Hybrid Hegemonic Masculinities: Interrogating Men’s Intervention Programming

Abstract

Reporting on an ethnography of a profeminist batterer intervention program (BIP), this article details how the theory of hybrid hegemonic masculinities can help understand processes and outcomes in men’s interventions. The BIP exalts a liberal masculinity that explains men’s abuse as caused by patriarchal ideologies. The author refers to this locally dominant masculinity as progressive hybrid masculinity, as it discursively distances men who adopt it from global hegemonic masculinity by subordinating “toxic masculinity,” reframes emotional expressiveness and empathy as masculine through a discourse of power, and covertly shores up men’s structural power through reification of conventional masculine roles and values. Observational data, triangulated with interviews, reveal that men’s engagement with and enacting of this hybrid masculinity moderated program outcomes, resulting in attitudes ranging from egalitarian to oppressive. The author situates progressive hybrid masculinity as a hybrid masculinity functioning as a local hegemonic masculinity, adding to the debate regarding the synthesis of these prominent frameworks.

Programs that seek to modify the gendered beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of men have become a common community and institutional response to gendered social problems. Research aimed at informing and evaluating such programs is also emergent, and it is now well established that when programs are gender transformative, meaning that they intend to reshape gender relations, they tend to be more effective than those that are not (Dworkin, Fleming, and Colvin 2015; Gupta 2001; McCauley et al. 2019). However, within programs that are gender transformative, evaluations have shown highly inconsistent effectiveness, and many studies show men reasserting gendered power after intervention (Duriesmith 2017; Dworkin et al. 2015; Gondolf 2004, 2012; Price and Rosenbaum 2009). Several explanations for this have been suggested, including an overemphasis on individual behaviors, lack of intersectional approach, poor funding, coopting feminism, lapses in program fidelity, and using one approach for all men (Aaron and Beaulaurier 2017; Duriesmith 2017; Dworkin et al. 2015; Gondolf 2012). But gender transformative does not mean the erasure of masculinity, and many programs use “good” components of masculinity to motivate change, redefining the locally exalted masculinity. Missing from the literature is a critical interrogation of the masculinities constructed in men’s programs and the gender order that lies on the other side of a gender-transformative program. Drawing on ethnographic data from a batterer intervention program (BIP) in the southeastern United States, I show how this program constructs a hybrid hegemonic masculinity that changes symbolic and emotional relations of the gender order but leaves power and production relations largely undisturbed.

Gender scholars have demonstrated the socially constructed nature of gender for some time, and the rise of gender-transformative programming reflects the shift away from more static conceptualizations (e.g., sex role theory) in public health (Dworkin et al. 2015). But the construction and deployment of gender is strategic, adaptive, and seeks to maintain gendered power relations. Politics and social movements, culture, and tradition are but a few factors in the momentary realities of gender in a specific context. As these factors shift, old practices are reformulated, condemned, or hidden from view, while new gendered ideals are deployed, all to retain an intelligible gender order (Connell 2005; Messner 1993; West and Zimmerman 1987). In the case of manhood, a fundamental motivation for this constant adaptation is to maintain power, not only over women but also to arrange men in a hierarchy based on various identities and traits (Connell 2005). Although gender-transformative programs may have embraced the understanding of gender as a social construction resulting in inequality, it is a much greater task to design programs that fully incorporate these complex theories such that they can identify and respond to the insidious hegemony of masculinities. The site of my research—a respected and long-standing BIP known for a feminist politics, robust curriculum, and success in resocializing men’s abusive and controlling behaviors—exemplifies this challenge. Despite their egalitarian profeminist philosophy, actors in the BIP construct a local hybrid hegemonic masculinity that uses progressive rhetoric to distance men from patriarchy, reframes feminine behaviors as powerful and manly, yet reifies gendered power and control though affirming men’s privileged roles and promoting situational misogyny and violence. This hybrid hegemonic masculinity complies with increasingly progressive contemporary understandings of gender while allowing continued access to the patriarchal dividend and providing pathways to reassert gendered power.

Organizations administering programs to men can use these findings during evaluation and design. By critically examining the masculinities they are constructing in their programs, they can identify and eliminate pathways for renewed gendered power, increasing program effectiveness. In addition, this work is a unique addition to the growing body of research on hybrid masculinities as it details an institutional deployment of a hybrid hegemonic masculinity for the express purpose of resocializing men. By showing that the hybrid masculinity exalted in the BIP can be effectively theorized as a local hegemonic masculinity, I add support for previous arguments that hybrid masculinities can be understood in tandem with Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity (Bridges and Pascoe 2018). Furthermore, I highlight the contextual flexibility of subordinated masculinities as discursive fields of illegitimacy; in this local masculine hierarchy, the conventional subordinated masculinity of gay men is replaced by toxic masculinity.

Men’s Intervention Programming

There are a multitude of programs intended to help men understand gender inequality, be allies to women in this struggle, and end or prevent men’s violence against women (Dworkin et al. 2015; Flood 2018; Price and Rosenbaum 2009). Men’s programming could be loosely organized as either preventive, seeking to build allyship and prevent violence against women, or reactionary, addressing men who have engaged in controlling or violent behaviors (Messner, Greenberg, and Peretz 2015). Preventive programs are often deployed in educational settings that aim to grow awareness and shift the culture of young men, but the effectiveness of such programs is contested, as is the utility of using young men as leaders (Flood 2018; Kettrey and Marx 2019; McCauley et al. 2019). Programs that respond to men’s gendered violence and abuse are collectively referred to as BIPs and are often tied to criminal justice systems as an alternative to incarceration or in relation to family legal proceedings. Gupta (2001) distinguished programs that are gender transformative (seeking to change gender relations) from those that simply recognize gender as an important organizing principle. Since then, public health responses have increasingly shifted toward gender-transformative approaches (Dworkin et al. 2015). Although the language of “gender transformative” is not common to research and design of BIPs, most easily qualify as such, with the dominant models seeking to reconfigure gender relations (Price and Rosenbaum 2009).

In the United States and similar developed countries, BIPs have become a common institutional response to gendered violence, yet standards and regulations for their operation are relatively new and undeveloped (Ashcroft, Daniels, and Hart 2003; Price and Rosenbaum 2009). Despite this widespread reliance on their services, evaluative research shows that their effectiveness is limited and inconsistent, but these studies usually have methodological limitations such as limited access, poor response rates and attrition, or examining only one component of a program (Ashcroft et al. 2003; Gondolf 2012; Price and Rosenbaum 2009). Furthermore, there is exceptional variation among BIPs, making generalized evaluation of them a questionable proposition. Direct involvement of police, the presence of women in classes, program length and meeting frequency, allowance of voluntary students (as opposed to exclusively court ordered), and emphasis on structural inequality in the course content are all factors that vary greatly and are likely to moderate program effectiveness (Price and Rosenbaum 2009). In contrast to this variation, all programs seek to affect men, and despite differences in hegemonic masculinity at the local level, attitudes, ideologies, and behaviors are informed by global hegemonic norms (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Therefore, focusing on how masculinity is enacted, (re)defined, and policed is likely an effective avenue for evaluating existing programs and informing the design of new ones.

