Men are despite the ongoing progress of gender equality surprisingly absent as actors for gender-equality. Previous research has stated that men, although they support gender equality as a value, promote gender-equality reforms less than their female counterparts. This has led to a theory explaining that men have a gendered leeway, arguing that men have the freedom to support gender equality or not - a freedom women lack. Men are perceived as secondary actors compared to women, actors that lack an interest in gender equality. However, there are men that promote gender equality. Therefore, this paper aims to answer why, how, and what possible obstacles and possibilities men have when promoting gender equality. By interviewing male critical actors, this study answers the questions posed. In short, men promote gender equality when the possibility is available to them. Furthermore, this paper proposes counterarguments against previous research by arguing that men can be critical actors with attached interests.

Basée sur une observation participante de deux ans au sein de La Kuizine, un squat d’activités de l’est parisien ouvert par des militants marxistes et/ou anarchistes, la thèse se présente comme une contribution à l’étude du renouveau des entreprises critiques et des pratiques contestataires et apporte une pierre empirique de plus à la connaissance des espaces publics d’aujourd’hui. Accordant une large place au matériau ethnographique, la recherche s’inscrit dans une perspective empruntant à la fois à la tradition interactionniste de la troisième Ecole de Chicago et à la sociologie bourdieusienne afin d’éclairer les mécanismes de domination (re)produits au sein de La Kuizine et les « possibles latéraux » qui y sont expérimentés. En effet, le collectif militant à l’origine de l’initiative avait pour objectif d’en faire un lieu de « solidarité de classe » en y organisant divers ateliers (en particulier des repas à prix libre) à destination des travailleurs et habitants du quartier et en privilégiant l’autogestion comme modus operandi de la décision collective. L’analyse de cet espace – indissociablement physique, social et communicationnel – se situe donc au carrefour de plusieurs disciplines : la science politique, la sociologie, l’anthropologie et les sciences de l’information et de la communication. Ce faisant, la thèse interroge de manière transversale des objets variés : la fabrique sociale de l’engagement radical, le rapport aux champs politique et médiatique d’un micro-espace contestataire, les processus de socialisation politique ainsi que les conditions de possibilité de la critique ordinaire de l’ordre social. / This doctorate thesis is based on a two-year-long participant observation within “La Kuizine”, a social center squat in East Paris that was opened by Marxist and/or Anarchist activists. This piece presents itself as a contribution to the study of the renewal of critical enterprises and protest practices and offers empirical work that can aid in the understanding of public spaces today. A large portion is dedicated to ethnographic material in this thesis – the work here adopts a perspective that borrows both from the interactionist tradition of the third school of Chicago and from the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu in order to reveal the mechanisms of domination (re)produced within “La Kuizine” and the forms of “lateral possible” that are experimented within this space. Indeed, the activist group responsible for founding this squat had as its main goal to make it a space of “class solidarity” by organizing various workshops (including a sliding scale donation daily meal) for workers and inhabitant of the neighborhood. The modus operandi of the space is self-management and collective decision making. The social and communicational analysis of this space is at the crossroads between several fields of research: political science, sociology, anthropology and communication studies. Thus, this doctorate thesis studies various objects in a cross-disciplinary manner: the social construction of radical commitment, the relations to the political and media fields of a micro-protest-space, the processes of political socialization as well as the conditions for the possibility of a critique of the social order.