Recognizing Vulnerabilities of Young Masculinities in Youth Work: Three Perspectives on Masculine Vulnerability Linking Social Structures and Agency

Abstract

In this article, I discuss and analyze how vulnerabilities within the group of young masculinities can be recognized in the context of youth work. I analyze vulnerability from three different perspectives: a contextual, a performance, and a relationship perspective. The discussion is grounded on critical realism and adaptive theory focusing on how vulnerability is interconnected with social structures and social agency. The theoretical conceptualization on these three perspectives on vulnerability can be implemented in order to generate a nuanced understanding of how social groups, such as boys’ and young men’s vulnerabilities are manifested in practice. To acknowledge vulnerabilities it is essential to understand how all human life is conditioned by social structures, gender norms, and social relationships. However, being vulnerable does not exclude the dimension of human agency. Therefore, all vulnerable groups and individuals are accountable for their actions, particularly with regard to how they encounter others.

Keywords

Masculinity gender ethnography young people critical realism adaptive theory vulnerability youth work

Introduction

The aim of this article is to theorize on the vulnerabilities of young masculinities in the context of everyday life practices in youth work. It is acknowledged that young people in general can be regarded as vulnerable in comparison to adults due to asymmetric power relations (Schäfer & Yarwood, 2008). Nevertheless, there is surprisingly little research and theoretical work on vulnerability and gender that focuses explicitly on vulnerability in the lives of masculinities or more explicitly young masculinities.

This article is grounded in implementation of critical realism (Bhaskar, 1978) and adaptive theory (Layder, 1998) in ethnographic research, aiming to explore various ways of recognizing young masculinities’ vulnerability. A further aim is to contribute to the ongoing debate on how critical realism can be implemented in social studies of gender (Bergin et. al, 2008) and more particularly, how critical realism can contribute to an intersectional understanding of gender and young masculinities (Gunnarsson et al., 2016; Lunabba, 2013, 2016). This article focuses on two research questions: (1) How is the vulnerability of young masculinities manifested in the everyday life practices of youth work, and (2) how are young masculinities vulnerabilities linked to social structures and to social agency of young persons?

A common construction of masculinities in social science highlights hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995; Messerschmidt & Messner 2018) with the notion that masculinities have privileges in relation to other social groups in society. However, there are theoretical contributions on masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) and particularly intersectionality (Christensen & Jensen, 2014; Phoenix, 2017) that have clarified how masculinities consist of various subordinated groups and minorities of boys and men (cf. Brooms & Perry, 2016; Coston & Kimmel, 2012; Lehtonen, 2010; Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018; Quail, 2011; Wright & Cannetto, 2009). Despite the existence of patriarchal structures, all boys and men do not benefit from contemporary gender hierarchies. Recent research and theory building on young masculinities have also widened and nuanced the perception of boys and men, recognizing various subcategories and performances of masculinities. For instance, Anderson and McCormacks (2018) work on inclusive masculinities has shown how many young (straight) men reject and resist homophobia and how some masculinities have developed strategies to embrace activities and artifacts that were previously constructed as feminine. Research on hybrid masculinities (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014) and caring masculinities (Elliott, 2015) has also addressed the wide range of masculine performances and strategies which serve to allow men to align their identities with subordinated masculinities and femininities. I argue that critical realism can further contribute to the development of nuanced understandings of young masculinities and provide a framework for recognizing vulnerabilities of boys and young men.

In the following, I will discuss some of the founding principles of critical realism (Bhaskar, 1978) and adaptive theory (Layder, 1998) on how to generate theory from ethnographic fieldwork. The theoretical discussion is followed by a presentation of the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted in two youth work settings in Helsinki and how observation and interview data were analyzed. The three perspectives on masculinity and vulnerability will be presented in three separate sections. In the last section, I will present my conclusions.

