Ordinary young men's experiences of gender

I came to this research through my curiosity about young men of my generation and the supposed decline in manliness in contemporary China, and the exploratory process has generated both surprising and anticipated findings. If the crisis-of-masculinity discourse presumes that ‘men are responding in negative and destructive ways to insecurity about their “role” in society’ (Robinson et al, 2011: 32; see also Scourfield and Drakeford, 2002), the young men indicate clear understandings of their male roles. Although there are tensions and confusions, most participants are able to articulate socially appropriate forms of masculine performance. They also demonstrate their active role in constructing gender identities, which is accomplished in everyday practice with reflexivity. Typically, they need to present a controlled, ritualized and relational body, perform you dandang in intimate relations and maintain harmonious kinship ties. Therefore, I argue that the masculinity of ordinary Chinese young men is becoming negotiable and heterogeneous rather than experiencing crisis.

Situating ordinary young men in a wider social background, I have focused on how everyday masculinity making is informed by the interweaving of tradition and modernity, rising individualism, and the cultural legacy of Confucianism. It has been revealed that the majority of ordinary young men show limited evidence of either the detraditionalization or individualization of personal life. Although their lives are certainly becoming more individualized and self-mobilized, these shifts have not amounted to individualism or disembeddedness from existing institutions (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). The process of masculinity formation for young men remains deeply relational and exposed to various institutional arrangements, which are carried out in a modern but not entirely Western individualistic way. Meanwhile, their everyday experiences of gender bear the imprints of long-lasting Confucian thinking, particularly those concerning ideal selfhood and family ethics. I have therefore argued for the need to view Confucianism in contemporary China as a form of living tradition, albeit with constant reinvention, in addition to its critical role in state policies. Compared with the rapid economic growth, the notion of a (good) Chinese man has been much slower to change. Nevertheless, there are growing negotiations in the lived reality of gender relations and practices. Young men have to confront the entangled intersection of structural inequalities, institutional constraints and dominant cultural discourse, many of which are increasingly difficult to tackle.