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AbstractThere have been growing concerns among feminists and masculinity theorists on how particular constructions of masculinities may tend to limit options available for men to explore. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews conducted with fifteen men aged 30-35, findings revealed that young men are active agents who do not only passively embrace particular normative gender norms and practices, but that young men also have the capacity to deconstruct and challenge what is normatively presented to them. It is particularly essential to note the ways in which problematic constructions of gender were not only enacted and reproduced, but how particular constructions of masculinity were challenged simultaneously. We argue that such contestations should be read within the broader historical and sociocultural contexts in which young men make sense of their masculine identities in relations to prevailing gender discourses. This is an important finding as it highlights the complex and contradictory processes through which young men may situationally make sense of their normative gender identities in order to merit acceptance and status validity among their peers. Findings from this study have important implications for how gender equitable subjectivities can be nurtured and promoted among young men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that in many sociological theorizing on gender, work, and employment, relatively little is known about how men who engage in female dominated informal works make sense of their gendered identities. Drawing from qualitative research in a rapidly urbanizing Ghanaian city, we examine the meanings and implications of men's involvement in gender atypical informal works. An unpacking of the constructions of gendered identity reveals the situative strategies that men may deploy to maintain, embolden, and/or adjust their masculinities congruent with dominant cultural scripts. In the end, we argue that men who engage in traditionally feminine work are accused of failing to herald the mainstreaming of the fulfillment of hegemonic masculinity which is a necessary cultural milestone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, our aim is to foreground men's discourses on gender-based violence as linked to gendered hierarchies, power struggles, and social respectability in Ghana. Situated within decolonial feminist theories and drawing on interviews, we argue that men's interpretations of masculinity and the possibility of perpetrating violence against women is significantly mediated by such intersectional factors as sociocultural background, education, and broader societal normative requirements. The findings deepen the understanding of the ambiguities and contradictions that characterize men's talk of violence. The article discusses how these ambiguities and contradictions serve as important domains for engendering critical attitudes toward violence against women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Raewyn Connell's theoretical notion of hegemonic masculinity, this study examines relations between masculinity and suicide attempts in Bangladesh. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 men from the Jhenaidah district, who had previously attempted suicide. Participants discussed how "real men" were expected to be primary providers, demonstrate their material power and sexual prowess. However, the men disclosed that they encountered difficulties in achieving these versions of hegemonic masculinity in their real lives. Within this context, suicide attempts operated as a redemptive means to overcome perceived masculine "crises." These findings demonstrate that suicide is a socially and culturally constituted phenomenon, which should be understood beyond an individualized and mental health framework. Suicide intervention strategies in Bangladesh must include critical analyses of masculinities, as well as measures to change rigid processes of gendered socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls to engage community leaders in preventing gender-based violence against women have gained global prominence in recent years. Situated within the growing calls for greater community leaders' engagement, this article problematizes the assumptions that efforts to mobilize community gatekeepers in violence prevention are likely to yield better results. Drawing inspiration from decolonial African feminist perspectives coupled with five focus group discussions conducted with 30 community leaders in the patriarchal setting of Northwestern Ghana, this article highlights the potential limitations of these assumptions by paying attention to the multiple ways; albeit subtly, in which community leaders as cultural gatekeepers may individually or collectively reproduce and sustain dominant cultural tropes that normalize violence against women. Our findings show that cultural gatekeepers' perspectives on and their approaches to addressing violence against women risk normalizing and perpetuating it. If policy makers, development practitioners, and researchers are to adequately address the violence of men, a useful starting point is to build on community leaders' perspectives, attitudes, and responses to violence as a collective issue. By building on these, we will be able to challenge and deconstruct the multiple ways in which community leaders' approaches to addressing violence are reinforcing gendered subordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a growing interest in conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against men, conceptual understanding and empirical knowledge are still inadequate. The notion of spiritual security is introduced in this article as an explanatory variable in CRSV, using survivors' discursive views of sexual violence victimizations in Nigeria's north-eastern region. The CRSV of males, it is argued, may also be understood as a ritual or spiritual activity carried out for bodily protection, financial prosperity, or socio-political ascendency. The survivors' impressions of CRSV's spiritual undertones are not unrelated to the heteronormative and collectively homophobic culture in their society, in which violent same-sex relations are considered so perverse and meaningful only if they are conceived as 'evil or devilish practices'. Spiritual