Unmasking Masculinity (Routledge Revivals)

A Critical Autobiography

David Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781138808690
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317612377
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this detailed investigation of 'masculine' gendered identity, first published in 1990, David Jackson uses his own personal history to look at the specific ways in which men become 'masculine'. In doing so he examines, but also offers some positive challenges to, the assumed qualities and values of growing up 'manly'. Jackson looks closely at the psychological and social forces active in his own development: relations with his father, violence at school, male banter and joking, sporting activities, boys' comics, and sexual relations. The title is a deliberate blend between life story and critical commentary that makes use of some areas of post-structuralist theory to make visible the social and emotional processes that contribute to one man's life history. With an innovative theoretical approach, this reissue will be of particular value to those interested in the social, psychological and cultural forces that have gone into the historical shaping of men and masculinities.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Other forms of critical autobiography
• 3 Falling apart, men’s bodies, and masculine identities
• 4 Family background
• 5 Relations with my father
• 6 Sexuality
• 7 A critical language autobiography: patriarchal power, social class and language
• 8 ‘One of the boys’: male bonding and masculinities
• 9 Everyday violence and life in an all-boys’ secondary school
• 10 Sporting activities and masculinities
• 11 Boys’ comics: reading the Rover, Hotspur and Wizard, 1948–50
• 12 Widening the ripples: the value of critical life-history work for men
• Index