Men’s Studies

Over the last decades there has been a significant growth of social science research related to men.  The emerging field of men’s studies explores how various forms of masculinities are (re)institutionalised and (re)constructed in different social interactions.  In his introductory essay written in 1987 Harry Brod articulates some of the principal characteristic themes and findings in men’s studies.  He shows that this growing field questions assumptions about masculinity that have passed beyond the horizons of scientific inquiry; these assumptions are shared so widely that they cease to appear as assumptions.  Michael S. Kimmel’s article attemps to rectify the deficiencies he perceives in the sex-role paradigm by the analysis of a period (the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century) during which a „crisis of masculinity” was discerned by contemporaries.  He differentiates between three types of male reactions to social changes: antifeminist backlash, promale backlash, and profeminist men.  Miklós Hadas’ text is an excerpt from a book he is currently working on entitled Sports and Masculinity.  His starting question is this:  What explains that until the fall of communism Hungary was among the three most successful nations, proportionate to population, in the history of modern sports movements?  The author attempts an answer through the study of social dispositions, i.e. historically conditioned gendered behavioural patterns of different social groups.  He argues that in the past two centuries masculine passions have been channelled into new directions: an aggressive fight aimed at destroying the enemy is being replaced by civilised competition.  The chapter published here concentrates on the process in which horse race is transformed into rowing-competition in the mid-nineteenths century.