As each generation confronts aging and responds to its challenges, the literary community-ranging from Philip Roth to Jonathan Franzen-has provided nuanced and thoughtful depictions that transcend stereotypes of old men as feeble and broken individuals. Under the sage guidance of these authors-many facing old age themselves-older male characters have become increasingly prevalent in literary fiction. In Aging Masculinity in the American Novel, Alex Hobbs turns the spotlight on matters related to later life by examining a broad range of works. Hobbs looks at novels not only by literary lions of the Baby Boom generation, but authors on the cusp of old age who anticipate its consequences. In addition to works by Jonathan Franzen, Paul Auster, and Ethan Canin, the author considers the perspectives of female writers, such as Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler, and Jane Smiley, who have created complex older male characters. Hobbs argues that previous studies regarding male aging in popular culture have been reductive, and she suggests that male and female experiences and interpretations of aging are individualistic and unique. With a bold argument for how readers should contemplate masculinity in literary fiction, this book helps us better understand the full range of issues that older men face-from legacy and loss to health issues and grace. The author's illuminating and persuasive perspectives will ignite a new way of thinking about this subject and its central place in the national conversation. Looking at how older men's lives are documented in American fiction, Aging Masculinity in the American Novel will be of interest to scholars and students of popular culture, gender studies, aging studies, and literature.

The volume engages with sexuality and queer issues in India. It brings cinema and representation in order to understand the reality of sexuality and queer existence in contemporary neo-liberal India. With the increasing interest gender and sexuality studies this volume will appeal international readership.

This book presents an analysis of representations of white, heterosexual, working-class masculinities in British culture between 1945 and 1989 to trace the development of the sociocultural and material conditions that shaped the masculinities which are helping to shape contemporary culture. This book seeks to fan the 'spark of hope' in the past that informs our present. The period which saw the establishment of the welfare state and the construction and breakdown of the post-war consensus in British politics was of great significance in the formation and maintenance of working-class masculinities and their correspondent representations. The author engages with a variety of cultural texts across various modes and media including films (Alfie), plays (Don't Look Back in Anger), television (Boys from the Blackstuff), and music (The Beatles), and employs the analysis of the representation of working-class masculinities as a lens through which to examine a range of historical and cultural moments. This book reinstates class as a central precept in the study of British cultural representations and offers a timely intervention in ongoing debates around class and gender identities in Britain. The book will be key reading for students and researchers with interests in twentieth-century social and cultural British history, masculinities and gender studies, twentieth-century British literature, British television, and cultural studies more broadly.

Charting production, distribution, censorship, and reception, this book examines Y Tu Mama Tambien in its presentation as a journey of self-discoveries. Three young adults enjoy a road trip together in search of a legendary beach. Behind their stories are mythologies of youth, a network of ideas in the film that reflects life outside the theaters. The deceptively complex film leaves the characters and its viewers with, instead of oversimplified and hollow answers, provocative questions and existential concerns. Made independently in Mexico, the film crosses over transnational issues, global markets, and mainstream and alternative aesthetics. It transforms road movie and youth film genres and shows a 'musical, magical' Mexico to the world. This book synthesizes several approaches in order to extensively examine Y Tu Mama Tambien. Covering the film's production history, its distribution and censorship, and larger industrial, political, and cultural contexts, this book analyzes the too-often overlooked aspects of youthful sexuality alongside figurations of maturity, rites of passage, and covenants-made, broken, and remade-that not only inform representations of identity but also complicate the processes of identity formation themselves.

Raising African American Males is comprised of strategies and interventions that can assist and improve African American males' achievement in all areas of academics as well as in their everyday lives. Theresa Harris and George Taylor provide pedagogical strategies that employ various instructional tools for teachers, parents, African American youth, and administrators. In addition, this book can be a guide to improve the educational outlook for African American males and to provide the necessary resources used for training of parents, teachers, and students. The "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 and the Maryland Redesign of Teacher Education provides for the belief in the efficacy of all students. Many social inadequacies and injustices have resulted in social problems including the lack of resources for African American males to succeed.

