Masculinities are widely believed to be oppressive mechanisms for men, but a detailed, systematic picture of these concrete mechanisms is largely lacking. The present analysis of audience reception illustrates four oppressive mechanisms of effeminate-masculinity acting on straight men: normative conceptualization, emotional distancing, discursive stigmatization, and behavioral punishment. The sub-dimensions of these four oppressive mechanisms are also discussed, particularly emotional aversion, patriarchal contempt, stigmatic labeling, essentialist classification, and isolation. Moreover, the symbolic codes of hegemonic masculinity and effeminate masculinity in the Chinese context are explicated. Based on the analysis, flight from the feminine is the core characteristic of Chinese hegemonic masculinity and the source of discrimination against effeminate masculinity. These oppressive mechanisms found in the Chinese context can enrich understanding of the broad literature on masculinities. It is highly possible that the narrated mechanisms also exist in the reception of masculinities in other cases. The clear pattern found in the present case, therefore, is meaningful and relevant for future studies.
AlexanderS. M. (2003). Stylish hard bodies: Branded masculinity in men’s health magazine. Sociological Perspectives, 46, 535–554.
2.
BeckerR. (2009). Guy love: A queer straight masculinity for a post-closet era? In DavisG.NeedhamG. (Eds.), Queer TV: Theories, histories, politics (pp. 121–140). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
3.
BourdieuP. (2001). Masculine domination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
4.
ButlerJ. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre Journal, 40, 519–531.
5.
CarrollH. (2008). Men’s soaps: Automotive television programming and contemporary working-class masculinities. Television & New Media, 9, 263–283.
6.
ChanJ. (2001). Chinese American masculinities: From Fu Manchu to Bruce Lee. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
7.
ChowY. F. (2008). Martial arts films and Dutch-Chinese masculinities: Smaller is better. China Information, 22, 331–359.
8.
ClarksonJ. (2005). Contesting masculinity’s makeover: Queer Eye, consumer masculinity, and “straight-acting” gays. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 29, 235–255.
9.
ConnellR. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: Polity Press.
10.
ConnellR. W.MesserschmidtJ. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19, 829–859.
11.
DemetriouD. Z. (2001). Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: A critique. Theory and Society, 30, 337–361.
12.
FangG. (2007). A qualitative study on the construction of masculinities of male sex workers (Doctorial dissertation). Renmin University, Beijing, China.
13.
FiskeJ. (1987). Television culture. London, England: Methuen Books.
14.
FungA.PunL. F.MouriY. (in press). Stereotyped recognition, cultural identities and border-crossing consumption: Different world views and values of Japanese-anime fans in Japan and China. Visual Communication Research. (In Chinese)
15.
GroganS.RichardsH. (2002). Body image: Focus groups with boys and men. Men and Masculinities, 4, 219–232.
HallS. (1992). Encoding/decoding. In HallS.HobsonD.LoweA.WillisP. (Eds.), Culture, media, language: Working papers in cultural studies, 1972-79 (pp. 128–138). London, England: Routledge.
18.
HatfieldE. F. (2010). “What it means to be a man”: Examining hegemonic masculinity in two and a half men. Communication, Culture & Critique, 3, 526–548.
19.
HeasleyR. (2005). Queer masculinities of straight men: A typology. Men and Masculinities, 7, 310–320.
20.
HeasleyR. (2013). Crossing the borders of gendered sexuality: Queer masculinities of straight men. In IngrahamC. (Ed.), Thinking straight (pp. 110–130). New York, NY: Routledge.
21.
IssaR. H. (2006). This boy does cry effeminate masculinity in Edward Said’s out of Place (Doctoral dissertation). American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon.
22.
JacksonC.DempsterS. (2009). ‘I sat back on my computer … with a bottle of whisky next to me’: Constructing “cool” masculinity through “effortless” achievement in secondary and higher education. Journal of Gender Studies, 18, 341–356.
23.
JungS. (2011). Korean masculinities and transcultural consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-Pop idols (Vol. 1). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
24.
KimmelM. S. (2016). Masculinity as homophobia: Fear, shame, and silence in the construction of gender identity. In RothenbergP. S.MunshiS. (Eds.), Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study (pp. 59–70). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
25.
