CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Bower, Claire |
|---|---|
| Title | "What the hell is positive masculinity?": An Ethnographic Study of Marketing 'Men and Feminism' in Canada |
| Summary | This thesis takes Next Gen Men (NGM), a Canadian social enterprise as a case study to explore how “positive masculinity” is conceptualised as a strategy for gender-based violence prevention. Employing an ethnographic approach, I conducted video interviews, discourse analysis and participant observation of three of NGM’s activities: a 7-day youth ‘rite of passage’ summer camp, an online chat room and a community education event. “Positive masculinity” was most concretely described as an individual’s agentic choices and behaviours. These findings echo previous research which suggests that the terms “toxic” and “positive” masculinity are personalisations which represent a neoliberal discourse that locates the individual as the cause and solution for society’s problems. I claim that social enterprises see opportunity in this discourse and use it as a strategy to “market” feminism to men and boys. Broadening “what fits” within the category of masculinity was seen as a strategy to work with people’s current knowledge about gender. However, holding onto some kind of (broadened) category of masculinity inevitably reinforced “men” and “boys” as discursively separate social categories, demonstrating that efforts to dismantle gender as a system can ironically work to reproduce gender. This research suggests there is a tendency for masculinities programming to focus only on internal hegemony (Christensen & Jensen, 2014), the pressure men and boys feel amongst themselves to prove their masculinity to each other. I argue that gender-based violence prevention efforts taking this as their sole focus are only responding to half of the problem. I suggest that this work must happen alongside initiatives which address masculine domination of “the feminine” and build respect between women and men, boys and girls and non-binary people, not just respect amongst boys and men. This study explores the possibilities as well as limits of a social enterprise operating in a neoliberal society for generating social change. I argue that the potential remains limited when “positive masculinity” remains hinged on the maintenance of heteronormative, binary gender order. |
| Supervisor | Helms Elissa, Barat Erzsebet |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/bower_claire.pdf |
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