Gendered processes of globalisation, transnationalisation and urbanisation are increasing local and global inequalities and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The global finance industry plays a key role in these processes, directing its operations from local command points in global cities such as London. Drawing on empirical data collected after the 2008 financial crisis - in depth interviews with male City of London bankers who are also fathers, in depth interviews with the bankers' wives, observational data of work and family spaces, and banks' promotional online material -this book explores the day-to-day individual and institutional social practices of wealthy City bankers and banks. The book's analysis offers insight into how the spaces of work and home are integrally linked in ways that mutually shape, support and sustain the gendered dominance of the industry and its highly paid workers. This book will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and academics interested in the fields of gender studies, critical studies of men and masculinities, urban and metropolitan studies, sociology, studies of globalisation and transnationalisation, anthropology, cultural studies and business management. It will also be interesting for those concerned about the role of the finance industry and neoliberal capitalist ideologies, values and practices in ever-widening local and global inequalities.

Interest in sexual threesomes is significant, but how much do we really know about them? Why do people engage in them? What influences people's interest? And what are the longer term ramifications of a threesome? This book explores these questions and more; contextualising the findings in relation to wider norms of gender, sexual behaviour, and relationships. Drawing upon more than 50 interviews and 200+ qualitative surveys this book offers a rich and in-depth analysis of contemporary threesome behaviours. The findings suggest that threesomes are a complex and multi-faceted sexual behaviour. A behaviour which simultaneously resists and maintains norms of monogamy, serves important roles and functions for individuals and relationships, and is both highly desirable but potentially risky. This book would appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars in the fields of sociology, psychology, and sexology. In particular, this book is essential reading for those interested in threesomes, consensual non-monogamies, and contemporary norms of sexual behaviour.

This book critically unpacks the why and how around everyday rhetorics and slogans promoting global LGBTQ equality. Examining the means by which particular discourses of progress and hope are circulated globally, it offers unique insights into how LGBTQ livelihoods, relationships, and social movements are legitimated and valued in contemporary society. Adopting an innovative critical discourse-ethnographic approach, Comer draws on scholarship from the sociolinguistics of global mobility, queer linguistics, and digital media studies, offering in-depth analyses of representations of LGBTQ identity across a range of domains. The volume examines semiotic linkages between: LGBTQ tourism marketing; Cape Town, South Africa, as a locus for contemporary ideologies of global mobility and equality; diversity management practices framing LGBTQ equality as a business imperative; and, humanitarian discourses within transnational LGBTQ advocacy. Autoethnographic vignettes and principles from within queer theory are incorporated by Comer's critical discourse-ethnographic approach, giving voice to personal experience in order to sharpen scholarly understanding of the relationships between everyday 'social voices', globalized neoliberal political economy, and the media. Taken together, the volume expansively (if queerly) maps what Comer refers to as 'the mediatization of equality', and will be of interest to graduate students and scholars in critical discourse studies, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, as well as those working across such fields as media studies, queer studies, and sociology.

The Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies provides a contemporary critical and scholarly overview of theorizing and research on masculinities as well as emerging ideas and areas of study that are likely to shape research and understanding of gender and men in the future. The forty-eight chapters of the handbook take an interdisciplinary approach to a range of topics on men and masculinities related to identity, sex, sexuality, culture, aesthetics, technology and pressing social issues. The handbook's transnational lens acknowledges both the localities and global character of masculinity. A clear message in the book is the need for intersectional theorizing in dialogue with feminist, queer and sexuality studies in making sense of men and masculinities. Written in a clear and direct style, the handbook will appeal to students, teachers and researchers in the social sciences and humanities, as well as professionals, practitioners and activists.

The five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are well-known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in the Nordic setting through family and social policies, and how these contribute to shaping and influencing the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods. This comprehensive volume will have wide international appeal for those who look to Nordic countries and their success in creating gender equal societies.

