Masculinity Gender Norms

The ways in which individuals construct and understand gender, especially masculinity, tend to be fairly limited by time, culture, and geography. At any given time, there are multiple forms of masculinity being cultivated and endorsed, but many people are not aware of these various forms of masculinity. The ever-adolescent man who never seems to grow up, the metrosexual male who favors fashion, or the lumberjack man (i.e., lumbersexual) who idolizes “outdoorness” are examples of different forms of masculinity, each with an ideology, norm, and script for men who endorse these ideals. Masculine ideals and expectations vary across time as well. There was a time when the aristocratic man, affluent and avoidant of work, was the highest ideal of masculinity. The aristocratic man was the ideal ...