Abstract:
The masculinity-in-crisis narrative is now familiar terrain for sociologists and cultural commentators. It is also a mobilising point for a type of nationalist politics associated with the alt-Right. The narrative is not new. It seems to resurface in periods of war or economic crisis where there is income insecurity, labour-market instability and a cultural fear of symbols of the ‘foreign’, variously located in immigration, race or gender. In uncertain and precarious times, it should not be surprising that fears of loss are magnified, gendered and signified as a form of emasculation. The masculinity-incrisis narrative runs that feminism and women in power (playing the women card or the gender card) have undermined and enfeebled men, corrupted traditional ideals of maleness, and marginalised and feminised men. The more extreme versions of this narrative were once confined to narrow internet subcultures. Now we find them circulating in more mainstream forms of social media, the conventional press and conservative political rhetoric.
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