This groundbreaking second edition of Human Sexuality continues its broad and interdisciplinary goal of providing readers with a comprehensive overview on sexuality as a core part of our individual identities and social lives. Edited by anthropological experts on the subject, this unique textbook integrates evolutionary and cultural aspects to provide a fully interdisciplinary approach to human sexuality that is rare in this area of scholarship. Fully updated throughout in line with developments in the field, this second edition includes fresh material exploring new sexual identities, sexual violence and consent, Internet pornography, conversion therapy, polyamory, and much more. In addition to providing a rich array of photographs, illustrations, tables, and a glossary of terms, this textbook explores: pregnancy and childbirth as a bio-cultural experience life-course issues related to gender identity, sexual orientations, behaviors, and lifestyles socioeconomic, political, historical, and ecological influences on sexual behavior early childhood sexuality, puberty, and adolescence birth control, fertility, conception, and sexual differentiation HIV infection, AIDS, AIDS globalization, and sex work. Utilizing viewpoints across cultural and national boundaries and taking into account the evolution of human anatomy, sexual behavior, attitudes, and beliefs across the globe, Human Sexuality, Second Edition, remains an essential text for educators and students who wish to understand human sexuality in all of its richness and complexity.

Offering a uniquely psychoanalytic developmental perspective on male gender identity and the sense of maleness, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the development of masculinity in childhood and its continued evolution throughout a man's life. Drawing on classical Freudian theory, as well as on more contemporary psychoanalytic theories, this book explores early infancy and child development, preoedipal factors and the oedipal complex, the influence of parenting and the unconscious transmission of gendered factors both by mothers and both biological and symbolic fathers, the male ego ideal, social, cultural, and biological influences, the role of inherent psychic bi-genderality in the context of gender binaries, and the inherent gendered tensions and challenges experienced as an individual progresses into adult and later life. This book is original in its characterization of the male developmental trajectory as underpinned by psychoanalytic principles pertaining to conflict and inherent tensions that continue throughout the life cycle and strongly impact other areas of life. Deeply rooted in the unconscious, a man's multiply determined sense of masculinity requires deconstructing the mother, the feminine, and the other in the male psyche. As the text illustrates via clinical vignettes, an awareness and an understanding of these areas can improve the clinical work of psychoanalysts working with men who struggle with the intrinsic conflicts in their sense of maleness. This book will be of great clinical value to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners, and will stimulate the thinking of scholars in such areas as gender theory, psychodynamic and sociocultural aspects of gender roles, and the changing social definition of masculinity.

This book explores the lived, embodied experiences of aging men as a counterpoint to the weary stereotypes often imposed on them. Conventionally, in Western cultures, they are seen as inevitably in decline. The book challenges these distorted images through a detailed analysis of aging men's life stories.

Images and ideas associated with masculinity are forever in flux. In this book, Donald Moss addresses the never-ending effort of men-regardless of sexual orientation-to shape themselves in relation to the unstable notion of masculinity. Part 1 looks at the lifelong labor faced by boys and men of assessing themselves in relation to an always shifting, always receding, ideal of "masculinity." In Part 2, Moss considers a series of nested issues regarding homosexuality, homophobia and psychoanalysis. Part 3 focuses on the interface between the body experienced as a private entity and the body experienced as a public entity-the body experienced as one's own and the body subject to the judgments, regulations and punishments of the external world. The final part looks at men and violence. Men must contend with the entwined problems of regulating aggression and figuring out its proper level, aiming to avoid both excess and insufficiency. This section focuses on excessive aggression and its damaging consequences, both to its object and to its subjects. Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Man will be of great interest not only to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, but also to a much wider audience of readers interested in gender studies, queer studies, and masculinity.

This book makes a unique contribution to contemporary research into masculinities, men's movements, and fathers' rights groups. It examines the role of changing masculinities in creating equality and/or reinforcing inequality by analysing diverse men's movements, their politics, and the identities they (re)construct. Jordan advances a typology for categorising men's movements ('feminist', 'postfeminist', and 'backlash' movements) and addresses debates over the construction of 'masculinity-in-crisis', arguing that 'crisis' is frequently invoked in problematic ways. These themes are further explored through original analyses of material produced by 'feminist', 'postfeminist', and 'backlash' men's groups. The main empirical contribution of the book draws on interviews with fathers' rights activists to explore the (gendered) implications of the 'new' politics of fatherhood. The nuanced examination of fathers' rights perspectives reveals multiple, complex narratives of masculinity, fatherhood, and gender politics. The cumulative effect of these is, at best, postfeminist and depoliticising, and, at worst, another vitriolic 'backlash'. The New Politics of Fatherhood expands scholarly understandings of gender, masculinities, and social movements in the under-researched UK context, and will appeal to readers with interests in these areas.

