Abstract
This chapter explores contradictions, challenges and possibilities of contemporary masculinities. It considers how young, more advantaged men challenge the boundaries of harmful forms of masculinity in some ways, but draw on them in others. A key focus of the chapter is the ability for more privileged men to utilise mobility and flexibility in service of career and personal life advancement. Pressures of masculinity are investigated too, such as the threat of violence, expectations of men’s behavior—particularly surrounding alcohol consumption—and proscriptions against men showing emotions or seeking help. Contemporary young men are in many cases searching for more fulfilling ways to be men. Without accessible feminist guidelines for change, a search for ‘true’ or ‘essential’ masculinity can ensue, as this chapter explores. This search draws on discourses of men as having lost their place and identity in late modernity, overlooking structural challenges in terms of gender and work under neoliberalism.
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Notes
- 1.
Altbau can loosely be defined as a pre-World War II residential building, popular in Berlin.
- 2.
I interpret this sentence as meaning that in Sven’s hometown, people took advantage of the mistakes of others for their own benefit.
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Elliott, K. (2020). Challenges and Possibilities of Contemporary Masculinities. In: Young Men Navigating Contemporary Masculinities. Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36395-6_4
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