The deep significance of hegemonic masculinity to the effectiveness of BIPs was demonstrated by the ethnographic work of Schrock and Padavic (2007), who showed that men accepted symbolic changes but resisted challenges to masculine roles and adopting the perspective of their victims. Since then, additional U.S.-based research has focused on the discourses produced by men during or after a program, and how that discourse serves to reclaim their gendered dominance. One study, a content analysis of a final writing project from a BIP, showed that a majority of men used at least some language that was ideologically sustaining of intimate partner violence (Kilgore, Lehmann, and Voth Schrag 2019). Another, using autobiographical interviews of students who had completed a BIP, demonstrated that the men rewrote the narrative of victimization suggested by the program, constructing themselves as honorable and reasonable men put upon by controlling and vindictive women (Schrock, McCabe, and Vaccaro 2018). Similarly, in a secondary analysis of interviews after completing a program, researchers found that men’s talk about violence and change deflected blame and reinforced essentialist notions of men’s superiority, reproducing gendered power relations (Seymour, Natalier, and Wendt 2021). Although the evidence in these studies is informative, their methods do not allow an understanding of interactional processes within the BIP setting that result in these discursive productions. Through direct observations of BIP classes triangulated with in-depth interviews, I address this gap by documenting the masculinity constructed in this BIP and how it provides pathways to recreate men’s power.

Research outside the United States has added crucial details and confirmed the centrality of masculinity to program effectiveness. Canadian research has shown the importance of adjusting programming on the basis of characteristics of participants (Radatz and Hilton 2019; Wong and Bouchard 2020) and explored the complexities of participant engagement as a predictor for program success (Scott et al. 2011). Although the context is quite different, intervention programming evaluation in Africa has echoed U.S. research, highlighting the importance of local and regional masculinities. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pierotti, Lake and Lewis (2018) found that a “gender sensitization” program led to everyday interactional changes, but participants actively rejected egalitarian challenges to the broader gender system. In South Africa, program facilitators must demonstrate new ways of manhood to combat economic contexts and violent “youth masculinity” (Gibbs et al. 2015). Across all contexts, the importance of addressing masculinities is clear for program effectiveness, especially in the relative construction of a local masculinity within and intervention to that of the broader regional or global hegemonic masculinities.

Theorizing Hegemonic and Hybrid Masculinities

In many ways, our gendered interactions are an expression of the gender order, which is constituted by four aspects: production relations, power relations, symbolic relations, and emotional relations (Connell 2005). We do gender and hold others accountable for this doing, reflecting and reifying the relations of this gender order as we do (West and Zimmerman 1987). Within a given context, there are multiple masculinities and femininities functioning in relation to the gendered order, and individuals develop gender strategies to reconcile personal traits with societal expectations (Connell 2005; Hochschild and Machung 2012; Schippers 2007). Regarding masculinity, Connell’s (1987, 2005) theory of hegemonic masculinity has dominated the research landscape since its inception. In this framework, masculinities are done to reflect and reify a hierarchy of masculinities and justify men’s domination of women (Connell 2005). At the top of this hierarchy is hegemonic masculinity, a contextually specific manifestation of idealized manhood that, through its claiming of exalted traits, justifies a hierarchy where men reap the benefits of women’s subordination (Connell 2005). Although men with certain devalued traits or identities are marginalized in relation to hegemonic masculinity, they are encouraged to remain complicit in exchange for this “patriarchal dividend” (Connell 2005). Finally, there are subordinated masculinities, which through symbolic connection to femininity are excluded from any legitimate claim to the hegemonic ideal (Connell 2005).

Connell’s (2005) original analysis centered on late twentieth-century Western culture, in which marginalized masculinities were marked by race or class and the main subordinated masculinity was gayness. However, the theory is perpetually misapplied, taking this original analysis as static, thus failing to recognize and properly consider the contextual formulation and strategic fluidity of the gender order (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Crucial to localized research such as reported on here, hegemonic masculinity varies across scaled locations, having different constructions at the global, regional, or local levels (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Over time, as forces such as activism, culture, or law place pressures on the existing gender order, hegemonic masculinities adapt to maintain patriarchy, discarding some values and behaviors, moving others to less visible places of social life, and claiming new ones as markers of a “real man” (Connell 2005; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Additionally, as the power attached to characteristics such as race or ethnicity vary by time or location, so do the marginalized masculinities they mark. The subordination of gayness is not exclusive or static, just “the most conspicuous,” with other masculinities subordinated through an obvious “symbolic blurring with femininity” (Connell 2005:79). This contextual nuance is crucial for the application of hegemonic masculinity to men’s interventions, as the men being addressed are navigating shifting values and norms not only for their own gendered selves, but cultural changes at multiple levels of society.

Global shifts in hegemonic masculinity have been documented by many scholars (Kimmel 2018; Messerschmidt 2015; Messner 1992, 1993; Messner et al. 2015). These global changes often involve shifts away from the most harmful components of manhood commonly referred to as “toxic masculinity”: aggression, stoicism, control, risk taking, and violence. Of central concern to my analysis is Messner’s (1993) discussion of the “new man,” as it mirrors many of the traits and assumptions found in the BIP. In this reformulation of hegemonic masculinity, men can claim power through contextually acceptable displays of emotion, such as when reflecting on great sacrifices. Hegemonic masculinity typically defines any behavior associated with women or femininity as a violation that must be held to account (Connell 2005). However, in the face of social movements to end sexism and homophobia, shifting expectations of fatherhood, and men’s recognition that traditional manhood had a high personal cost, the new man was constructed with these softer edges to strategically placate social expectations of change and lessen the cost of manhood (Messner 1993). But this is largely superficial, reflecting a change in the culture of manhood rather than substantial behavioral changes. For instance, men may profess a commitment to being involved fathers, but still do little domestic labor (LaRossa 1988). In the case of crying in public, a man’s ability to do so underscores his power compared with women, whose public display of emotion is taken as evidence of their essential instability (Messner 1993). Regarding interpersonal relationships, men’s newfound acceptance of emotional expression is falsely linked to a lessened desire for domination and violence. As men’s superiority to women is based in essentialist claims that can be disproven, gendered violence is often deployed by men in the face of such challenges (Kaufman 1987). To assert that the new man would abandon this strategy now that he can express pain or sadness is a dubious conclusion that reflects the continued patriarchal orientation of this new man (Messner 1993).

These broader discussions of hegemonic masculinity’s strategic evolution are accompanied by scholars who have documented localized, situational changes in manhood across various U.S. settings. Using ethnographic methods in northern California, Heath (2003) examined how men came together under a Christian ideology to formulate a “soft boiled” masculinity that could allow emotional expression in homosocial spaces. By aligning with changing global hegemonic masculine ideals while reasserting men’s traditional positions, this masculinity ultimately allows a reassertion of patriarchal power (Heath 2003). Other scholars have examined U.S. subcultures in which acts of caring are reframed as manly when done so with extreme assertiveness (McDowell 2017), and where association with feminist media allows men to claim progressive identities and distance themselves from male privilege (Palmer 2022). Some examinations of localized masculine dynamics have found fundamental shifts in the position of gay men as they relate to hegemonic masculinity, calling into question whether they still function as a subordinated masculinity (Anderson 2009; Pascoe 2007). Constructions of fatherhood are a significant site of research as well, with “caring masculinities” as an emergent form of manhood (Elliott 2016; Scheibling 2020).

