This article discusses the status of the concept of hegemonic masculinity in research on men and boys in Sweden, and how it has been used and developed. Sweden has a relatively long history of public debate, research, and policy intervention in gender issues and gender equality. This has meant, in sheer quantitative terms, a relatively sizeable corpus of work on men, masculinities, and gender relations. There is also a rather wide diversity of approaches, theoretically and empirically, to the analysis of men and masculinities. The Swedish national context and gender equality project is outlined. This is followed by discussion of three broad phases in studies on men and masculinities in Sweden: the 1960s and 1970s before the formulation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity; the 1980s and 1990s when the concept was important for a generation of researchers developing studies in more depth; and the 2000s with a younger generation committed to a variety of feminist and gender critiques other than those associated with hegemonic masculinity. The following sections focus specifically on how the concept of hegemonic masculinity has been used, adapted, and indeed not used, in particular areas of study: boys and young men in family and education; violence; and health. The article concludes with review of how hegemonic masculinity has been used in Swedish contexts, as: gender stereotype, often out of the context of legitimation of patriarchal relations; "Other" than dominant, white middle-class "Swedish," equated with outmoded, nonmodern, working-class, failing boy, or minority ethnic masculinities; a new masculinity concept and practice, incorporating some degree of gender equality; and reconceptualized and problematized as a modern, heteronormative, and subject-centered concept.

Hairstyles are not essential male or female. Rather, some way of cutting, forming and wearing hair is culturally constructed as masculine or as feminine. Although in Fashion Studies there has been little interest for hairstyles and the interest has mainly has been directed at women (e.g. McCracken 1996, Weitz 2004, Willet 2002) or as expressions of subgroup identities (e.g. Hebdige 1979). Informed by Butlers concept of gender and sexuality as constituted by repeated performative performances, this paper focuses on how hairdressing is both stabilising and undermining power relations. The analysis is directed at subject positions constructed and offered men in a men's hairstyles show and in three hairdressers magazines C-book, Hårstil (Hair styles) and Hårtrender (Hair trends). Two hegemonic masculinity positions, the new lad and the gender bender, are identified. It is argued that also class and ethnicity are commodified and offered in the show and magazines.

Artikeln tar upp hur en manlig identitet skapas persormativt via frisyren. Två skilda mansideal lyfts fram- ett mer könsöverskridande som experimenterar med frisyrer och färg samt ett mer konservativt somockså är länkat tillmän i högre sociala positioner och karriär. Teoretiskt anknyter artikeln till Butlers performativitetsbegrepp, Susan Ossmans tankar om spegeln som ett prisma där diskurser möts samt Philomenas Esseds begrepp "kulturell kloning" och "sameness"

Utifrån intervjuer med barn och ungdomaroch observationer av barn på lektioner och raster diskuteras könsgörandet och könsskillnader i betyg med fokus på hur maskulinitet och femininitet formas, praktiseras och förkroppsligas i skolan och på fritiden. Såväl barns upplevelser av skolan som deras berättelser om fritidssysslor och framtida yrkesval analyseras. I artikeln visas på heteronormernas verkan och hur manlighetsgörandet regleras. Exempel ges också på de överskridanden som äger rum. Dessutom diskuteras hur andras sociala ordningar som klass och etnicitet reproduceras i skolan och i barnens berättelser

In Sweden has, as in many other countries, neoliberal discourses invaded the public sector. One effect of the neoliberal assemblage of discourses that highlights consumption, individualism, market relations, competition, economical management and free choice is an increased amount of private actors and profit driven education companies in the education sector, which has underpinned an increased competition for students. Hereby are Swedish public as well as private schools in Sweden today increasingly forced to invent new catchy education programmes and branches and find new cool way to present, advertise and brand the school and the educations they offer teenagers and their parents to stay on the market. Inspired by poststructuralism, feminism and critical masculinity studies (Biricik & Hearn 2009), fashion and consumption research (Edwards 2000), Cultural Studies (Gilbert 2008), discourse theory (Laclau & Mouffe 1985/2001) and Visual Cultural Studies (Sturken & Cartwright 2001), and by taking my point of departure in the branding and marketing of private and public upper secondary schools and their educational programmes in a Swedish municipality between 2008 and 2010, I will discuss on the one hand how gender, class, ethnicity, and other categories are used, reworked and contested in the schools attempts to win teenage students, and on the other hand discuss what elements, knowledge and skills that are emphasized and what idealized pupil that are constituted in the text, images and advertisements presenting the schools and education programmes for teenagers and their parents. The material, which have been analysed with the tools offered in Discourse Theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985/2001) and in Visual Cultural Study (Sturken & Cartwright 2001), consists of carrier guides and other material handed out to teenager pupils in school year eight and nine, presentations of programmes and school published on the municipality and the schools web pages and photos and ethnographic observations from a yearly trade fair where the schools in the region present the programmes and branches they offer for the pupils in school year eight and nine. In the conclusion is it argued that the new neoliberal grounded Swedish school policy and the increased competition for students has increased the stereotype gender-, class- and ethnic coding of educational programs and schools and thereby also underpinned a increased gender- class- and ethnic segregation in the Swedish upper secondary school education system.



