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The issue of change has long been a central focus in critical studies on men and masculinities. The issue of if, how and why men and masculinity/masculinities change has been central to feminist strategy as well as a question of explanation. Scholars from a variety of academic disciplines have pointed frequently to contemporary popular music as evidence of broader cultural shifts in changing masculinities, whereby the question of change is viewed in positive terms though exploring open emotional expression, or as stasis, where very little changes. 

Importantly, popular music scholars are interested between the idea of changing representations and what these representations say about culture more generally; both in terms of musical texts as cultural representations and the power of music to shape gendered norms within cultures. Yet the question is how to study and how to ascertain cultural shifts as well as the impact of music is a tricky one. A well-worn sociological critique of musicological research on the issue is twofold: firstly that the tendency to argue on the basis of selected examples seeks confirm a particular interpretation (“cherry picking”); secondly that a methodology which seeks to locate meaning through an analysis of cultural texts does explain how they are interpreted by groups. The counter argument, however, is that sociological approaches reduce music to mere symbol, ignoring the specifically musical properties which convey meaning and failing to offer an explanation as to why and how and why the “music itself” resonates.

This paper focuses on understanding the cultural resonance of popular musics in relation to theories around changing men, masculinity/masculinities. It offers a model which explores the link between text and interpretation through a framework of creation, representation, mediation and reception. In doing so it makes two main arguments: firstly that change is not necessarily progressive or egalitarian, with reference to the way in which right-wing movements mobilise masculinism and the idea of overly emotional men as a central resource in aesthetic critique; secondly that the increasing fragmentation of representations of masculinity in popular music, still require an analysis of the structural conditions under which multiple representations flourish.

Increasing media attention has been given to gender inequalities within the music industries, and across genres, in global Northern nations. Whilst noting that gender inequalities exist in different genres is not new, their persistence, as well as identifying successes in strategies to change them, require further exploration.In this respect, Sweden, a country with an international reputation for comparatively greater equality between binary genders, as well as popular music ‘folkbildning’ traditions, provides an important case study.This paper will address how notions of gender equality are constructed in activist and policy measures in Sweden. It notes how these influence and, in turn, are influenced by material resources which shape strategies in different ways. Drawing from 10 interviews with key-stakeholders in the UK and Sweden, as well as comparative policy analysis, the paper argues that both ‘cultural democratic’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ traditions help to counter entrenched sexism and misogyny across genres. At the same time, it also advocates the need to extend and develop these in order to integrate more firmly intersectional understandings of equality as both an ethical and aesthetic concern.

Bourdieu-inspired approaches have been the most influential in sociological research on music in many Western and Northern European nations, since the publication of Distinction in 1979. Cultural capital, particularly, was popularised in Anglophone countries through work on popular music aesthetics (Frith 2002) and notions of ‘subcultural capital’ (Thornton 1995) during the 1990s, whilst, more recently, habitus and cultural capital’s explanatory force in relation to music, have most obviously been indebted to large-scale projects around cultural capital and social exclusion (Bennett et al. 2008; Bihagen and Katz-Gerro 2000; Savage et al. 2015). In the Nordic countries, too, questions of music education and gentrification have also taken up Bourdieu’s concepts to explain the acquisition, deployment and institutionalisation of music taste (Burnard et al. 2015; Dyndahl et al. 2017). 

A number of scholars have challenged Bourdieu’s formulation and the way in which his work has been taken up in relation to music specifically (see Prior 2013; Rimmer 2012). The question is how to locate a discussion of social inequalities of music whilst carrying out meaningful social research which takes into account material practices of music listening (DeNora 2003) in relation to (unevenly) globally dispersed, technological change.

This presentation outlines how a range of quantitative and qualitative sociological methods may help to reveal more complex, intersecting forms of inequalities and notions of aesthetic experience than are currently offered by Bourdieusian frameworks. It also seeks to offer insights from postcolonial and posthumanist-feminist theorising as a means of rethinking the linear value-hierarchy between hexis/doxa, subject/object and material/cultural which work to reinscribe simplistic notions of hierarchically determined taste. Through this, the presentation aims to raise some implications for sociologically grounded studies of music education, specifically around notions of value and musical development which take account of Bourdieusian insights but are not limited to their frameworks.

