Men and Masculinities

Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina. Eduardo P. Archetti. New York: Berg, 1999. 212 pp.
Football Hooligans: Knowing the Score. Gary Armstrong. New York: Berg, 1998. 361 pp.
Manhood and Morality: Sex, Violence and Ritual in Gisu Society. Suzette Heald. New York: Routledge, 1999. 192 pp.
What It Means to Be. Man: Reflections on Puerto Rican Masculinity. Rafael L. Ramírez. translated by Rosa E. Casper. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999 139 pp.     

Expectant Israeli Fathers and the Medicalized Pregnancy: Ambivalent Compliance and Critical Pragmatism

This article addresses the medicalization of pregnancy in Israel and its effects on the experiences of Jewish-Israeli men who participated in various stages of their female partners' prenatal care. The highly medicalized arena of Israeli prenatal care, with its strong emphasis on prenatal diagnostic testing, provided the context in which the men's accounts of their interactions with reproductive biomedical authority, practitioners and knowledge were understood. It is suggested that the anthropological scholarship on reproduction assumes that men benefit from the medicalization of pregnancy and birth and comply with medicalization. Women, on the other hand, are often depicted as being subjected to harmful medical surveillance and responding to it in degrees, ranging from compliance to resistance, and mediated by pragmatism. Data derived from participant observation in multiple arenas and from 16 in-depth interviews with Israeli men whose female partners were pregnant or had recently given birth suggest that although some Israeli men regard the biomedicalization of pregnancy positively, most tend toward varying degrees of criticism. It is suggested that men's responses to reproductive biomedicine are far more complex than portrayed to date in the existing scholarship and that men's responses to biomedicalization reveal complex power negotiations.     

Sung Adornment: Changing Masculinities at Lake Kopiago,Papua New Guinea

In the space of 50 years, ideals of masculinity in the western end of the Southern Highlands have been radically transformed. Gone, for instance, is the bachelor cult where young boys were grown into men. Drawing upon ethnographic research undertaken over the past decade, in the Lake Kopiago sub‐district in the far north‐western corner of Southern Highlands Province, this paper seeks to document these changing masculinities and explore their portrayal by juxtaposing ‘traditional’ and contemporary growth enhancing spells and courting songs—particularly those composed and sung by men. In doing so, this paper also seeks to explore how guns, marijuana, discos and pornographic movies have come to figure centrally in contemporary notions of masculinity. It will also document how the proliferation of marijuana and small arms has transformed young men with otherwise very little standing in the community into self‐promoted leaders who have taken it upon themselves to publicly police the sexuality of women in increasingly violent ways.     

Changing Pacific Masculinities: The ‘Problem’ of Men

This introduction places the papers of this Special Issue within the context of a brief overview of previous literature on the subject of masculinities in the Pacific, and especially of Melanesia. The particular focus on Melanesia is discussed in terms of the colloquia from which the papers originated and is also linked to a discussion of the regionalism of applied social science in Australia. In acknowledging the current link between academic research into gender and the aid and development industries, this introduction critically discusses how understandings of Pacific men and masculinities have presented a ‘problem’ to both of these areas. Indeed, while assessing particular instances in the changing situation of Pacific men's lives, the papers in this Issue also provide a timely critique of the shared dilemmas of anthropology and development within the region.     

Health and Masculinities Shaped by Agency within Structures among Young Unemployed Men in a Northern Swedish Context

AimThe aim of our paper was to explore expressions of life choices and life chances (aspects of agency within structures) related to power and experiences of health among early unemployed adolescent young men during the transition period to adulthood. These expressions of agency within structure were interpreted in the light of Cockerham’s Health Lifestyles Theory. Furthermore, social constructions of masculinities were addressed in our analysis.MethodsRepeated interviews with ten young men in a cohort of school leavers were analyzed with qualitative content analysis.ConclusionsQualitative research could contribute to develop the understanding of the agency within structure relationships. Future studies need to pay attention to experiences of health among young people at the margin of the labor market in various milieus – and to analyze these in relation to gender constructions and within the frame-work of agency within structure.     

Medicalized Mothering: Perspectives from the Lives of African-American and Jewish Women; Measuring Mama's Milk: Fascism and the Medicalization of Maternity in Italy

Medicalized Mothering: Perspectives from the Lives of African-American and Jewish Women. Jacquelyn S. Litt. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. xi+ 189 pp.
Measuring Mama's Milk: Fascism and the Medicalization of Maternity in Italy. Elizabeth Dixon Whitaker. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. vii. 358 pp.