Linking Social Structures and Social Agency in Ethnographic Research

A foundational thought in critical realism is that there is a domain of “real” that exists beyond knowledge and epistemology (Archer, 1995; Bhaskar, 1978; Danermark, 2002; Layder, 2006;). However, critical realism was developed as a critique toward positivism and traditional metaphysical realism; acknowledging that reality is also partly made and influenced by human concepts. It posits that there are simultaneous competing descriptions of the world, and that truth is an epistemic and theory-dependent concept (Mäntysaari, 2005). Further, critical realist concepts such as Bhaskar (1986) transformational model on social activity or Margareth Archer (1995) morphogenetic approach, offer particularly useful tools for understanding the complex links between social structures and social agency. Such models and approaches can be useful when understanding how young people’s lives are conditioned by various intersecting social structures (see also Corsaro, 2018; Frosh et al., 2002; Gunnarsson et al., 2016; Lunabba 2018; Lee, 2001; Prout & James, 1997; Qvortrup, 2005 ). An implementation of such critical realist and intersectional perspectives in youth research recognizes how young people’s status in society resembles, on the one hand, a minority position (James et al., 1998). However, members of minority groups are nevertheless social agents, and they have an impact on their social surroundings (Corsaro, 2018, pp. 1–4).

How critical realism can be implemented in social research is discussed in detail in Derek Layder’s (1998) work on adaptive theory. One central objective for adaptive social research as well as for critical realist ethnography is to generate new theory (Decoteau, 2017). In ethnography, theory building can be roughly implemented in two ways: (1) It can be regarded as a deductive process where the researcher tries to analyze how structural realties are transformed into observable social practices that can be recorded or observed during fieldwork. (2) Grounded theory approaches (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), however, emphasizes a down-up process where theory is generated inductively from empirical observations. An adaptive approach is positioned in-between these two traditions of social science, focusing both on the social setting and on the situated activity occurring in that social setting (Layder, 1998, pp. 142–146).

When writing critical realist ethnography, a key objective is to engage readers to adopt what Brewer (2000, p. 51) defines as ethnographic imagination. When a researcher describes social environments and makes accounts of social activities, it is essential to provide a reflexive account of how observations and conclusions were made when making claims on the links between social structures and social activity. Ethnographers are never granted full access to the social context or the inner lives of their research participants and there is no such thing as a standardized research practice in ethnography. It is in many cases obvious that the level of the researchers’ access to different informants’ lives varies—and therefore it is essential to acknowledge that all ethnographic work has its methodological limits. The fact that a researcher’s access is limited is particularly prevalent when the research deals with sensitive issues and hard-to-reach environments (Browne & McBride, 2015). One requirement, however, is that the ethnographic researcher is successful in presenting “thickly” enough (Geertz, 1975) the unique position that he/she was granted while engaging with the research participants. As Brewer (2000, pp. 51–54) points out, no matter how good the ethnographic practice is, a further requirement calls for openness in readers’ attitudes toward ethnographic data. This is not to imply that readers or reviewers should overlook bad research practice, but to acknowledge the value of recorded talk, observations of actions, and reflective accounts based on ethnographic fieldwork. It is also important to reflect upon the way in which observations are made, how access to informants where gained and what thought processes are applied when making claims and conclusions. When reviewing ethnographic practice, it is essential to focus both on how the researchers have gained access to observe research participants’ social lives, but also to acknowledge from what kind of methodological positions observations are analyzed.

Ethnographic Fieldwork and Analysis

Ethnographic research is best described as a process rather than a sum of sequences of discrete stages separating fieldwork and data collection from the analysis (Brewer, 2000, p. 107). Ethnographers strive for maintaining an open mind when collecting data, but it is also common that ethnographers have a particular gaze of interest when conducting fieldwork (Gordon et al., 2005).

I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in two youth work settings during 2015–2016. From September 2015 to February 2016, I participated once a week in a rap music workshop that was organized at a music studio in a youth center in Helsinki. The workshop targeted migrant youths, but it was also open to everyone. Approximately half of the participants in the workshop had an immigrant background and two-thirds identified themselves as boys or young men. The young persons I encountered during fieldwork ranged from 15 to 25 years of age. My participation in the group can be described as a reactive approach referring to a methodological strategy coined by Corsaro (2018, pp. 54–55). Reactive means that the researcher’s participation involves being invited into the activities, implying that it is not the researcher who makes the primary social engagement initiative. I have played music professionally at one stage of my life, and this prior experience made me comfortable making and performing music in a group. However, the rap scene was completely new to me, so I was genuinely in need of support and advice when it came to writing and recording, and this allowed me to adopt a subordinate position concurring with the reactive research strategy. The more experienced rap musicians and workshop participants, in this case, young persons, helped and guided me in the art of creating rhymes and encouraged me to express my own flow and style. Adapting a reactive approach and engaging in music-making as a beginner allowed me to overturn to some extent the asymmetrical power relations (Punch, 2002; Schäfer & Yarwood, 2008) between myself as an adult male and the young persons participating in the workshop. I also established, in an anthropological sense, a participator role by engaging in the making of music instead of simply observing it from the side (cf. Hjorth & Sharp, 2014).

