ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at society as a whole and develops a concept to understand the social organization of the ongoing multiple crisis (German: Vielfachkrise) with a focus on the crisis of masculinity. We talk about multiple crisis in singular because we understand different crisis dynamics, for example, concerning gender, ecology, economy, health or education systems, as internally related to and influencing one another. They are constitutively connected, although they have their own temporality and autonomy and cannot be reduced to one another. Taking an emancipatory perspective which focuses on overcoming all forms of discrimination, exploitation and marginalization, we introduce the concept of multidimensionality as an alternative to intersectionality. By focusing on the constitutive connection of different dimensions of power and domination, it allows us to grasp the complexities of the specific entanglements within an individual or social field. Taking this perspective, we focus on the ongoing crisis of masculinity, partly triggered by women’s movements, which some men experience as threat, and others as liberation. The chapter questions economistic perspectives, which derive changes in hegemonic masculinities from developments in the economic sphere and stresses that changes in the familial sphere are also having effects on the economy.