‘Emo’, an abbreviation of the word ‘emotional’, is a term both used to describe music which places public emphasis on introspective displays of emotion and a pejorative phrase applied to fans of a diverse range of music. It is overwhelmingly male-dominated in terms of production and it has been suggested that the development of emo can be explained with reference to a ‘crisis in masculinity’. This implies that explicit, male emotional expression is historically incompatible with the performance of Western ‘masculinity’. This article first briefly explores how emo emerged and how it has been linked to the idea of a crisis. It then moves on to conduct a lyrical, discursive analysis around three themes: emotional expression and relationships; overt chauvinism; and ‘beta male misogyny’. Through these concepts I suggest that, rather than indicating a crisis or ‘softening’ of masculinity, there are actually a number of historical continuities with masculinities as a means of sustaining gendered inequalities.

This article builds on social psychological critiques of ‘hardwired’ gender difference inemotions, looking at the topic through the emotional use of music. Starting from thepremise that gender differences in emotion are socially and discursively constructedrather than innate, it moves on to challenge existing work in which masculinity andfemininity are treated as singular, oppositional concepts, that are ‘normally’ attached toideas of existing sex differences. Drawing on data, generated from a UK-based onlinesurvey of 914 respondents (male = 361; female = 553), this article highlights thatwhilst gender plays a significant part in shaping the emotional experience of music, thisis often mediated heavily by age and personal experience. It suggests that music is apractical means of moving beyond ideas of differences in gender or sex differences inemotional display, towards ideas of diversity, especially given that existing face-to-face research has often found men to be ‘unable’ to communicate emotional experiencein particular ways. Both inductive quantitative trends and open-ended fragments frompeople’s emotional experiences of music are included in order to demonstrate howemotions and gender intersect discursively.

As Prieur and Savage (2011) observe, Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital does not entail a timeless, fixed set of social relations. For example, some have pointed out that there are strong gender, rather than class, divides in 'highbrow' taste in Sweden (Bihagen and Katz-Gerro 2000) whereas in the UK, participation rather than consumption may often be a better indicator of social inequality (Bennett et al. 2008). How certain types of participation accrue symbolic value cross-culturally and temporally can therefore help illuminate differing forms of structural inequalities. Music has often been one of the most distinguishing measures in terms of class (Bennett et al. 2008: 46). Nevertheless a Bourdieusian approach to music tends to reduce its role entirely to its social function (Frith 2002: 251); neglects questions of aesthetics (Born 2010; Prior 2011), affect (Hennion 2007) and listening; and often fails to explore how inequalities can be subverted. Focusing on reproduction is important however we need to outline how groups renegotiate and contest symbolic violence also. This paper foregrounds the first stages of postdoctoral research project looking at inequalities in music practices in the UK and Sweden. Using a 3 stage mixed-methods research design, it aims to outline different types of 'public' and 'private' participation and provide a detailed picture of how music attachments (Hennion 2010) and practices relate to gender and class. Through highlighting the similarities as well as the differences between the two countries, this will help to expand on and extend the insights of cultural capital theory.

Popular music research has explored digital technologies’ potential for democratizing music consumption, distribution, and produc-tion. This article, however, focuses on the anti-democratic implica-tions of digitalization for popular music by exploring discussions of music in 1,173 posts in 6 Alt-Right forums, from 2010–2018. It demonstrates that, first, owing to algorithmic architecture, inter-pretations of musical politics are mutually reinforcing in these spaces. Second, a large degree of musical “omnivorousness” in these forums is both a feature of contemporary far-right strategy and a consequence of digitalization. Third, by articulating “reac-tionary democratic” principles through music criticism, these move-ments more easily evade regulation.

This chapter explores the role of emotions and affect in terms of men’s organizing from a predominantly sociological focus, including some approaches from cultural studies and social psychology. It starts with an explanation of the differences between approaches to emotions and affect, as well as key differences within traditions. The chapter observes that while the literature on emotions has often looked at emotions as properties of individuals, which can be “worked on” approaches to affect have conceptualized embodied responses more in terms of how they circulate and structure relations between people. In relation to men and masculinity/ies, while there has been a tendency to view acceptable and unacceptable emotions within organizations as inherently gendered – including a focus on men’s unemotionality – there has been a move towards exploring how men express emotions within and in relation to organizations as part of a broader discourse around “softening” and “caring” masculinity. The chapter finally draws on the affective turn in feminist theory, to indicate how thinking about men’s organizational behaviour and organizing as structured through affective practice is a means to avoid the progressive/regressive binary associated with a focus on men’s emotional expression while still foregrounding emotional experience.