The second setting where I conducted fieldwork, was a youth work center that specializes in gender-sensitive welfare work with boys and young men. The activities I observed were “open evenings” that offered semi-facilitated group activities particularly targeting boys and young men. I participated in these open evening sessions once a week from March 2016 to the beginning of June 2016. The notion of “semi-facilitated” refers to the open evenings having an open-ended structure where participants could engage in various kinds of activities according to their liking. Sometimes youth workers could initiate some specific activity, like going out to play football, but most often the activity was more about “hanging out” (Browne & McBride, 2015) in the center. I mostly adapted the same kind of reactive approach as I described above. I “hung out” in the same spaces as the young persons and made myself available to be invited to play video games or to engage in conversations. My insight into most modern video games was, however, genuinely limited. This enabled me to position myself in the same kind of subordinate beginner role as I had in the rap music workshop.

I did not have any formal responsibilities at the youth center or the rap music workshop and I was also distinguished from the professionals working in the setting by the fact that I did not have any keys to the facilities. I was often referred to as “that researcher guy” in cases where someone forgotten my name, or I was introduced to a newcomer. My impression was that this identity of being “that researcher guy” without formal responsibilities separated me from the other “adults” in the setting. I was neither regarded as a member of the staff nor a regular participant, but as a researcher applying a methodology often described as a “least-adult” approach (Epstein, 1998; Mandell, 1988).

The ethnographic data consist of participatory observations in two youth work settings and interviews with workshop participants and service users (N = 20), as well as interviews with two of the professionals who worked in the rap music workshop and five professionals at the youth center. The interviews lasted from 30 minutes to one hour, and they were conducted in pair and individual settings during the last four weeks of fieldwork. Seventeen of the interviewees were with boys or young men aged 15 to 25 years. I also interviewed three girls who attended the rap workshop. I received written consent from all research participants, and for minors under the age of 18, parental consent was provided in writing. The interview data were pseudonymized when interview tapes were transcribed. The observation data were documented with jotted notes that I complemented with audio-recorded reflections immediately after I had left the studio or the youth center.

The process of structuring and reorganizing data can best be described as an abductive process represented by a dialogue between my field observations and theoretical concepts (Layder, 1998, p. 55). During fieldwork, I identified two provisional categories of vulnerability. In the rap music workshop, a dominant phenomenon widely discussed among research participants was related to ethnic prejudice and racism. In the youth work center, a similar dominant topic that is broadly apparent in my research data was research participants’ experiences of bullying and loneliness. These two topics were later developed in the analysis presented in the sections “Vulnerability and social context” and “Vulnerability and social relationships.” The analysis presented in the section “Vulnerability and masculine performances” was derived from what appeared to be the clearest differences in my research data between the two settings. In the rap workshop I observed more masculinity performances relatable to hegemonic masculinity, which in my ethnographic field notes, I characterized as “cool performances.” In contrast, the masculinity performances in the youth center presented such forms of masculinity that could be characterized as unpopular performances of masculinity (Pattman et al., 2005). I used the concept “peculiar performances” regularly in my fieldnotes, for lack of a better word.

In the process of reorganizing and coding data, I experimented with various theoretical concepts, ending up with the three theoretical perspectives presented in the article. The quotes and extracts presented in the final analysis aim to serve both as descriptive accounts of my conclusions of masculine vulnerability and validate my argumentation with examples from the data.

The research data do not include any personalized information about the research participants. When I refer to a particular person in an observation or in this article, I use aliases I created during fieldwork. Some minor details regarding some of the individuals presented in this article are further pseudonymized to prevent the identification of the research participants.

