Masculine Maneuvers: Male Baton Twirlers, Compensatory Manhood Acts, and Hybrid Masculinity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1097184X2110525
Author(s):  
Trenton M. Haltom
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Heterosexual Men ◽  
Men Of Color ◽  
Skill Mastery

Men in women-dominated or feminized spaces use masculinizing strategies to circumvent stigma, yet this scholarship largely ignores sports which limits insights into how masculinity operates across social contexts. Drawing parallels from men’s experiences in other women-dominated settings, I address this gap by investigating how and to what end men in baton twirling “maneuver” masculinities. Using 30 qualitative interviews, I show how men in twirling bolster lost status using compensatory manhood acts (CMA) by demonstrating skill mastery and being the best. Twirlers in this study borrow masculine characteristics they deem valuable while also buying into an unequal social order that emphasizes differences between winners (white, heterosexual men) and losers (men of color or gay men). Findings from this study extend theoretical insights concerning how men maneuver within and across a variety of social structures by using similar tools to create a “hybrid” masculinity that reinforces gender privilege and hierarchies of inequality.

scholarly journals Discussing parenthood with gay men diagnosed with HIV: a qualitative study of patient and healthcare practitioner perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pralat ◽  
Jane Anderson ◽  
Fiona Burns ◽  
Elizabeth Yarrow ◽  
Tristan J. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Hiv Care ◽  
Hiv Positive ◽  
Heterosexual Men ◽  
Healthcare Practitioner ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Living With Hiv

Abstract Background Research on HIV and reproduction has focused largely on women and heterosexual men. This article examines whether it is relevant to address parenthood in HIV care with gay men and what ways of doing so are most appropriate. Methods Qualitative interviews were conducted at four London clinics with 25 men living with HIV, aged 20–45, who did not have children, and 16 HIV clinicians. A thematic analysis identified potential reasons why parenthood was rarely discussed with gay men in HIV care. Results Two sets of ideas contributed to a lack of conversations about parenthood: clinicians’ ideas about what matters to gay men and men’s ideas about what it means to be HIV-positive. Both sets of ideas largely excluded having children, with patients and practitioners similarly unlikely to raise the topic of parenthood in the clinic. Contrary to what clinician commonly assumed, many men expressed interest in receiving more information, highlighting the importance of reassuring people upon diagnosis that it is possible to become parents while living with HIV. Conclusions Parenting desires and intentions were rarely discussed with men in HIV care. Our findings illuminate the potentially beneficial effects of emphasising that having children is a possibility at diagnosis, regardless of patients’ gender or sexuality. Conveying this information seems meaningful, not only to men who want to become parents in the future but also to others, as it appears to alleviate fears about mortality and ill health.

scholarly journals In The Middle: Being Portuguese And Gay In The Wake Of The Emanuel Jaques Murder In 1977 Toronto

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Homosexual Men ◽  
The Media ◽  
Old Portuguese ◽  
The City ◽  
Two Sides

This thesis revisits the murder of the 12-year-old Portuguese immigrant boy Emanuel Jaques in Toronto in 1977 and the cultural response it ignited through qualitative interviews with five Portuguese gay men who were coming of age around this moment. Homosexual men across the city were conflated with the men who murdered Jaques because of their sexualities and depicted as a threat to children by politicians, law officials, protestors, and members of the media. Young Portuguese gay men found themselves in between two sides of an intense moral panic yet their experiences had not previously been sought out and recorded. They recall facing a fear of self and of others following the murder, a questioning or rejection of their sexualities, and in one case, continuing guilt. These experiences are considered within a broader context of what it meant to be Portuguese and gay in the ‘70s and ‘80s in Toronto.

scholarly journals Social Aspects of Health Communication – Towards a Research Agenda

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. I-IV
Author(s):  
Sarah Geber ◽  
Tobias Frey ◽  
Thomas N. Friemel
Keyword(s):  
Health Communication ◽  
Impression Management ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Health Related ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Individual

Health and health-related behaviours are embedded in social contexts in various ways which comprise both risks and opportunities for health communication. We propose a research agenda on social aspects of health communication and introduce the articles of the present special issue. Owing to the complexity of individuals’ social contexts, the research agenda addresses questions lying at the individual, interpersonal, and societal levels. The issue’s articles cover different and highly relevant questions of this research agenda, ranging from stigmatisation to impression management to collective action and from experimental designs to qualitative interviews and netnography. In sum, the articles demonstrate not only the diversity but also the relevance of academic research on social aspects of health communication. We expect that this topic will continue gaining importance, given the ongoing digitalisation of the media environment and the increasing interconnectedness of producers and users, doctors and patients, and experts and laypersons.

scholarly journals Changing the Pattern: Reclaiming History, Constructing Herstory in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Ana Sentov
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
The Social ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Church

