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Breadwinning and bread‐losing: Exploring opportunities to rework manhood
Author(s) -
Myers Kristen,
Demantas Ilana
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12437
Subject(s) - ideology , sociology , masculinity , undoing , ideal (ethics) , gender studies , meaning (existential) , work (physics) , social psychology , psychology , political science , law , psychoanalysis , politics , engineering , mechanical engineering , psychotherapist
Manhood in the USA today is at a crossroads. There are more models of how to be a man than ever before. And yet, despite myriad changes to the structures of work and family, the breadwinner ideology, or the heterogendered ideal that husbands should be the sole or primary earners in their families, persists in US society. This ideology affects the structure of work and family, regardless of whether individual people agree with it. Here, we discuss the breadwinner ideology and the ways that this meaning system tethers employment to masculinity and vice versa. We examine strategies for decoupling manhood from work and family and suggest ways to facilitate the undoing of gender.