ABSTRACT
Men's lives may be changing but public representations continue to endorse restrictive gender constructs. Popular culture and the mass media are shot through with cisgender and heteronormative norms. "While different groups of men may disagree about other traits and their significance in gender definitions, the antifemininity component of masculinity is perhaps the single dominant and universal characteristic". Political Science professor Monika McDermott articulates a view that is now widely accepted among psychological researchers: regardless of the gender expectations attached to one's birth-assigned sexed status, our actual psychic and social lives mix culturally coded masculine and feminine traits. Two broad shifts in the American gender landscape spell trouble for this iconic figure: the decline of the Victorian idea of separate spheres and the retreat of the state from enforcing compulsory heterosexuality. Psychoanalysis challenges conventional perspectives by conceptualizing subjectivities as composed of multiple, contradictory, and shifting gender experiences.
