Men and Masculinities

Life coaches claim to offer men pathways to “authentic” masculinity through self-development. Despite their growing popularity, scholars have paid little attention to how these coaches negotiate and perform masculinity. In addressing this gap, we examine how male-oriented life coaches understand, construct, and perform masculinity—both online and offline. Drawing on a hybrid ethnographic approach—analyzing Instagram content from 15 life coaches and field observations from three men’s circles—we unveil how life coaches promote a dominant vision of masculinity that appears to challenge restrictive norms—for instance by encouraging emotional expression—yet consistently reframes such practices within defensive narratives that reinforce hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The findings show how life coaching functions as a site of negotiation, where gendered anxieties are addressed through commercially mediated forms of masculine belonging, reproducing normative gender hierarchies under the guise of self-improvement.

Informed by extensive fieldwork within Hawzas in Lebanon – traditional Shia institution training scholars and Imams – this paper thinks alongside three feminine queer Muslim cis men within this Islamic space. Focusing on the body, emotionality, and sexuality, the analysis explores how they experience the Hawza legitimizing and enabling key aspects of their feminine queer dwelling. Crucially, they do not articulate this queer enablement and the entwined negotiation of hegemonic masculinities through Eurocentric modernity and liberal progressivism but through specific constructions of ‘Islamic tradition’. By exploring these queer lives within Muslim-majority and ‘traditional’ Islamic spaces, the paper accordingly complicates homocolonialist discourses of a flat incommensurability between (any) Islam and queerness and positions queer Muslim lives as possible beyond Western-centric paradigms inviting the development of a project for a ‘decolonial Muslim queer’ to be (re)made.

Community dads’ groups offer a novel environment to observe fathering interactions and practices. Our analysis of observations at these settings alongside semi-structured interviews focuses on the symbolic and social interactions between fathers, the caregiving practices they engaged in with their children and how these interactions influenced their identities. At six dads’ groups we observed several deliberate strategies of social avoidance with other fathers, as well as moments of ‘banter’. Interviews reveal the symbolic meanings of these encounters, indicating that dads’ group spaces, while mostly devoid of ‘chattiness’, nonetheless offer opportunities for fathers to observe the caring practices of others, to learn and modify behaviours in response, and to offer fleeting, gestural support. Our findings contribute insights into the social dynamics within male homosocial settings, demonstrating subtle forms of interaction between men which are important aspects of constructing a fathering identity. Community dads’ groups may help men feel confident in attending structured parenting classes.

This review essay reads Xiaodong Lin’s (2013) and Sarah Gosper’s (2025) studies of rural-origin men in urban China to explain why mobility often raises income without securing masculine recognition. Lin shows how migrant men pursue recognition through modernity-framed practices of work and filial provision, while Gosper demonstrates that marriageability has emerged as a tighter and more exclusionary site of masculine certification amid labour precarity. Together, the books reveal a shift from modernity-based judgments of manhood to intimate and marital criteria that increasingly mediate recognition. Conceptualising recognition as a socially negotiated verdict, the essay proposes cross-field capital convertibility as a lens for understanding why mobility-generated resources carry uneven value across family, work, and intimate arenas.

This article examines how men negotiate the moral meanings of gender (in)equality in high-tech organizations that publicly promote gender equality while reproducing persistent inequality regimes. Based on 35 in-depth interviews, the analysis conceptualizes their accounts as contested hybrid moral repertoires: morally charged and contested ways of making sense of gender (in)equality in ostensibly egalitarian organizations. Three intertwined dynamics emerged. First, men challenge gender hierarchy by supporting gender equality and recognition of women’s exclusion. Second, they reinforce hierarchy through tensions between political correctness and authenticity, framing restraint as a burden and spontaneity as sincerity. Third, they preserve privilege through discourses of unfairness, reverse discrimination, and lost power. Drawing on the cultural sociology of morality, the article extends scholarship on hybrid masculinities by foregrounding moral sense-making and contributes to the sociology of gender and organizations by showing how moral evaluations and claims to legitimacy become mechanisms through which gender inequality is reproduced.

