Introduction

This introduction to Aspasia’s Special Forum on the history of men and masculinities under socialism demonstrates the interest and originality of applying critical men’s studies and the history of masculinities to state-socialist Eastern Europe. It reviews existing scholarship within this field, stresses the persisting difficulties in analyzing everyday performances of gender and masculinities in socialist societies, and argues for adopting new approaches in order to get closer to a social and cultural history of masculinities. It puts the contributions to this Special Forum in their broader historiographical context—in particular, concerning studies on work, family, violence, war, disability, and generational change and youth—and shows how they will contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics and everyday performances of gender in state-socialist societies.

¿Y los hombres? Producción científica y contenidos formativos sobre trabajo social y masculinidades en España

El género es una categoría de análisis que las ciencias sociales en general y el trabajo social en particular incorporan en sus prácticas e investigaciones con diferentes resultados e intensidad. Los Men’s Studies analizan las masculinidades, entendidas como conjunto de valores y comportamientos que una sociedad impone en relación a cómo “debe ser un hombre”. A pesar de que una determinada forma de ejercer la masculinidad es un “factor de riesgo”, que conlleva vulnerabilidades no solo para las mujeres, sino también para los propios hombres, mujer y género se utilizan, en muchas ocasiones, como sinónimos. Mediante un análisis bibliométrico y documental, se constata que en España, por un lado, el estudio de las masculinidades no se ha incorporado a los contenidos curriculares de 36 titulaciones de Grado en Trabajo Social; por otro lado, las revistas científicas más importantes sobre trabajo social tampoco han publicado artículos sobre intervención social con hombres. Se propone la inclusión de esta línea de trabajo para ofrecer una visión holística de los estudios de género y su aplicación al trabajo social.

Reading Raewyn

It has been 20 years since Raewyn Connell published The Men and the Boys (2000a), which can be seen as the foundational text of boyhood studies. This journal is a good place to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of that book, and there are two special issues coming in the winter of 2020 and spring of 2021. Connell’s work has been part of my academic thinking about education and gender for 47 years. I have chosen to situate my appreciation for The Men and the Boys in the context of that 47-year time frame. The Men and the Boys, which we are celebrating in the next issue of Boyhood Studies, came late in my engagement with Connell’s work. It is important to understand that Connell’s work has spanned three scholarly developments: the rise of women’s studies, men’s studies, and boyhood studies.

Od natury do kultury… i z powrotem? O książce Biopolityka męskości

From Nature to Culture… and Back? On the Book Biopolityka męskości The paper is a review of the co-authorship book entitled Biopolityka męskości [Biopolitics of Manhood]. The author notices that this scientific monograph locates the Polish masculinities studies on the new field of biopolitics, immunisation and tanatopolitics, giving a hope to elaborate an alternative methodology of studies on literature and culture of this range. The author appreciates researchers’ achievements and suggests a few contexts expanding their reflections. Both the prior conference and subjective publication, in author’s opinion, open the new chapter of the Polish men’s studies.

What is “Masculinity”? Conceptual Keys to Critical Studies in Men and Masculinities

This article focuses on the key categories, which define the field of Critical Men’s Studies, widely used in gender studies and even emerge in public discourse. We consider the central concept of this field of knowledge — “hegemonic masculinity” — and its use to analyze the hierarchies of “subordinated” and “marginalized” masculinities. We also analyze such discursive derivative constructs of “hegemonic masculinity” as the “crisis of masculinity” and the metaphor of “angry white men”. As a result, these conceptual keys allow us to comprehend the intersectional turn in modern gender studies, which is so difficult to explain to public.