ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been a rising interest, even concern, about issues surrounding men and masculinity, which as the Australian sociologist R.W. Connell (1998: 1) argues, now extends worldwide. Nevertheless, it has been in Western cultures, marked by what some have termed post-industrialism,1
that the greatest transformations have occurred in the politics of gender. This is primarily because in these cultures the impact of second-wave feminism has been most acutely felt. For example, the feminist movement opened up and questioned, amongst other things, masculine relations, practices and identities which either directly or indirectly gave rise to various religious and secular based men’s movements, father’s rights and support groups, profeminist and anti-feminist activists, gay and queer movements as well as a plethora of literature, both of an academic and popular nature dealing with issues such as, men’s emotions, relationships, work, parenting, media representations, power and crisis. This nascent enthusiasm and concern about masculinity and its operation in gender relations became evident at the everyday level through the popularity of books such as, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (1992) by John Gray, and in Australia, Manhood (1994) by Steve Biddulph. This visible interest and concern in the community about men and masculinity sat in contrast to the more traditional belief that discussing masculine emotionality, work and power, for example, is of little social importance because, for many men, to normatively express their masculinity they simply had to work hard, provide for their family and remain tough through the hard times.
