Healthy Life-Style = Threats to Masculinity

Is our (MEN!!!) masculinity in threat?
As the Society became more health conscious, a healhty life style has been promoted through out the society. In these days, even MEN are health conscious, inside-out. How does that effect the traditional notion of masculinity? Does METROSEXUAL, threats(?) to replace the traditional notion of masculinity? Are Women becoming more masculine than MEN in current contemporary society?

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Gender Differences in Perceptions on Health Values and Healthy Lifestyle
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- Perception on health values is obscure concepts that have many influential aspects around them. Therefore, it is quiet hard to define its characteristics. Among these obscure characteristics, one of the most interesting concepts that relates closely to health values is the healthy lifestyle. It seems that the concept of a healthy lifestyle has merged deeply into our culture, becoming part of the cultural movement. One’s so called a healthy lifestyle is eating organic foods, going to a yoga session after work and taking your alternative medicines to balance your dietary. However, this so called a healthy life style is not a concept that can be defined so easily. A healthy lifestyle can be eating one meal a day or eating three meals a day, depending on a person’s perception on what is regarded as healthy. Many factors influence one’s perception on health. Among them, a gender plays an interesting role in determining one’s perception on health. It is a well-known phenomenon that males have lower life expectancy comparison to females. Large number of studies suggested that the lower life expectancy of males is due to their less healthy lifestyle and less engagement with health-prompting behaviours. Further, these “less healthy lifestyle” and “less health-prompting behaviours” seems to be results of a traditional social portrait of masculinity. A rejection of bodily maintenance and self-care, in order to express the masculinity is a key element of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that has been suggested by some studies.(Bunton & Crawshaw 2002) However, as a social perception on masculinity changes through out a period of time, the males’ masculine identity tend to change with it. Thus, this change has a large impact on males’ perception on health values and healthy lifestyle.
- Two aspects of this general phenomenon are the main interest of this research.
First, a general changes in social perception on masculinity and its influences on males’ health values and their perception on a healthy lifestyle.
Second, a conflict resolution between a social trend (?) of healthy lifestyle and its threat to males’ masculine identity.
- Various forms of research will take place, such as a brief interviewing, a small social experiment and film viewings.


Bibliography

Bunton, Robin & Burrows, Roger: Consumption and health in the ‘epidemiological’ clinic of late modern medicine. In: The Sociology of Health Promotion. Critical analyses of consumption, lifestyle and risk, pp. 206-222. Ed. R. Bunton, S. Nettleton & R. Burrows. Routledge, London 1995.

Bunton, Robin & Crashaw, Paul: Risk, ritual and ambivalence in men’s lifestyle magazines. In: The Commodification of Health Care, pp 187-203. Ed Henderson S. & Petersen A. Routledge, London 2002.

Butler, George: Pumping Iron, 1977.

Von Lengerke, Thomas: Health Policy Perception and Health Behaviours: A Multilevel Analysis and Implications for Public Health Psychology, Journal of Health Psychology, Vol. 9, No. 1, 157-175 (2004).

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'Greater masculinity usually brings greater social status for males, and many English words such as virtue (from the Latin vir for "man'", also used in words such as vim and vigor and virulent) reflect this, implying a clear association with strength.' - from Wikipedia on "masculinity" -