Reflecting on men and social policy: Contemporary critical debates and implications for social policy

Abstract

To put ‘men’ and ‘social policy’ together may still seem a little strange. Yet there are numerous ways in which social policy is about men, in its formulation, implementation, delivery, and inclusions/exclusions. Different men have variable relations to social policy, and are involved and implicated in social policy in a wide variety of ways, as: users, family members, practitioners, managers, policy makers, members of social organizations, and so on. Likewise, the explicit gendering and naming of men is uneven in different social policy arenas. This article discusses contemporary debates in Critical Studies on Men — masculinity and multiple masculinities; hegemonic masculinity and the hegemony of men; embodiment; and transnationalization and virtualization — and in each case considers their implications for social policy, before some concluding remarks.