One of America's greatest challenges is to reverse the steep decline of the intellectual performance of its young men. The dramatic increase in violent acts and the downward spiral of high stakes testing in our schools has confirmed that many of our young men have lost hope or simply given up. Reconnecting, Redirecting, and Redefining 21st Century Males identifies the physical, emotional, and psychological adjustments many boys have been forced to navigate alone during their most vulnerable, formative years and provides adjustments that adults must make to assist them in these transitions.

Analysing materials from literature and film, this book considers the fates of women who did not or could not buy into the Japanese imperial ideology of "good wives, wise mothers" in support of male empire-building. Although many feminist critics have articulated women's active roles as dutiful collaborators for the Japanese empire, male-dominated narratives of empire-building have been largely supported and rectified. In contrast, the roles of marginalized women, such as sex workers, women entertainers, hostesses, and hibakusha have rarely been analyzed. This book addresses this intellectual lacuna by closely examining memories, (semi-)autobiographical stories, and newspaper articles, grounded or inspired by lived experiences not only in Japan, but also in Shanghai, Manchukuo, colonial Korea, and the Pacific. Chapters further explore the voices of diasporic Korean women (Zainichi Korean woman born in Japan, as well as Korean American woman born in Korea) whose lives were impacted, intervening ethnocentric narratives that were at the heart of the Japanese empire. An appendix presents the first English translation of a memorable statement on comfort women by former Japanese propaganda actress, Ri Koran / Yamaguchi Yoshiko. Prostitutes, Hostesses, and Actresses at the Edge of the Japanese Empire will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese literature and film studies, as well as gender, sexuality and postcolonial studies.

This book enters a new liminal space between the LGBTQ and denominational Christian communities. It simultaneously explores how those who identify as queer can find a home in church and how those leading welcoming, or indeed unwelcoming, congregations can better serve both communities. The primary argument is that queer inclusion must not merely mean an assimilation into existing heteronormative respectability and approval. Chapters are written by a diverse collection of Asian, Latin American, and U.S. theologians, religious studies scholars and activists. Each of them writes from their own social context to address the notion of LGBTQ alternative orthodoxies and praxes pertaining to God, the saints, failure of the church, queer eschatologies, and erotic economies. Engaging with issues that are not only faced by those in the theological academy, but also by clergy and congregants, the book addresses those impacted by a history of Christian hostility and violence who have become suspicious of attempts at "acceptance". It also sets out an encouragement for queer theologians and clergy think deeply about how they form communities where queer perspectives are proactively included. This is a forward-looking and positive vision of a more inclusive theology and ecclesiology. It will, therefore, appeal to scholars of Queer Theology and Religious Studies as well as practitioners seeking a fresh perspective on church and the LGBTQ community.

Taking the notion of embodiment as a starting point, this volume maps the interconnecting relationships between religion, gender and sexuality. The chapters highlight how the body - its location, the narratives that surround it, its movement and negotiations - is central to understanding these multifaceted relationships. The contributors recognise the ways in which gender and sexuality are crucial to how we embody religion and encourage a more complex and nuanced understanding of embodied religion. The material is organised according to three central themes: (1) the relationship between the religious and the secular; (2) power, regulation and resistance; and (3) the symbolism of gendered bodies. Cutting across a range of disciplinary perspectives, Embodying Religion, Gender and Sexuality will be relevant to students of sociology, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, theology and religious studies.

Can a baker refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple? Despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage equality in 2015, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) citizens in the United States continue to be discriminated against in fundamental areas that others take for granted as a legal right. Using social equity theory and intersectionality but written in an accessible style, this book demonstrates some of the ways in which LGBTQ citizens have been marginalized for their identity and argues that the field of public administration has a unique responsibility to prioritize social equity. Categories utilized by the U.S. Census Bureau (male or female, heterosexual or homosexual), for example, must shift to a continuum to accurately capture demographic characteristics and citizen behavior. Evidenced-based outcomes and disparities between cisgender and heterosexual and LGBTQ populations are carefully delineated to provide a legal rationale for a compelling governmental interest, and policy recommendations are provided - including overdue federal legislation to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

