Gender Studies 238: Men and Masculinities

In her introduction to The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir states, “A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man.” Feminists have long taken up the cause of breaking down male privilege rooted in assigning certain, naturalized characteristics to male bodies. But what does it mean to be a man, to be constructed and construed (or not) as masculine? How is masculinity experienced in variable ways across time and space? What are the underpinnings of toxic masculinity and how are dominant ideologies of “appropriate” masculinity challenged?  What do alternative and non-dominant masculinities look like and how and why do they evolve? In addition to using this class to consider what it means to be masculine, we will examine the very emergence of masculinity studies and what the discipline brings to discussions and disruptions of the “masculine.”