Karla Elliott - Young Men Navigating Contemporary Masculinities

The study of gender and sexuality has developed dramatically over recent years, with a changing theoretical landscape that has seen innovative work emerge on identity, the body and embodiment, queer theory, technology, space, and the concept of gender itself. There has been an increasing focus on sexuality and new theorizing on masculinities. This exciting series will take account of these developments, emphasizing new, original work that engages both theoretically and empirically with the themes of gender, sexuality, and, crucially, their intersections, to set a new, vibrant and contemporary international agenda for research in this area.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15001

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Writing about care for the past several years has opened my eyes to how one does not writeabout care or about anything elsewithout invaluable and monumental amounts of care from others. The support, advice and affection of numerous friends, family members and colleaguesmany of whom are all three things at oncehas been what has enabled me to bring this book into existence. First, I owe an incredible debt of gratitude to JaneMaree Maher and Jo Lindsay, my supervisors for the Ph.D. from which the research for this book stemmed. Both taught me scholarly integrity, rigour, generosity and critical thinking. JaneMaree guided me from my undergraduate years, through the Ph.D., and into the world of academia. Her feminist teachings from those early moments onward very much inspired my work and this book. My heartfelt thanks go to my colleague and dear friend Steven Roberts for providing immeasurable care, encouragement, inspiration and advice throughout the writing of this book and beyond, including reading sections of the manuscript. Steves generosity and intellectual contributions have indelibly shaped the chapters that follow. My sincere thanks also to Peter Hopkins for his influence on this book and encouragement to delve into different perspectives in the study of men and masculinities.

A special thank you to my former colleagues at the University of Melbourne, Karen Block, Eva Alisic, Lisa Gibbs, Cathy Vaughan, and the Evidence and Child Health team, who taught me so much in such a short time and provided an overwhelmingly supportive environment in which to write this book. It was a true joy to work with a team so committed to social change and justice. Before this, the Monash University Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre offered me my first position and the encouragement to begin writing. Thank you to Amelia Derkatsch and Poppy Hull at Palgrave for their support throughout the publishing process, and to the Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences Series Editors Victoria Robinson and Diane Richardson, as well as the anonymous reviewers of the original book proposal for their very kind and useful comments. This research was in part conducted during my time as a Guest Researcher at the Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. My thanks go to Gabriele Jhnert, Christine Wimbauer, Andreas Heilmann and Ellen Ronnsiek for their support throughout my stay.

There are several vital friends whove been on this journey with me as Early Career Researchers, who I rely on daily and who have been unconditionally there for me in writing this book and in many other things: Lucy Kneebone, Bernice Loh, Cathy Waite, Madeleine Ulbrick, Akane Kanai (who also read sections of the manuscript), Ari Jerrems, Nicholas Hill, Harry Tan, Maria Tanyag, Rakshinda Kabir, Sally Lo and Jan Kilicaslan. And of course thank you to those who have been caring for and about me across my whole life: Judy Russell, Patrick Elliott, Eleanor Elliott, Peggy Russell, Norman Russell, Pat Elliott, Des Elliott, Matthew Walker and Anna Chase.

Finally, my thanks and appreciation go to the men who participated in the research that served as the foundation for this book. They generously entrusted me with their thoughts, hopes and fears and shared their time with me. In doing so, they have shaped and contributed to work towards greater gender equality and transforming masculinities, and I am indebted to the wealth of stories they contributed.

Some sections in Chaptersdraw on material published in Elliott, Karla. 2019. Negotiations between progressive and traditional expressions of masculinity among young Australian men.Journal of Sociology55 (1): 108123.

Young men today are to an extent able to adopt more open expressions of masculinity than previously. Nevertheless, structures of domination and inequality persist alongside feminist gains. Ideals of masculinities continue to demand exacting standards and lead to pressing costs for people of all genders. Contemporary masculinities have been put under the spotlight with the emergence of movements challenging mens violence and ongoing patriarchal gender relations. In many cases, the power and dominance of privileged men, and the ways in which they act with impunity, has been revealed. Despite this, privileged men are often portrayed as the harbingers of progress and change (Bridges and Pascoe , p. 216) argues, constructing marginalised men as the bearers of bad forms of masculinity functions as a diversionary tactic for middle-class and elite men whose practices are thus more rarely scrutinised. It is therefore critical that attention be directed to investigating more privileged men, including the ways in which they perpetuate what I term throughout this book closedness, and possibilities for progress towards equality and more open masculinities.