This paper will examine how Grace Marks, the female protagonist/narrator of Alias Grace (1996), reclaims her history, which is comprised of many different, often contradictory stories of her life and the crime for which she is imprisoned. These stories reflect the dominant discourse of a conservative male-dominated society, in which Grace is an outsider, due to her gender, class, age, and immigrant status. The law, the medical profession, the church, and the media all see Grace as a disruptive element: a woman who committed or assisted in a murder, a lunatic and/or a member of the working class who dared disturb the social order. Grace is revealed not as a passive victim, an object to be acted upon, but as an agent capable of reclaiming history and constructing herstory, challenging and defying the expectations of dominant social structures. The paper will show that Alias Grace, as a novel giving voice to the marginalized and the silenced, stands as a compelling work that examines and provides insights into the position of women and its changes over the course of history, provoking a discourse that remains relevant today

scholarly journals Transnational Professional Competition in Fields and Ecologies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus Corlin Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Ecological Theory ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Mutual Learning ◽  
Theoretical Dynamics

Transnationalisation of economies, organisations and societies have fundamentally reconfigured professional life. Dispersal of authority and activity away from national confines has spawned new transnational modes of organisation and competition amongst professionals. Studies of transnational professional competition explore how professionals broker normative, institutional and political change through these struggles in spaces ‘beyond the state’. This paper reviews existing work on transnational professional competition, focusing on two dominant streams: studies associated with Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and studies associated with Andrew Abbott’s ecological theory. It discusses the key theoretical dynamics and empirical focus of each stream. Furthermore, the paper reviews the ongoing debate between the two streams, drawing out proposals for mutual learning at the intersection of field and ecology studies. It is argued that such a closer exchange has potential to address points of contention and exploit points of convergence, enhancing understanding of specifically transnational professional relations, institutional change, social contexts and social structures.

As narrative capital: jazz tropics and the marketing imaginary

2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 972-980
Author(s):  
Douglas Brownlie
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Marketing Management ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Content Strategy ◽  
Narrative Framework ◽  
Cultural Force

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss how discourse and figure nurture the narrative “capital” available to the community of marketing scholars through expanding its horizon of translational frames. It specifically discusses one such translational frame as presented within Holbrook’s (2015) discussion of jazz within a narrative of marketing management and how it enhances the understanding of marketing as a creative cultural force. Design/methodology/approach – Generalising from “jazz” to tropics, the commentary discusses three thematic reflective possibilities inspired by Holbrook’s article: content strategy; visual fluency and marketing creativity; and wider visions. This paper also examines how discussions about the wider public understanding of marketing can draw inspiration from the narrative framework suggested by Holbrook (2015) and his calculus of constructive ambiguity. Findings – As an area of study, tropics enriches the reflexive awareness of how the discipline of marketing is understood within academia and its various stakeholder communities. Research limitations/implications – The academic discipline of marketing needs to continuously reimagine itself and its relation to the changing social order in order to participate in dialogue with it. Originality/value – In particular, the commentary examines the jazz metaphor developed by Holbrook (2015) and suggests how this could affect the way that marketing presents itself within wider social contexts.

Challenging Perceptions of “Straight”: Heterosexual Men Who Have Sex with Men and the Cultural Politics of Sexual Identity Categories

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 694-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asha Persson ◽  
Christy E. Newman ◽  
Pene Manolas ◽  
Martin Holt ◽  
Denton Callander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Health ◽  
Sexual Identity ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Heterosexual Men ◽  
Sex With Men ◽  
Health Field

Research shows that some heterosexually identified men engage in sex with men; however, they remain largely hidden and little understood. Despite long-standing scholarly recognition that sexual identity and orientation do not always neatly coincide, the culturally normative heterosexual/homosexual binary tends to shape mainstream perceptions of such men as well as render them invisible in sexual health systems reliant on stable sexual identity categories. This invisibility, in turn, perpetuates the fiction of the binary. We explore perspectives on heterosexually identified men who have sex with men, drawing on recent research literature and on qualitative interviews with “key informants” in the Australian sexual health field who have frontline knowledge of these men. We consider the limitations of inventing a label to “encapsulate” these diverse men but also the significance of finding a language that meaningfully acknowledges their sexual realities and highlights heterosexuality as more varied and fluid than social attitudes and traditional sexual identity categories permit.

A Wide-Open Town?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Sueyoshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Order ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Men Of Color ◽  
The Status ◽  
The City

This chapter interrogates San Francisco’s mythical reputation as a town where “anything goes.” Pairings of men of color with white women occurred in the city press without the violent rage that it provoked in nearly every other part of the United States at the time. Homoerotic imagery and writings also proliferated with little to no controversy. While the acceptance of these activities might signal an embrace of the diverse people and lifestyles, it in fact pointed to the opposite. Precisely because of overwhelming and unquestionable dominance of white supremacy and heterosexuality, narratives of interracial mingling and same-sex love that might otherwise challenge the status quo served merely as entertaining anecdotes without any threat to the existing social order.

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