Young men today are to an extent able to adopt more open expressions of masculinity than previously. Nevertheless, structures of domination and inequality persist alongside feminist gains. Ideals of masculinities continue to demand exacting standards and lead to pressing costs for people of all genders. Contemporary masculinities have been put under the spotlight with the emergence of movements challenging men’s violence and ongoing patriarchal gender relations. In many cases, the power and dominance of privileged men, and the ways in which they act with impunity, has been revealed. Despite this, privileged men are often portrayed as the harbingers of progress and change (Bridges and Pascoe 2014), while marginalised men are positioned as violent, regressive and as always reaching for power. As Roberts (2018, p. 216) argues, constructing marginalised men as the bearers of ‘bad’ forms of masculinity ‘functions as a diversionary tactic for middle-class and elite men whose practices are thus more rarely scrutinised’. It is therefore critical that attention be directed to investigating more privileged men, including the ways in which they perpetuate what I term throughout this book ‘closedness’, and possibilities for progress towards equality and more open masculinities.
What has been needed in the critical study of men and masculinities has been a way to consider men and masculinities in a more dynamic manner, a task to which these ideas of open and closed masculinities, fully explicated elsewhere (see Elliott 2020), attend. In this conceptualisation, open masculinity connotes masculinity that could be seen as perhaps more progressive, ‘positive’, or egalitarian. Closed masculinity indicates expressions of masculinity that could be seen as more traditional, patriarchal, or perhaps regressive. As I explain further in Chapter 2, I align openness with the margin and closedness with the centre, drawing in particular on hooks’ (1990, 2000, 2004) theory of the margin as a space of radical openness and possibility. The framework of margin-centre posits that new, more egalitarian and open forms of masculinity are most likely to stem from the radically open margin and those within it, including, for example, working-class people, LGBTQIA+ people, and Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC). This positioning draws on work that challenges the common notion that privileged men in the centre are those best placed to lead change towards equality and openness, arguing instead that open, egalitarian masculinities are being modelled in the margin (see for e.g. Baines et al. 2015; Gill 2018; Izugbara and Egesa 2020; Roberts 2018). Key to this terminology and framework is the notion that centre and margin intersect, highlighting that openness and closedness should not be considered binary or static. Rather, there is movement and entanglements between openness and closedness, and this acknowledgement can help to explain shifts and changes in expressions of masculinity.
I draw on the terminology of open and closed throughout this book in order to ‘study up’ and explore the continuing privileges and power of white, heterosexual, middle-class men in the global north, while also investigating the difficulties young men face under neoliberalism. Rather than focusing on elites, this book investigates men who might be considered according to Connell’s (2005) conceptualisation—explored further in Chapter 2—of ‘complicit masculinity ’. That is, men who benefit from the ‘patriarchal dividend’ through being advantaged along multiple axes, despite not having to live up to the ideals of hegemonic masculinity . Considering such men using the approach of open and closed masculinities reveals that more privileged men can move towards the greater openness of masculinities fostered in the margin, and these transformations are important to identify and encourage. As Roberts and I have argued elsewhere, ‘[w]e need to take care not to only ask questions that focus on men as people who enact strategies related to power and domination’ (Elliott and Roberts 2020). At the same time, it is critical to focus on continuing closedness of masculinities amongst more advantaged men. It is important to both ‘tease out the ways that men can hold mutual positions of masculinity, and … situate seemingly good men as maintaining problematic structures of male domination and power when they do’ (Elliott and Roberts 2020).
This book thus contributes to the project of identifying and problematising ongoing closedness of masculinities, while focusing too on emerging openness and on teasing out further opportunities for change. I explore these complexities by investigating narratives of masculinity amongst three groups of young men: eight men living in or near Melbourne; ten German men living in Berlin; and ten Australian men living in Berlin. All were between the ages of 20 and 31, and most were relatively privileged as white, middle-class , heterosexual men, though three identified as gay or queer , one was questioning his sexuality, and one preferred not to label his sexuality. These young men could not be categorised as entirely closed in their masculinities or as entirely open. Rather, patterns emerged of movement around and between openness and closedness, patterns that this book explores and teases out. Complexities, challenges and possibilities arose as the men navigated different expressions of contemporary masculinity. At the same time, the one man from these groups who was marginalised along axes of class and sexuality practiced what could be seen as a radically open, caring, transformed version of masculinity.
The more advantaged men in this research stayed connected to closedness in different ways, including, for example, discursive distancing from devalued forms of masculinity, drawing on essentialist discourses about women as ruled by emotion, or discomfort about being perceived as gay (see Chapter 3). On the other hand, they highly valued openness in themselves and others, and in certain ways were demonstrating more open masculinities (see Chapter 5). The Australian men living in Berlin, for example, had turned towards greater openness through refiguring the connections between mobility, masculinity and paid work. Men living in Berlin felt there was greater room in Germany for non-normative expressions of masculinity, pointing to windows of opportunity for change. In Australia, men spoke of instances of care in their lives and the importance they placed on these, again highlighting open possibilities.
Still, lines between openness and closedness were never straightforward. Contradictions and nuances of masculinity emerged amongst these men. They had the resources to be highly mobile when it was advantageous to them, challenging what they saw as stasis in their lives. They benefited from the privileges of masculinity (and of whiteness, heterosexuality and middle-classness), but simultaneously discussed the pressures of masculinity such as violence, expectations around men’s behaviour, and proscriptions against showing emotions or seeking help. Furthermore, some spoke of a loss of men’s place in contemporary society, which they at times blamed on feminism, but which also revealed struggles around masculinities and work in neoliberal late modernity (see Chapter 4). Most of these men hoped to be able to discover and take on more open versions of masculinity. However, in many cases the models they had found for addressing the discontents of contemporary masculinities harked back to essentialist and traditional ideas of masculinity and men’s roles. These models included, for example, mass media backlash discourses to feminism or even, for one man, the ideas espoused by pickup artists .
While the more advantaged men in this research were adopting open practices and ideals of masculinity in certain ways, a key contention of the margin-centre framework is that revolutionary potentials for openness and change in masculinities are likely to stem from the margin. In other words, it is those in the margin who foster the openness towards which men in the centre need to move. Indeed, it was with one man in this research—a queer, working-class man in Germany—that openness and egalitarian, revolutionary practices, beliefs and commitments in relation to masculinity emerged. He modelled what could be considered a ‘caring masculinity’, defined as masculinities that ‘reject domination and its associated traits and embrace values of care such as positive emotion, interdependence, and relationality’ (Elliott 2016, p. 240). Locked out of the privileges of the closed centre, he adopted a radical politics of gender and sexuality, challenged dictates of closed masculinities, and had a strong commitment to care. His biography and narratives are presented in Chapter 6 to draw attention to some of the reformulated, revolutionary expressions of open masculinity in the margin that men in the centre can learn from.
In the remainder of this chapter, I explore the global contexts in which the men in this book were enmeshed and consider how they were able to be situated transnationally through possessing the resources to be mobile when and how they needed or desired. After introducing the men in more detail, I consider how meanings and understandings emerged through their narratives and how these were constructed in interviews. I then close by outlining the following chapters of the book.
Men and Mobility in a Globalised World
The men considered throughout this book were located in two different countries: Australia and Germany. They could not, however, be considered as isolated to one cultural or social context. The ties between Germany and Australia are well established, and in 2014 national cooperation between the two countries accelerated with the establishment of the Australia–Germany Advisory Group. Some of the men considered in this book were Australians living in Berlin, while some of the German men living in Berlin had lived or holidayed in ...