Older men’s experiences of masculine identities across the lifespan.

Abstract

The primary focus of this research was to investigate how men have experienced their masculinity across their life journeys as men, as revealed in retrospective accounts of life transitions. The research especially sought to understand how masculine identities were narrated and negotiated across the lifespan in retrospective accounts as, to date, most research on masculinity has adopted a cross-sectional perspective that does not consider the challenges of ageing in producing and maintaining a masculine identity across the lifespan. With a theoretical framework combining thematic analysis (TA) and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), and honouring the idiographic commitment of IPA to small samples of very detailed interviews, multiple in-depth narrative interviews were undertaken with 10 men who were 60 years or older. These volunteers were sampled with purposive and convenience snowballing. Although the research took place in a specific context of South Africa in which the population is highly diverse and complex, the sample was relatively homogenous due to the research (1) an intentional focus on exploring ageing for men who previously had access to access to resources and the (2) the location of the study in retirement villages that are still racially homogenous a quarter of a century after apartheid. In-depth, repeated, partly unstructured interviews were used to access retrospective accounts of masculine identities across the lifespan. Five areas were focused on in the analysis: productivity along the lifespan, family / relationships, health in the present and over the lifespan, ageing and living in Africa. The men defined themselves by traditional masculine identities and did not freely volunteer non-traditional masculine experiences. Their accounts of masculinity were oriented to the lifespan social clock, in other words, to accounting for achieving various milestones (or not) of masculinity on schedule (or not). Although these older men did not fulfil the hegemonic or dominant ideals, such as being young and virile, they did not present themselves as being invisible or genderless. Various strategies were used to protect, maintain and reframe their masculine identities, for example, stoic acceptance, denial and relying on their wives to bridge the gap, such as accessing medical intervention, while the men were able to continue Mostly the men presented their masculine identities as being consistent with dominant norms and unchallenged (denying age-related decline by omission). Where the men spoke of being in subjugated positions they often followed this account in various ways in which the subjugated position was discounted and their hegemonic status re-established by emphasising hegemonic qualities that they possessed or subscribed to. In the present study, men avoided discussing the inevitability of old age when recounting their life journey as men retrospectively. However, the perspective of time is still an important concept in understanding how they produced their masculinity. The present study shows that social expectations for masculine identities are dynamic, evolve over the lifespan and are sensitive to the “social clock”, in other words, to normative expectations about what men should do and achieve at different life stages. Men are pressured to achieve masculine developmental social expectations on time, despite it becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the accepted standards of hegemonic and dominant masculinities. The implications for understanding masculinity in relation to ageing are discussed.