The rise of soft masculinity on social media has sparked global debate. This study examines the hashtag #MaleMother (men with ‘boobs’, symbolically or physically, who enact maternal care) on Xiaohongshu, an emerging bastion of (pseudo)-feminism in China, to explore how young women engage in gendered meaning-making online. Using feminist critical discourse analysis and compositional interpretation, this study analyzes the discourses and visual images associated with the hashtag. The findings reveal that female users project desires for maternal love onto male partners, positioning the myth of ‘good’ motherhood as an ‘antidote’ to ‘toxic’ masculinity. This fantasy of the ‘male mother’ presents an ambiguous vision of empowerment: it challenges dominant masculine tropes through parody and signals women’s growing sexual agency by re-figuring the gendered dynamics of the gaze. Yet it simultaneously perpetuates patriarchal expectations of ‘good’ mothers and remains complicit with hyper-masculine ideals. This study theorizes this paradox as an update of masculinity in post-feminist contradiction, contributing to debates on masculinity, digital feminism, and the female gaze in a non-Western context.

This essay focuses on fleshing out the ideology of a popular Kenyan masculinity consultant called Amerix as one of self-scaling social repair. Assuming that the natural order of society has been colonized and infiltrated by feminist practices, Amerix promises men masculine salvation if they agree to change their daily practices and their ways of interpreting the world which, like a matchbox igniting a large forest, would allow the natural order of masculinity to rule society at large again. Repair, in other words, is considered a self-scaling practice that (re)masculinizes men’s bodies, men’s relation with one another as well as with women, and finally the world itself, thereby tipping it back into its natural state that allegedly has been skillfully hidden beneath a cloak of feminist rhetoric and micro-practices. Instead of analyzing the Kenyan men’s movement spearheaded by Amerix myopically as a conservative political movement, we propose to view it as an ideology that suggests to reinforce teleological properties of the world itself, to repair the masculine machine so to speak. Amerix’ men’s movement is not an attempt to restore twentieth century patriarchy but to set free natural masculine forces that are believed to be able to deal with all contemporary issues of society, ultimately with detrimental effects to men themselves.

In post-2020 Chinese film and TV dramas, a non-hegemonic masculinity has emerged and gained popularity, which this article theorizes as the Beta-male imaginary. Originating from the ABO fanfiction trope and transcreated within contemporary Chinese screen culture, Beta-male protagonists are characterized by lingering emotions, average social positioning, and a retreat from hyper-competition. Alongside the viral meme wonangfei (hapless loser)—a pejorative resignified after 2023—they crystallize into a shared cultural shorthand for urban precarity and tacit resistance to Alpha hegemony and social Darwinism. Combining content analysis with platform-based reception studies, this article frames the rise of wonangfei and Beta-male imaginaries as affective, ambivalent reconfigurations of male “softness” and “impotence” that unfold amid China’s post-2020 socioeconomic downturns. Through case studies of two actors, Guo Jingfei and Bai Ke—both frequently cast as wonangfei characters and rescripted by audiences as “Betas Going Mad” and “Betas with Husband Vibes” respectively—the article demonstrates how female-oriented consumer culture and the platformized circulation of affect sustain these non-hegemonic masculinities. Such portrayals offer audiences both emotional catharsis and social critique, channeling collective precarity, querying hegemonic norms, and renegotiating gender dynamics across public and domestic spheres. Yet these imaginaries remain ambivalent—unsettling patriarchal emotion-regimes while at times over-romanticizing precarity and softly reproducing inequality.

Research shows how sexualized violence is moving online and becoming digitalized; however, little is known about the relationship between the manosphere and sexualized violence. This paper aims to explore how content with and about sexualized violence manifests in the Danish manosphere and advance our understanding of conditions conducive to this. Based on a (n)etnographic study in the Danish manosphere, the paper shows that content with and about sexualized violence is present in two ways: Firstly, in leak communities, where sharing sexual imagery of women without consent seems governed by a feeling rule of misogyny. Secondly, in men’s rights communities where critique of #MeToo and the consent-based rape law seems governed by a feeling rule of himpathy. With the concept cathartic shaming the paper suggests how distinct communities may share the use of ridicule and condemnation of women to reduce feelings of humiliation, shame, injustice and unfairness rooted in social expectations about hegemonic, heterosexual masculinity.

This article examines how midlife single fathers in Norway present themselves as parents on dating apps. Drawing on a multimethod design including interviews, qualitative content analysis, and app walkthrough, the study examines how fatherhood is selectively staged in intimate digital spaces shaped by market logics and cultural ideals of gender equality. The analysis reveals that the men engage in a form of reflexive, caring masculinity, with dating profiles that emphasize both paternal dedication and autonomy. Classed and culturally valued forms of fatherhood function as symbolic capital within an economy of attraction. Among the most powerful signals was the mention of 50 percent custody, strategically invoked as shorthand for personal dedication and cultural legitimacy. The study contributes to scholarship on both masculinity and digital dating, by centering an overlooked subject position: midlife single fathers in Norway.