Many have documented how gendered discrimination impacts on inequalities across music scenes and genres (eg. Davies 2001; Donze 2010; Farrugia 2012; McClary 1991; Rustin and Tucker 2008). These studies have shown that gender influences access to, participation in and engagement with music, in a variety of different ways, providing important critiques of objective notions of musical ‘excellence’ and utopian views of music subcultures.Studies on gender inequalities in music have often focused on Anglophone countries. Yet research on Sweden (eg. Bergman 2014; Björck 2013; Gavanas and Reitsammer 2013) – a supposedly much more gender-equal nation - has demonstrated that many of the same issues are present. This indicates the prevalence of transnational discourses around popular music and a need to recognise the work of activists, networks and musicians in challenging such practices.This paper draws on research with 10 representatives from networks, in the UK and Sweden, involved in fighting gender inequalities in music. It outlines what benefits can be gained from a cross-national, comparative perspective before exploring how gender inequalities and equality are understood by networks working across and within particular genres. It links organizational strategies to structural differences between the two nations, before noting how these networks articulate their limitations.

Whilst the impact of gender inequalities has been studied in relation to music education,especially in the UK, relatively little has been written about their impact on higher musiceducation (HME). This article compares data on HME programs and courses, in the UK andSweden, from 2010 to 2014. It looks at similarities and differences in the numbers of menand women who applied to HME subjects, compared to those who were offered a place ontheir chosen program or course, in both nations. Through this it demonstrates that whilst aSwedish HME appears to show less institutional discrimination against women, there arestill similar transnational divisions in men’s and women’s HME subject choices. Howeverthe article uses these data to build on existing critiques around a need for intersectionalunderstandings of gender inequalities, before arguing that a critique of neoliberalism isessential to tackling gender inequalities in HME.

A number of studies have either directly or indirectly pointed to the role of music education in reproducing broader gender inequalities, in broader music life, across genres (eg. Abeles 2009; Abeles and Porter 1978; Armstrong 2011; Bogdanovic 2015; Branch 2012; Gould 2004; Green 1997). Crucially, gender inequalities shape instrument and activity choices (Wych 2012) as well as perceptions about the relative value of those activities (Georgii-Hemming and Kvarnhall 2015). Such processes operate is alongside active discrimination against girls and women, as well as differential (and often preferential) treatment of individuals and groups on the basis of gender. Many, though not all, of these studies have been based on Anglophone countries. Yet despite its international reputation as a more ‘gender equal’ nation than many countries in other respects (U.N. 2014), music continues to be one field where people of non-male genders are excluded and discriminated against through ‘informal’ practices (Bergman 2014; Björck 2013; Kvarnhall 2015). 

Furthermore, whilst many approaches have focused on primary (grundskola) and secondary (gymnasiet) education, relatively few have actively explored the state of gender inequalities in higher music education (HME). Given HME’s increasingly important role in the professionalization of music careers across Europe (Allsup 2015) a focus on gender inequalities in higher education is of critical importance (Bogdanovic 2015; Born and Devine 2015). Such an approach entails asking where the problems lie, how gender inequalities manifest themselves and, crucially, how to change them given that course choices are, already, often shaped by years of specialisation in ‘lower’ education.

The first part of this paper presents comparative HME statistics from Sweden and the UK from 2010-2014, surrounding music course choices amongst undergraduate students. Drawing from statistical analysis on comprehensive data from UHR (Sweden) and UCAS (UK), it compares application and acceptance rates for men and women. This allows us to point to the extent to which institutional discrimination or previous education play a part in shaping participation rates at HME institutions at a national level. It relates similarities and differences between the two national contexts to key contextual features in the way music education is established and executed as well as broader societal commitments to gender equality.