All research data have been stored at the facilities of the University of Helsinki and has been deleted after the article was accepted for publication.

Uncovering Vulnerability Among Young Masculinities

Theoretical work on masculinities has revealed the complexities and nuances both within groups of men and masculinities as well as masculinities’ relationships with other social groups such as women (Anderson & McCormack, 2018; Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Christensen & Jensen, 2014). This nuanced perspective on masculinities is often built upon an intersectional understanding (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Phoenix, 2008) that acknowledges how gender intersects with other social categories such as race (Brooms & Perry, 2016), sexual or gender identity (Lehtonen, 2010; Wright & Cannetto, 2009), or social class (Coston & Kimmel, 2012).

Human lives do not only intersect with various social categories but also with various social contexts, situations, and relationships. In the first section, I will address the intersections between various situational social contexts (Smirthwaite & Swahnberg, 2016) where boys and young men are encountered. That will be followed by an analysis of vulnerability and masculine performances, focusing on the complex link between young masculinities agency and local social settings and spaces. Social performances can be regarded as practical manifestations of different ways of expressing masculine identities (Mac an Ghaill, 1994). The third section focuses on vulnerability and social relationships, further exploring the link between relational structures and social agency. This perspective acknowledges relationships as transformational ontological premises (Bhaskar, 1986, pp. 129–136) that conditions all human activity. However, a transformational perspective on relationships also acknowledges mutuality in social interplay (Layder, 2009, p. 279) or how relationships are transformed and developed through human agency.

Vulnerability and Social Context

Rafik: The closer I get to becoming thirty, people see me differently. That I am some African who has just moved to Finland …as if I would be someone who just exploits social benefits.

For addressing vulnerability from a contextual perspective, I will introduce two young men from the rap music workshop, who I will refer to as Rafik and Tommy. Rafik is a 19-year-old black immigrant from Morocco and Tommy is a 20-year-old white male, who has lived most of his life in the metropolitan area of Helsinki. They can both be perceived as dominant and self-confident characters in the rap music workshop community manifesting characteristics often linked to hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995, pp. 77–78): They take up a great deal of space in the community and they have a significant impact on most decisions made within the workshop. Their self-representation, however, also signals kindness and caring (Elliott, 2015) as well as what for me appeared to be genuine thoughtfulness, generosity, and interest in others. Both also expressed political views that supported liberalism and tolerance, which was apparent in the rhymes they wrote.

After I had established a relationship with these two young men, they divulged some details about themselves to which not everyone was privy. I cannot say that I was granted access to their innermost thoughts and experiences during my fieldwork, but we reached some level of trust that resulted in more in-depth discussions about their lives outside the workshop. I often engaged in long conversations particularly with Tommy about various things, and he was one of my key informants during the fieldwork. I sensed that he confided many things to me, but we never talked about them in a deep or emotional sense. For instance, he mentioned that he had been placed in foster care. He also told me that he was unemployed and had to rely on his aunt for financial support. I gathered that he had no education beyond basic education. However, our discussions on these personal aspects were, never in-depth, in the sense of going into detail about why he had been placed in foster care. I gained an impression that his social situation was both economically and socially fragile, but we never talked about emotions relating to his unfortunate situation, or that he could be perceived as vulnerable due to his social circumstances.

My conversations with Rafik were not as frequent as they were with Tommy. But when I interviewed Rafik, he was very open about some of the challenges he had faced as a second-generation immigrant from Morocco growing up in a single-parent household. In the interview, he explains how he did not think of himself as being much different from other Finns. While at primary school, he often adopted the role of being the class clown rather than the class immigrant. But as he got older, he realized that people often viewed him differently. Being black had become an issue in his everyday life, which he reflected on in the quote above. Like Tommy, Rafik did not express many emotions in talking about the prejudices he encountered in his life, and nothing in his manners gave an impression of him feeling vulnerable. Overall, he maintained an optimistic tone of voice.

It is obvious how the social perceptions of both Tommy and Rafik vary in the diverse contexts of their lives. In the rap music workshop, they were admired and looked up to. Outside, in the subways and streets, Rafik is yelled at and regarded as an immigrant who has just moved here. Tommy, being uneducated and unemployed, with a history of being in foster care, does not have many privileges in society. Statistically, he is at a high risk of becoming marginalized (cf. Kääriälä & Hiilamo, 2017).