There has been a growing body of research on feminine men in China, particularly in relation to the state’s critical stance, but few studies have examined discourses on male makeup. Drawing on the theoretical framework of hybrid masculinity, this paper analyzes articles on male makeup from two Chinese men’s lifestyle magazines published from the late 2000s to 2023. These articles construct male makeup discourse in three ways circumventing the state’s negative views on and potential stigmatization of feminine men: (1) avoiding femininity by separating male makeup from female makeup or by emphasizing heterosexuality; (2) positioning male makeup as a gender-neutral practice; and (3) seeking justification from pre-modern Chinese male makeup practices to show that male makeup is an acceptable practice even today. Through this analysis, this paper argues that Chinese male makeup discourses construct the concept of femininity, which has been closely associated with women’s beautification practices, as seemingly fluid while still supporting gender hierarchy, thereby reaffirming the limitations of hybrid masculinity.

This paper examines the lived experiences of Ghanaian migrant men, who face difficulties finding marital partners due to racial hostility, blocked overseas travel and the scarcity of co-ethnic women in South Korea. We draw on 2 years of ethnographic data collected in a large African migrant community and 30 interviews with Ghanaian migrant husbands in Korea to investigate how migrant men construct alternative narratives of masculine respectability amid precarious circumstances. By framing migration as a “project of masculinity” driven by gendered yearnings to become “good men,” we compare how migrant husbands navigate gendered conflicts across three types of marriages: (1) transnational proxy marriages with women in Ghana, (2) local interracial marriages with Korean women, and (3) local African marriages within the migrant community. Our findings reveal how marginalized migrant men strategically emphasize certain benefits of their marital arrangements over others. While all migrant husbands struggled with feelings of powerlessness, those in transnational proxy marriages constructed narratives of symbolic empowerment, those in local interracial marriages constructed narratives of institutional empowerment, and those in local African marriages constructed narratives of emotional empowerment. Ultimately, our paper highlights how migrant men’s “narrative agency” in crafting reputations as respectable and honorable men depended not on their material circumstances, but on the layered gaze of their wives in domestic spaces, their families and kin in their countries of origin, and their male peers in the migrant community. We argue that narratives of masculine worth are intersubjectively constructed within these multiple layers of interaction.

How exposure to domestic violence in childhood impacts parenting practices of men is largely unexplored. The study used the concept of hegemonic masculinity as a lens to gain insight into social processes, relations, and gendered practices of men exposed to domestic violence in childhood as they construct fatherhood. Qualitative interviews with 16 men who identified being exposed to domestic violence in childhood and actively parenting a child under 5 years old were conducted. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2021) due to its compatibility with our constructionist theoretical position. The three main themes discussed in this article are construction of fatherhood through (1) hegemonic patterns of masculinity in childhood, (2) tensions with hegemonic patterns of masculinity in fatherhood, and (3) practices of complicit and hegemonic patterns of masculinity. Ultimately, we highlighted the way the men constructed fatherhood through a change in parenting style without actually ceding power or social position.

There is a notable gender gap in enrollment in college-level sex education classes across the US, with men being reluctant to enroll. This is not surprising because, in an androcentric society, men commonly avoid feminized spaces. Men who do enter feminized spaces tend to view themselves as “good guys” who are more sensitive to gender inequality than other men. Using a grounded theory approach, we analyzed interviews with 17 men college students who had not enrolled in a sexuality education course. We found these men also saw themselves as good guys. They constructed and distanced themselves from an archetypal “hyper-masculinized other,” deploying two central narratives: (1) good guys don’t need sex education and (2) other guys aren’t interested in sex education. Ultimately, when contrasting themselves against a hyper-masculinized other, participants projected their gendered understandings of sexuality onto other men and emerged as good guys who absolved themselves from responsibility for taking action to promote equitable sexual relationships. As long as men who exclude themselves from feminized spaces project inferior forms of masculinity onto other men, they will not enter these spaces nor receive their potential benefits.