However whilst Sweden has adopted a highly-successful gender mainstreaming agenda, something which clearly has an impact on HME, it is problematic to represent inequalities only in terms of inequalities of representation. Attempts to ‘fix representation’ may do very little to challenge patriarchal assumptions on which different music traditions are founded (Macarthur 2010; 2014); traditions such as all-male canons (Citron 2004), instrumental fetishisation (Pellegrini 2008) or masculinist aesthetic judgment (Macarthur 2002). Furthermore it may actively lead to preferential treatment of men in areas where women are now better represented, despite historical exclusion - the so-called missing males problem in choirs for example (Koza 1993; O'Toole 1998) - as well as overlooking how intersectionality  impacts on different forms of gendered exclusion. In this respect, a gender-mainstreaming focus in Sweden has also tended to overlook how class, ethnic and racial inequalities in other areas influence gender inequalities (de los Reyes 2016); something which could well extend to music.

The second part of the paper therefore outlines some of the issues the data throws up around how to define, understand and combat gender inequalities in HME. It makes specific reference to how gender mainstreaming approaches may discriminate against trans* individuals (Hines 2013), and how efforts to increase women’s representation may miss more fundamental strategies in engaging and transforming men’s attitudes and behaviour. Crucially, in doing so, it also touches on more complex issues around what the marketization of higher education means for gender inequalities at a university level. Comparing the more-recently neoliberal free-market system in the UK (Allen et al. 2013; De Angelis and Harvie 2009; Radice 2013), with the more ‘public institution’ approach in Sweden, allows for debate as around how universities should challenge already-gendered ‘consumer’ choices and how far they can seek to actively change those choices. These questions centre not just on the subjects that are offered but the way in which the subjects are marketed to appeal to a range of groups.

The article is a review of Gender Issues in Scandinavian Education: From Stereotypes to Multiple Possibilities (Silje Valde Onsrud, Hilde Synnøve Blix and Ingeborg Lunde Vestad, editors) by Sam de Boise (School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro University, Sweden).

Anderson’s concept of “inclusive masculinity” has generated significant academic and media interest recently. It claims to have replaced hegemonic masculinity as a theoretical framework for exploring gender relations in societies that show “decreased” levels of cultural homophobia and “homohysteria”; this clearly has important implications for critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMMs). This article is divided into two parts and begins with a theoretical evaluation of work using the framework of inclusive masculinity and what it claims to offer over hegemonic masculinity. The second half is an analysis of inclusive masculinity’s conceptual division of homophobia and homohysteria. Through this analysis, it is suggested that there are several major theoretical concerns, which call into question the validity of research utilizing the framework of inclusive masculinity.

Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity remains a pervasive influence in critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM). However as Connell and Messerschmidt note, one of the key drawbacks of the approach is that it lacks an adequate theory of 'social embodiment'. Subsequent authors have explored how masculinities entail bodily control and regulation but this often reproduces the Cartesian divide between mind and body that CSMM is highly critical of. On the other hand, poststructuralist critiques often see the body as entirely constructed through discourse, undermining the problem of gendered, embodied experience. This article suggests that literature on affect is a means of moving between these two approaches in order to see masculinities as corporeally experienced through power relations, but ultimately not entirely reducible to them. Drawing on 6 life history case studies from a larger research project, the article demonstrates how 'learning to be affected' by music is an embodied process which relies fundamentally on learning physiological experience through social interaction. This highlights the potential for both re-producing and transforming gendered performances and offers a new theoretical framework for conceptualising masculinities in the field of CSMM.

This book examines how we can reconcile the widely held belief that men are 'less emotional' than women, with a history of emotions in music. A belief that men identify with an ideal of rationality  - understood as the separation of emotion from rational action  - has informed critical studies on men and masculinities. Yet engaging with a wide range of music to stimulate, reflect and express, as well as manage particular types of emotions continues to be the key to music's appeal. Through detailing how judgments about emotions are expressed in relation to music tastes and distastes, this book demonstrates that emotions are as much social, value judgments as embodied, affective responses. It therefore raises the importance of looking at music listening contexts, culture, personal experience and a history of emotions in order to contest the orthodoxy that men's privilege stems from the 'repression' of emotions.

Research exploring the relationship between misogyny and music has been divided between those who argue that certain music causes, confirms or is a manifestation of misogyny. Yet this often takes for granted the link between certain genres (predominantly hip hop, rap and metal) and misogynistic 'messages'. Instead of asking what types of music might be misogynistic, this article instead asks how music is discussed amongst those who actively espouse misogynistic views. Through content analysis of 1173 posts, from 6 ‘misogynistic antifeminist movement’ (MAM) forums, it shows that whilst hip hop, rap and metal genres and artists are the most commonly mentioned, there is significant variation in terms of musical preferences and justifications. Whilst masculinist lyrics were the main reasons for music preferences, this study shows how MAM communities’ musical judgments are a confluence of sonic and extra-musical discourses which are shaped and amplified within these online communities.

