We live at a time when the definition of masculinity is unclear and confusing. Young men grow into adulthood without understanding their purpose and role in the modern world. The Positive Masculinity Project is designed with the modest aim of contributing to the debate about what it means to be a man in the 21st Century and the task of questioning the current rhetoric about men and manhood.

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Essays

Rediscovering masculinity — a contribution to the gender debate

One need only turn on the television, read the news or watch the latest Hollywood movies to realise a war is being waged against masculinity. The ideologically loaded term “toxic masculinity”, with its shaming and demonising inferences about the male propensity to display aggression…

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The ‘Overton window’ and shifting attitudes towards masculinity

Unless you are a political junkie or obsessive nerd like myself, it is quite likely that you have never heard of the ‘Overton window’. Named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton, the Overton window represents, at any given time…

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Is gender inequality a myth?

The notion that there are vast disparities in power and influence which favour men over women across all levels of society is so prevalent and commonsensical to us these days that to challenge the concept of the ‘patriarchy’ and to question…

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Photography

What is Masculinity?

The concept for this ongoing photography project is simple; I ask a cross-section of people the question, ‘what is masculinity?’, requesting the participant write their answer on a notepad, which they show to me as I take a photograph.