The question of the necessity of women’s colleges has been posed by a variety of online news sources. Headlines reading, “Are Women’s Colleges Outdated?” and “Why Women’s Colleges Are Still Relevant” are sprinkled throughout the webpages of news conglomerates like Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Jezebel. I argue that the belief in a post-sexist society and the prevalence of hegemonic masculinity renders the necessity of women’s educational institutions invisible. Through an anti-racist feminist lens with a focus on the hegemonic practices of our patriarchal society, I shed light on how women’s colleges are currently positioned in the United States. I conducted a discourse analysis on 40 articles about U.S. women’s colleges in the corporate press from 1970 to 2015. Data analysis reveals that women’s colleges are depicted in the media as struggling for survival in our society, regardless of studies that document their strengths. They have faced and continue to face image issues, financial issues, and the reinforcement of heteronormativity throughout their history. These issues play a major role in how the media depicts them.

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.

<p>Player Piano, published in 1952, primarily deals with the theme of men, or masculinities, made redundant by technological advance. This theme has in more recent years been highlighted by, for instance, Men's Liberation groups. The machinery introduced in the Industrial Revolution has, in Vonnegut's future, been refined to the point that manpower has been replaced with mechpower, where those deemed unfit for “academic” studies either must serve twenty-five years in the military or working with the "Reeks and Wrecks", the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. This structure is enforced and maintained by a totalitarian state. However, Vonnegut’s state is slightly different from the popular image of ‘Big Brother’, i.e. an impersonal, near-omniscient and inhuman government. It is highly human, meaning that Vonnegut examines the men behind the machinery on a more personal level, thus making possible an examination of their motives and ideas.</p><p>I argue that the hegemonic masculinity, or the masculinity of the patriarchy, provides both motivation and justification for the men who are constructing the totalitarian state of Player Piano. I will furthermore look at the effects, on both society and the individual, of a hegemonic masculinity.</p>

Player Piano, published in 1952, primarily deals with the theme of men, or masculinities, made redundant by technological advance. This theme has in more recent years been highlighted by, for instance, Men's Liberation groups. The machinery introduced in the Industrial Revolution has, in Vonnegut's future, been refined to the point that manpower has been replaced with mechpower, where those deemed unfit for “academic” studies either must serve twenty-five years in the military or working with the "Reeks and Wrecks", the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. This structure is enforced and maintained by a totalitarian state. However, Vonnegut’s state is slightly different from the popular image of ‘Big Brother’, i.e. an impersonal, near-omniscient and inhuman government. It is highly human, meaning that Vonnegut examines the men behind the machinery on a more personal level, thus making possible an examination of their motives and ideas. I argue that the hegemonic masculinity, or the masculinity of the patriarchy, provides both motivation and justification for the men who are constructing the totalitarian state of Player Piano. I will furthermore look at the effects, on both society and the individual, of a hegemonic masculinity.

This study of forty-nine Christian blogs explores how groups of bloggers in two case studies resist and/or perpetuate hegemonic gender ideologies online and where these bloggers draw authority from for these views. The findings reveal that bloggers are most likely to cite texts as sources of authority and are more likely to affirm authority (78.1%) than to challenge it (25.7%). The bloggers in my sample, who were majority male, use an array of strategies in their efforts to resist hegemonic gender norms. These included, but are not limited to, debating God’s gender, emphasizing women’s roles in the Bible, privileging equality in theological interpretations, redefining masculinity and employing satire and images to delegitimize hegemonic power.

The focus of this essay is the interaction between the male characters in the play Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw and how those characters position themselves according to R.W. Connell’s theories on hegemonic masculinity. Connell’s theories can be productively applied to Shaw’s play, highlighting many similarities and exposing interesting patterns. The most striking example of this is the fact that Captain Bluntschli, the character that finally reaches the top of the hierarchical ladder of hegemonic masculinity, does that by repudiating conventional masculine ideals where patriotism, soldiering and violence are core ingredients. Bluntschli’s ascendance within the hierarchy is built upon consent from the other male characters in the play, which is in line with what Connell argues about complicity being one of the most important factors of hegemonic masculinity. The other male characters jointly give way to Bluntschli, thus accepting his general critique of what they used to consider self-evident masculine values and ideals that they have felt compelled to live up to. For Major Sergius Saranoff the new way to look upon masculinity implies great relief. He can finally give in to his true self and let down his guard against the people around him, and he also dares follow his heart and marry below his class.    My conclusion is that Shaw, apart from satirizing love, war and heroism, wanted Arms and the Man to convey a message that there are alternative ways for men to gain respect and be considered highly masculine than through violence, economic power and oppression. If Shaw had been presented with Connell’s theories on hegemonic masculinity he would probably have felt even more inspired in his mission to argue against destructive masculine ideals as expressed in patriotism and war.

