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Why would a female academic want to study masculinity?

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When it comes to academia, the study of gender has tended to mean the study of women. But there are a growing number of academics who realise that men’s issues and experiences are just as complex and in need of exploration as women’s. One of these is insideMAN reader and University of Derby psychology tutor, Debbie Earnshaw. We asked her why as a female academic, she decided to study men.

Here’s a part of a genuine conversation that I had with two sixth form students:

Student 1 (male): “But you’re a girl.”

Me: “I’m a female yes…and?”

Student 2 (female): “So why are you looking at this? It’s got nothing to do with you!”

Me: “Just because I’m female doesn’t mean I can’t research males and masculinity.”

Student 1: “But what’s the point? You don’t know anything about guys, or masculinity, you’re not one of us.”

‘I got a little fed up of just hearing about women’

I’ve encountered this a lot, and it is a question put forward to me by the editors of InsideMAN as well as numerous other occasions so I’ve decided to answer it. I’m asked by both binary genders why I’m researching masculinity/male psychology when I am a female. What could I possibly bring to the field? Well, for starters, in all honesty, during my undergraduate degree I got a little fed up of just hearing about women in my Gender module.

We had two weeks of ‘male’ psychology, which concentrated on superheroes for one week, and masculine ideals for the next week. And that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to hear about THEIR life. Do they feel the same sense of shame or pressure about their bodies? Do they feel the same pressure to have families? Do they realise that they’re the ‘standard’ set in a discipline that is to encompass ALL human behaviour? Do they realise they have a voice too?

I realised that I wanted to find their strengths and their weaknesses and research them. I want to know what makes them different to themselves as well as other genders. I want to demonstrate that men still have their problems and shouldn’t be hidden away. I wanted to read a piece of a research that didn’t investigate women, and use a man as standard to be set against. That’s wrong for the women and wrong for the men. It is in no way fair.

‘Grow a pair’

I am a feminist. Not a ‘feminazi’, nor a man-hating individual, but someone who wants equality for all genders.

And you know what, being one has actually opened my eyes. I now see that the way women are portrayed is also hurtful to men. I see that the same sense of social order that has oppressed women also oppresses men, albeit sometimes in different ways. It’s still there. The issue that each gender has does affect each other.

As a feminist I do not want a man to be seen as the ‘bumbling dad’ in adverts, or viewed with suspicion because you happen to be at a play park with your own child. I don’t want men to lose custody of their children because the law assumes women are the better caregivers. I don’t want men to be ridiculed for having depression or suicidal thoughts because they’re seen as ‘weaknesses’ and told to ‘grow a pair’ or ‘stop being such a girl’.

As a female, I won’t even suggest that I understand men completely. I want to begin to understand your processes, your thoughts and your behaviours, and show people that men have problems too and we shouldn’t ignore them. I want to show them your individuality.

Some males might not be happy with that, but helping to have your voice heard to a different set of individuals surely can’t be all that bad, can it?

By Debbie Earnshaw

What do you think? Are there some subjects — like gender — that require lived experience to fully understand? Or are there special insights that one gender can bring to studying the other?

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Also on insideMAN:

  • CitymanMichael

    Welcome to the world of men, Debbie. I should warn you that the further you travel this road, the more you will distance yourself from feminism

  • Darren Ball

    Regarding the first post: The more I studied men’s issues the more I found myself agreeing with a wide range of feminist issues that previously I had been dismissive about. We still need feminism.

    I’m really pleased you’re doing this. The Zeitgeist has moved to the point that it’s very difficult for men to speak up for men: we need women to help.

    Good luck with it all.

  • Nigel

    Well Debbie. Good for you I say. Way way back in the 70s there was quite a ferment and a fair amount of discussion about “liberating” both sexes for having to fulfill pre set roles. Somehow that all got lost in a marxist “oppressive class” women are victims paradigm. Perhaps what you refer to as Feminazis, people who generally have a curiously contradictory view that women can be all sorts of things but men are in some strange way genetically destined to live their social roles.
    It simply should not matter if a man or woman looks into these issues so long as they are clear on their hypotheses and true to the data. I have to say that it is psychologists that often seem to be those in the forfront of challenging the dishonesty in for instance supposedly “feminist” assertions about partners abuse and domestic violence (Prof. Archer. Dr. Bates, Dr. Graham-Kevan). Of course people’s life gives them something to bring to their work and I do think the work by people transgender or gay or lesbian enriches the unfolding examination by often looking at the “taken for granted” with fresh eyes . But the fundamental point is that good research is good research.
    Myself ,being a creature of the cold war era, I give socio economic class a place in my thinking.
    I really do think there is a huge area of work that is looking at individual and social meanings with regard to men,male etc. And there is so little that really reflexts the rich diversity of men accross generations, classes, nations, and time. I look forward to reading your work. How could one research Gender without researching males?

  • Nigel

    Michael and Darren I agree with you both! Over the years I have become increasingly dismayed and angry at “feminists” who pursue a form of secular religion and in doing so simply lie. Yet there are also intelectually honest feminists whose work does help to get “under the skin” of what is gender and how it is formed. What feminism seems particularly weak on is the interplay between the sexes. So for instance having two sons and a daughter it is clear that “man” and “woman” is quite a social production. For instance young males are(in my observation) very clearly hungry for and sensitive to the percieved and actual expectations of young females as to what is expected of them to be an attractive “man”. As indeed are young females, yet it is the latter that is picked over. I recently had a conversation prompted about what he meant when he said he wanted to move on from dating to being “marriage material” as he moves to his mid twenties. In the chat it became clear that the notions of what constituted “marriage material” actually came from his female friends and past girlfriends to a large extent. And these struck me as being surprisingly traditional.

