In recent decades, the myth of fashionable women and sartorially challenged men has been overturned not least through the proliferation of men's style magazines such as GQ and the emergence of ...masculinity as a marketing tool. In this engaging book, Edwards applies a sociological approach to our understanding of men's fashion, which he argues is significant in the nexus of masculinity and society, past and present, rather than a narrow artistic or aesthetic interest. Rejecting an essentialist or 'natural' origin, Edwards explores how masculinity and men's fashion are constructed, particularly in relation to consumer society. It is the growing commodification and aestheticism of everyday life, alongside developments in marketing and advertising, that Edwards identifies as the catalyst in the emergence of men's fashion, rather than an abstract 'crisis of masculinity' or 'new man' identity. Concurrently, in the 1980s, changes in demography, economics and ideology gave certain men greater freedom and spending power than ever before. Edwards investigates how these men, clearly distinguished by age, class and sexual orientation, were seduced by advertisers with sexualised images of suited city gents and body-beautiful boys in Levis, and how the resultant process of consumption was facilitated through developments in the practice of shopping itself, such as easy access to credit. He examines the influence of the advertisers' message in creating a hierarchy of masculinity in which some men are valorised and others are denigrated. Starting with a historical review of men's fashion and a discussion of its importance and meanings, Edwards goes on to analyse the contemporary marketing of menswear and masculinity in advertising and in the media, and considers the politics of fashion for men in terms of gender, class, race and sexuality.
Long-held associations between women, home, food, and cooking are beginning to unravel as, in a growing number of households, men are taking on food and cooking responsibilities. At the same time, ...men's public foodwork continues to gain attention in the media and popular culture. The first of its kind, Food, Masculinities, and Home focuses specifically on food in relation to how homemaking practices shape masculine identities and transform meanings of "home". The international, multidisciplinary contributors explore questions including how food practices shape masculinity and notions of home, and vice versa; the extent to which this gender shift challenges existing gender hierarchies; and how masculinities are being reshaped by the growing presence of men in kitchens and food-focused spaces. With ever-growing interest in both food and gender studies, this is a must-read for students and researchers in food studies, gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, geography, anthropology, and related fields.
Between 1945 and the new century millions of women, including mothers and migrants, joined the labour force. These changes are brought to life through the stories of migrant women, working in ...factories and hospitals, banks, care homes, shops and universities over a period of 60 years.Migrant Women's Voices is an autobiography of the post-war period as Britain became a multi-cultural society and waged work the norm for most women. McDowell illustrates the shift in migration patterns as post-imperial migrants to the UK replaced the immediate post-war pattern of migrants from war-torn Europe and who were then themselves joined by migrants from an increasingly diverse range of countries as the 20th century drew to a close.
This article is based on ethnographic research conducted in Warsaw in 2016-2018 among women playing football in an amateur league. It asks if the microcosm of the league can be understood as a safe ...space for young women to test, negotiate and challenge the boundaries of gender and sexuality in relative safety, or rather as a heterotopy, disturbing and violating specific social order. I assume that playing football is a strategy of resistance to dominant patterns connecting football with men, and also to heterosexism, strongly present in a sporting context.
Themes of gender have been relatively absent in Polish ethnography and ethnology, despite the fact that from the very beginning the discipline enticed many women. Of the first generation of ...researchers, only Regina Lilientalowa in her studies of Jewish folklore reflected on gender issues. Later it was Maria Czaplicka and Józef Obrębski, who were more concerned with these problems on a theoretical level – both were influenced by the British social anthropology with its sociological bias, while Polish ethnography focused mostly on material culture and folklore, thus gender problems were unimportant. After the Second World War women occupied many important positions in academic ethnography, but this did not mean a more gendered perspective, which can be explained by the theoretical weakness of Polish ethnography at the time and the specificity of Polish emancipation, which was rather practised than reflected upon. It is only recently that young researchers focus on the problems of gender and sexuality, often inventing original ideas and theories. Unfortunately, mainstream Polish ethnology is still to some extent gender blind.
This is a fascinating book, almost impossible to put down. It explores how the contemporary contradiction generated by post-feminist rhetoric is both produced and partially resolved through the ...marketing and practice of Ann Summers parties. These parties play with the dynamic of useless men and liberated women, offering sex toys as the solution to the power gap; they promote hegemonic masculinity as inevitable whilst ridiculing it at the same time. This book shows that sex toys are symbolically central to current power formations in gender and class relations. I can guarantee that you will learn a lot from this book. (Professor Beverley Skeggs, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester) Meticulously researched, and written with great verve and style, Latex and Lingerie makes a major contribution to our understanding of heterosexual femininities. It shows how being ‘one of the girls’ is constructed around manifold exclusions of class, sexuality, ‘race’ and ethnicity, and how the ‘fun’ on offer in Anne Summers parties is of a distinctly post-feminist variety. Storr has fashioned a highly original analysis of female homosociality that takes both its pleasures and its problems seriously. This is an extremely important book that is destined to become a classic in the fields of gender, sexuality and cultural studies. (Rosalind Gill, Gender Institute, London School of Economics)
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