With some notable exceptions, research on the far-right and music has historically focused on rock-derived genres such as punk and metal. As the far-right have shifted political emphasis and sought to mainstream their political views, so, too, has research into the contemporary far-right demonstrated a distancing among political ideologues and parties as well as groups from both extreme lyrics and ‘harsher’ sounding elements. This has gone hand-in-hand with an embracing of a wider range of musical styles. Focusing on the music associated with the Alt-Right, a broad movement which sought to mainstream far-right politics, this article suggests that a cultural shift within the far-right went hand-in-hand with a mode of aesthetic appreciation among Alt-Right adherents, which has implications for the mainstreaming of far-right politics in relation to musical cultures and aesthetics. This form of musical metapolitics emphasized dissonant principles of irony and aesthetic pluralism as a form of strategic ambiguity, but still retained notions of racial superiority at its core despite an avowed openness to genre-based pluralism. Importantly, this process has implications for the mainstreaming of far-right messaging today using a wide variety of musical aesthetics.

Bourdieu’s theoretical shortcomings in his approach to music have been heavily critiqued, leading to what Prior (2011) has called, an emerging trend toward a ‘post-Bourdieu moment’ in the sociology of music. Yet despite sustained criticism, many recent empirical studies have tried to ‘update’ his initial approach whilst avoiding questions of aesthetics, social change and questions of production. The uses of cultural capital and habitus, particularly, have tended to depict a certain cohesion in increasingly complex music practices which go far beyond the nation state. Enormous, global, technological changes have also not only impacted on the way in which many consume, but also write and engage with music.

A ‘post-Bourdieu moment’ in the sociology of music raises particular methodological and theoretical issues; primarily, how can we integrate a non-deterministic approach to musical sociology which recognizes music’s sensory and affective qualities, without negating questions of power and the focus on critical, large-scale, empirical research. This paper makes the case for new interventions in empirical frameworks for exploring music in relation to social inequalities. It argues that we need to be sensitive to the impact of digital technologies, the changing structures of the music industries and adopt a much more explicit focus on listening practices. Drawing on mixed-methods, empirical data from my own research, the paper looks particularly at focusing on ‘music engagement’ in order to understand not only how music relates to inequalities but also how it offers a means of contesting them, without reverting to static models of taste.

Bourdieu’s work has been hugely influential in sociological research on music and society, especially in shaping research on the relationship between social inequalities and music. Recent sociological work has also ‘updated’ his approach in order to demonstrate how his central insights are still relevant today, demonstrating strong links between music and social inequalities. Despite a move toward a ‘post-Bourdieu moment’ in the sociology of music (Prior, 2011), few have attempted to outline empirical strategies which are critically sensitive to social inequalities, whilst addressing questions of aesthetics, value, resistance and social change. This article acknowledges Bourdieusian contributions to the sociology of music as well as attempts to ‘update’ Bourdieu’s initial approach. However, it argues that a new understanding of musical subjectivity, a broader focus on music engagement, as well as greater methodological flexibility, are required in order to help us explore increasingly complex relationships between music and social inequalities today.

Om vi vill förstå varför musik är värdefull ska vi fokusera på självamusiken. Den tanken har varit dominerande inom musikforskningsedan slutet av 1700-talet. Men alla som har utövat, lyssnat på ellerskrivit musik vet att erfarenheter påverkar hur vi uppfattar musik ochvad den betyder för oss. Erfarenheterna är inte bara individuella utanformas av våra sociala förhållanden. Samtidigt tänker vi ofta att vissasorters människor lyssnar på vissa typer av musik. Personlighet ochpersonlig smak har betydelse, men omfattande forskning visar attengagemang i musik åtminstone delvis påverkas av kulturella faktoreroch sådant som klass, kön och ålder.

As with higher education (HE) generally, the academisation of HMEIs has led to a quantitative increase in the number of students and a proliferation of courses and programs. Despite this, there is clear evidence that socio-economic status (SES) continues to be a significant factor determining which students choose to study at HMEIs. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how SES or class can impact attendance at HMEIs. It explores issues of exclusion and SES in higher music education (HME), focusing on both cultural and material aspects. These contribute at different stages of the process towards excluding both prospective students as well as those who to study at HMEIs.

