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Male Peer Support Theory (MPST) is one of the few principal theories about masculinity and men’s violence against women. The theory foregrounds the role of social networks in encouraging violence. This article offers a critical discussion of MPST, particularly the assumption that social networks primarily support violence. Drawing on a qualitative study of young men perpetrators in Sweden, we suggest that the concept of response is better suited than support in capturing the diversity of social network responses to violence. In our data, there were few stories about unmitigated pro-abuse support. Instead, we found responses that unequivocally condemned violence, as well as ambiguous and transformative responses. We suggest that such responses be understood in relation to changing attitudes concerning violence.

This article explores different problematizations of young men in masculinity research. It looks at research on young men in school, young men and sports, and young men and violence, as well as the place of young men in more general discussions about masculinity. It is argued that four main problematizations can be identified in this research, depending on whether the focus is on the structure, the group, the experience, or the categorization. Differentiating between different problematizations, it is suggested, may be a helpful way of understanding key differences in research on, as well as in interventions directed at, young men.

Queer criminology has primarily focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people as victims and perpetrators of crime, as well as on the criminalization of non-heterosexual practices. In this article, we contribute to the emerging discussions on how queer theory can be used in relation to criminological research by exploring desistance processes from a queer temporality perspective. Desistance research emphasizes how and why individuals cease offending and is often guided by a teleology in which individuals are expected to mature and develop new, non-criminal identities. Work on queer temporality, in contrast, has developed thinking that destabilizes chronology and troubles normative life trajectories. In this article, we draw on queer temporality perspectives, particularly the concepts of chrononormativity and afterwardsness, in analysing narratives of young men who have used sexual violence against women partners in Sweden. We demonstrate how criminal identities may develop in retrospect, after desisting, and that identity and behaviour may not necessarily go together.

Since its emergence in the late 1980s, research on men and masculinity has expanded considerably into an established area at the intersection of sociology, gender studies and related disciplines. T ...

Hip hop has grown into a worldwide genre of popular music in recent decades. While the genre is often associated with sexism and homophobia, this article examines how masculinity is constructed in rap lyrics. It focuses on two central themes in contemporary configurations of masculinity: violence and parenting. The material consists of rap lyrics from 39 rap artists in Sweden during the last two decades. It is analysed from poststructuralist and intersectional perspectives, with a discourse analysis combining broad thematic coding with close readings of selected extracts. The article shows how violence is both connected to class and racial dimensions of inequality, but simultenously shared as a gender norm across such differences. Violence is both reinforced as a norm of masculinity, but also called into question through various means, such as use of irony. The analysed lyrics contain descriptions of parent-child relations from the perspective of both positions. These narratives display a similar ambivalence; they simultenously hold fathers to task for perceived parenting failures and reinforce problematic patterns of masculine parenting. In sum, the article shows how violence and parenting are important loci for contemporary configurations of masculinity. The intersectional and poststructuralist theoretical perspectives, which have been relatively downplayed in studies on men and masculinity, enable attention to the ambivalences of gender discourses, which often contain elements of both reinforcement and subversion.