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This volume explores which relations produce or maintain masculinities and certain gendered systems of power and the consequences of these gender constructions that further gender research. To understand the meanings of masculinity/masculinities and relationalities as critical concepts in gender studies it takes a wide theoretical grip that spans over several research fields. From a feminist perspective, it critically investigates masculinities as relationally constructed by scrutinizing which relations construct masculinity within a certain gendered system of power, such as the nation, the family, or the workplace, and explores how this is done. ‘In relation to what?’ is hence, in spite of its almost vulgar rhetorical simplicity, an important question in investigating and problematizing gender.
This book speaks to the meanings and values that inhere in close relations, focusing on ‘family’ and ‘kinship’ but also looking beyond these categories. Multifaceted, diverse and subject to constant debate, close relations are ubiquitous in human lives on embodied as well as symbolic levels. Closely related to processes of power, legibility and recognition, close relations are surrounded by boundaries that both constrain and enable their practical, symbolical and legal formation. Carefully contextualising close relations in relation to different national contexts, but also in relation to gender, sexuality, race, religion and dis/ability, the volume points to the importance of and variations in how close relations are lived, understood and negotiated. Grounded in a number of academic areas and disciplines, ranging from legal studies, sociology and social work to literary studies and ethnology, this volume also highlights the value of using inter- and multidisciplinary scholarly approaches in research about close relations. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
This open access volume offers original essays on how motherhood and mothering are represented in contemporary fiction and life writing across several national contexts. Providing a broad range of perspectives in terms of geopolitical places, thematic concerns, and theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches, it demonstrates the significance of literary narratives for understanding and critiquing motherhood and mothering as social phenomena and subjective experiences. The chapters contextualize motherhood and mothering in terms of their particular national and cultural location and analyze narratives about mothers who are firmly placed in one national context, as well as those who are in ...
This book discusses men’s friendships in relation to queer, discursive, and intersectional feminist theories. It analyses stories of intimacy, touch, hugs, and conversations, connecting these with current discussions within feminism and critical masculinity studies on “new” men, men’s political activism, and how friendships are lived and conceptualised in relation to heteronormative relationship ideals. Drawing on individual and dyadic interviews with middle-class Swedish men, all engaged in or sympathetic to feminist issues in some sense, this volume shows that Swedish gender equality ideologies as well as feminist, therapeutic, neo-liberal, and individualist discourses prevalent in the Western world structured the men’s friendships and their engagement with gender politics. Chapters cover friendship temporalities, gendered friendship ideals, friendship as men’s politics, and friendship as performed in interaction. Bridging the literatures of feminist research and friendship, the author points to tensions and contradictions in pro-feminist men’s political projects and in contemporary masculine positions.
This edited volume addresses how single mothers and fathers are represented in novels, self-help literature, daily newspapers, film and television, as well as within their own narratives in interviews on social media. With proportions varying between countries, the number of single parents has been increasing steadily since the 1970s in the Western world. Contributions to this volume analyse how various societies respond to these parents and family forms. Through a range of materials, methodologies and national perspectives, chapters make up three sections to cover single mothers, single fathers and solo mothers (single women who became parents through assisted reproductive technologies). The authors reveal that single parenthood is divided along the lines of gender and socioeconomic status, with age, sexuality and the reason for being a single parent coming into play. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
This book questions why so many mothers leave their families in twenty-first-century Swedish literature, analyzing literary representations of maternal abandonment in relation to sociopolitical discourses. The volume draws on a queer-theoretical framework in order to highlight norm-critical dimensions, failure, and resistance in literature about motherhood. Jenny Björklund argues that novels about mothers who leave can be understood as ways to problematize and challenge Swedish-branded values like gender equality and a progressive family politics that promotes ideals of involved parenthood, the nuclear family, and pronatalism. The book also raises questions beyond the Swedish context about maternal ambivalence, family politics, and privilege and discusses how literature can work as resistance and provide alternatives to the current social order.
The Palgrave Handbook of Power, Gender, and Psychology takes an intersectional feminist approach to the exploration of psychology and gender through a lens of power. The invisibility of power in psychological research and theorizing has been critiqued by scholars from many perspectives both within and outside the discipline. This volume addresses that gap. The handbook centers power in the analysis of gender, but does so specifically in relation to psychological theory, research, and praxis. Gathering the work of sixty authors from different geographies, career stages, psychological sub-disciplines, methodologies, and experiences, the handbook showcases creativity in approach, and diversity of perspective. The result is a work featuring a chorus of different voices, including diverse understandings of feminisms and power. Ultimately, the handbook presents a case for the importance of intersectionality and power for any feminist psychological endeavor.
In the two decades bracketing the turn of the millennium, large-scale weather disasters have been inevitably constructed as media events. As such, they challenge the meaning of concepts such as identity and citizenship for both locally affected populations and widespread spectator communities. This timely collection pinpoints the features of an often overlooked yet rapidly expanding category of global media and analyzes both its forms and functions. Specifically, contributors argue that the intense promotion and consumption of 'extreme weather' events takes up the slack for the public conversations society is not having about the environment, and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies...
Providing a state of the art overview, this comprehensive Handbook is an essential introduction to the subject of Gender and Social Policy. Bringing together original contributions and research from leading researchers it covers the theoretical perspectives of the field, the central policy terrain of gender inequalities of income, employment and care, and family policy. Examining gender and social policy at both the regional and national level, the Handbook is an excellent resource for advanced students and scholars of sociology, political science, women’s studies, policy studies as well as practitioners seeking to understand how gender shapes the contours of social policy and politics.