Mannen utan egenskaper. Kulturella perspektiv på maskuliniteter i vardande

Abstract

Our project "The man without characteristics. Cultural perspectives on a changing masculinity" explores cultural constructions of masculinity as they appear in the activities of crises centres for men. In this article we focus on two different areas of counselling in order to discuss contemporary masculinity. Anna Ljung focuses on counselling and support for men undergoingdivorce. Drawingonthe phenomenology of Michael Jackson, Ljung explores how human freedom/agency can be understood in relation to societalstructures. In order to do this she approaches masculinity from three analytical levels: the structural, the cultural and as experienced. In her section ofthe article she asks whether it is relevant to talk about a masculinity in crisis and, if that is the case, what this crisis consists of. Ljung shows that constructions of masculinity that socially are taken for granted, are being criticised in different forums for public discourse. This critique has created an asymmetry between cultural constructions of masculinity and individual experiences of being a man. The demand to think about oneself as a man in the absence of socially recognised models of a good masculinity leads to an experience of uncertainty. Ljung condudes her section with a discussion on how this uncertainty is linked to a more general contemporary cultural uncertainty, in which the norms for behaviour and attitudes increasingly appears as ambivalence. This ambivalence may provide us with the possibility to question constructions of sex that are taken for granted. In 1999, a new law transformed buying of sex from prostitutes into an illegal act. This law gave Sweden an unique position in the history of prostitution by focusing only on the buying part. In her section "The buyer of sex - from norm to deviation", Rebecka Lennartsson takes a closer look on the counselling that the men's movement provides for men who buy sex from prostitutes. She is interested in changes in the discourses on buyers of sex. Within a dominating psychological discourse, buyers of sex are now often defined as sexually deviant and they are starting to be explored, defined and categorized. What are these changes an expression of? How can we understand this "discovery" of the buyer of sex as a category? Do these changes reflect more fundamental changes in the ways in which relations between the sexes, power and sexuality are organised in the society? And do these changes support or obstruct a feminist project? In this section, Lennartsson identifies some general features in this discourse, and concludes with a discussion on what kind of knowledge a cultural perspective on this development could produce.