KitzingerJ. (1994). The methodology of focus groups: The importance of interaction between research participants. Sociology of Health, 16, 103–121.
26.
KongT. S. (2012). A transnational study of masculinity and sexuality. In TurnerB. S. (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of the body (pp. 289–306). London, England; New York, NY: Routledge.
27.
KruegerR. A.CaseyM. A. (2014). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
28.
LiR. Y.LiuZ. X. (2018). Fitness and masculinity construction: Discussion based on the practices of X city’s fitness centers. Women Studies, 3, 108–118. (In Chinese)
29.
LiebesT.KatzE. (1990). The export of meaning: Cross-cultural readings of Dallas. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
30.
LiongM.ChanL. S. (2018). Walking a tightrope on (hetero) sexuality: Performatively vigilant masculine subjectivity in response to sexualized culture. Men and Masculinities. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1097184X17753267
31.
LiuF. (2017). Chinese young men’s construction of exemplary masculinity: The hegemony of Chenggong. Men and Masculinities. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1097184X17696911
32.
LiuM. (2017). Devoted, caring, and home loving: A Chinese portrayal of western masculinity in transnational cyberspace romance. Men and Masculinities. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1097184X17704240
33.
LouieK. (2002). Theorising Chinese masculinity: Society and gender in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
34.
LouieK. (2014). Chinese masculinity studies in the twenty-first century: Westernizing, Easternizing and globalizing Wen and Wu. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9, 18–29.
35.
LouieK.EdwardsL. (1994). Chinese masculinity: Theorizing Wen and Wu. East Asian History, 8, 135–148.
36.
LuoX. D. (2016). Sweet guys: Symbols, gender practices and discursive transformation. Contemporary Youth Studies, 2, 77–81. (In Chinese)
37.
LuoX. D.ZhanZ. Y. (2017). Sweet guys and cool guys: Gender discourses’ new metaphors and practical meaning. Tianfu Xinlun, 3, 140–146. (In Chinese)
38.
LyuP. (2011). Gender, media and reproduction of power: A study on the representation of masculinities on TV in the context of consumer society. Beijing, China: Beijing Institute of Technology Press. (In Chinese)
39.
MacKinnonK. (2003). Representing men: Maleness and masculinity in the media. London, England: Arnold.
40.
MertonR. K. (2008). Focused interview. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
41.
MorganD. L. (1996). Focus groups as qualitative research (Vol. 16). London, England: SAGE.
42.
MorleyD. (1980). The Nationwide audience: Structure and decoding. London, England: British Film Institute.
43.
RavnS. (2018). “I would never start a fight but …” Young masculinities, perceptions of violence, and symbolic boundary work in focus groups. Men and Masculinities, 21, 291–309.
44.
SilverstoneR. (1994). Television and everyday life. New York, NY: Routledge.
45.
SilverstoneR. (2002). Complicity and collusion in the mediation of everyday life. New Literary History, 33, 761–780.
WlodarzJ. (2009). “We’re not all so obvious”: Masculinity and queer (in) visibility in American network television of the 1970s. In DavisG.NeedhamG. (Eds.), Queer TV: Theories, histories, politics (pp. 88–107). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
49.
XiaoS. (2011). The “second-wife” phenomenon and the relational construction of class-coded masculinities in contemporary China. Men and Masculinities, 14, 607–627.
50.
XinY.ShiY. F. (2019). Are Niangpao really Niang?—Rethinking youth masculinity in the consumer society. Chinese Youth Studies, 2, 102–105. (In Chinese).
51.
XuY. R.YangL. (2015). Rotten women and “rotten” men: BL (Boys’ Love) literature, rotten culture and reconstruction of masculinities in transnational cultural flows. Cultural Studies, 20, 3–25. (In Chinese)
52.
ZarzyckiM. Z.SłykS.PriceS.Flaga-ŁuczkiewiczM. (2018). Men’s muscularity image—The role among Polish young population. Men and Masculinities. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1097184X18774112
53.
ZhangJ. Y. (2018). Aesthetic appreciation and consumption of masculinities in domestic Chick Flick—A study on female audience’s viewing pleasure (MPhil thesis). Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. (In Chinese)