Historically, when music has been studied in relation to radical-right movements, there has been a focuson totalitarian regimes or white power “hate rock”, with a specific emphasis on Nazi-punk and NationalSocialist Black metal (NSBM). Existing research has either focused on the preferences of organisers andactivists whilst or analyses of musical media with a focus on lyrics.The former approach overlooks how the music works as a recruitment tool amongst the movements as awhole whilst musical media analyses of various kinds have instead honed in on sensational andunrepresentative examples. In the latter case, these approaches adopt a simplistic “sender-receiver”model which emphasizes a one-to-one link between music and interpretation. This is a problem becausea) there is no guarantee that those accessing radical-right spaces listen primarily to radical-right artists; b)radical-right strategists have moved away from explicitly extreme aesthetics to target extreme messages;c) these models are weak in explaining music without lyrics; and d) It is necessary to explore how theculture around music – talking about, sharing and experiencing music collectively - reinforces particularways of seeing the world, in order to understand its appeal.This paper maps out the ways in which music’s role has been theorized and studied in relation to theradical-right. It argues for a need to recognize the way in which a reconfiguration of the radical-right atlarge has had implications for the music associated with it. There is evidence that, as radical right cultureshave shifted, so too have the musical aesthetics associated with them. Based on network, content anddiscourse analysis of radical right online spaces it proceeds to show how by exploiting loopholes in contentregulation, radical right artists have managed to target music to unsuspecting mainstream audiences.

Cross-disciplinary research has highlighted the persistence of gender inequalities across music scenes. However, the way in which cultural policy shapes responses to gender inequalities in music has been relatively underexplored. This article draws on research from Swedish and UK contexts, supporting analysis with reference to 9 key-stakeholder interviews from both. Comparing perspectives from ‘more’ and ‘less’ gender-equal contexts, with sufficiently different cultural policy traditions, the article explores how responses to gender inequalities in music are influenced by ‘cultural democratic’ and ‘arm’s length’ approaches. It demonstrates that, as a result of these traditions, there is a comparatively more interventionist approach in Sweden at a national level, whereas the lack of central government response in the UK has encouraged more market-oriented solutions. It suggests that this ‘arm’s length’ approach necessitates different grassroots organisational strategies in order to affect change but notes that these, alongside austerity agendas, are insufficient in the long term.

Scholars have recently looked to understand the links between constructions of masculinity and climate change with some championing the concept of “ecological masculinities” in contrast to “far-right industrial masculinity”. Appealing to men’s links with nature builds, in part, off the mythopoetic men’s movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s which tended towards strategic essentialism and anti-feminism. Whilst the impetus behind ecological masculinities is anti-fascist, ecofascist and green-Nazi movements have already successfully co-opted environmentalist narratives in appealing to men who may see environmentalism as important but are keen to distance themselves from its connotations with ecofeminism. It is therefore important to acknowledge the ways in which ecological masculinities may slip into a protectorate narrative. This chapter argues that posthumanist approaches to affect offer a means of both understanding and interrupting the circulation of masculinist attachments to gendered and racialised conceptions of nature.

Working in commercial research, it was interesting to note that many researchers had little grounding in academic social research methods or social theory. Organizations dealing with research often took for granted that to get at ‘the truth’ involved either simply ‘talking to people’ and looking at an aggregation of opinions, or carrying out a mix of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ (usually online) surveys and ‘ad-hoc’ pieces which privilege Likert scales as the primary tool of ‘measurement’. As Mike Savage and Roger Burrows (2007) note, such industries have challenged the public legitimacy of empirical sociological inquiry. Such a challenge arguably hinges on political rhetoric around demonstrable ‘impact’ and ‘maximising efficiency’. However, a lack of attention to research design poses significant problems for the authority that these industries lay claim to. Noting sociology’s ethical value and personal experience of commercial, ‘client led’ research, this paper seeks to outline a case for the continued importance of rigorous, ethical social research in contemporary society and against narrow conceptions of impact.