I cannot argue that gender would be a central aspect of Tommy’s and Rafik’s vulnerability, as it has more to do with ethnicity and social class. But gender is a central aspect of the presumption of constructing them as dominant and privileged, which was further emphasized by their hegemonic performances at the rap music workshop. To uncover the vulnerable side of Tommy and Rafik requires sensitive recognition and contextual understanding. Vulnerability is not what comes to mind when I first interacted with Rafik or Tommy at the workshop. I can’t claim that they saw themselves as particularly vulnerable. But based on what I learned from their lives outside the workshop, they most definitely were vulnerable.

Vulnerability and Masculine Performances

Daniel: … if someone wants to show emotions, so that’s not cringe. Because I think, if a guy shows emotions, he is a tough guy. Because it takes a lot of courage to do that. If someone does not show emotions, he’s not tough. That’s more about being a coward, because he does not dare to show emotions and show what or who he is. That’s being a coward.

Addressing vulnerability in terms of performances, the focus is on the various ways of “doing boyhood” and expressing identity (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018). As presented earlier, Rafik and Tommy often performed masculinity in a way that can be related to hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). To perform masculinity softly or show emotions in a non-hegemonic fashion, like 20-year-old Daniel describes above, takes courage as it can easily lead to a position of “otherness,” which can further result in exclusion and bullying (see Frosh et al., 2002; Huuki & Sunnari, 2015; Renold, 2004).

The youth center specializing in gender-sensitive welfare work served a segment of young boys who can be linked to the various kinds of non-hegemonic performances of “otherness.” Many of the boys who participated in the open evenings were boys who reported in interviews that they had experienced bullying or that they have had challenges finding friends. A few of them, like 18-year-old Timo, mentioned in the interview that he had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. What came up in many of the interviews was that some boys had been directed to the youth center by school social workers or their parents with the general aim of finding friends or just to persuade them to do something after school. A common feature connecting some of the boys was an in-depth interest in computer and role-play games. What was striking to me was the level of detailed interest some of the boys showed in various role-play and fantasy-game characters’ special features, such as shield and armor levels, or weaponry and skillsets, which from an outsider’s perspective seemed almost incomprehensible.

Timo: I am currently working on this character, that is like a centaur, a centaur character like based on a giraffe figure. It’s like a vegetarian. It’s like not a regular (character), but I have not figured out all its elements. But it’s.. like a giraffe centaur. I haven’t come up with a name yet, but that’s the plan.

The youth center also targeted another segment of masculinities who struggled with “otherness” related to gender or sexual identities. The center offered targeted counseling services for boys and young men who wanted to talk about issues related to sexuality. For some, the center’s open evenings were a haven where they could be open about their sexual identity. As Mikko, a 13-year-old boy, told me in a conversation, the center was the only place where he could be open about being gay. Daniel, who also identified himself as gay, spoke about how the center was the only place where he felt safe engaging in more in-depth conversations with other young men, pointing out that at an earlier stage of his life, he had been harshly rejected by a potential partner.

This aspect of some boys and young men needing a special haven where they could be themselves was also something that I observed at the rap music workshop. Most of these cases were not perhaps as severe as some of the sad stories I came across at the youth center, but they were significant, nevertheless. Ahti, an 18-year-old young man, told me that he had always been interested in writing poetry and the rap music workshop was the only place where he could practise poetry writing with a group of peers. What was also evident was how many of the rap music workshop participants appreciated that they were able to participate in music making as beginners without the risk of being ridiculed.

To understand social performances in a critical realist sense, they also include a structural aspect (O’Mahoney, 2011), as performances can often be linked to global styles and identities (Lalander & Johansson, 2017, pp. 95 –118). There are also normative social expectations and constraints about “doing boyhood” (Forsh et al., 2002; Manninen et al., 2011). Derogatory labels such as nerd, geek, wimp, or fag are examples of how identities are conditioned through normative constraints and hostility (Quail, 2011). Further, a critical realist view cannot exclude that there are aspects of a person’s identity, rooted in ontological generative mechanisms, which are beyond the control of an individual’s choices (Erickson-Schroth, 2013). At the same time, social performances as well as identity constructions in general involve undefined and complex aspects of human agency, as gender identities can be regarded as subjectively constructed through repetition of, or resistance to, dominant constructions (cf. Butler, 1999; Cook & Hasmath, 2014).

