What is it about?
Recent years have witnessed an upsurge of interest in caring masculinities. The concept is said to potentially change gender relations. I focus upon three areas where caring masculinities proliferate: transnational policies on care; the circulation of migrant masculinities and expanded modalities of caregiving; and resituating domestic masculinities through caring responsibilities in the home. I argue caring masculinities cannot be reduced to individual men, but if the concept is to be socially transformative it needs to be located through an intersectional feminist care ethic, material structures and progressive care policies.
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Why is it important?
Gender relations are constituted through care. Across the globe women remain largely responsible for child care, domestic care and care for elderly relatives. Work on caring masculinities indicates that some of these relations are shifting, but how and in ways has become less clear. The paper explores this to understand the types of masculinities that emerge if men are caring, careless or carefree.
Perspectives
The paper argues that we need to move away from individual understandings and typologies of 'caring masculinities' and focus more on regional policies, transnational practices and changing ideas of men and masculinities.
Professor Anoop Nayak
Newcastle University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Social geography II: Geographies of care, men and masculinities, Progress in Human Geography, October 2025, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/03091325251382945.
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