The aim of this paper is to study how the image of masculinity and how perceptions of masculinity have changed over time, based on the participants' gender and age by answering a survey. The group that participated in the survey consists of members from the National Pensioners' Organization (PRO), and members from the Social Democrats. In total there are 70 questionnaires that form the basis of this paper. The participants have been divided according to age and sex by a quantitative method for responding to this essay’s purpose. The differences between men and women in the study was very small, the same applies when the age groups were studied. The fact that the differences were so small in terms of both age and gender is confirming Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity. In the study, it becomes obvious that men and women regardless of age share views on what is a good man and what characteristics a good man should have. A man should be responsible, reliable, humble, open and caring according to the participants. The results of this study suggest that men and women are very similar in their answers and highlight the importance of sharing responsibility. Men see themselves to a greater extent as breadwinners, which confirm the previous research that claims that supplying an income to the family is still one of men’s principal responsibilities in the family. The conclusion of this study is that men and women independent of age share the same picture of what are desirable characteristics of a man.

The present study set out to explore how male university students perceive their involvement in gender studies and how this intersects with their masculine identities. The research was a qualitative one and semi-structured individual interviews were used to collect data from ten Humanities postgraduate students attending a large, urban university comprising men who do gender studies and those who do not. Two key informants were also interviewed for the study. Qualitative thematic content analysis was employed to analyse the data collected; these reflected themes that bordered around the men and their identities, gender equality, engagement in gender studies, and changing attitudes towards observable gender transformation. In comparing the responses of both categories of men, an inference made was that, although the men mostly expressed positive attitudes towards engagement in gender studies, there does not seem to be a direct relationship between exposing men to gender studies courses or not, and changes in perception towards gender relations. This was evidenced by the fact that both groups of men predominantly upheld traditional hegemonic ideals of masculinity through displays of complicit, accommodating and defensive masculinities amidst a couple of progressive representations. The study affirms the thesis that masculinity is socially constructed based on the contradictory manner in which the men spoke about their identities. This reaffirms the essentiality of speaking about men in diverse ways and rejecting any notions of singularity. Key words: Gender studies, masculinity, hegemonic masculinity, masculinities, university men, changing attitudes

This thesis is a report of a study of masculinity at Canberra Grammar School, a corporate boys' school. The data were collected during 1991 and 1992. The thesis questions the conventional wisdom that a school like Canberra Grammar produces a particular hegemonic masculinity. Indeed, it identifies the production of a hierarchy of exalted, multiple masculinities. There were limitations to what could be investigated in this study, as well as to how it could be investigated. However, the ideas and work of several people were blended in order to provide a way into the questions of masculinity in this school. This eclectic approach drew upon the literature of Popkewitz, Lather, and Parlett and Hamilton, who called for narrative descriptions and interpretation, as well as Beare, Caldwell and Millikan, whose framework of school culture, albeit modified, provided very rich information. This method resulted in an emphasis on what was observed and read within the school, rather than on what might have been heard, but, nevertheless, a great deal of relevant and useful data were generated. The data were then interpreted with the help of questions and insights formed by immersion in the literature on masculinity and schools, particularly that of corporate boys' schools. It was possible to identify multiple masculinities in the school, and arrange them into a hierarchy based on the degree to which each of them was exalted. These masculinities were fluid and the hierarchy was dynamic. During the time of the study greatest support was for "the man as scholar", "the sportsman" and "the man as leader", three notions of masculinity traditionally associated with these schools. There was also considerable support for the notion of "the sensitive man", a notion that has been promoted in schools like this for many years, but which draws upon traits and qualities less traditionally associated with these schools. One area of fluidity was an official move by the school's leaders towards the notion of "the person", rather than the man. Contestation was evident as changes occurred within this hierarchy, as well as within the notions themselves. These findings are significant for several reasons. Firstly, they challenge the conventional wisdom about corporate boys' schools. Secondly, for those working in this school and schools like it who are searching for ways to bring about different gender and social relations, the findings offer an encouraging, optimistic picture of what this school is trying to do. The findings also identify those within the school who might support or oppose counterhegemonic practice, as well as areas of the school's culture that should be targeted in the future. Thirdly, for those wanting to find out about notions of maculinity in these schools, they show that the method used here can be very productive, despite its limitations. The first chapter of this thesis explains the reasons for this study in more detail, and the second chapter describes and accounts for the nature of the study. The main body of the thesis is in Chapters Three, Four and Five, where findings about the school's setting, curriculum and rituals are described and interpreted. The thesis concludes with a chapter containing reflections on the reasons for this study, as well as possible ways forward for those wishing to investigate questions of masculinity in corporate boys' schools in the future.

This study focuses on one source of sex tourism diaries: posts on the World Sex Guide written about tourists who had sex while in Latin America. My interest is in exploring how posters on the World Sex Guide make sense of their involvement in sex tourism. Starting from the premise that the diaries constitute a forum in which a hegemonic masculinity is created and perpetuated I ask: what types of relations are valued and reproduced by the posters? How do the tourists construct the women whose services they seek? What do their narratives reveal about their own sense of selfhood in the process? I situate the diaries as pornographic representations or rhetorical strategies that are constituted by their context, interpretations, and inscriptions. I then undertake a discursive analysis to reveal their purpose and implications. In particular, I argue that the performances posted on the World Sex Guide reinforce lines of gender, race, economics, status, nationality, and ethnicity in a way that bolsters Western hegemonic masculinities, the implications of which have import not only in online settings but offline as well. / February 2009