Many of these emergent masculine configurations could be situated under the theory of hybrid masculinities: those constructions of manhood that incorporate identity traits associated with marginalized or subordinated masculinities and femininities (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). Some debate exists regarding whether hybrid masculinities represent an erosion of sexual and gender hierarchies, and therefore are theoretically incompatible with hegemonic masculinity. Bridges and Pascoe (2014) identified three broad characteristics of hybrid masculinities: a discursive, but not meaningful, distancing from hegemonic masculinity, conceiving marginalized masculinities as more meaningful than those white and heterosexual masculinities, and fortifying boundaries between groups by obscuring those boundaries. They conclude that “the emergence of hybrid masculinities indicates that normative constraints are shifting but that these shifts have largely taken place in ways that have sustained existing ideologies and systems of power and inequality” (p. 247). Using Connell’s framework, hybrid masculinities leave power and production relations largely unchanged, and obscure this fact through significant shifts in the symbolic and emotional relations, demonstrating the flexibility of gender inequality (Bridges and Pascoe 2018). Ultimately, Bridges (2021) suggested that these practices be labeled hybrid hegemonic masculinities to signify their reassertion of dominance. I support this position by demonstrating how the hybrid masculinity constructed in this BIP allows men a broader range of gendered behaviors but provides distinct pathways for reasserting men’s power. Furthermore, I explore how this hybrid masculinity differs from those documented previously—in its institutionally backed resocialization and the ideological nature of its symbolic resources—and how these differences suggest new ways to gain analytic utility from hybrid masculinity theory.

Methods and Setting

My analysis comes from an ethnography of a nonprofit organization, located in a large southeastern U.S. city, whose mission is ending men’s violence against women by entreating men to “do the work.” Although not all their events are homosocial, many are exclusively limited to and staffed exclusively by men, and much of their programming is based in a “community accountability model” that aims to develop awareness and accountability by engaging men’s social networks. Core principles of the organization are based in feminist and intersectional ideas, citing the necessity of addressing an “interconnection of oppressions” when fighting men’s violence against women. The organization runs a variety of events and programs, some public, others in partnership with colleges, community groups, or churches. These include community discussions, informal men’s support groups, a single-session intervention class administered at a courthouse, and a 24-week BIP, which was developed in house. Although it has a small staff, the organization is active in the greater network of anti-violence groups, and several times a year they offer facilitator training, drawing trainees from across the nation seeking to apply the BIP curriculum and techniques to their programs.

This analysis draws primarily from my nonparticipant observation of the BIP and in-depth interviews with current and former students of the BIP. My relationship with the organization began in fall 2019, institutional review board approval was attained in February 2020 (Georgia State University institutional review board #H20191), and observations and interviews were conducted from fall 2020 through summer 2021. Interviews began after most observations were complete, allowing me to ask questions informed by the observational data. Thus, the formal interviews captured the thoughts, emotions, and perspectives of participants while triangulating the patterns I observed in the classes. Because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, all observations and student interviews were conducted via Zoom (the platform used by the organization). I acquired additional ethnographic data by attending the organization’s public events and completing their BIP facilitator training. I also conducted continuous informal interviews with the staff, current and former executive directors, and BIP students. Although these informal components were reduced in frequency by the pandemic, I did develop close relationships with several participants, allowing “revelatory moments” crucial to the rich understandings of ethnography (Parvez 2018).

Over 10 months I observed 37 meetings of the BIP in two different classes, usually including facilitator discussions before and after students were present. BIP meetings were not recorded, but nonparticipant observation allowed detailed field notes following the verbatim and concrete principles, recording statements exactly as they are made without interpretation (Spradley 1980). The students I observed had a diverse class, race, and age makeup ¹ and according to facilitators were a representative mix of court-ordered and voluntary students. Following the practices of grounded theory, throughout data collection I wrote expanded accounts and analytical memos to document emergent patterns and guide future observations (Corbin and Strauss 1990). I analyzed field notes with an inductive coding approach, guided by the theoretical framework of the study, while capturing emergent patterns as well (LaRossa 2005). I completed all analysis using NVivo 12 qualitative software.

The sampling frame for in-depth interviews was constructed of all current and former students who had been in the classes over the previous two years and finished at least half the program, which resulted in a list of 56 men. Interview recruitment consisted of at least three attempts to contact, using e-mails and phone calls. Initial contact was made by a BIP facilitator the student had worked with, and I made subsequent contacts. This strategy resulted in 17 interviews, 5 of which I had also observed. Class, race, age, and court-mandated or voluntary status of the respondents was varied, ² with no discernible correlations (i.e., not all younger participants were voluntary). All respondents identified as heterosexual except one, who identified as queer but was not out as such to their peers while attending the BIP. Interviews took 60 to 120 minutes, and all respondents consented to audio recording except one. Interview questions were a mix of grand-tour questions such as “Tell me about what being a man means to you” and more specific questions to triangulate with observational data: “How did it feel when you couldn’t respond to feedback?” Respondents were not directly asked questions about whether the program reduced or eliminated their controlling or abusive behaviors, as this would likely increase bias. Instead, questions conversationally explored attitudes, behaviors, and life events that would indicate change. Interviews were coded using the same analytic approach as coding of field notes.

As discussed earlier, there is considerable variation in BIPs, and as such the details of this program are important for situating the findings (Peretz and Vidmar 2021). The BIP classes are structured two-hour meetings, with a rolling 24-week curriculum, such that new students enter with any lesson in the cycle. This cycle of students is central to the functioning of the class, as veteran students take on mentor roles, helping new students acclimate and offering advice and feedback. As a manifestation of the community accountability model, students must complete a project at 12 and 24 weeks in which they do outside activities with men from their lives and bring them to class as guests (one way the program gets voluntary students). The program accepts students who are court-ordered as well as voluntary students. Some voluntary students are motivated by other legal proceedings such as divorce or custody cases, but many attend because of intrinsic personal motivations. In many cases these students had exposure to the organization in another setting, such as a campus event. The organization administers several weekly classes (two at the time of data collection), with incoming students assigned to a specific weekly class. Classes typically have two facilitators and 7 to 12 students and are entirely homosocial spaces; only men are facilitators, and only men are allowed as students. This is less common among BIPs, which frequently have a man and woman facilitate to demonstrate egalitarian gender relations (Price and Rosenbaum 2009). According to staff members, some former students openly identified as gay, but no trans men had ever applied for classes, and all the students I observed presented heteronormative. Individual classes are divided into sections, the first in which students “check in” with any controlling or abusive behaviors and get feedback from other students and facilitators. The second part is weekly lessons on topics such as structural inequality (e.g., patriarchy, racism), specific actions such as stalking and sexual violence, and tools to help with communication and anger management. This blend of learning, homosocial bonding, and psychosocial group support results in a less punitive social atmosphere, with most students reporting an overall positive experience in the classes.

Facilitators of the BIP are acutely aware that multiple masculinities function within society and make this understanding salient in class. Masculinities tied to class and race are discussed frequently; white supremacy and racism, class inequalities, and associated failings of the justice system are all confronted as they relate to socialization and enactment of manhood. Although the organization does recognize that men face different challenges based on the intersection of identities, they do not actively operate under any taxonomy of students for the sake of tracking men into different classes, nor are the characteristics of individual men used to customize the curriculum. This “one size fits all” approach is typical for the vast majority of BIPs, despite evidence that treating men as a monolith may be ineffective (Price and Rosenbaum 2009). Regardless of their incoming masculinity, men in the program are expected to condemn traditional patriarchal control and adopt the masculinity constructed by the program.

