Changing Men in Southern Africa


Book Description

Despite claims that men are in crisis, the domestic and public realms of Southern Africa are still dominated by men. This examination of modern men aims to show that the power of man is not a fixed concept, and that it is not true that all men share the spoils of dominance




African Masculinities


Book Description

While masculinity studies enjoys considerable growth in the West, there is very little analysis of African masculinities. This volume explores what it means for an African to be masculine and how male identity is shaped by cultural forces. The editors believe that to tackle the important questions in Africa-the many forms of violence (wars, genocides, familial violence and crime) and the AIDS pandemic-it is necessary to understand how a combination of a colonial past, patriarchal cultural structures and a variety of religious and knowledge systems creates masculine identities and sexualities. The work done in the book particularly bears in mind how vulnerability and marginalization produce complex forms of male identity. The book is interdisciplinary and is the first in-depth and comprehensive study of African men as a gendered category.




Youth and changing realities


Book Description




Becoming Men


Book Description

This vivid evocation of the lives of 32 boys from a Johannesburg township is essential reading for anybody wishing to understand black masculinity in South Africa Becoming Men is the story of 32 boys from Alexandra, one of Johannesburg's largest townships, over a period of twelve seminal years in which they negotiate manhood and masculinity. Psychologist and academic Malose Langa has documented graphically what it means to be a young black man in contemporary South Africa. The boys discuss a range of topics including the impact of absent fathers, relationships with mothers, siblings and girls, school violence, academic performance, homophobia, gangsterism, unemployment and, in one case, prison life. Dominant themes that emerge are deep ambivalence, self-doubt and hesitation in the boys' approaches to alternative masculinities that are non-violent, non-sexist and non-risk-taking. The difficulties of negotiating the multiple voices of masculinity are exposed as many of the boys appear simultaneously to comply with and oppose the prevalent norms. Providing a rich interpretation of how emotional processes affect black adolescent boys, Langa suggests interventions and services to support and assist them, especially in reducing the high-risk behaviours generally associated with hegemonic masculinity. This is essential reading for students, researchers and scholars of gender studies who wish to understand manhood and masculinity in South Africa. Psychologists, youth workers, lay counsellors and teachers who work with adolescent boys will also find it invaluable.




Workers and Warriors


Book Description

In this compact, powerful new study Thembisa Waetjen explores how gender structured the mobilization of Zulu nationalism in South Africa as antiapartheid efforts gained force during the 1980s. Undercutting assumptions of male power and nationalism as monolithic, Workers and Warriors demonstrates the ways that masculinities may be plural, conflict-ridden, and crucial not only to the formation of loyalty but also to why some nationalisms fail.




Men Behaving Differently


Book Description

Recent years have seen a growing world-wide concern about men and boys. Do boys have appropriate role models at home? Are girls outperforming boys at school? Is men's health under undue pressure?




Baba


Book Description

Authors from a range of backgrounds and disciplines break new ground in this collection of essays exploring the centrality of fatherhood in the lives of men and the experiences of children. The book is separated into sections that address different ways that the presence or absence of a father affects both the man and the family, from the conceptual questions of fatherhood to historical perspectives--including the input of class and race issues--to the portrayal of fathers in the media. By turning attention to aspects of fatherhood, each study illuminates the role of the male parent, making the ultimate argument that the contribution of men to their families can be a positive force for change in society as a whole.




From Boys to Gentlemen


Book Description

Awarded the Hiddingh-Currie Award for academic excellence. The book is the first on South African history to focus on the concept of masculinity; it examines how the forces of race and class were expressed in gendered ways from a century ago in South Africa. Its central concern is how white men established their dominance and constructed their masculinity, cataloguing and exploring the significance of the political and public dominance of white men. It argues that a particular type of settler masculinity was constructed and became dominant as a prescription for proper male behaviour; and shows how it excluded and silenced rival interpretations, and promoted the development of a closed and racially exclusive colonial society. The study concentrates on the white settler population around Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the then colony of Natal.




Boy-Wives and Female Husbands


Book Description

Among the many myths created about Africa, the claim that homosexuality and gender diversity are absent or incidental is one of the oldest and most enduring. Historians, anthropologists, and many contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans or Arabs. In fact, same-sex love and nonbinary genders were and are widespread in Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents the presence of this diversity in some fifty societies in every region of the continent south of the Sahara. Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed gender roles in east and west Africa, and the emergence of LGBTQ activism in South Africa, which became the first nation in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also included are oral histories, folklore, and translations of early ethnographic reports by German and French observers. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands was the first serious study of same-sex sexuality and gender diversity in Africa, and this edition includes a new foreword by Marc Epprecht that underscores the significance of the book for a new generation of African scholars, as well as reflections on the book's genesis by the late Stephen O. Murray. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Murray Hong Family Trust. Access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/1714.




Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa


Book Description

Comprises a dozen contributions, focusing on men as gendered actors, the social construction of masculinity, masculinity as a relational category, and hegemonic or subordinate masculinities. Reflects on developments from colonialism to independence in seven sub-Saharan countries.