There is a widespread belief that a majority of men, in the US, the UK and Western Europe, are getting ‘more in touch’ with their emotions, leading to a ‘softening’ of masculinity. Feminist and profeminist campaigners have (rightly) cited an increasing understanding of men’s emotional lives, and getting men to understand their own emotions, as central to any project addressing gender inequality. Psychologists have also linked greater emotional self-attunement as key to tackling men’s underreporting of depression and (both separately and in connection with) high suicide rates. In short: men being ‘more emotional’ is almost always seen as progressive.

There is a problem, however, with narratives around increasingly ‘more emotional’ men. Not only do these fail to engage with historical precedents, they divide ‘progressive’ from ‘regressive’ men without accounting for structural power relations impacting on ideas around progress and regression. Furthermore, assuming that men’s emotions are inherently gender-progressive, ignores more sinister examples of antifeminist rage, easily identifiable through men’s rights activism and online misogyny.

This paper argues that we need to engage critically with how we think about both emotions and a history of emotions in relation to gender equality. Considering how emotions are put into language as well as the mechanisms by which societies are expected to articulate and measure certain emotions have an impact on how we characterize emotions and ‘emotional’ behaviour. In focusing on these areas, this paper aims to contribute a critical analysis on a developing and much-needed area of sociological research on men and emotions.

In critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM), a well-established argument has been that white, heterosexual, middle-class men practice emotional repression as a means of maintaining social power. Whilst CSMM have often overlooked emotions, there is an increasing body of work which argues that men both have an active understanding of their emotional lives and that men’s emotional lives have significantly changed. Crucially, emotions are important for exploring how men’s practice connects to structure; what has been called ‘the problem of social embodiment’. However, recent perspectives on emotions and masculinities may over-emphasise the gender-progressive effects of men discussing emotions, tending to overlook how ‘semi-’ and ‘non-conscious’ forms of men’s embodiment shape far less progressive trends and even how discourses around ‘softening masculinity’ may support various forms of misogynstic behaviour. This article argues that critical feminist ‘turns to affect’ can help foreground the problem of social embodiment in CSMM in less deterministic ways, without neglecting intersectional questions of power. To illustrate potential uses for affect in CSMM, the article adopts Wetherell’s concepts of ‘affective practice’ in combination with Ahmed’s notion of ‘happy objects’ through an exploration of three key case studies: online masculinist rage; ‘nice guy’ discourse and nationalist politics.

Higher music education (HME) institutions, globally, have increasingly been expected to incorporate research into teaching in music performance programs (MPPs). This feature of "musical academization" arguably conflicts with a longstanding focus on the development of practical playing skills as part of a music performance education. Whilst academic literature has outlined how to conduct research supervision in performance programs at universities, the question of how students and educators understand research-led teaching and implementation strategies is lacking. This article highlights challenges to implementing research-led teaching in HME, exploring how research and research-led teaching is understood and implemented in MPPs at a medium sized Swedish university. Drawing on 13 semi-structured interviews with students and educators across different MPPs, it asks: (1) how are research and research-led teaching conceptualized and understood amongst music performance students and educators? and (2) what do students and educators see as the potential of research-led teaching for MPPs specifically? The article divides research in music performance programs into three themes: research as a noun, research-competent educators, and student-centered artistic research. Through this, the article informs discussions relating to implementing research in HME and to demonstrate students and educators' perspectives on the value of research-led teaching in music performance programs.

In the last few years, there have been numerous claims, by both academics and journalists, regarding the declining significance of homophobia in the UK in particular. Legal and institutional gains won through the actions of LGB [sic] activists have seen the repeal of Section 28, the passing of the 2014 Same Sex Couples Act and its public championing by the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister, as well as the condemnation of other countries’ repressive policies on sexuality.

These significant gains have been theorized against a backdrop of increasing inclusivity in gender relations. Anderson’s (2009) concept of ‘inclusive masculinity’, particularly, has generated significant interest because it claims to explain the processes behind ‘decreased’ levels of cultural homophobia and reduced ‘homohysteria’. The central tenet of which is that heterosexual-identifying men, and Western societies more generally, no longer construct ‘ideal’ masculine genders through the subordination of gay individuals in everyday life. This clearly has important repercussions for gender equality at large.

