Masculinity

This study addresses existing gaps in the literature concerning the undergraduate experiences of Latino men students as examined through an intersectional and masculinities-based lens. Due to a dearth in literature centering the exclusive study of Latino men in higher education, researchers are challenged to offer a comprehensive understanding of their postsecondary experiences and outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand how currently enrolled Latino men undergraduate students make meaning of their undergraduate experiences. Relying on the lived experiences of Latino undergraduate men, this study collected data through three sets of interviews (Seidman, 2013). The examination of data was considered through the Multilevel Model of Intersectionality (Núñez, 2014a), which allowed for the participants’ lived experiences to be examined at multiple levels of intersectionality and centered in social oppression and privilege. The findings center the role of the Latino family, navigating and overcoming pan-ethnic discrimination, and evolved understandings of masculinity. Recommendations include the incorporation of the Latino family into the postsecondary experiences of Latino men, discontinuing the study of Latino masculinities as a homogenous concept, and equity based institutional policies that center the intersectional needs of Latino men undergraduate students related to academic and personal success.

This thesis is a historical comprehensive case study on masculinity that explores stereotypes of masculinity in professional wrestling. Working from theories about gender roles, hegemonic masculinity, misogyny (with its disdain for femininity) and heteronormativity, this study utilizes a content analysis of American professional wrestling to look at the gendered basis of how and why wrestling characters are created and how they are successful. Professional wrestlers historically have created characters based in American popular cultures and specifically American gender ideologies of masculinity that are based in hetero-patriarchal cultural ideals. By looking through the history of masculinity and gender stereotypes in professional wrestling, I uncover how contemporary wrestlers are reworking these stereotypes to create new characters with changing gender inflections based on global cultural ideals, rather than American culture, demonstrating the influence global culture and the globalized wrestling community has on contemporary American wrestling.

The masculine gender identity in western United States culture is constructed in opposition to femininity, and is maintained through the culture modes of discipline and surveillance. However, instances of male femininity challenge these rigid constructs of gender, and suggest that gender is in fact a performance reflecting cultural norms as opposed to an internal core of identity. Instances of male femininity can be located in heterosexual male cross-dressing activities, ranging from the recent phenomena of "metrosexuality" to heterosexual men completely dressing as women. While frequently presenting some problematic conceptions of gender, these behaviors also provide instances of subversive breaks in gendered performance, and illustrate the possibility for a non-oppositional heterosexuality. Additionally, the films Billy Elliot and Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake provide popular culture examples illustrating the ways in which men struggle with masculinity, and the complexities of addressing moments of femininity in individual male subjectivity and identity.