Layder (2006, pp. 274–275) describes how individuals exist both inside and outside of society, referring to how human responses are affected by social influences at the same time as “we also retain a significant measure of independence from them.” But still, boundaries for some performances of masculinity are clearly interlinked with spaces (see also Manninen et al., 2015). Ward et al. (2017) show how hypermasculine performances emphasizing dominance and violence can be understood not solely as acts of choice, but more as a reflection of the surroundings in which boys grow up, such as neighborhoods dominated by gang culture. Similarly, performances of less popular forms of masculinity can also be linked to specific surroundings. To be openly gay or to perform masculinity in some other non-hegemonic fashion cannot be expressed everywhere. Therefore “being a boy” in non-conformist ways makes boys vulnerable in many social settings, and there seems to be a particular demand for spaces where masculinity can be performed in a way that differs from popular forms of masculinity (Frosh et al., 2002; Pattman et al., 2005).

This raises the question, what makes some settings more receptive to social diversity than others? I have come to understand the concept of “safe spaces,” often used in the context of education (Rom, 1998), as synonymous with a setting or space that accepts diversity. A safe space is often defined as a setting where participants can “take risks, honestly express their views, and share and explore their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors” (Holley & Steiner, 2005, p. 50). When I interviewed the youth workers in the two settings, they all emphasized the need to maintain this kind of desirable safe environment. It was evident that such an environment did not emerge by itself but needed active facilitation from the youth workers. A central aspect, that was mentioned by some of the young men interviewed at the rap workshop, was to interfere when some participants composed derogatory or misogynist rhymes targeting girls and women, or when someone dissed someone else’s rhymes or flow. The same active maintenance of safety was also evident at the youth center. A youth worker explained in the interview how they once had to interfere when a group of newcomers made homophobic slurs after they learned about the youth center’s gender-sensitive agenda. I also often observed several times how the youth workers intervened when someone made derogatory remarks about another young person’s outer appearance.

Overall, these examples show how young masculinities are affected by toxic behavior and prejudice. It is also evident that masculine subgroups, such as boys with non-hegemonic performativity, are particularly vulnerable in this regard (see also Connell, 1995; Kendall, 1999; Renold, 2004). These findings show how some masculine performances need special recognition in relation to dominant gender norms. There are boys and young men who need safe spaces where they can express themselves according to their own desires and perform masculinity in diverse ways.

Vulnerability and Social Relationships

Harry: … so how do you understand the meaning or function of this youth centre?

Timo: For me it has been mostly about a place for us, who don’t not have many friends outside this center. That you can come here if you don’t have any friends, so, here you can find friends.

Loneliness was a particularly prevalent reality in the life of many of the boys I encountered at the youth center. As Timo describes, loneliness was the main reason for him and many others to visit the center. Loneliness can be linked to masculine performance as it connects with some ways of “doing boyhood” that can have serious ramifications for social relationships and popularity (Renold, 2004; Rönkä et al., 2014). Being an outsider due to unconventional social performances has been thoroughly portrayed in television programs, movies, and literature, but also to some extent in social research (Messerschmidt & Messner, 2018; Myers, 2012; Renold, 2004). The mechanisms behind unpopularity and loneliness are most often interpreted as a condition based upon toxic environments, prejudice, intolerance, or lack of inclusion. Much less analysis has been devoted to the agency of the loners themselves. To address loners agency is obviously difficult, as it shifts some level of responsibility to individuals who occupy particularly vulnerable positions. But when referring to critical realism (Archer, 1995; Baskar, 2007) or such social theories of human relations that recognize agency (Collins, 2004; Layder, 2009; Scheff, 1997), this viewpoint cannot be ignored.

