Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Older men are often treated as homogenous, a-gendered, and unmasculine. Drawing on 52 interviews with older men who play walking football in the UK, we explore how their experiences can be understood through a lens of masculinity. Men claimed that walking football offers an outlet for both competition and displaying physical prowess. Their embodied performances were crucial for cultivating a masculine identity which, whilst threatened by the ageing process, sustained their privilege and status. Yet, men also described how modes of care, friendship, and interdependence became central to their experiences. As men aged, the constraints around expressing feelings of intimacy, on account of hegemonic norms recognised in their youth, were loosened. Via the empirical analysis presented, the article contributes to both the study of the lives of older men and the continued absence of older men in masculinity theory.
Source: Men and Masculinities
Authors: Gareth M. Thomas, Thomas Thurnell-Read
Institutions: Cardiff University, Loughborough University
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4391650801