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Feminist Men’s Movements: The White Ribbon Campaign (UK) and the Dilemmas of Feminist Men

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The New Politics of Fatherhood

Part of the book series: Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences ((GSSS))

Abstract

This chapter examines feminist men’s movements and discusses key insights/debates from existing men’s movements scholarship. An in-depth analysis of the White Ribbon Campaign UK’s online materials examines how they construct masculinity and their gender politics. WRC demonstrates the potential of feminist men’s activism, championing feminist analyses of power and masculinity/violence, and challenging complicit masculinity. However, their emphasis on men as bystanders may allow some men not to interrogate their own practices. Further, their efforts to appeal to men by reframing anti-violence work as ‘manly’ can reproduce, rather than destabilise, hegemonic masculinity. In accordance with ‘progressive’ crisis-of-masculinity accounts, WRC invokes the promise of mainstreaming a softer masculinity. However, their assumption that masculinity as a category should be maintained limits the radical potential of their project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

    Ana Jordan

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  1. Ana Jordan
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Correspondence to Ana Jordan .

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Jordan, A. (2019). Feminist Men’s Movements: The White Ribbon Campaign (UK) and the Dilemmas of Feminist Men. In: The New Politics of Fatherhood. Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31498-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-31498-7_4

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  • Print ISBN: 978-0-230-36537-7

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