However, in focusing on rights-based gains and observable physical violence against some gay-identifying individuals, the case for ‘declining homophobia’ has been overstated. Such a narrow definition of homophobia has the potential to divert attention from persistent systemic discrimination on the grounds of sexuality and we must be cautious of research which couches broad notions of ‘decline’ and ‘inclusion’ in liberal terms. These supposedly historically unprecedented trends may not be as novel as they seem. This paper therefore looks at work around hybridity (Demetriou 2001; Bridges and Pascoe 2014) and ‘homonationalism’ (Puir 2007) in the 'declining homophobia' thesis in order to suggest that the incorporation of ‘acceptable’ gay subjects (at the expense of others) into discourses of ‘progress’, rest on dubious theoretical and methodological assumptions. These have potentially damaging policy implications for LGBT rights.

Music spaces, from conservatories to recording studios, have proven themselves unequal and exclusionary. To investigate how power relations condition present-day musical life, the research environment in musicology at Örebro university has been awarded funding for the three-year research program Music, Power, and Inequity (MPI).

The aim of this paper is two-fold. To contextualize our studies, we will initially give a brief presentation of the research program MPI. With the specific aim of discussing power relations in music society, we will secondly introduce two studies in their initial phase. Both studies investigate inequalities and hierarchies affecting the underprivileged in musical life, focusing on issues with regards to the music elite and freelance musicians' working lives.

The studies' methodologies build on a mixed-method approach. They map socio-economic characteristics of (i) freelance musicians, and (ii) people in power within central music organizations, conduct interviews focusing on musicians' life stories from a feminist intersectional perspective, and perform critical discourse analysis and multimodal analyses of home pages and official social media accounts.

Together, the projects contribute a crucial critical analysis of the constitution of the elite in musical life, clarifying the consequences of social distinctions as well as discussing what is required in terms of risk, support, and various forms of social, cultural, and economic background to lead a sustainable working life in music.

Sociological research, influenced by feminist and other critical perspectives, has noted how men’s emotional inexpressiveness was influenced, and supported, by patriarchal privilege. Such approaches have argued that ‘inexpression’ needs to be broken down in order to build gender equality and improve men’s own wellbeing. Emerging research has, however, challenged the argument that men are ‘emotionally inexpressive’ on two main premises: that, as a result of feminist critiques, many men now practise ‘softer’ or ‘more emotional’ forms of masculinity; second, that emotions always influence social action and so need to be better incorporated into sociological accounts of men’s behaviour. Yet these approaches entail some conceptual confusion as to what emotions are, how they link to social action and whether men’s emotions are inherently transformative for gender relations. This article first details how emotions and masculinity have been theorized in feminist-inspired approaches. It outlines recent work on emotions, men and masculinities before arguing for an understanding of emotions that engages with both physiologically grounded and postconstructionist debates. It finally suggests incorporating a material-discursive approach to men’s emotions, through feminist work on affect, which is attentive to the political dimensions of ‘increasing emotionality’ in order to contribute to a developing field of sociological research.

In his (1976) article, The Inexpressive Male: Tragedy or Sexual Politics? Sattel made the case that men’s relative lack of emotional expression emerged as a direct result of, and helped to sustain, men’s social privilege. Feminist and profeminist campaigners have (rightly) cited an increasing understanding of men’s emotional lives, and getting men to understand their own emotions, as central to any project addressing gender inequality. Some scholars within Critical studies on Men and Masculinities (CSMM), too, have often made the case that men need to become ‘more emotional’.

Various authors have documented empirical research that argues, as a result of feminist gains, men are gradually getting ‘more in touch’ with their emotions, leading to a ‘softening’ of masculinity. There is a problem, however, with narratives around increasingly ‘more emotional’ men. These often fail to engage with literature on emotions and historical precedents of men being valued for displays of ‘authentic’ emotions - through music for instance – which have often supported privilege. In addition, assuming that men’s emotions are inherently gender-progressive, ignores more sinister examples of men’s rights activism, violence and online misogyny.

This paper argues for the need to engage critically with how we think about both emotions and a history of emotions, in relation to CSMM. Considering how emotions are put into language, as well as the mechanisms by which emotions are identified and understood, have an impact on how emotions and ‘emotional’ behaviour are characterized in both research and everyday life. Crucially, it is important to retain a focus on the embodied aspects of experience. We suggest distinguishing between emotions, affect and kindred concepts as a productive way to approach issues of power and embodied experience in CSMM. Focusing on these areas, this paper aims to contribute a critical analysis on a developing and much-needed area of research.