This essay examines how young male students get affected by media and how it influences their identity in everyday life. Our theoretical framework is based on masculinity, hegemonic masculinity, parasocial interaction and identification theory. Methods used are qualitative interviews with young men between 20-25 years old. We keep in mind that we have preconceptions of how media affects the male identity and that it affects the results of the study. The essay shows that there are different suggestions of how a man should be and behave according to media image. However, the male images that are seen are all variations of the traditional production of man, but there are also new available ideal images. The result shows that young male students get affected by media messages in forms of identification with popular media-characters, body-ideal, success, responsibility and initiative taking andthat media content perhaps contribute to both positive but particularly negative consequencesfor men's identity.

Echoing Edward Said’s Orientalism, and Homi Bhabha’s notion of the stereotype as mimicry (camouflage), this research project investigates the recent construction of a Muslim male identity as the Other and Self-Othering following the destruction by al- Qaeda of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, referred to colloquially as ‘post-9/11’. The fear of a bearded Muslim terrorist, of attacks from Muslim fundamentalist organizations, the distrust leading to extreme security measures and the subsequent laws contributing to the discrimination and radicalization of the Muslim community are analysed. This research identifies and explains the myths surrounding the Muslim cultural and religious practices relating to the traditional appearance of a Muslim male, specifically the beard and marks of prostration, along with associated imagery derived from the prayer rug, Muslim worship, Salat, and the mosque. Beehive metaphors in Western and Muslim art, history, literature and media are explored. The dualistic concepts surrounding the stereotypes and personifications that result in ‘otherness’ are the key aspects of this research. Using the binary nature of beehive metaphors, as well as both cultures’ propaganda about the West’s Crusade and Islam’s Jihad, the making of a post-9/11 Muslim identity as jihadi, martyr and terrorist are investigated, culminating in artworks comprising of self-portraiture, sculptures, prints, drawings and installation art. These express layers of interpretation of the clash of international political entities alongside the cultural contestations and religious belief systems within the Muslim culture, and reflections upon my own identity as a Muslim man divided between the East and the West. Due to its conceptual yet allegorical content, this research is descriptive, and is intended to lay the ground for future research aimed at examining the compounded variables of potential cultural clashes, religious conflicts, and political action.

No description available.

[pt] Este trabalho aborda a problemática da expressão afetiva masculina em relacionamentos heterossexuais. Para tal são discutidas questões relativas à construção cultural dos estereótipos de gênero, os fatores psicossociais que contribuem para o desenvolvimento da identidade masculina, bem como a relevância da comunicação em relações afetivas. No intuito de verificar a influência de tais estereótipos na forma como alguns homens experimentam e expressam o sentimento amoroso, foram realizadas doze entrevistas com homens de classe média, residentes na zona sul da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, com idades entre 24 a 30 anos e 40 a 47 anos. A análise das entrevistas permitiu observar que o clichê de que os homens não falam sobre emoções e sentimentos não se verifica nas experiências amorosas de quase metade dos sujeitos. / [en] This work investigates the problem of male communication of emotions in heterossexual relationships. We discuss the cultural construction of gender stereotypes, the psychossocial factors that contribute to the development of the male identity, as well as the relevance of communication in love relationships. In order to verify the influence of such stereotypes in the way a few men experience and express love, twelve interviews were conducted with middle class men, with ages ranging from 24 to 30 years and 40 to 47 years, who live in the more affluent districts of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis of the interviews allowed us to observe that the cliché according to which men do not speak about emotions and feelings was not verified in the love experiences of almost half of the subjects.

This dissertation explores the culture of sport among African American male football players as well as African American perspectives on sport and success. A case study of six African American, Division 1 FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) collegiate student athletes was conducted along with seventeen supplemental interviews with community members, parents, coaches and former athletes and fans. The participants answered questions that explored education, success, identity construction, ethnicity and sport. Archival data was also reviewed framing the discussion on football in Florida, links between education and sport participation and African American male academic achievement. While many perspectives varied, there were collective trends in relation to how African American Athletes in Florida define themselves as well as their perspectives on ethnicity and sport. The individual perspectives and collective trends are discussed in this dissertation.

The thesis points out the important role of fatherhood in the lives of men. The thesis is divided into two parts. In the first part, I draw from available literature, journals, websites and sociological researches, and I focus on fatherhood throughout history, knowledge of male identity, the concepts of father in different scientific disciplines and typology of fathers. The second part consists of a qualitative survey conducted in open and indoor playgrounds in České Budějovice. By means of anonymous interviews with both fathers and mothers I examined how fatherhood affects and completes male identity and how important it is for men. Then I evaluated and compared these interviews.

This thesis discusses gender relationships in the novel Life is elsewhere by Milan Kundera. The first part of the analysis focuses on construction of motherhood and fatherhood, from which eventually results the positive/negative relationships of the child to the parents and on which we can also see the organization of the parenting practice itself. The second part is devoted to the key issue of the mother - son interactions, and therefore it analyzes the psychoanalytic concept of the Oedipal complex and difficulties associated with it, such as the son's dependence on the dominant mother who in addition fully replaces the absent father. I especially concentrate on the effort of the son to free himself from this dependence and on his consequent search for male identity. Methodologically, my text is designed as a combination of archetypal analysis with an interpretative or conceptual analysis, stemming from the approach of the so called resisting reading. This thesis compares traditional concepts with the feminist ones and applies them on the characters of Kundera's novel. Key words: gender relationships, psychoanalysis, archetypes, dominant mother, male identity.

No description available.

