Law Commons^™

Boys, Masculinities And Juvenile Justice, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Culture and tradition are part of the macrosystem of ideas and beliefs that have a dramatic effect on children and families. One aspect of culture is gender beliefs, values and roles. Feminist analysis has explored the incorporation of gender in a wide range of structures, challenging gender bias and advocating reform of a range of laws, structural systems, and social practices. Masculinities analysis, an outgrowth of feminist analysis that focuses on men as gendered subjects, provides a perspective to consider those areas in which men are disproportionately present either in positions of power and privilege, or in positions of disadvantage. …

Masculinities And Feminist Legal Theory, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Men, patriarchy and masculine characteristics have predominantly been examined within feminist theory as a source of power, domination, inequality and subordination. Various theories of inequality have been developed by feminists to challenge and reveal structures and discourses that reinforce explicitly or implicitly the centrality of men and the identity of the top of a hierarchical power and economic structure as male.

The study of masculinities has been inspired by feminist theory to explore the construction of manhood and masculinity, and to question the real circumstances of men. It has explored how privilege is constructed, and what price is paid for …