Bibliography



Biricik, Alp & Hearn, Jeff (eds.) 2009: Deconstructing the Hegemony of Men and Masculinities. GEXcel Work in Progress Report Volume VI, spring 2009. Linköping University.



Edwards, Tim 2006: Cultures of Masculinity.London: Routledge.

Gilbert, Jeremy 2008: Gilbert, Jeremy 2008: Anticapitalism and Culture. Radical Theory and Popular Politics. Oxford, New York: Berg.

Laclau, Ernesto & Mouffe, Chantal

Folkeskolen belønner den hurtigtarbejdende, højtpræsterende ogselvkørende elev. De elever, som ikke honorerer disse krav, placeresnederst i skolens kundskabshierarki. Det gælder fx 15-årige Erik, som tilgengæld lægger vægt på, at han både er praktisk anlagt og en flink fyr.Marie Nordberg fra Karlstad Universitet analyserer samspillet mellemdrenges skolepræstationer og deres fortællinger om sig selv

Young childrens voices, practices and institutions, dichotomies, categories and power relations that regulates and shape childrens lives is today studied in two new expanding research fields, Early Childhood Studies and Critical Masculinity Studies. Although the fields have much in common, few scholars combine them. The aim of this paper is to discuss this lack and point out some ontological and epistemological obstacles that make it difficult to integrate these research fields. The analysis connects to the conference theme Who Speaks: Exploring Innovative Paradigms & Methodologies and the strand Paradigms, theories and methodologies. The empirical base consists of an discourse analysis of the knowledge production and assumption about boys, masculinity, childhood and childrens voices presented in some British, North American and Swedish articles on young boys and masculinity published 2002-2009 and interview extracts from a Swedish research projects on young boys and schooling conducted by the authors 2005-2007. The paper takes its theoretical points of departure in Post structuralism, Critical Masculinity Studies and Queer Theory. The material have been analysed with the tools offered in Discourse Theory (Laclau & Mouffe 985/2001). The extracts used have been proven. In the presented solution on how to integrate the two research fields in a more fruitful and less contradicting way is a methodological approach suggested which combine them with tools, assumptions and ontologys fetched from queer theory, Actor-Network-Theory (Latour 2005) and and the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. Hereby can boys voices be treated in a way that make it possible to overcome the assumptions on masculinity presented in Masculinity Studies and the assumption of childrens voices as specific and authentic, presented in Childhood Studies

The aim of this paper is to discuss how the masculinity position cool boy is articulated in interviews, and performed in lessons and playground activities among boys in three Swedish primary school classes and are discussed by three teenage boys. Taking point of departure in Feminist poststructuralism, Queer theory and Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities the focus is directed at ambivalences and contradictions in the discourses constituting the subjects position boy. The position cool boy can be understood as fluid, classed, ethnicified and sexualised position that is both articulated as a stereotypical masculinity position performed as opposition to school and teachers discipline and as a subversive, masculinity position contesting and questioning this stereotypical masculinity. The paper is a report from a project in progress, Becoming a Real Boy, studying how masculinity and masculinity hierarchies are constructed and embodied in preschool, in primary school and in leisure activities

During the last years an interesting shift has taken place in the Nordic gender equality debate. By the anxiety raised by The Olympic Knowledge Game and international knowledge test as TIMMs and PISA and the national achievements statistics an Anglo-American discourse on failing boys have been imported and picked up in the Nordic countries. Hereby has boys achievements been highlighted as an important gender equality problem. In the debate are boys described as lazy, illiterate and uninterested in schoolwork and as collectively practicing a spread male anti-achievement culture. The aim of this paper is to problematise these descriptions and other assumptions made in the debate and to, by connecting the anxiety about boys performances to a broader context, present an analysis of the discourses and presumptions underlying the debate. It is argue that the emphasise of a rather small statistic gender difference in achievements and project of counting low achieving boys in, the stereotype descriptions of boys, the efforts to make well achieving boys more efficient and boys in general less protesting, also can be understood as a male project to adjust boys, teachers and school to a metronormative, hegemonic and masculine paradigm emphasizing rationality, accountability, authority, competition, efficiency, discipline, control, tests, profit and a quantitative knowledge concept. Further is it argued that, by the import of Anglo-American masculinity theories and results, and the appropriation of the problematisation of the stereotypic masculinity concept made in feminist studies and Critical Masculinity Studies, masculinity and feminist scholars and masculinity theories and masculinity research today actually are taking active part in the reproduction of a rational, authoritarian and economic oriented masculinity that the theories and research actually was established to undermine. Theoretical point of departure is Jon Mackenzies emphasize of performance as a new discipline concept and Judith Halberstam's discussions of Metronormativity.