To emphasize agency, I will present an observation that I made at the youth center that illustrates the interpersonal difficulties I witnessed during fieldwork when observing some of the boys’ interplay. I made a fieldnote of an episode where a group of boys had planned to have a gaming tournament. However, the plan was never carried out because three of the boys got into a conflict about some minor details concerning the rules of the tournament. I witnessed their discussion, and the crux of the quarrel seemed to be about some minor detail of how many rounds each of them could play, something that they considered extremely significant. The impression I gained from observing this quarrel closely was that the interaction was more a less a chain of escalating misinterpretations by all three participants. They could simply have decided on the number of rounds and moved forward, but they seemed to have a marked inability to conform socially with one another. The episode illustrated what kind of facilitation was often needed at the youth center to guide some of the young men’s social engagement.

Another memorable conversation that I documented from my interactions with Timo was how he explained in detail how he had walked along a dirt road during the previous week. I had asked him what he had been up to lately, and we ended up talking at length on how he had taken a bus to somewhere where there was a dirt road that he walked along for half an hour, then turned back and took the bus back home again. It was not just the peculiarity of this conversation that was striking, but also the lack of acknowledgment of my presence in the social interplay. His telling me of his walk was not accompanied by any reassuring gestures of confirmation of my involvement like eye contact or a subtle nod in my direction (cf. Layder, 2006, p. 279).

This type of self-centeredness in social interplay, like the gaming quarrel or Timo’s detailed story of his walk, is a phenomena that might well be linked to some of the boys’ special needs relatable to the autism spectrum disorder. I can, therefore, only vaguely link these observations to masculinity in a more general sense. However, I choose to argue that the aspect of self-centeredness by masculinities expressed through a lack of recognition of others has also been observed elsewhere. A popularized concept known as “mansplaining,” referring to Rebecca Solnit’s essay (2008) “Men Who Explain Things to Me,” describes a particular dynamic observed in the interaction between men and women. Observations of mansplaining or arrogant and patronizing form of communication have also been recognized in the analysis of political debates (Koc-Michalska et al., 2021). The type of self-centeredness I witnessed, particularly in my interplay with Timo, was perhaps not so, much about arrogance or overconfidence (cf. Solnit, 2014, p. 5), but more related to cluelessness of what makes social interaction mutual and inclusive.

I observed on many occasions at the youth center how self-centeredness was affecting some of the boys’ social relationships with peers. Some of them had severe challenges in developing successful repertoires for gaining positively charged social contact with others (Layder, 2009, pp. 98–101). Youth workers as well as kind-hearted peers could provide boys with such interpersonal challenges and companionship and make some of them feel less lonely. But self-centeredness and lack of recognition of mutuality can also hinder the creation of such mutual social bonds that could be defined as pure relationships (cf. Layder, 2009, p. 12) or friendship.

Interpersonal skills are an important ingredient in all social interplay but are particularly crucial when it comes to relationships including intimacy, which was one of the key areas of interpersonal challenges for many of the boys at the youth center. One youth worker, Simon, who specialized in sexual counseling, described his encounters with young men who had expressed grief and sorrow regarding their lack of experience and opportunities for engaging in intimate relationships.

Simon: In sexual counseling, loneliness is a big thing many talk about. We have young men in their twenties who have no experience of anything sexual with any other human being. They have never held anyone’s hand or kissed. And when they are over twenty, they feel a pressure that they should already be good lovers….

Regarding such intimate relationships described above, it is evident that they can exist only in terms of genuine exchanges between two persons who are engaged and committed to each other on a very personal level. No one should ever feel obligated to comply to intimacy under any circumstances. Intimate relationships endure only if they include aspects of mutuality, engagement, and recognition (Layder, 2009, pp. 34–35).

This context of intimacy, or the lack of it, is a remarkably sensitive issue. It was disheartening to witness not just the fact that some boys were so lonely, but also that many of the boys who talked about these issues with me, or the youth workers remained convinced that they would never experience intimacy with another person. It was easy to feel empathy for these young masculinities who experienced loneliness on such a fundamental level. But, it was not uncommon at the youth center that such desperation over a lack of intimacy for some masculinities could sometimes be expressed through objectifying comments about girls and women. I made the following fieldnote of an observation at the youth center.

