Masculinities, Care and Equality: Identity and Nurture in Men’s Lives

271 Pages·2012·2.55 MB·English

by  Niall Hanlon (auth.)

M asculinities, Care and Equality
G enders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences
S eries Editors: V ictoria R obinson, University of Sheffield, UK and Diane
Richardson, University of Newcastle, UK
E ditorial Board: Raewyn Connell, University of Sydney, Australia, K athy Davis,
Utrecht University, The Netherlands, S tevi Jackson, University of York, UK ,
Michael Kimmel, State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA, Kimiko
Kimoto, Hitotsubashi University, Japan, Jasbir Puar, Rutgers University, USA,
Steven Seidman, State University of New York, Albany, USA, C arol Smart,
University of Manchester, UK, L iz Stanley, University of Edinburgh, UK, Gill
Valentine, University of Leeds, UK, Jeffrey Weeks, South Bank University, UK,
Kath Woodward, The Open University, UK
T itles include:
N iall Hanlon
M ASCULINITIES, CARE AND EQUALITY
I dentity and Nurture in Men’s Lives
S ally Hines and Yvette Taylor (e ditors)
S EXUALITIES
P ast Reflections, Future Directions
V ictoria Robinson and Jenny Hockey
M ASCULINITIES IN TRANSITION
Y vette Taylor, Sally Hines and Mark E. Casey (e ditors)
T HEORIZING INTERSECTIONALITY AND SEXUALITY
S . Hines and Y. Taylor (e ditors)
S EXUALITIES: PAST REFLECTIONS, FUTURE DIRECTIONS
G enders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences
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M asculinities, Care
and Equality
I dentity and Nurture in Men’s Lives
N iall H anlon
D ublin Business School, Ireland
© Niall Hanlon 2012
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-30021-7
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ISBN 978-1-349-33592-3 ISBN 978-1-137-26487-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137264879
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1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
F or Emily, Hazel and Rowan
C ontents
P reface and Acknowledgements v iii
1 C are in Masculinities Studies 1
2 G endered Care Practices 29
3 M asculinities and Care 4 3
4 M asculinities and Emotions 6 6
5 N urturing Femininities 91
6 B readwinner Masculinities 1 09
7 N urturing Masculinities 131
8 C hildhood Care Stories 157
9 C are-Free Masculinities 177
1 0 C are-Full Masculinities 197
1 1 T owards Affective Equality 2 14
R eferences 2 20
I ndex 2 53
vii
P reface and Acknowledgements
I t is probably no exaggeration to say I began writing this book long
before it was ever conceived as a research project. The central role of
care in social life, the way it is organised and practiced, how it affects
our lives, and especially its gendered nature, have occupied me since
my youth. The process of writing this book has proven a cumulative
reflective process that has challenged me academically and person-
ally. Growing up in Irish society with five brothers, one of whom was
severely physically and intellectually disabled, within the context of a
conservative and patriarchal society wherein women were expected to
be primary carers, and men to be primary breadwinners, left me with
the strong sense of how closely interrelated that personal domain of
care is with social justice. Personally I recall an overwhelming sense of
how isolated, overburdened, and powerless women could find them-
selves feeling when faced with the imperative to care in the absence of
equal rights and opportunities. However, this appreciation of the gender
oppression could never obliterate the sense that men too, despite the
system supporting their higher status, power, and access to resources,
could be trapped by gendered expectations and prohibitions.
T he last three decades of the twentieth century saw major social
t ransformations in the political and social climate in Ireland as key
battles over sexual morality and intimate family life convulsed the
established gender order. Pressed by irrefutable demands for change
from within the society as well as the external carrot-and-stick approach
of the European economic project, an intensely conservative gendered
society slowly and reluctantly began to liberalise by granting greater
rights and freedom to women. Many women entered the world of paid
work but there was, however, little political will among society at large
to seriously consider how care-work between men and women might
be redistributed. Yet greater gender-equal working relations raised
questions about the private sphere and who would fill the care gap.
Certainly, men were not rushing to do so! In fact, in marked contrast
to any semblance of new man discourse, insidious revelations began to
creep into the public domain about the puritanical authoritarianism,
moral hypocrisy, and sexual crimes of the patriarchal Catholic Church
which, since the foundation of the Irish state, had monopolised a moral
and political hold on the caring institutions of society. The relationship
viii
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
between men and care became increasingly problematic as men seemed
to be either absent from care or abusive when doing so! For its part, the
State appeared to be complicit with oppression or at least incompetent
or inept at meeting the goals of gender equality. It seemed clear to me
how the State on the whole represented the views and values of conser-
vative men.
T hese issues raised profound questions about the nature of care in
Irish society. Why should men not be expected to undertake a fair share
of care-work and why should they not reap the emotional benefits that
can be gained from doing so? My initial attempt to find answers led
me to pursue a career in the female-dominated world of social care.
Out of 40 or so undergraduates three of us were men, and although
I felt quite comfortable in this grouping among women I recall one
of these men clinging to me with trepidation, desperately needy for
male company and affirmation. Experiences like these made me realise
how social care-work was gendered just like society at large and after
spending four years studying Applied Social Studies I had learned
virtually nothing about the relationship between gender and care. My
hunger to find answers directed me towards a Master’s and eventually
a PhD programme in Equality Studies at the School of Social Justice
in University College Dublin. Here I learned about gender, feminism,
and masculinities and found conceptual tools to name care as a social
good and a generative source of inequality itself. Every angle from
which I have studied gender has brought me back to the intersection
between power and care, dominance and emotions, the political and
the personal. Feminism, and critical studies of men and masculinities,
has alerted me to the power relations embedded in social life. It made
me realise how this way of studying gender is both fundamental and
incomplete. This book is an exploration of the relationship between
masculinities, care, and equality and above all how men think and feel
about care and equality as men. I hope it can make a small contribution
to a complex and often controversial debate.
T he reflective process of writing this book was at least as insightful
as the analysis of the data itself. Although I had plenty of experience
of working in the care field before embarking on the book, during its
production I became the parent of two children. And, despite having
read hundreds of texts on care, my belief that reading is no compensation
for experience has been much strengthened. It has also reminded me of
how much work and sacrifice my own parents made in raising me and
my brothers and for that I am truly grateful. My personal faithfulness
to gender equality in personal life has been challenged by the intense