SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between masculinity studies and feminism, one of the most significant contexts of gender research in contemporary humanities and social sciences. While women’s studies helped us understand various aspects of power between genders, masculinity studies has foregrounded an equally significant aspect, that is, the ways in which gendered power operates through the relationship between men, as well as men and non-normative sexual and gender identities. Masculinity studies provides a nuanced understanding of the different ways in which masculinities and sexualities unfold across multiple registers – work, leisure, property, kinship, religion, and politics – in turn, defining and consolidating specific ways of being, doing, and having. This chapter explores three specific contexts – custom and religion, the ‘gender of institutions’, and relationships between masculinities and sexualities – in order to outline the ways in which masculinities relate to feminism as well as contribute to social analysis.