beliefs and practices, on the other hand, determine much of the social reality of many people in various parts of the world, and they are regarded as potent on security issues ranging from physical protection to wealth creation and socio-political advancement. This study adds to the continuing discussion on the reasons behind CRSV against men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical studies on men and masculinities have gained significant momentum in feminist scholarship in the past decades. The growing interest in feminist scholarship has focused broadly on how male-bodied people construct, negotiate, and express masculine identities. Despite this growing interest, insufficient attention has explored how rurally based Ghanaian men construct and negotiate their masculinities in intimate relationships. Situated within critical discursive psychology and drawing on 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews and 6 focus group discussions with adult men in northwestern Ghana, the results show that dominant notions of masculinity provide a broad context through which participants' narratives, negotiations, and experiences on intimate partner violence could be understood. Findings suggest that various cultural narratives and metaphors were deployed to support men's controlling behaviors and/or intimate violence against women. The implications of how harmful masculine ideologies could frustrate efforts that target the development and promotion of a socially just and less oppressive society are presented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is growing debate among feminist scholars on how fathers often socialize their male children to aspire to embody specific values and behaviors, there is limited academic research on how fathers themselves construct and represent masculinity in Ghana. This article draws on data from six focus group discussions held with forty men to foreground men's negotiations, expressions, and representations of masculinity among the Dagaaba in northwestern Ghana. Our findings suggest that men in rural northwestern Ghana are likely to embody hybrid masculinities where traditionally hegemonic masculine ideals—such as men being seen as independent breadwinners—and contemporary gender-conscious norms—such as men as supportive partners—interact in complex ways. Yet the hybridization of masculinity both challenges and reinforces patriarchal gender arrangements in subtle ways. By maintaining a keen interest in their heteronormative breadwinning role as a model of masculinity, educated and gainfully employed men are critical of patriarchal norms that may be destructive to feminist discourses, yet their representations of masculinity indirectly embolden male hegemony in marriage relationships. Our findings further reveal considerable ambiguity in how men define themselves as supportive allies of feminist discourses by endorsing gender egalitarianism, yet none of them visibly challenges why women cannot also be breadwinners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminism provides a key analytical space for theory-building and re-centring historically marginalised narratives and epistemologies. However, the preponderance of women in feminist scholarship has been construed by some as meaning that feminism excludes the interest of men. Situated within a critical discourse analysis and drawing on interviews with men and key informant interviews with women, this essay investigates people's attitudes towards feminism in Ghana (with the concomitant discourses around what is African and what is Western). Feminism was largely perceived by most men and women as a dangerously feminising and Western construct, capable of destabilising the cultural exceptionalism of Ghanaian society. However, a few men appear to have embodied 'progressive' thinking about feminism and alternative constructions of masculinity. For such participants, embracing feminism comes at no cost to men and their manhood. They admit that men have benefited from a patriarchal system, which comes with opportunities and privileges; hence, the struggle for a better and gender equitable society continues. They propose the use and adoption of feminism as an important tool to precipitate shifts in how men approach both their relationships with women, and their own masculine identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this article is to contribute to a more critical, African-situated understanding of the complexities, emotional vulnerability, and multidimensional positionality that a male researcher is likely to face in conducting fieldwork in a native country. Drawing on my own experiences in conducting fieldwork in northwestern Ghana, the article demonstrates how a male researcher conducting interviews with his fellow countrymen could be constructed within hierarchies of masculinities; where he is simultaneously positioned as a powerless native subject and a powerful researcher. I problematise how my negotiation of fieldwork as a Ghanaian male researcher and my ideological baggage as a gender scholar could be read within the larger politics of gender and geography, as well as feminist intersectional theories. Drawing on these theories as useful analytical guides to foreground my fieldwork experiences and how I interpret my data, allow for critical understanding on the range of cultural norms, taboos, gendered subjectivities, and contested meanings which perpetuate multiple masculinities in fieldwork. My reflection from a postcolonial context contributes to growing global concerns to rethink and decolonise how we approach fieldwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses broadly on how young men construct, negotiate, and express masculine identities in northwestern Ghana. Situated within discourses of ruling masculinity, and drawing on qualitative interviews, this article provides locally grounded insights about how young men articulate and make themselves visible by negotiating and renegotiating the interplay of complex struggles and realities to maintain dominance over peers. Findings suggest that dominant norms on the meanings of being a young Dagaaba man entail ambivalences, status insecurity, contradictory desires, and an investment to always act in satisfaction of the observer's gaze. The danger of being looked down on emerges as an important organizing framework that shapes participants' engagement in discursive and exaggerated behaviors and violence. Consequently, young men engage in dramatic performances and public displays to further authenticate their manhood, which provokes and authorizes young men to mask their feelings of vulnerability. