Rhetoric of Masculinity

Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict

 

Book cover for Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/ConflictBy Donnalyn Pompper, PhD

GRC in the Media Research Topics
Sports, mask wearing, disabled veterans, retirement, garbage collectors, advertisors, abused men, accused sexual violators (including Brett Kavanaugh), Nawaz Shaif (President of Pakistan), “Big Bunny”, Latino rockstar, Tom Jones

 

“A breakthrough book that is very significant because it reveals how the rhetoric of masculinity harms men and women in our patriarchal society. Gender role stress/conflict is real and its deleterious effects have been demonstrated through years of research. Now professor Pompper and her colleagues show just how pervasive gender role stress/conflict is in our culture and media. The authors take on the patriarchy, damaging stereotypes, and binary gender roles and expose the psychological damage they cause. This book will generate future research and theory because it illuminates how patriarchal masculinity causes so much pain and suffering in our world. It’s a must-read for gender scholars, researchers, and students of media and communications and the psychology of men and women.”

—James M. O’Neil, professor in the Counseling Psychology Program in the Neag School of Education at UCONN and author of the book: Men Gender Role Conflict: Psychological Costs, Consequences, and an Agenda for Change (American Psychological Association Books, 2015).

 

Chapters

  1. Allison, M. & Kristensen J.G. (2022).Taking the Natural Red Pill: Conflicting Gender Roles through Nature and Antiquity in the Manosphere. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp   ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books
  2. Mundy, R. (2022). Case Studies of Male Rhetorical Mediation of Sexual Violence and Gender Role Stress/Conflict in the #MeToo Era Robert Mundy pp. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp    ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  3. Bradley, b. & Mullé, K. (2022).When Nothing Changes into Something: Gender Role Stress/Conflict Among Asexual Viewers of BoJack Horseman ben Brandley & Katherine Mullé   ). In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp     ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  4. Mundel, J. & Demoya, M. (2022). Pulling Back the Curtain on Advertisers’ Perceptions of Male Images in U.S. Ads. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp   ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  5. Sai, A. & Yamauchi, T. (2022).Dirty Work Masculinity and Coping Strategies among Garbage Collectors. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  6. Brooke, M. (2022). Exploring Masculinities in Ancient and Up-and-Coming Sports in South East Asia. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict.(pp   ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  7. Pitchford-Hyde, J. (2022). How British Audiences Respond to Representations of Military Veterans on Prime Time BBC Programmes. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp   ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  8. Rodriguez, N.S. (2022).The Machismo Conflict of Bad Bunny’s Yo Perreo Sola in Reggaetón. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  9. Jangbar, N.S. (2022).Nawaz Sharif: The Rise and Fall of a Pakistani Sher (Big Cat).In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  10. Eckstein, J.J. & Cherry, J. (2020). “Bitch-Ass Pussy!”: Perceptions of Abused Men Predicted by Media, Educational, and Experiential Topic Exposure. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp   ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  11. Pompper, D. (2022). It’s Not Unusual, or Is It? Tom Jones’ Unique Blend of Heteromasculine. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  12. LaStrape, A.V. & Burnette, A. E. (2022). Retire Like a Man: Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, and Competing. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  13. Carviou, J. Jackson, J.A. (2022). A Critical Exploration of Pandemic Protection as a Threat to Masculinity: Facemask Usage and Gender. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  14. Parks, G., Russo, D., & Simon, J. (2022). New Media Masculinities: How YouTube Influencers Incubate Masculine Ideologies and Mentor Men Through Gender Role Conflict/Stress. In D. Pompper (Ed.) Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict. (pp  ).Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Commentary of  Rhetoric of Masculinity: Male Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict

Rhetoric Masculinity has produced some new ways of assessing and understanding men’s gender role conflict (GRC). The overarching theme in the book is how media contributes to men’s GRC. Media here is defined broadly to include all written communication published online and any other written or video documents including advertisements, tweets, chats, web sites, and Youtube lectures.
The chapters provide new vantage points related to the situational dynamics of men’s gender role conflict as well how the macrosocietal factors affect men’s GRC.
Collectively, the chapters address how media represents, endorses, and causes GRC. The evaluation of social media allows the connection between individual attitudes about masculinity and gender role conflict to be identified at the societal, institutional, and cultural level. Previous theorizing about this linkage has not been completed and inhibited understanding of how GRC is affected by contextual factors that are collectively immersed in any society. Media’s impact is powerful and Pompper’s edited text reveals GRC in media’s portrayal of men and provides an important context to understand how men, boys, women, girls, and different sex/gender identity individuals experience GRC .
Furthermore, these qualitative studies analyze GRC using textual, discourse and thematic analysis and deviates from the past quantitative studies that has dominate the psychology of men for decades.
These new studies also expand our knowledge of situational GRC by assessing many new situational contexts where GRC exists and reinforces patriarchal values that cause much of the world’s pain and problems.

For example the situational contexts of ….

  • The studies also from significantly more data on how GRC is by individually expressed towards others.
  • Five of the studies specifically relate to the devaluation of others who deviate expected gender role norms.
  • The diversity of men’s GRC is also explore with studies on asexual, Southeastern Asian sport fans, a Latin rapper, abused men, retired NFL football players, a former Pakistani president, men accused of sexual assault, disabled veterans, and garbage workers.
  • The devaluation of others, a context to assess GRC, is also evident in these studies.

There is new potential theory from these studies that help us understand how GRC is a political reality in terms of national issues like mask wearing and famous men’s responses to accusations of sexual assault.
How deviations to masculine norms as expressed in the media is responded to by others is also evident form the qualitative analyses. How GRC is both a stimulus and outcome when gender related situations occur is evident in these studies:

  • The role of GRC stigma
  • The role of GRC as a defense
  • The role of cognitive dysfunction
  • The role of GRC as a social social identity theory
  • The role of heteronormative policing

 

Click here to return to all books