Masculinities: care, privilege and trust explored with ageing Czech men
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Exploring social inequalities based on gender and age still presents a challenge in intersectional analytical perspective. The paper presents work-in-progress findings from a qualitative sociological study on the institutions of ageing men. Fieldwork is based on face-to-face interviews with (ageing) men in several social settings in the Czech Republic. Using a critical analytical perspective and grounded in feminist methodology, this paper compares and explores the themes of care, privilege, and trust - or lack of any or all thereof - among two groups of communication partners. These are graduates of courses designed to reflect on masculinity (mostly urban, upper-middle-class men in their middle adulthood) and users of transition homes (older men in shelters for homeless people designed for single overnight stays). Intersections of age and gender and their various conceptualisations provide diverse implications for the topics of care – provided and received (being cared for) - in these social settings. Analysis of 27 interview transcripts opens up issues related to care, such as trust in institutions and one's own capabilities to bring about desired change, respectively, preventing change from happening. It helps us understand continuity as well as change and transitions in their lives connected to age and gender. It points out the reproduction of privileges and inequalities within groups of men and normative expectations related to masculinities. And it aims to bring further understanding to the gender and age related perspectives on care in broader social and analytical terms of continuity and change in the gender order. |
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