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While social discourses on gender and sexuality have become controversial in the African context, there is a tendency to overlook how the domestic space contrives and participates in such productions. This paper examines the domestic space to reveal the ways that it reproduces, sanctions, challenges, and disrupts discursive productions on sexuality. Drawing on interviews with selected urban Ghanaian families, the paper contributes to scholarship by arguing that the processuality of sexual scripts linked to moral scripts and cultural taboos produces complex tensions and ambivalences, with implications for cultural authenticity, power relations, fear-mongering, and social persecution. The analysis shows that sexuality, much like gender, is deeply discursive, processual, fluid, and shaped by culture and history, requiring scholars to engage in deep reflections on how discourses of sexuality inscribe themselves into the social and moral fabric to shape individual actions and behaviors. Taking evidence from urban Ghana, we argue that an important question remains eminent against the background of transformation for harnessing the potentials of the domestic space, which prescribes gender-specific behaviors and expectations between men and women across families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines contextually-grounded perspectives on the socio-political significance of marriage in contemporary Ghanaian society. Drawing on qualitative interviews among men and women in northwestern Ghana, this article argues that, beyond historicizing the institution of monogamous marriage, women's agency in desiring, and navigating marriages are performatively agentic and tied to attaining a myriad of socio-cultural, economic and political capital. Situated within the constrained articulations of participants, our findings alert us to complex negotiations and manoeuvres through which men and women aspire for specific forms of masculinities and femininities within the larger gender hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare especially in patriarchal societies such as Ghana is increasingly being advocated. While a number of studies have been conducted to explore men's views on their involvement, few studies have examined the perspectives of childbearing women. Based on qualitative focus group discussions that were conducted between January and August 2014 with a total of 125 adult women in seven communities in the Upper West Region of Ghana, this paper examines women's perspectives on men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare. Findings suggest that although many women recognised the benefits of men's involvement, few actually supported greater male involvement. The majority of women expressed negative attitudes and opinions on the involvement of men. These negative attitudes and opinions were framed by three broad factors: perceptions that pregnancy and child care should be a female role while men should be bread winners; women's desire to avoid negative stereotyping; and fears that men's involvement may turn hitherto secure social spaces for women into insecure ones. These narrative accounts largely challenge current programmatic efforts that seek to promote men's involvement in maternal and child healthcare, and suggest that such male involvement programmes are less likely to succeed if the views and concerns of childbearing women are not taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The importance of men's involvement in facilitating women's access to skilled maternal healthcare in patriarchal societies such as Ghana is increasingly being recognised. However, few studies have been conducted to examine men's involvement in issues of maternal healthcare, the barriers to men's involvement, and how best to actively involve men. The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers to and opportunities for men's involvement in maternal healthcare in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Methods: Qualitative focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and key informant interviews were conducted with adult men and women aged 20-50 in a total of seven communities in two geographic districts and across urban and rural areas in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Attride-Stirling's thematic network analysis framework was used to analyse and present the qualitative data. Results: Findings suggest that although many men recognise the importance of skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth, and the benefits of their involvement, most did not actively involve themselves in issues of maternal healthcare unless complications set in during pregnancy or labour. Less than a quarter of male participants had ever accompanied their wives for antenatal care or postnatal care in a health facility. Four main barriers to men's involvement were identified: perceptions that pregnancy care is a female role while men are family providers; negative cultural beliefs such as the belief that men who accompany their wives to receive ANC services are being dominated by their wives; health services factors such as unfavourable opening hours of services, poor attitudes of healthcare providers such as maltreatment of women and their spouses and lack of space to accommodate male partners in health facilities; and the high cost associated with accompanying women to seek maternity care. Suggestions for addressing these barriers include community mobilisation programmes to promote greater male involvement, health education, effective leadership, and respectful and patient-centred care training for healthcare providers. Conclusions: The findings in this paper highlight the need to address the barriers to men's involvement, engage men and women on issues of maternal health, and improve the healthcare systems -- both in terms of facilities and attitudes of health staff - so that couples who wish to be together when accessing care can truly do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]