial spectrum in which women can obtain leadership roles and what actors directly influence this process. Each case study explores the fluidity of gender identities in which concepts of masculinity often guide female empowerment and liberation. With Costa Rica abolishing their military in 1948 and Guatemala experiencing a 36-year civil war (1960-1996) and a major …

“I Know You Want It”: Teaching The Blurred Lines Of Eighteenth-Century Rape Culture, Emily J. Dowd-Arrow, Sarah R. Creel

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

“‘I Know You Want It’: Teaching the Blurred Lines of Eighteenth-Century Rape Culture” is a collaborative pedagogical article that addresses the problem of so-called “post-feminism” in the contemporary college classroom by way of a comparative approach to eighteenth-century literature. Specifically, we contextualize and compare the early and late work of Eliza Haywood with current cultural debates and events in order to demonstrate not only the relevance of Haywood and eighteenth-century writers like her, but the importance of continuing the feminist conversation. The article provides texts, readings, and discussion points for consideration, as well as links to relevant contemporary issues and …

Masculinidades En Crisis Y Prácticas De Resistencia Feminista En La Literatura Y El Cine Españoles De Autoría Femenina, Carmen Sanchis-Sinisterra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the representation of masculinity in crisis in films and novels by contemporary female authors of Spain. The films are El último viaje de Robert Rylands by Gracia Querejeta, Te doy mis ojos by Iciar Bollaín and La vida sin mí by Isabel Coixet. The novels are Amado amo by Rosa Montero, Los aires difíciles by Almudena Grandes and La conquista del aire by Belén Gopegui. The question this dissertation asks is if by introducing male characters that lack power, control and success the works promote practices of feminist resistance. The answer is that they do but, as …

Attitudes And Perceptions Of Young Men Towards Gender Equality And Violence In Timor-Leste, Ann Wigglesworth, Sara Niner, Dharmalingam Arunachalam, Abel Boavida Dos Santos, Mateus Tilman

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines attitudes and perceptions of young men toward gender relations and gender-based violence in post-conflict Timor-Leste. A high level of domestic violence is reported and a law against domestic violence has been passed in recent years. In 2013, a research team surveyed almost 500 young men using the Gender-Equitable Men (GEM) Scale in both rural and urban contexts. It was found that young men become less gender equitable as they get older, and the environment they grow up in influences their gender attitudes. Existing contradictions and tensions between national government policy and local customary practices are well-known, and …

Rethinking Patriarchy, Culture And Masculinity: Transnational Narratives Of Gender Violence And Human Rights Advocacy, Elora Halim Chowdhury

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, I argue that to truly understand the complexity and “high prevalence” of acid violence against women in Bangladesh, we must pay attention to the confluence of political, economic and historical forces that make certain social groups more vulnerable to such extreme violence and suffering. By tracing the life history narratives of survivors of gender-based violence, I hope to shed light that acid throwing—a form of gendered violence—has to be understood beyond a “culturalist” framework, which explains this phenomenon as a product of harmful patriarchal cultural practices, seemingly more prevalent in certain South Asian cultures. Rather, I argue, …

You Are What You (M)Eat: Explorations Of Meat-Eating, Masculinity And Masquerade, Amy Calvert

Journal of International Women's Studies

Food consumption is frequently linked to identity and to who we are as individuals, which I explore through the analysis of the US reality television series Man V. Food. Through close readings of various scenes, I look at representations of hegemonic masculine performance, and the sexualisation of women and meat. In light of my analysis, I argue that the show is both post-feminist and part of a wider backlash against feminist action. Man V. Food is analysed in consideration of the wider phenomena of masculine crisis and backlash against various social movements, specifically recent feminist and vegetarian/vegan movements. This …

Negotiating Masculinity: How Infertility Impacts Hegemonic Masculinity, Myscha Burton

The Partisan

No abstract provided.

The Embodiment Of Masculinity Among Trans* Identified Men, Abby Marie Haak

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Within masculinity studies, the majority of the literature focuses on the perspectives of cisgender men. The current research project aimed to explore the concept of masculinity further by including the perspectives of trans* identified men. I conducted in-depth interviews with trans* identified men in order to answer three research questions: How do trans* identified men (FTM, transsexual, transgender, transguys, genderqueer, or gender variant) embody (incorporate and express) and perform masculinity? How do trans* identified men recount their experiences of gender socialization? And finally, how, if at all, do trans* identified men experience transphobic discrimination? I asked the first two questions …

Narrative Framing Of U.S. Military Females In Combat: Inclusion Versus Resistance, James Scott Herford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study utilizes discursive data to examine how the strategic use of narratives inform policies that shape women's participation in military service overall and more specific, the current controversy over exclusion of women from participation in combat roles within the U.S. military. Specifically, I examine popular military newspapers, blogs and the Department of Defense 2012 Report regarding policies and regulations of female service members. In this study, I provide a sociological analysis of current military-cultural narratives and the institutional narrative discussing women's participation in combat roles in order to provide evidence of the current threat to the military form of …

Your Humble Servant Shows Himself: Don Saltero And Public Coffeehouse Space, Angela Todd

Journal of International Women's Studies

In 1695, James Salter, who fashioned himself as “Don Saltero,” opened a coffeehouse on a respectable corner in Chelsea. The chief attraction of the coffeehouse, from Salter’s point of view, was the array of natural science detritus and colonial souvenirs displayed on the walls and ceiling. For the price of a cup of coffee, patrons could view the immensity of England’s global grasp, and ponder the bizarre workings of far-away lands and the earth’s creatures. What is noteworthy about Salter’s collection, however, is not the oddities on display—and there were many—but that his collection overlapped considerably with that of the …

Dirty Spaces: Communication And Contamination In Men’S Public Toilets, Ruth Barcan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the spatiality of men’s public toilets in Australia. It considers public toilets as cultural sites whose work involves not only the literal elimination of waste but also a form of cultural purification. Men’s public toilets are read as sites where heteronormative masculinity is defined, tested and policed. The essay draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of homosociality and on Mary Douglas’s conception of dirt as a destabilizing category. It treats the “dirtiness” of public toilets as a submerged metaphor within struggles over masculinity. The essay considers a range of data sources, including interviews, pop culture, the Internet …