I min presentation kommer jag utifrån några avslutade och ett pågående forskningsprojekt att kritiskt diskutera hur manliga frisörer och manliga byggjobbare framställs i tv:s make-over-program och i några filmer. Medan Manliga frisörer homosexualiseras och knyts samman med femininitet och urbana livsstilar, heterosexualiseras byggnadsarbetare och snickare och knyts till en mer traditionell manlighetsposition. Under de senaste åren har dock denna maskulinitetskonstruktion utmanats i några av de många hem make-over-programmen i tv och snickaren och byggjobbaren har i några av programmen getts en mer urban och modern framtoning. De bilder som ges av yrken och dess arbetstagare är viktiga då de också pekar ut och skapar olika föreställningar om yrken och vem som kan inneha dem. Det är idag få män som söker sig till frisörutbildningar och få kvinnor som söker sig till gymnasieskolans byggprogram. Hur är detta kopplat till de bilder som media förmedlar och de beskrivningar och bilder som finns i yrkesvalskatalogen som delas ut? Vilka arbetstagare visas upp och vilka gör det inte? Vilka arbetstagare normaliseras? Och hur samverkar stereotyper, sociala maktordningar och kategori-indelningar som vithet, klass, ålder, sexualitet och kön när den normale yrkesinnehavaren skapas?

Rapporten tar upp hur frisyren skapar en upplevelse av en viss identitet. Teoretiskt utgångspunkt är Judith Butlers performativitetsbegrepp. Diskussionen utgår från etnografiska studier på frisersalonger samt 13 intervjuer med män 19-84 år om frisyrval och kroppsbehåring

Under senare år har män, mode, frisyrer och skönhetspraktiker alltmer sammankopplats i media. Inom Cultural Studies är det dock främst subgruppers frisyrer som uppmärksammats. Trots att skägg och hår är viktiga identitetsmarkörer har herrfrisersalongen som kulturell maskulinitets- och normaliseringsarena hittills förbisetts. Kanske för att hårfrisering, mode och skönhet länkats till kvinnor och homosexuella män och trivialiserats. I detta paper diskuteras utifrån ett poststrukturalistiskt perspektiv med inspiration från konsumtions- och mansforskning maskulinitets-, sexualitets- och nationalitetsskapande praktiker inom frisörnäringen. Speciell uppmärksammas hur frisyrer och hårvårdsprodukter saluför genom att länkas till maskulinitet och nationalitet samt hur hetero- och homosexualitet skapas som motpoler. Empirin utgörs av observationer av frisyrvisningar och frisörsalonger samt analyser av herrfrisyrmagasin och stylinglitteratur. Medan maskulinitet skapas som något entydigt på frisörvisningarna förekommer i frisörmagasinen och på frisersalongerna en mångtydighet där vad som skall betraktas som maskulint både reproduceras och omformas. Studien ingår i det Vetenskapsråds finansierade projektet Den dekorerade mannen.

Trots att män och pojkar ofta utsätts för våld och provokationer finns få studier om våld mellan män och om pojkars och mäns upplevelser och förståelser av våld mellan män ur ett genusperspektiv. I detta paper presenteras de första resultaten från en nu pågående genusvetenskaplig studie som fokuserar på maskulinitet, sexualordningen och relationen mellan hegemoniska diskurser och det socialt sanktionerade och det illegitima våldet. I paperet redovisas utifrån 8 intervjuer med män i åldrar 8- 50 år, etnografi på idrottsarrangemang, krogar, sportbarer och skolor samt analyser av text och bilder i tidningar några skilda sätt att uppfatta, förstå, hantera och normalisera våld och provokationer. Analyserna tar sin utgångspunkt i poststrukturalistisk diskursteori, kritisk maskulinitetsforskning samt filosofen Knut Kolnars tankar om relationen mellan olika våldsformer