Fieldnote 23.3.2016.: Today I have focused a lot on Jason, who is a really interesting and contradictory character. I think he is over eighteen but appears to be very child-like. Don’t know what to think of him trying to present himself as someone who is violent or capable of violence …. He talked particularly about someone he described as an ex-girlfriend, “who had betrayed him” over a period of five months. He said specifically that he could just “tear her apart.”

Studies have shown how endorsements of the so-called Incel community (Incel = involuntary celibacy) are associated with violent fantasies often targeting girls and women (see Scaptura & Boyle, 2020) and that several violent incidents can be linked to the Incel community (O’Malley et al., 2022).

I argue that young masculinities’ experiences of loneliness and lack of intimacy should also be regarded as a challenging intersectional phenomenon, as it intersects with two kinds of emotions: empathy and repulsion. It is easy to feel empathy toward a person who is lonely. But when desperation turns into objectification and violence against girls and women, emotions of empathy are easily transformed into repulsion and even fear.

Loneliness and the lack of intimacy in the lives of young masculinities are sensitive issues that need to be resolved. It is important to recognize the devastation of loneliness and the significance of creating safe spaces for all vulnerable groups—including young masculinities. However, it is equally important to recognize how relationships are mutual and influenced by human agency. When encountering relationship-based vulnerability, it is important not only to provide safe and inclusive social culture but also to acknowledge that relations are always interpersonal and being vulnerable does not exclude social agency or the responsibilities of men and boys (cf. Burrell, 2018; Flood, 2011). Therefore, I argue that relational vulnerabilities that are manifested in social isolation (and sometimes objectification of women) should not just be recognized. Such a phenomenon also needs confrontation. It is overall essential to confront all sorts of objectification, particularly fantasies and acts of violence targeting girls and women.

Conclusions

In this article, I have discussed how young masculinities’ vulnerabilities are manifested in the everyday life of youth work practices from three different perspectives: a contextual, performance, and social relationship perspective. First, with reference to my observations of the two young men, Rafik and Tommy, I argue that masculinities can be both privileged and vulnerable, depending on the particular social context where young masculinities’ vulnerability is interpreted. Therefore, the vulnerability of young masculinities often needs to be actively recognized in relation to different or intersecting social contexts.

Second, there are internal social hierarchies within groups of men and boys that have been acknowledged in debates on hegemonic masculinities (Christensen & Jensen, 2014; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Manninen et al., 2011; Messerschmidt, 2019). Hegemonic masculinity emphasizes particular hegemonic attributes or ways of “doing manhood or boyhood” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), placing boys and young men with unpopular performances in a subordinate position within the inner hierarchies of boys and men (see also Brooms & Perry, 2016; Coston & Kimmel, 2012; Lehtonen, 2010; Wright & Cannetto, 2009). The possibility of expressing unpopular performances or “otherness” (Renold, 2004) is often related to the immediate social contexts or spaces that can vary in terms of appreciation or acceptance of masculine diversity.

Third, a relationship perspective highlights how some young masculinities’ vulnerability is manifested in terms of loneliness, alienation, and lack of relationships with significant others. This kind of vulnerability can sometimes be related to structural oppression, such as exclusion and discrimination. Moreover, social relationships are always to some extent mutual and are conditioned, not just by social structures but also by the vulnerable individual’s social activity and agency (Layder, 2006, pp. 279–280).

In conclusion, I argue that vulnerability is interconnected with social structures and social agency and that these two sides of social reality need to be acknowledged and recognized when encountering young masculinities in youth work. Social structures condition all social categories, and there are intersecting circumstances where even privileged individuals or groups are or become vulnerable. However, acknowledging human agency makes everyone responsible for how they treat and encounter others. Therefore, supporting vulnerable masculinities calls for sensitive and intersectional recognition, but sensitive recognition can sometimes include sensitive confrontation in such social activities that can be harmful to the vulnerable masculinities themselves or could result in social exclusion or oppression of others.

I have complied with the ethics guidelines and ethical principles of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK. According to the national guidelines, this study does not require a review statement from a human science ethics committee. For more information see: https://www.tenk.fi/sites/tenk.fi/files/Ihmistieteiden_eettisen_ennakkoarvioinnin_ohje_2019.pdf.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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