“New fatherhood” describes the social expectation that fathers be both financial providers and emotional caregivers. While previous research suggests Latino fathers’ involvement often reflects this ideal, less is known about how it shapes their self-reflections and experiences. Using semi-structured interviews with sixty Latino fathers, I examine how new fatherhood influences their views of their own fathers and their paternal identities. I found that new fatherhood affects participants’ collective sentiments about their fathers, which are shaped by how they interpret their fathers’ masculinities, their own gendered performances as sons, and expressions of paternal love, revealing both empathy and resentment. Fathers channel these sentiments into their “new father” identities. However, to construct these identities, participants must criticize their fathers as “traditional.” To negotiate this challenge, they craft a hybrid marginalized masculinity associated with their paternal identities, offering a discursive alibi that protects their fathers’ reputations while positioning themselves as better fathers.

This paper discusses men’s interactions with others about hereditary hair loss, a process that can be associated with emotional turbulence, but which is often trivialised. It does so in the context of longstanding emphasis on the challenges men can have talking about wellbeing struggles and, separately, on the prominent role of humour and teasing in some men’s interactions. While, in recent years, shifts towards more open forms of communication among men have been debated, research suggests such changes are patchy and context-dependent. Informed by in-depth interviews with men based in the UK, our discussion highlights a prevalence of humorous comments in men’s baldness interactions and shows how more serious forms of talk were limited and difficult to navigate. Male hereditary hair loss, we suggest, provides a context in which men often find themselves negotiating a complex terrain where humour can become compulsory while emotional talk is seen as illegitimate.

Fat sex is a prohibitive topic; media and scholarship render a paradoxical image of fat sexuality as either extreme impotence or insatiable sexual appetite. Previous literature on fat sex highlights women’s experiences with violence and fetishization yet little research on fat men’s lived sexual experiences is available. Conducting 19 phenomenological interviews, narratives illustrate hybridization techniques participants use to distance themselves from feminine readings of their bodies. To work around their seeming undesirability, respondents adopted hyper-masculine idealized traits, evidenced by themes of compensatory manhood acts, strategic dress, downplayed eroticism, seeking sex online, abstinence, and critiques of the Bear community. Findings suggest that participants rely on hybridized, fluid masculinities and symbolic separation from effeminate gendered performances to experience sexual agency and engage with phallocentric discourse as fat men.

Media studies reveal that popular culture often objectifies, sexualizes, and degrades women more than men. In song lyrics, these portrayals frequently stem from men’s use of slang and nicknames. But what happens when men artists sing about a particular, named woman? Does this differ from how men artists sing about a particular, named man? This study draws on four domains of power conceptualized by Patricial Hill Collins—structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal—to explore how men artists attribute power to named men and named women in song lyrics. Analyzing 373 songs over 60 years, we find that named men are more likely to hold and wield diverse forms of power than named women, whose power is typically tied to interpersonal relationships. These findings not only illustrate how men artists’ attribute power to named men and named women in popular music but also demonstrate how various forms of power are used to reinforce hegemonic masculinities.

This article explores the enduring influence of militarised masculinities in Namibia, examining how the figure of the soldier shapes men’s identities, family dynamics, and everyday experiences. Based on ethnographic research in Windhoek and Swakopmund, it considers how men navigate the shadow of militarism, both as a state-sanctioned ideal and a deeply personal inheritance. Using the concept of the shadow, the article traces how military legacies are embedded in urban spaces, national memory, and father-son relationships, revealing tensions between glorified narratives of heroism and lived realities of trauma, silence, and constraint. While militarised masculinities continue to shape social norms, this study illustrates how men navigate and make sense of these inherited expectations in both public and private life. The article contributes to broader discussions on masculinity, post-conflict identity, and the enduring legacies of militarism in post-Apartheid Namibia.

This paper examines the discursive construction of entrepreneurial masculinities as China emerges as a technology superpower, and how the nation and its future are envisioned through these tech-entrepreneurial masculinities. It specifically focuses on three celebrity tech entrepreneurs – Jack Ma (Alibaba), Pony Ma (Tencent), and Robin Li (Baidu). Drawing on discourse analysis of media materials from 2018 to the first half of 2023, the study aimed to analyse three aspects of their public personas: (a) family life; (b) management life; and (c) global-national life. The study’s findings were twofold: first, the masculinities embodied by these tech entrepreneurs were significantly shaped by conventional (albeit evolving) sociocultural gender practices and politics in China; second, their rise reinforced a cosmopolitan longing to ease the nation’s masculinity crisis. However, strict cyber governance and the changing status of these tech entrepreneurs have created a paradox of desires and anxieties centred on these celebrated hegemonic masculinities.