To examine and understand how mens privileges and power positions are constituted, upheld and reproduced scholars have often use and also combine different concepts as Patriarchy/patriarchies, The Hegemony/Hegemonies of Men, Performativity, Heteronormativity, Discourse Theory and Intersectionality. In this paper are four concepts, which also in some ways are connected to each other, examined and discussed: Patriarchy/ies, The Hegemony of Men, Hegemonic Masculinity and Discourse Theory, the development of Gramscis hegemony concept. The concepts are compared and the concepts potential to catch and explain the ongoing reproduction of (certain) mens power positions are discussed. It is argued that all the concepts examined to some extent are fruitful, but also have important lacks. These lacks can in some ways be handled, by elaborating and combining the concepts with each other and integrating them with other concepts as Heteronormativity (Butler 1990), ANT (Actor-Network-Theory, Latour 2005) and Metronormativity (Halberstam 2005), that in new and fruitful ways make it possible to explore and describe the complex forms of male power and gender hierarchies now constituted and spread

Artikel diskuterar mansforskningens teman, perspektiv och frågor

I  rese- och turistbranschen är barnfria zoner idag ett  marknadskoncept som tagits upp av flera researrangörer. Samtidigt som  resor och hotellkomplex  inriktade på vuxna som önskar koppla av utan att störas av barn, formas också specialutformade resor för barnfamiljer, som erbjuder hotellkoncept med  zoner för såväl generationsgemensamma lek- och upplevelseaktiviteter, som  ålderssegregerade aktiviteter och zoner. I denna presentation analyseras och diskuteras hur figurationen barn, barndom, barnslighet, vithet, klass, och kön formar och formas och materialiseras i några resereklamexempel. Dessutom diskuteras hur materialiseringarna och segregeringarna såväl underbygger som utmanar ålders- och könssegregering.

Although most boys in Sweden do rather well in school, a discourse constituting boys as uninterested in schoolwork, lazy and illiterate have become hegemonic in the Swedish discussions on boys, girls and schooling. In a report, grounded on available international and national statistics the author, inspired by Paul Willis discussion of the lads and masculinity theory, suggested that the gender difference highlighted by PISA, TIMSS and in Swedish education statistics might be an effect of masculinity and a male anti-achievement culture. Theoretical inspired by critical masculinity studies, feminist poststructuralism and queer theory and by taking its point of departure in an analyse of the discourses and stereotype descriptions of boys and girls repeated in this report, in policy discussions and presented at a conference this paper deals with how gender, class, heteronormatvity and metronormativity intersect in the construction of the problematic boy, the ideal pupil and knowledge in the Swedish context. One effect of contemporary policy focus on boys and their achievement and the repeated stereotype of the problematic underachieving boy, grounded in sociological studies and theories, is that a large group of well achieving boys as well as a group of low achieving girls which can be considered as more problematic have been neglected and made invisible in the debate. In the paper it is argued that the statistics as well as the description of the problematic boy, relays on and repeat a normalisation of a certain classed, metronormative and heterosexualised life story. Further it is argued that when a heteronormative and polarised gender concept based on Parsons complementary sex role manuscript and Connells concept of hegemonic masculinity is articulated together with a metronormative and colonial discourse, female teachers is given a mission to modernise rural, labour classed boys by changing their preferences and masculine practices, while male teachers are expected to increase boys achievements by making their education more masculine. In the paper the discourse of the problematic underachieving boy is also problematied by a study of boys in four primary school classes and in four vocational educations.

Although most boys achieve rather well in school a description of boys as low achieving, lazy and illiterate have become hegemonic in the contemporary Swedish debate on boys and schooling. The most problematic boys are considered to dwell in three Swedish country districts. Informed by critical masculinity studies, feminist post structuralism and queer theory this presentation focus on how gender, class, heteronormatvity and metronormativity intersect in the resent construction of the ideal pupil, knowledge, problematic boys and the helpful female literacy teacher. It is argued that a performative, metronormative and colonial discourse and a heteronormative gender model constitutes the female teacher as a Lady Bountiful, given a mission to enlighten and modernise boys, and positions boys in a complementary and stereotype masculinity position. The last part of the paper problematise the description of boys as generally low achieving by exemplifying how boys in four primary school classes relate to schoolwork

Democracy and citizenship have since long been taught and trained in Swedish schools and are today exaggerated in the Swedish curriculum as important tasks for teachers. This includes fostering of common humanistic and democratic values and equality, as well as the forming of democratic organisations, pedagogical methods and relations in the individual schools. But what happens in everyday situations when democracy training and values education are confronted with new conservative pedagogic leadership models and a neoliberal performance and market oriented educational management model and other conflicting discourses?

