Published in

Men's Studies Press, Journal of Men's Studies, 3(12), p. 207-226

DOI: 10.3149/jms.1203.207

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Masculinities in Older Men: A Qualitative Study in the West of Scotland

Journal article published in 2004 by Carol Emslie ORCID, Kate Hunt, Rosaleen O'Brien
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Question mark in circle
Preprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Postprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Published version: policy unknown
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Despite the recent interest in multiple "masculinities," previous research has either ignored older men or implicitly treated them as without gender. In order to fill this gap in the literature, we conducted semi-structured interviews with men born in the early 1930s living in the west of Scotland. Disruptions to individual biographies (due to the illness or death of a spouse or loss of their job through redundancy) forced men to reevaluate previously taken-for-granted attitudes to gender roles. Social class trajectories were important in shaping men's attitudes to paid work and gender roles; for example, men who were upwardly mobile were most egalitarian about the gendered division of labor in the household. More privileged men also constructed masculinity differently from less privileged men. Our findings suggest that more attention should be paid to the variety of ways in which older men "do" gender.