Finally, it is crucial that this work be contextualized to the COVID-19 pandemic. As with many nonprofits, the organization in question functions on a very limited budget, has perpetually overburdened employees whose labor is undercompensated, and the BIP had been forced into an online setting without the capability to reformulate their practices in a meaningful way. This said, the core positions of the organization and BIP remained intact and are deserving of critique; it is likely that the additional strain of the pandemic exposed or heightened existing flaws in their program and execution. My sampling methodology supports this assertion, as 12 of the 17 interviewees were in the program before the pandemic, with no discernable difference in their responses.

Findings: Progressive Hybrid Masculinity

Through liberal perspective and ideology, the BIP constructs a locally dominant masculinity reflecting many of the complex contradictions documented in hybrid masculinities. The program teaches structural perspectives of inequality, condemns patriarchy, and gives opportunities to unlearn behavioral expressions of male domination. It explains gender difference as a product of socialization and presents men’s socialization as an unjust process that limits men’s potential. In response, the goal becomes for men to reclaim the full range of human experience by reframing traditionally feminine attributes and behaviors as masculine. However, the program reaffirms conventional masculine values and roles, leveraging them to motivate and appeal to students, but fails to critically interrogate these values and roles as sites of privilege and power. Although these symbolic and emotional shifts potentially allow more egalitarian gender relations, and appear to reduce abuse, they decenter women from the discussion of gendered domination, and discursively distance men in the class from power and production relations of the gender order.

To reflect the tension between liberal ideology and obfuscated recreation of gendered power, I refer to this local masculinity as progressive hybrid masculinity (PHM). At a cursory level, the designation of “progressive” may seem redundant to hybrid masculinities. However, many hybrid masculinities do not necessarily align with progressive ideologies, but simply borrow symbolic resources that distance themselves from patriarchy. For PHM, progressive ideas are central to the masculine configuration, and expression of those ideas constitute the primary symbolic resources being deployed. In the discussion, I offer additional thoughts on differences between PHM and previously documented hybrid masculinities, and what these differences reveal about potential new applications of hybrid masculinity theory.

In this BIP, to what degree men adopt PHM, and how they enact it, moderates desired program outcomes. Properly enacting PHM necessitates the men adopt certain symbolic and emotional configurations of gender relations, but also offers opportunities to reassert gendered power. To what extent students seize these opportunities to claim power determines the degree that these emotional and symbolic relations translate to a more robust success: changes to power and production relations. Following are my core findings, organized into themed patterns that detail the construction of PHM, insights regarding how the students responded to it, and some related outcomes indicating variation in program effectiveness.

Condemning and Replacing Toxic Masculinity

Masculinities are defined as much by characteristics and behaviors they exalt as those that are excluded (Connell 2005). Given the context of the BIP, the construction of PHM begins with condemning abusive behaviors and the ideologies associated with them. Two main terms were used in the BIP to label the negative forms of manhood. Patriarchal masculinity was usually used in reference to actions and beliefs rooted in ideology of men’s superiority. Toxic masculinity was less tied to specific beliefs, but more in reference to traits held by abusive men, such as extreme competitiveness, sexual conquest, emotional withholding, and hyperaggression. Both terms were vaguely deployed, often with overlapping or interchangeable meaning. The man who is unabashedly sexist and uses violence to control and dominate was rejected: framed as immoral, immature, and unenlightened. One facilitator regularly essentialized this masculinity and its behaviors by drawing a distinction between “maleness” and being “a man,” implying that violent domination and control emerged from a lack of proper and moral masculine socialization. The duality of patriarchy as a belief system and toxic masculinity as a set of behaviors carried through many aspects of the program, most notably in the structure of class meetings. The check-in and feedback portion serving as an opportunity to resocialize men away from toxic masculinity, and the lessons intending to undermine patriarchal thinking and beliefs.

Any indication of patriarchal or toxic masculinity was designated as a transgression that demanded accountability. Accountability for the BIP was considered legitimate only if it was free from justifications or excuses and was more likely to be interpreted as authentic if accompanied by emotional expression. Accountability was a core trait of PHM but also functioned to designate and signal other traits as central to PHM; by taking genuine accountability for their mistakes, a student claims the ideal characteristics positioned inverse to toxic masculinity. Several components of the course used a list of controlling and abusive behaviors including interactional transgressions such as claiming the truth or interrupting, moral infractions such as watching pornography, and physical and sexual violence. By identifying these unacceptable behaviors, the list constitutes a workable operationalization of toxic masculinity and clearly designates these behaviors as violations of PHM. Students were instructed to review the list daily (at a minimum) to monitor their behaviors, and any transgression was to be reported at the beginning of class with a check-in. The list was also used in the creation and ongoing revision of the “new man” (a document that recounts the student’s worst incident of abuse), which is read to the class at certain points in the program.

Central to these exercises in accountability is a rule against “storytelling”: adding context or narrative that may contain or imply justifications or excuses for abusive behaviors. Storytelling was policed heavily during check-ins and new-man statements. Facilitators would regularly stop the student, pointing out storytelling and making them start over, or storytelling would be called out by facilitators and other students during the ensuing feedback. In one instance when a newer student checked in after an argument, the facilitator deemed their accountability as inadequate: “Your job now is to immediately reflect on what you did. This feels watered down.” Policing storytelling in this way constructs a specific type of accountability: an idealized, pure accountability that does not evade or misplace blame. This pure accountability is thus defined as crucial to PHM, and with it the associated conventional masculine ideals of responsibility and respect. Controlling and abusive behaviors were often discussed as disrespectful, especially when the level of accountability was deemed insufficient. In contrast, behaviors in alignment with PHM, such as active listening, were said to show respect for others.

Curriculum and facilitator interactions assumed a causal relationship between patriarchal beliefs and toxic masculinity. Several activities challenged men to identify the patriarchal beliefs behind their (or other men’s) actions. During one such activity, the facilitator stated this plainly: “We know that these beliefs are the basis of our actions. If you strongly believe women are bad with money, that [control] will seep in. . . . It really is the foundation for everything in class.” In addition to exercises, facilitators regularly pointed to ideology as the root of men’s actions when giving feedback, as this one responding to a check-in for interrupting: “You said ‘get her attention.’ This often has a power dynamic. You may not be trying to get her attention as much as shutting her down. . . . We need to think about the beliefs that are under this.” Prompting reflections on ideology was a common response to weekly check ins, and facilitators often tied these ideas into group conversations.

However, a manifest adherence to patriarchy was far from universal among students of the BIP. Most students did not express patriarchal or sexist opinions in class, and occasionally a student would reject the assertion that patriarchal beliefs caused their actions. In interviews, only six men (35 percent) discussed having patriarchal beliefs before entering the program. Most students expressed that learning about structural gender inequality was informative, and helped them better understand women’s oppression, but did not conflict with their existing ideas of gender. Several interviewees reported frustration with the assumption of patriarchal beliefs, saying it left them without accurate guidance, as they did not believe such things.