This paper, which is informed by post-structural feminism and post-Marxism discourse analysis (Gramsci 1981, Laclau & Mouffe 1985/2001), takes an empirical point of departure in ethnographical classroom research in an upper secondary school and in a primary school. In the analysis two situations are discussed with regard to how the democracy and citizenship training is effected and regulated by the new economic and market oriented education management model, the performance paradigm, the new patriarchal leaderships models and the new conservative education policy. The aim is to describe how teachers in Swedish schools today increasingly are placed in a position where they are forced to negotiate and handle pupils democracy and citizenship training in a conjunction of conflicting marketing, democracy and childhood discourses.

In one part of the paper three different citizenship and democracy concepts are critically scrutinized and compared: Habermas consensus model, Englunds deliberative democracy model and Laclau & Mouffes plural democracy model. Furthermore are pupils possibilities to agency in those concepts critically discussed. The concepts are also discussed in relation to the teachers actions, and the discourses about citizenship and democracy taught in situations observed. The results show that pupils today on the one hand are taught democratic principles and are encouraged to act and protest, discuss problems, be observant and critically question injustice and inequality. On the other hand are pupils as well as teachers and headmasters today increasingly silenced and disciplined through the hegemony of the performance paradigm and the democracy and citizenship concepts conjuncture with the new economical educational management and new patriarchal discourses.

Artikeln tar avstamp utifrån intervjuer med 9 familjeinriktade män upp hinder och möjligheter för män att förena familj/faderskap med förvärvsarbete

Abstract



Jämställdhetens spjutspets. Manliga arbetstagare i kvinnoyrken, jämställdhet, maskulinitet, femininitet och heteronormativitet (The Spearhead of Gender Equality. Male Workers, Gender Equality, Masculinity, Femininity and Heteronormativity. DoctoralThesis at the Department of Ethnology, Göteborgs University.

Author: Marie Nordberg. Written in Swedish with an English Summary.

Arkipelag



Despite gender equality polices and state feminism Sweden has one of the most gender segregated labour markets in Europe; few men are today working in non traditional occupations such as nursery school teacher and hospital nurse and womens hairdresser. Taking it´s point of departure in poststructuralist feminism, critical studies on men and masculinities and queer theory, this dissertation offers an analysis and discussion of the Swedish equality discourse, as well as the variation of male workers gender formations materialised in three non traditional occupations. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate what discourses were repeated and fused to the gender equality discourse in the occupations studied. By using ethnography, interviews and a translocal perspective it is shown how discourses flow between situations, sometimes simply getting repeated and reified, sometimes actually being contested and changed. Empirically it is based on thirty-one interviews with men and women working as preschool teachers, nurses and hairdressers and a discourse analysis of policy document and news paper articles. Thirteen male workers has been observed at their work places from four to five days each and eleven workplaces has been observed. The preschool teachers have also been observed at two meetings of a network of male preschool teachers. Starting with the Gramscian concept of hegemony, there is a presentation of the theory of discourse in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and the thinking of Judith Butler, of sex as a position in language, performative performance and materiality. There is also a problematisation of the model of hegemonic masculinity in Connell, as well as the concept of femininity and masculinity, concerning the different forms of masculinity and the idea that femininity is always a negative identification.

Two discourses on masculinity were constructed in the sixties, one the negative, Traditional Man, and the other, the positive New Man, constructing femininity as something desirable, often being symbolised by the gender transgressive Velvet Man. Male preschool teachers and male nurses were considered as important role models for the policies of gender equality and the discourse turning them into aVanguard of Gender Equality. In the workplaces two different positions of the male workers were found; the male worker as gender transgressive and positively equal and the male worker as Other, a person supposed to provide a male perspective and behaving different from the female worker. These positions are connected to two different hegemonic masculinities: the stereotypical masculinity, emphasised by Connell, and the reflexive masculinity, constructed around the ideal of an authentic self realizing subject. Gender equal relations and gender equal discourse and practice was most prevalent among the hairdressers. It is argued that the emphasis on men as role models is trapping them in a polarised gender order, accentuating the difference of male nurses and preschool teachers, thereby paradoxically confirming the discourse that the policy of gender equality set out to change.



Keywords: Gender equality, masculinity, femininity, heteronormativity, gender order, preschool teachers, nurses, hairdressers, hegemony, performativity.

Teoretisk diskussion om maskulinitets och femininitetsbegreppens problem och användbarhet