This intellectually vibrant volume is the first collection to deal with Australian celebrity in ways that account for both cultural and gendered specificities, demonstrating how gendered ways of imagining Australia are reinforced and contested in celebrity representations and self-presentations. Gender and Australian Celebrity Culture engages with celebrities across a diverse range of fields - actors, journalists, athletes, comedians, writers, and television personalities - and in doing so critically reflects upon different forms of Australian fame and the media platforms and practices that sustain them. Authors in this volume engage directly with pertinent issues relating to gender and sexuality, including celebrity feminism and the generative capacity of feminist rage; normative femininity and its instability; hegemonic masculinities; and queerness and its (in)visibility. Contributors also intervene in a number of ongoing debates in media and cultural studies more broadly, including those around the politics and affordances of digital media; whiteness and Australia's colonial histories; celebrity labour; and methodologies for celebrity studies. This timely collection urges scholars of celebrity to attend further both to the gendered nature of celebrity culture and to local conditions of production and consumption. This book will be of key interest to researchers and graduate students in cultural studies, television and film studies, digital media studies, critical race and whiteness studies, gender and sexuality studies, and literary studies.

Unleashing Manhood in the Cage: Masculinity and Mixed Martial Arts addresses the question "Why do mixed martial arts participants endure grueling workouts and suffer through injury, with little or no pay, just to compete?" The answer is because the participants enjoy a form of idolization from their supporters, each other, and culture more generally, which is linked to masculinity. In fact, MMA organizers, from the very beginning, purposefully created elements of the sport that are linked to dominant narratives about manhood. In this context, men don thin open-fingered gloves, lock themselves in a caged enclosure, and slug it out in a fight with few rules to see who comes out on top. This all occurs while "ring girls" in high-heels and skin-tight shirts and shorts stride around outside the cage holding signs and peddling t-shirts. The sum of these elements is the creation of a type of a publicly accessible and consumable form of masculinity. The sport of mixed martial arts is a rich and intriguing space where the construction of gender can be explored through a sociological and ethnographic lens.

This book examines key themes and concepts pertaining to religious and sexual identities and expressions, mapping theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions. It explores the ways in which debates around sexuality and religion have been framed, and what research is still needed to expand the field as it develops. Through the deployment of contemporary research, including data from the authors' own projects, Religion and Sexualities offers an encompassing account of the sociology of sexuality and religion, considering theoretical and methodological lenses, queer experiences, and how sexuality is gendered in religious contexts. This comprehensive text will act as an essential accompaniment to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities, whether they have a general interest in the field or are embarking on their own research in this area.

Divided into 15 chapters, this book provides the reader with an insight into certain representations of mothers and motherhood in history and today's societies in some areas of the world, notably in Britain and Asia. Key facts about the history of motherhood are presented, together with the use of very recent notions and phrases portraying 'good' and 'bad' mothers. An analysis of the concepts of naming and blaming, along with regret with respect to mothers in 21st century societies, provides food for thought. Other issues addressed are varied and numerous: the politics of early intervention, feminist critique, mothers with disabilities and mothers of disabled children, incarcerated mothers, surrogate mothers, teenage mothers, lesbian mothers, and mothering in Eastern Asia, namely in China, Japan, and Korea. Interestingly, both visual arts and literature play a crucial role in this analysis. The publication will appeal to students, academics, researchers, and the general public interested in and seeking to comprehend the shifts that have occurred over time in connection with the vast and inexhaustible subject of motherhood and mothers - a private and public matter. Readers are also provided with a rich reference section dealing with the latest publications on the issues tackled by prominent academics and researchers in human geography, women's studies, sociology, gender studies, contemporary history, and the arts.

Spanning the disciplines of sociology, history, media and cultural studies, and popular culture, this book offers a historical exploration of Australian masculine tropes and an examination of contemporary representations of masculinity in the media. With attention to a range of thematic issues, including race, gender, sexuality, mythmaking, media representation, class, and nationality, it draws on new qualitative research and interview material to investigate the ways in which everyday Australian men take up or reject such ideas. White Masculinity in Contemporary Australia thus explores the contradictory resistance to and adoration of ideals of masculinity, forms of Othering used to differentiate the practice of "good" masculinity from that of "bad" masculinity, the relationship between heterosexuality, masculinity and Australian sporting culture as central to ideals of masculinity, and the existence of differing pressures to be masculine. As such it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in gender and sexuality, Australian studies, and contemporary popular culture.