Journal für Entwicklungspolitik (JEP); Special Issue Editor: Johannes Korak (Web)

Proposals by: 16.09.2024

Global political, social, and economic crises affect unequal gender relations and masculinities in various ways. Whereas in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 more care work was already being offloaded onto the ostensibly private space of the household (cf. Dowling 2021), the reproduction of unequal gender relations became even more apparent during the COVID-19-pandemic. Despite spending more time at home – due to various measures in response to the pandemic – men in Europe and North America largely refrained from participating more in caring activities (cf. Wojnicka 2022). In the context of a more recent political crisis, namely the intensification of the Russian war against Ukraine, Ukrainian men are called upon to take up arms, are prohibited from leaving the country, and are confronted with legal pressure to return to Ukraine. This (re-)emerging “protective masculinity” (Wojnicka 2023), characterised by an inclination towards violence and the military, mainly affects Ukrainian men, but – through transnational media channels – (re-)affirms national and regional ideas that ‘real men’ are the ones willing to fight, protect and die.
Furthermore, masculine practices also contribute to the global ecological crisis. While driving large SUVs and emitting proportionally high amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is often mentioned in this context, which the concept of “petro-masculinity” (Daggett 2018) tries to address, the ecological consequences of practices aligned with “ecomodern masculinities” (Pulé et al 2021) are largely ignored. Moreover, given the society-wide acknowledgment of the climate crisis and the promotion of technological fixes as part of a green capitalism, “ecomodern masculinities” (ibid.) can be considered as hegemonic in social fields directly related to the ecological crisis (e.g. mobility, energy transition, etc.). Meanwhile, national crises of democratic representation in liberal democracies have contributed to the (re-)emergence of far-right, populist right and conservative forces, whether in Argentina, India, Italy or the US (to name just a few), which are transnationally united in their aim to re-masculinise politics by promoting patriarchal values, denouncing queer theory and implementing anti-feminist policies, as well as by overturning the feminist achievements of the last decades (cf. Mellström 2023; Sauer/Penz 2023). Read more … (Web)