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Increasing rates of late marriage and decreasing rates of marriage in developed countries have been often explained by women's increasing education and labor participation. However, unmarried men's views of marriage have remained unexplored. I first examine how the state's pro-birth policy employs the slogan of "life-work balance" to maintain the traditional gender roles in families. Using in-depth interviews with fourteen unmarried Japanese men, this paper next offers an explanation of why some Japanese men postpone marriage, and third, discusses three discourses on marriage they engage in to maintain privileges of race, class, and gender. Ultimately, I argue that the postponement of marriage in Japan is caused by not only women's aversion to marriage but also men's aversion to the traditional gender roles and family responsibilities that accompany marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using life-history interviews, this article examines Asian American men's cross-racial "homosocial competition" with white masculinities in the context of intimate relationships with white women. It maps the operation of white masculinities in Asian American men's views of themselves, analyzing Asian American men's subjective experiences of (1) rivalry, (2) desire for normativity, (3) powerlessness, and (4) deficiency. It also addresses how white women's participation in Asian American men's masculinity formation contributes to both challenges and reiterations of hegemonic ideologies of race and gender. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a paper examining three Asian American men's construction of manhood, particularly, their relationship with white women. In all three cases, the themes frequently emerge, include a sense of unattainable white manhood, a sense of racial alienation and resistance to the desexualized images of Asian American men. Another pattern emerging in all three cases concerns white women as they desire and give recognition to Asian American men. Another one pattern is that two Asian American men in these stories, positively view white manhood and whiteness as cultural alternatives and useful resources for their self-making.

Although stereotypical portrayal of Asian women has been often discussed theoretically, empirical study has not fully explored the complexity of gender and racial inequality in Asian women?s intimate relationships with white men. This article examines Asian women?s desire and their strategic engagement in their sexual relationships with white men. By applying theoretical framework of masculinity and femininity to the analysis of in-depth interviews with Asian women and white men, I discuss how Asian women identify with, resist, and appropriate white men?s masculinities within their relationships. Asian women?s choice of interracial intimacy and exercise of sexual agency reveal Asian women?s marginal positions regulated by ethnic patriarchy, mainstream negative stereotypes, and global inequality. Empirical findings were presented through Asian women?s engagement in four types of white masculinities: masculinity as a middle class American; masculinity as material security; masculinity as physical strength; masculinity as male gaze. After discussing varying patterns of masculinity and femininity in the four narratives, I further elaborate the meaning of global and local prerogatives of white American men over Asian women within the context of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and patriarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]