In contrast to the causal assumption made by the program, most controlling and abusive behaviors reported by the men appeared to emerge from the socialized behaviors of masculinity. Respondents frequently discussed their transgressions as the product of frustration and momentary lapses in self-control, or simply the way they were taught to interact with people. Keeping with this, interviewees said they benefited most from parts of the class aimed at resocializing behaviors. Namely, the rules against storytelling and not being allowed to respond to feedback were a practical source of change. As one student explained: “That’s one of the hardest things about men. We always feel like we have the space to give excuses. . . . It [the rule] modeled it [and] gave me a way to practice.” Almost all interviewees cited these rules as difficult to follow at first but ultimately crucial in securing behavioral change.

Falsely assuming a causal relationship between patriarchal ideology and abuse can clearly prevent men from change, as those without overt patriarchal beliefs are allowed to think they have less work to do. This sentiment was shared with me regularly when speaking to men who had entered the program with a liberal gender ideology. Additionally, it allowed men in the BIP (regardless of their gendered ideology upon entrance) to distance themselves from men who held patriarchal beliefs. The very act of “showing up” (authentically engaging in the class and being genuine about “doing the work”) and demonstrating pure accountability created a discursive separation between the men in the class and patriarchal abusers. The othering of violent men became most apparent in classes covering more stigmatized behaviors. Class materials presented sexual violence as largely historic, tied to overt patriarchal attitudes, and committed by men with considerable power. Conversation and activities in these sessions framed sexual violence in a way that assumed no men in the class had committed it. For one homework assignment regarding sexual coercion, men were instructed to come next week with an example of “tactics other men have used, or you have used.” Not surprisingly all the examples were about other men’s coercive behaviors.

Although it was aimed to alleviate shame and promote open engagement in the class processes, one facilitator would regularly say “There’s no bad men here.” But the students did see some of their more violent peers as worse, and regularly expressed to me that they weren’t like them, even if they had enacted serious violence. One student, who earlier in the interview admitted to a pattern of sexual abuse of a former partner, explained, “Some of these guys are like—attempted murder. That’s a bit much for me.” As long as a man professed an adherence to PHM, and demonstrated unmitigated accountability for their violations of its principles, they could distance themselves from the men who engage in domination without remorse. Often whether a man’s accountability was deemed sufficient hinged on an outward expression of emotion, which required the loosening of restraints on access to femininity.

Reframing Femininity

Developing the ability to understand and express emotions was constructed as a crucial step in the resocialization away from toxic masculinity. Part of this process built off the principle of accountability. Along with controlling and abusive behaviors toward others, behaviors related to masculine stoicism were also condemned. Actions such as emotional withholding and refusing to communicate with a partner required reporting and were derided as manipulative. Stoicism was also presented as a precursor to other forms of abuse and framed as a product of gendered socialization. As one facilitator explained, “Emotional withholding can send someone into a tailspin. Women are taught when something is wrong they need to fix it.” However, stoic behaviors were addressed differently than overtly abusive acts. Unlike violent acts that simply needed to end, stoicism was discussed as the absence of healthy behaviors, such as how men are taught to intellectualize emotions. In a group conversation about identifying feelings, one student said plainly, “A feeling can’t be controlled. I think thoughts come from control.” In addition, stoicism was expressly presented as psychologically harmful to men, and detrimental to their goals for a happier life. Emotionality was framed as something allowed for women but taken from men through unjust patriarchal socialization. Following this logic, the treatment was to spend time learning to be vulnerable and empathetic.

Curricula, activities, check-ins, and new-man statements featured emotional perspective taking, usually imagining how a victim of abuse felt. A common facilitator response to a check in was overt emotional perspective taking with the victim:

I’m wondering about empathy. When I think about this—the horror. Just imagine what it was like to be abused like that. Have you gone there? Just held it up and gone there? Did you feel it, or was it an intellectual exercise?

Similar to how accountability required lack of justifications, empathy was thus framed as something that needed to occur uncorrupted by thought; intellectualizing how someone felt was deemed insufficient. Facilitators would challenge students to identify and reflect on their feelings and explain their reluctance or inability to do so as a product of socialization: “Those feelings are hard to access. We’ve been told we need to put them aside.” During activities related to feelings, or when prompted to describe the feelings of victims, students would regularly use simple or vague terms, such as “they felt hurt” in reference to a victim, or “I was happy to spend time with them [child],” prompting facilitators to ask for more specific emotions. Frequently this encouragement would be phrased as a suggestion to explore deeper, concealed sources for misdirected aggression, such as fear of loss, emotional pain, or historic trauma.

Despite all the encouragement to be emotional, the danger of this openness was highly salient in the BIP. Students were clearly reticent to share emotions, and would occasionally reflect on their trepidation. To compensate for this danger, facilitators reinforced emotional expression through appreciation, reframed these traits as masculine under PHM, and linked them to success. When it was demonstrated, emotional expression was always received with abundant appreciation. Statements such as “I appreciate your vulnerability” were often the first thing said in response to a student sharing, and classes ended with every person stating a specific appreciation. If a student was particularly emotional, such as weeping during the reading of their new man, their vulnerability would be appreciated by almost every member of the class. Often these appreciations were accompanied by describing the emotional act as “powerful,” and members of the group would state how they were affected by the emotional expression. After one particularly emotional new-man reading, class members responded to the new member with abundant positive reinforcement that affirmed his manhood, including: “that was a powerful, powerful statement,” “that [vulnerability] takes a lot of balls,” “your story reminds me of my childhood,” and “I appreciate [you] sharing one of the most intimate moments of your life.” Through the affirmation of other men, and the recognition that they have been impacted by them, formerly feminized emotional behaviors were no longer a violation of manhood, but a core component of PHM. Furthermore, the habitual, unified way that these emotions were celebrated cemented PHM as the exalted local masculinity.

Emotional development was also tied to successes in masculine roles and personal relationships. When veteran students would report their progress, often they would cite better relationships with coworkers. Work peers were often brought in as guests for final projects, many of them affirming the student had been more empathetic to them since starting the class. Empathy in personal relationships was framed around fulfillment of personal goals, such as reestablishing love and trust with children, and having healthier romantic relationships. Facilitators and veteran students would share how their interpersonal relationships had strengthened because of their openness and empathy, both modeling emotional openness and affirming the desirable outcomes related to PHM. When struggling with a new romantic relationship, one student was told to “Be vulnerable. Don’t second guess your position. Give yourself permission to love again.” Here, vulnerability is merged with conventional masculine values of boldness and confidence to secure a desired outcome.

Unfortunately, the focus on men’s emotional development had several drawbacks. First, it conflicted with the processes of accountability. Men who would exhibit extreme emotions would not be policed for transgressions such as those who remained stoic. After the highly emotional new-man reading mentioned earlier, a facilitator pointed out that it contained some storytelling, but this was somewhat necessary, saying “I wonder if some of the actions are a call for attention and love—to be seen.” I discussed this pattern with several facilitators, and they recognized the tension between the goals of emotionality and accountability, saying it was usually a quick judgement whether to call out a student for justifications when they were emotional. Although this is understandable, several students who were particularly emotive in their early meetings were given considerable leeway in their behaviors throughout the course, even when not currently emotional. Conflicting with the principles of the course, feedback given to these students would center their perspective or desires instead of their victims’. One got the following feedback after pressuring her to talk about finances: “You’re working against your own interest with these check ins. You’re not in control of this right now, but you need to respect her.” Similarly, a student who had lied to a woman about his sexual history was told “she may have come back a few days later and said ‘Man, I’m really into [him].” Because these students had secured sympathy through emotional display, empathy for victims was replaced by strategic approaches to achieve their goals.

