While research has clearly now turned the lens on boys and masculinities, the emphasis has continued to be on investigating problematic constructions of masculinity and sexuality linked to risk in the context of HIV/and male violence.
This simplistic equation relies on problematic assumptions about masculinity, business practices within the sex industry, sex workers' capacity to take action, and the root causes of trafficking...
Yet, as Flood (this issue) and others (Jewkes et al. this issue) point out, for some the idea of developing new progressive forms of masculinity is inherently problematic.
At the same time, research documents some problematic framings of men and masculinities among US and Australian participants that may also have wider currency.
The notion of therapeutic citizenship enables us to highlight ways in which characteristics of hegemonic masculinity may stand in a problematic relationship with the practical requirements of health service and drug treatment settings.
The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.
There has further been a growing concern about the way in which South African masculinities have been foregrounded as inherently problematic.
Among the important findings that flow from combining theory with practice is that masculinity itself should not be presented as inherently problematic or oppressive.
More important, according to feminist analyses, the very premise of prescriptive dualism the valuing of attributes of one polarized side and the devaluing of those of the other, the idea that domination and oppression can be justified by appealing to attributes like masculinity, rationality, being civilized or developed, etc.—is itself problematic.
The dehumanization of women is the primary backdrop for the film, but problematic notions of femininity go hand-in-hand with problematic notions of masculinity: what's a boy to think, one activist in the film asks, when he's always given more milk than his sister because the whole family believes that his energy and strength are more important?