  • Graham

    “I am a feminist. Not a ‘feminazi’, nor a man-hating individual, but someone who wants equality for all genders.” ––Feminism is for women’s advancement or “rights.” If you’re for equality for all, there’s another term for that: egalitarianism.

  • http://thepowerofrelationship.com Mark Davenport

    Thank you, Debbie, Michael, Darren and Nigel. I can’t even nit-pick what you’ve written! And I too, Nigel, remember those wonderfully open and hopeful conversations in the 70’s that looked toward a true equality (but not sameness) of gender. It was a brief period, however, and soon so many “ingenuous” ideals of the hippie 60’s lost all their traction and produced the ever wider gaps that are still milked for political advantage rather than for a true march forward side by side on gender – and many other issues.

  • Debbie Earnshaw

    I just wanted to say thank you for the comments! I admit I was a little nervous as some men find it strange that I study masculinity (as noted by the sixth formers).

    I’ll do a whole reply here rather than an individual one.

    Thank you CityManMichael, I look forward to furthering my postgraduate studies. I have already done my Master of Research study on ‘What makes a man, ‘a man’?’ and I definitely want to continue studying masculinity and men. I’ve found that actually since starting my postgraduate studies, I’ve embraced feminism more. I understand that there is the notion of ‘feminazis’ or full-on misandrists mainly in the media limelight, which I definitely am not. I understand that the roles placed on women are also placed on men and that they are equally oppressing. For me, feminism is about shedding light on these for everyone to be equal.

    Thank you Darren Ball. I agree, and it’s worked for feminism with men too. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a celebrity has done a lot of press about feminism for both men and women, and Michael Kimmel (personal hero of mine!) has done wonders for both feminism and masculinity – I would recommend anyone to read Angry White Men and watch his YouTube videos (I think one is from TED talks). All genders need a voice, and I hope I will provide one that is equal for all genders rather than promoting one over the other (which I am not for).

    Many thanks Nigel! It’s really interesting to hear this from your perspective. This comment: ‘there is so little that really reflects the rich diversity of men across generations, classes, nations, and time’ is another reason why I want to carry this on for my PhD as I want to see it and explore it fully. I also found it interesting that you’ve mentioned marriage material as one of the collections I found in my Masters work was that men are deemed to have a family, that they must provide (financially but not emotionally/physically) for them, and if they don’t they are frowned upon by society. I think the notion of marriage material is an unfortunate consequence of media representations that are forced upon men and women to conform to. Thank you for making me consider something else for my PhD!

    And thank you Mark Davenport! I’m hoping that the more people talk about it, the better things will get and things will change!

    • CitymanMichael

      Debbie, thanks for the comments – you may find this youtube video by Tom Golden, professional psychotherapist, very interesting as he outlines how men are a lot different from women, psychologically – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7yaH-DVbYQ&index=8&list=PLHLREeMe4S0OmV_BYAfWNWi0qQzu2FWzK
      In fact, I highly recommend you watch it to really get an insight into the way men deal with emotional problems. He starts by stating that in his grad school there were 16 women and 1 man – himself…….

      • Debbie Earnshaw

        I’ve read something by another psychologist (off the top of my head I can’t remember his name!) where he studied psychology of women at his college and he was the only man in the room. If I find it again I’ll post it somewhere as it was really interesting to see a man’s insight into this topic area.

        I’m a bit skeptical of psychotherapists as their discipline is totally different to the science of psychology, but I will check it out and keep it mind, thank you!

  • Nigel

    Dear Debbie, I wonder if I may suggest a topic of research. One that sounds more specific than your PHD but may interest you or a colleague. 
    In a series of reports of research with young people in the “noughties” the authors reported the surprising results that young men and young women both reported males being abused at high rates. In particular being hit or otherwise subjected to violence. This appeared to be connected to a sort of absence of social injunctions against violence against males. In that the young people , male and female understood it was wrong for a male to hit a girl and could situate other behaviours as abuse. While both sexes appeared much more ready to accept violence against males males appeared fatalistic about being on the recieving end of abusive behaviour “it’s just something that happens”. 
    All the reports comment that this is something a bit unexpected and needs further investigation. Now as far as I know there hasn’t been research done into this. Dr.Graham-Kevan touches on this in some of her work but generally the focus is on women and girls. 
    So it would be good if someone looked at this . Why are young men so fatalistic about abusive behaviours toward  them? They appear very accepting of violence toward them ,  is this part of the general gender role or something specific connected to not hitting girls? It’s often the case in surveys that behaviours that women view as abusive if they are the target men don’t similarly interpret as abuse if it is done to them , why? 
    This though was sparked off by mention of Michael Kimmel who rather wisely pointed out that one should be concerned about violence against men by women, not least because eventually the man may retaliate. The studies I’m referring to appear to suggest that sort of retaliation will be rare. But without research we don’t really know why. 
    As a very basic hypothesis my suggestion is that males are socialised into being ” tough” and this includes an expectation of taking “punishment” as a n accepted part of life. Sort of linked to the stoicism that is a theme of the WW1 pieces on this blog. If men became much less tolerant of violence and abusive behaviours against them would that be good or bad for our society? 

    • Debbie Earnshaw

      Thanks Nigel, I can keep this in mind for possible post-doctoral work as that topic area will require extra training/counselling individuals to be involved.

      The ‘toughness’ that you mention will more than likely be a chapter in my PhD thesis as it links to the representations that men have to follow (as per social conduct), but the main idea I have at the moment is centered around fatherhood representations/pressures, and what happens if men are denied to be fathers (such as abortion, miscarriage or break-up of relationship) as it’s a topic area that is rarely ever covered when looking at men that doesn’t involve counselling for abortion.

      I will however keep your ideas in mind!