Overemphasizing emotional expression, combined with this discursive slippage from pure accountability to centering the student, led some men to reframe themselves as victims of the women in their lives. When given the opportunity in class, students would express frustration that the actions of the women in their lives were never considered, and one ongoing discussion among students was whether they were simply with the wrong women, mirroring previous research (Schrock et al. 2018). Echoing the program’s focus on gender socialization, several interviewees suggested that the women in their lives had been socialized to be toxic, and that programming like the BIP should be created or even mandated for women. Similarly, victim blaming by emotional men was often justified by misogynistic assertions that women were “crazy.” One student, who secured considerable sympathy for being extremely emotional in his first report, made it known that his wife suffered severe depression and anxiety. In his interview, despite admission of ongoing verbal degradation and obsessive financial control, said that he still wasn’t convinced that he was abusive, adding that the cultural backdrop of the MeToo movement led to people ignoring his side of the story. This student was identified by facilitators as making considerable, rapid progress because of his early and frequent emotional performance, was subsequently given more leeway to engage in storytelling and victim blaming and as a result held fast to the assertion that he was not abusive, despite admitting to chronic abuse.

Reframing feminine traits such as emotionality and empathy as major components of PHM undermined principles and practices of the BIP. Intense displays of emotion reduced accountability and were taken as false indicators of egalitarianism. As a result, some emotive students quickly became regarded as leaders, consistently offering advice, feedback, and contributing disproportionately to discussions. However, these men continued to check in with a variety of transgressions, and at times their contributions to the class contained victim blaming, misogyny, and justified violence on the basis of masculine roles and values. Combined with the discursive distancing from patriarchy and toxic masculinity, these patterns led to larger trends in the BIP in which gendered domination and hierarchies are reasserted in familiar ways.

Renewed Domination

Despite the profeminist underpinnings of the program, intermingled with the egalitarian views and emotional reframing of PHM were reassertions of men’s power, often rationalized by framing gender difference as socialized. Discussions of gender socialization were frequent in the class but were often simple statements of fact with little follow-up discussion. Students’ internalization of this was confirmed in interviews; all but two students said there were inherent differences between men and women, and when asked why, almost all attributed gender difference to socialization. Many of the men discussed the possibility of overlap in gendered traits, and several were quick to point out that they knew “strong women,” but generally they affirmed common gender stereotypes. This belief in gender difference lays the groundwork for their understanding of manhood and reaffirmation of men’s roles. When asked their core traits of being a man, their answers overwhelmingly focused on conventional masculine traits: protector, provider, responsible, levelheaded, leadership, and strength were common answers. Furthermore, most of the men said the program did not change these definitions. When specifically asked if they thought it was men’s job to protect women, only 3 of the 17 said no. Of those that said yes, 4 said because women are not as strong as men, and 3 said because women expect it. These interview responses indicate that men did not have their ideas of gender difference and roles undermined by the class but simply adopted the socialization explanation offered by PHM.

These interview outcomes align logically with my observations, in which masculine roles and values were heavily policed in the BIP. This policing was based in the strategy of using these components of “good” masculinity to foster engagement and motivate change. Feedback would often mention the negative effects on men’s professional goals, and how their work performance likely suffered. For men with children, parenting was fiercely policed. Responses to their check-ins would usually consist of multiple students and facilitators commenting on their parenting. These comments were usually shallow, consisting largely of statements such as “You need to think about your kids.” Feedback that was more substantive often made assertions about the socializing effect of their transgressions, reinforcing gender difference and sexism regarding daughters: abuse socializes boys with toxic masculinity, and teaches girls to seek abusive partners in the future. Feedback for parents also highlighted the power men have as fathers and head of household, as exemplified by this facilitator: “It’s a generational thing, a cycle, and you’re the only one who can break it. You’re in control. You’re the thermostat. You set the temperature and everyone else has to live with it.” Elevating men’s familial roles in this way reasserts two familiar hierarchies: gender difference and sexism in the family structure, and defining men who can provide for and protect their families as ideal.

Parenting was so central to the construction of PHM that children would be the focus of feedback even when the behavior was not toward them or in their presence. One father was struggling with drinking and checked in with it several weeks in a row. Although he drank only when his child was staying with the mother, the feedback he received consistently focused on how this may be negatively affecting his parenting. Another student checked in because he had yelled at his wife during a fight. The facilitator asked if his children were near, to which he explained they were with relatives, but the facilitator continued to focus on the effects if the children would have been there. In perhaps the most extreme example, a student checked in with several incidents at once: making his daughter cry because he was rough getting her into a car seat, yelling and cursing at his wife about a meal, and then subsequently pressuring her for sex that night. The only feedback he received was regarding his daughter: no one discussed the abuse of his wife, the sex, or the questions of consent this situation should raise. These incidents reveal an important pattern where through the intense focus on fatherhood, the actual victim of the abusive action, often a woman, is effectively supplanted by the abstract well-being of the child, in turn centering the man and the fulfillment of his role as father.

Another consistent narrative in the BIP was valuing women more on the basis of their social proximity to men. When men would report abusive behaviors toward women who were strangers, they would frequently be posed the question “What if she was your mother?” This idea was also used to give weight to sexual violence, as one facilitator explained: “How many of us here have mothers, sisters, daughters? All of this is part of a bigger system of objectification.” Regarding abusive behaviors targeting romantic partners, two different facilitators would regularly make assertions of reflected degradation: “Whatever your religion, two become one. If you demean her you demean yourself.” As with the narrative of fatherhood, the well-being and dignity of the woman is replaced by the respect of the man. This narrative was never problematized in the class, nor was the inverse implication: that women without a connection to men have less value. Whether this was the intended message or not, it was clearly taken that way. A veteran student, who had been referred to by peers as “our catalyst” the “anchor of the class,” and gave this feedback to a peer:

The way you talked to her, it’s like the way you’d talk to a girl in a trap house. The women in our lives, that we’re romantically involved with, they’re extensions of ourselves. We’re reflections of them, and they’re reflections of us.

His comment was not challenged, but accepted with nods and affirming responses. Noone problematized the misogynistic logic at play: because no self-respecting man would get involved with them, women at trap houses are acceptable targets of abuse.

Considering the homosocial space, facilitators needed considerable vigilance regarding attitudes and statements expressing gendered power, and would often call out statements that were rooted in misogyny, sexism, and homophobia. However, when domination aligned with the values of the organization, ideologies of facilitators, or the construction of PHM, it would occur unchecked. As stated previously, the organization is firmly antipornography, and sexuality became a site where women were defined, devalued, and controlled. Facilitators and course materials condemned pornography and claimed that women did not watch pornography. One facilitator occasionally regularly shamed sexual women, once saying that if they have sex as depicted in porn “then the women get just as toxic as the men.” Another explained that when he was younger, he thought that the pleasure made possible by pornography was positive but now knows that “there is never an upside for women. Never.” Through the antipornography discourse, proper femininity is policed, women outside this definition are devalued, and women’s agency is erased.

