‘You got to be a hard man’: performing and negotiating normative masculinities among Ghanaian young adults

Abstract

There 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.

Keywords:

• Gender struggles
• masculinities
• non-hegemonic masculinities
• northwestern Ghana
• patriarchy

Keywords:

• SDG 10 Keyword: reduced inequalities

Keywords:

• SDG 5 Keyword: gender equality

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the reviewers for their time and insightful feedback during the review process. We also want to thank all the participants who took part in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).