Introduction

Abstract

Many researchers in the area of gender and identity have drawn attention to an apparent ‘crisis’ in contemporary forms of masculinity, marked by uncertainties over social role and identity, sexuality, work and personal relationships — and often manifested in violence or abusive behaviours towards self and others (e.g. Frosh, 1994, 2000; Jukes, 1993; Seidler, 1989). If there is such a crisis, it presumably has roots in a range of social phenomena. These include the collapse of traditional men’s work, the growth of a technological culture which cannot be ‘passed on’ in any recognisable way between the generations, the rise of feminist consciousness amongst women, and, more abstractly, challenges to the dominance of the forms of rationality with which masculinity has been identified, at least in the West (e.g. Connell, 1995; Seidler, 1994; Segal, 1990). It also both reflects and contributes to the production of a parallel developmental ‘crisis’ for boys, engaged in the process of identity construction in a context in which there are few clear models and in which the surrounding images of masculinity are complex and confused.