Other concerning interactions went unchecked because they aligned with the conventional masculine principles maintained in PHM. On occasion the notion of righteous violence surfaced, usually in relationship to masculine imperatives such as protecting one’s family. In the class on stalking, students were asked what they would do if someone in their family were being stalked. One student, who was known to own guns and had a violent past, discussed how he would fight the man, or if necessary, gather his friends and attack him. The facilitator running the exercise nodded encouragingly during this explanation, then later said to the student, “I feel you on the street justice.” These assertions that protecting women justifies violence were not challenged or problematized. Transphobia and homophobia were also tolerated, especially when framed as harmless jokes among men. In a roleplaying activity about bystander intervention, when told to play the part of a neighbor, a student asked if the neighbor was a man or a woman. The facilitator responded, “A woman! And I want you to dress the part too!” to which much of the class laughed. Other examples were often to distance the man from the potential accusation of gayness, such as when two students talked about meeting up for dinner, and they talked so long that the restaurant staff “thought we were proposing up in there!” Although these instances were not common, they demonstrate how holdovers from conventional global hegemonic masculinity, especially masculine imperatives such as the protector role and heteronormative presentation, can emerge and reify gender hierarchies in a locally dominant masculinity such as PHM.

Discussion

PHM appears to be born of a strange but inevitable social chemistry: privileged men, motivated to change by a mix of guilt, ethics, and self-interest, immersed in the unlikely ideological bedfellows of traditional “good” masculinity, second-wave feminism, and oversimplified structural explanations of inequality. In many ways it is a reflection of long-standing trends of Messner’s (1993) “new man,” further intensified by liberal ideology and the polarized politics of our time. But what makes PHM central to the BIP is the recognition by facilitators that they have limited resources, a short time with students, and that victims urgently need results. When I would question facilitators on their choices, such as not intervening at every instance of a student’s misogyny or sexism, or pointing out their fierce policing of fatherhood, they would consistently respond with some variation of “meeting them where they are.” Rather than an expectation of total reform, they target the most egregious manifestations of gender inequality and plant the seeds of structural understanding, hoping to set men on a better path for continued change. Facilitators were not unified on this—some said they would prefer a comprehensive critique of masculinity, while others clearly saw no issue with enforcing traditional male roles—provided they weren’t “toxic.” Despite these differing opinions, all facilitators agreed on constructing and socializing what they considered a healthier masculinity as a strategic choice, shoring up traditional masculine roles and values and leveraging them to end abuse. In theoretical terms, they recognize that challenging the symbolic and emotional relations of the gender order were possible in the BIP and did so in hopes that power and production relations would shift as a result. Thus, an interrogation of PHM becomes valuable in explaining variation in student outcomes by revealing the instances and processes that make it function as a hegemonic masculinity, both in its deployment within the class and how the men enact it going forward.

Students interfaced with PHM largely on the basis of their incoming gendered ideologies. PHM discursively distances itself from gendered power through condemning toxic masculinity and the patriarchal ideologies that are assumed to cause these behaviors, and this manifested in curriculum and interactions that sought to undermine this causal relationship. The men claiming the most profound reform discussed having highly patriarchal socialization and beliefs, and the structural understanding of patriarchy as oppressive led to cognitive shifts and deep, lasting change. However, most students did not hold overtly patriarchal beliefs when starting the class, and for these men the assertion of ideological causes for their behaviors fell flat, perplexed them, or gave them cause to think they were not as bad as other men. In some instances, it led to victim blaming, similar to the findings of Schrock et al. (2018), who observed that students would lament that although they regretted their abusive actions, their partners had contributed to the issues and they were likely “with the wrong woman.”

Conversely, these liberal men almost unanimously reported that the rules limiting interactional expressions of masculinity (no storytelling, not responding to feedback) were highly effective for their progress. What appears missing from the educational discourse was awareness of how socialization connects patriarchy and behavior absent of overt ideology: patriarchal beliefs aren’t necessary for abusive behaviors, because normal socialized masculine interactions have been shaped to enforce men’s domination. Incorporating these elements into the class would likely solve this disconnect and would readily integrate with the program’s discussions of patriarchy and socialization. Facilitators could explain that even if students don’t hold patriarchal beliefs, the ways they were taught to be men were culturally shaped by patriarchal ideals, and result in women’s oppression regardless of their motive. I shared this perspective with several respondents, and they immediately grasped this connection, expressing that it made sense to think of it this way. Helping progressive men see that they have been socialized to act in a way that enforces systems of inequality they disagree with is likely a crucial step in redirecting their behaviors. Conversely, if they never make this connection, they are likely to continue hegemonic behaviors, especially in the light of PHM allowing them to distance themselves from “real” abusers and reasserting masculine imperatives and roles.

A central understanding about masculinity is that all aspects of manhood, even those professed as benevolent, are a source of domination and ultimately used to justify gendered violence (Kaufman 1987). This is especially true of the protector narrative, which necessitates that men develop a capacity for the very violence they aim to protect against (Sumerau 2020), and is discursively entangled with the expression of state power in global hegemonic masculinity (Young 2003). Unfortunately, critiquing these “good” components of masculinity, however important, does not integrate easily with men’s interventions; a more amenable perspective is to carve off “toxic” behaviors and act as though they are separate form what we might call benevolent masculinity (e.g., providing, protecting, honor). Because the facilitators, through the deployment of PHM, reassert the importance of masculine roles and values that are understood as positive, conflicts between the message of antiviolence and more traditional imperatives of PHM are practically inevitable. For example, regarding fatherhood, when the safety of a student’s child is threatened, the guidance of the BIP is clear: do whatever it takes to protect them. The justification of aggression toward men (especially toxic ones) and women with no connection to the student (or those deemed immoral) is readily apparent in the class discourse. So, if sometime after the 24 weeks has ended, a student thinks their child is being threatened by someone, even the mother, how might they respond? This scenario is far from hypothetical: men reported such conflicts in class and shared them with me in our discussions. Such a threat could be real, imagined, or even ideological; given the importance placed on fatherhood under PHM, the mother moving away with the child could be seen as a threat to the child’s well-being. Also critical to this formula of conflicting masculine imperatives is the discursive pattern in the BIP whereby women victims were displaced by children, thus centering fatherhood. If this narrative is internalized, in the face of conflicting imperatives of PHM men may choose violence toward women in the name of protection and fulfilling fatherhood.

Men with limited resources and marginalized identities discussed slipping back into controlling and abusive behaviors more frequently than their privileged peers. Often this occurred amid financial pressure, guilt, and shame at their failure to meet gendered expectations, and pressure to have unrelenting self-control with little social support. Immersion in a highly gendered culture that reinforces hegemonic masculine aggression, sexism, and misogyny is also likely to reduce ongoing success by men defaulting to the hegemonic components of PHM. Aside from critiquing pornography and other drastic objectifications of women, a critical consciousness of media socialization was mostly absent from the course, and none of the interviewees reported changing their media consumption after the course. Sports culture was never critiqued, and current sports news was discussed in meetings in typical masculine bonding fashion. To support students after completion and promote ongoing reform, facilitators encouraged men to stay in touch with one another. However, none of the interviewees reported maintaining relationships with other students since completion. Without the ongoing influence of other egalitarian peers, especially for less privileged men unable to secure ongoing therapy, the hegemonic imperatives of PHM that align with broader culture are likely to guide behavior more than the progressive ideas it asserts.