Considered as the ―...central organizing method‖ (Fuss, 1991:1) in terms of gender and sexual orientation particularly in the Western world, the heterosexual/homosexual binary, emphasises the centrality of ―compulsory heterosexuality‖ (Rich, 1993:227) in the everyday lives of social and sexual actors. In doing this, homosexuality is not only differentiated from heterosexuality, but may rather be ‗banished‘ to a lower and subordinate stratum of so-called sexual ―respectability‖ (Rubin, 1993:13). Using it as a point of departure, this particular sociological inquiry sought to critically explore the influence of a binary logic on the identity construction of gay male academics and students in South African tertiary education. This study provides an in-depth qualitative discussion of the lived experiences of these men on university campuses in order to redress the limited focus on the subject matter in South African sociology. Informed by the metatheoretical principles of phenomenology and central features of a symbolic interactionist methodology, three specific subthemes guided the research. These included the rationalisation of sexual orientation, self-reflexivity and, as my inductive contribution, a consideration of the deprofessionalisation and/or professionalisation of the gay male academic identity in South African higher education. In adopting Jackson and Scott‘s (2010) conceptualisation of the rationalisation of sexuality, the study sought to explore its role in the identity construction of gay men through, amongst others, ―sexual scripting‖ (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), ―doing gender‖ (West & Zimmerman, 2002), ―using gender‖ (Johnson, 2009) as well as ―doing gay‖ (Dowsett et al., 2008), to (de)construct a ―gay sensibility‖ (cf. Seidman, 2002a) within and between their private and professional contexts. Secondly, such negotiation of their homosexual ―performativity‖ (Butler, 1990) presupposed an undeniable degree of ―reflexiveness‖ (cf. Mead, 1962) on the part of the gay male, to adhere to the expectations of other individuals in a specific social context. Given the findings from a thematic analysis of fifteen (15) in-depth interviews with academics and seven (7) with students, as well as two (2) self-administered questionnaires completed by academics and seventeen (17) by students, the influence of heteronormativity, heterosexism and homophobia, was again reiterated. The participants mostly opted to professionalise their gay male identities (thus differentiate between their private and academic gay male identity), regardless of the fact that their narratives reflected an internal diversity, plurality and potentially non-subordinate otherness, akin to Plummer‘s (1998b) reference to ―homosexualities‖ rather than only one homogenised version of ‗homosexuality‘. Their choice to do so was attributed to a conscious effort to either ‗pass‘ as heterosexual, assimilate into the dominant sexual and gendered culture of the campus, or conform to a stereotypical gay performance in homosexually-segregated academic departments because of anxiety, fear or shame. As such, the potential of mastering an uncategorised ‗queer‘ inclination in tertiary education, becomes all the more difficult, if not improbable. / PhD (Sociology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Considered as the ―...central organizing method‖ (Fuss, 1991:1) in terms of gender and sexual orientation particularly in the Western world, the heterosexual/homosexual binary, emphasises the centrality of ―compulsory heterosexuality‖ (Rich, 1993:227) in the everyday lives of social and sexual actors. In doing this, homosexuality is not only differentiated from heterosexuality, but may rather be ‗banished‘ to a lower and subordinate stratum of so-called sexual ―respectability‖ (Rubin, 1993:13). Using it as a point of departure, this particular sociological inquiry sought to critically explore the influence of a binary logic on the identity construction of gay male academics and students in South African tertiary education. This study provides an in-depth qualitative discussion of the lived experiences of these men on university campuses in order to redress the limited focus on the subject matter in South African sociology. Informed by the metatheoretical principles of phenomenology and central features of a symbolic interactionist methodology, three specific subthemes guided the research. These included the rationalisation of sexual orientation, self-reflexivity and, as my inductive contribution, a consideration of the deprofessionalisation and/or professionalisation of the gay male academic identity in South African higher education. In adopting Jackson and Scott‘s (2010) conceptualisation of the rationalisation of sexuality, the study sought to explore its role in the identity construction of gay men through, amongst others, ―sexual scripting‖ (Gagnon & Simon, 1973), ―doing gender‖ (West & Zimmerman, 2002), ―using gender‖ (Johnson, 2009) as well as ―doing gay‖ (Dowsett et al., 2008), to (de)construct a ―gay sensibility‖ (cf. Seidman, 2002a) within and between their private and professional contexts. Secondly, such negotiation of their homosexual ―performativity‖ (Butler, 1990) presupposed an undeniable degree of ―reflexiveness‖ (cf. Mead, 1962) on the part of the gay male, to adhere to the expectations of other individuals in a specific social context. Given the findings from a thematic analysis of fifteen (15) in-depth interviews with academics and seven (7) with students, as well as two (2) self-administered questionnaires completed by academics and seventeen (17) by students, the influence of heteronormativity, heterosexism and homophobia, was again reiterated. The participants mostly opted to professionalise their gay male identities (thus differentiate between their private and academic gay male identity), regardless of the fact that their narratives reflected an internal diversity, plurality and potentially non-subordinate otherness, akin to Plummer‘s (1998b) reference to ―homosexualities‖ rather than only one homogenised version of ‗homosexuality‘. Their choice to do so was attributed to a conscious effort to either ‗pass‘ as heterosexual, assimilate into the dominant sexual and gendered culture of the campus, or conform to a stereotypical gay performance in homosexually-segregated academic departments because of anxiety, fear or shame. As such, the potential of mastering an uncategorised ‗queer‘ inclination in tertiary education, becomes all the more difficult, if not improbable. / PhD (Sociology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014