This applied utility of PHM brings me to how this work contributes to the landscape of masculinities theory. Considerable time has been spent documenting discrete examples of hybrid masculinities. Although this process has been useful in developing the theory, I recall Schrock and Schwalbe’s (2009) critique of a similar period in multiple masculinities research, when scholars spent a great deal of time listing new categories of masculinity while losing focus on men’s behaviors and how they reproduce inequality. To avoid a similar problem, I want to enumerate the differences between PHM and previously documented hybrid masculinities and how these differences add analytic utility.

The hybrid masculinities documented to this point are typically expressed through personal style, deploying symbolic resources borrowed from a marginalized identity, such as gay men (Bridges 2014). The resulting social position and effects of the hybrid masculinity (e.g., discursive distancing) are achieved through association with that identity. Meanwhile, the man in question need not express progressive ideals and is relatively free to shore up gendered power in various ways. Conversely, the symbolic resources of PHM are sourced from progressive ideology and femininity, and are not communicated through personal appearance; to achieve the effects of the hybrid masculinity these ideas and emotions need to be actively espoused. This liberation form affect makes PHM more available to men regardless of statuses such as class or race, as evidenced by its adoption by the diverse group in the BIP. However, this more overt expression of ideology may make the paradoxes of PHM, such as the power and control secured by the necessity of violence to the protector role, more readily apparent and vulnerable to critique, as evidenced by several students complaining about “hypocrisy” in the program. Overall, PHM functions as an overt yet generic shift from “toxic masculinity” to “healthy masculinity,” demonstrating that hybrid masculinities need not be bound to subculture or style, but can draw symbolic resources from wider sources.

As gender scholars we have spent considerable time and energy attempting to reconcile whether and how the theories of hybrid masculinities and hegemonic masculinity can integrate. Most documented hybrid masculinities are socialized through voluntary processes (consuming mass media, interactions with peers). Conversely, PHM is being intentionally socialized by facilitators with power over the students, in a space backed by institutions. This institutional entanglement implies that hybrid masculinities have salience and function in the broader gender order, especially as it relates to neoliberal politics, with which they are ideologically compatible (Duriesmith 2017). Therefore, I conceptualize it as a local masculinity, with gendered logics and norms manifesting from broader tensions in global hegemonic masculinity, akin to Messner’s (1993) new man. In many ways, PHM is a compromise between exalted yet hegemonic aspects of masculinity (e.g., fatherhood, respect, self-control) with the wide range of liberal cultural shifts and justice movements that emphasize structural inequality. The patterns of PHM and how these men navigated its demands can offer some answers to how we can reconcile these theories.

Connell’s detail that hegemonic masculinity is constructed and functions at different scales (local, regional, global) is perpetually overlooked despite its impressive utility (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Specifically, local hegemonic masculinities are often tied to organizations, and frequently conflict with the tenets of broader hegemonic masculinities:

in some contexts, hegemonic masculinity actually does refer to men’s engaging in toxic practices—including physical violence—that stabilize gender dominance in a particular setting. However, violence and other noxious practices are not always the defining characteristics, since hegemony has numerous configurations. . . . one of the most effective ways of “being a man” in certain local contexts may be to demonstrate one’s distance from a regional hegemonic masculinity. (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005:840)

Thus, as a gendered pattern of behavior within the social setting of the BIP, I theorize PHM as a hybrid hegemonic masculinity functioning as a local hegemonic masculinity. This is a logical and analytically useful way to position hybrid masculinity within Connell’s framework: groups of men, seeking a gender strategy that navigates cultural and structural pressures yet maintains the patriarchal dividend, formulate a hybrid masculinity that alters the symbolic and emotional gender relations while maintaining and obscuring their continued power.

Another major point of debate regarding these theories emerges from the identification and function of a subordinated masculinity within a given context. Most notably, Anderson (2009), on the basis of his analyses of high school athletes, argued that the rapid decline in homophobia makes hegemonic masculinity theory ineffective, as there is no subordinated masculinity. However, all masculinities in Connell’s (2005) framework are contextually specific, including subordinated masculinity. Although gayness is the most conspicuous subordinated masculinity of the time, there are others, and the real function of a subordinated masculinity is to be a “repository of whatever is expelled from hegemonic masculinity” (Connell 2005:78). I argue that subordinated masculinity need not be tied to an actual group of people, but rather a discursive field of illegitimacy that serves the function of the gay man in Connell’s analysis. Conceptualizing masculine subordination as an ambiguous and shifting set of traits mirrors the flexibility of hegemonic masculinity as an indistinct discursive field. In the case of PHM, again serving as a local hegemonic masculinity, the discursive field of illegitimacy is toxic masculinity. Men who are violent, sexist, and patriarchal replace gay men as the subordinated masculinity, as these traits make their claim to manhood illegitimate. This further demonstrates the synergy of hybrid masculinities in this analysis, as this symbolic subordination further obscures power relations because toxic masculinity is understood as changeable behaviors rather than a static identity category such as gayness. Under the logic of PHM, bigoted men can come to understand structural social inequality, and immature hypersexual men can learn to claim manhood through enacting exalted roles of the father, protector, and provider. Furthermore, the very men constructing and socializing PHM were once (or still are) themselves abusers, and through subordination of their former selves they further distance themselves from the privilege they still enjoy, even though the threat of their violence likely still lingers.

Conclusion

Crucial to evaluating men’s interventions is determining what constitutes success, which likely aligns with one’s position to the problem of gendered violence. As privileged academics and policymakers, or in alignment with radical feminism, we may demand drastic change, perhaps operationalized as the unequivocal end of physical violence, financial dependance and control, and emotional abuse. Ideological or attitudinal shifts may also be a measure of success, as could substantive shifts in relational power between the subject of the intervention and his partner. But these top-down standards for success may be unrealistic given the lack of resources available to organizations and length of most interventions, and an all or nothing approach to measuring success may not align with the real-world experiences and needs of victims. It is in this tension of determining success where the facilitators functioned, strategically deploying PHM to maximize the time and resources available. However, my findings clearly indicate that PHM, despite the intentions of those constructing it, earns the distinction of a hybrid hegemonic masculinity, in both how it is constructed by the program and how it is enacted by students. But if organizations stand by the strategic choice to deploy hybrid masculinities, an awareness of these processes can result in practical changes to lessen their hegemonic tendencies.

Just as outcomes in programs can have different conceptualizations of and degrees of success, reformulations of gender can have variation in their move toward equality. If program developers and facilitators critically examine the masculinity they are constructing in their interventions, they are likely to reveal the pathways where hegemonic masculinity insidiously reemerges. In the case of hybrid masculinities, which many interventions are likely constructing and deploying, there seems to be a continuum of egalitarian to hegemonic. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that where on this continuum a particular hybrid masculinity rests may shift moment to moment, and when adopted by a group of men, there can be significant variation in their individual deployment of it. If hybrid masculinities are allowed to manifest in organizational spaces, being mindful of their function could be the difference between movement toward greater equality and renewed gender oppression.