Inclusive masculinity theory has become an increasingly popular way to understand the social dynamics of men and the embodiment of their masculinities. Since being initially developed in Anderson’s (2009) monograph about sporting masculinities, a wealth of scholarship has used the theory across disciplines and social institutions. At the same time, critiques of the theory have sought to enhance the understanding of issues around class and women’s perspectives (e.g. Ingram and Waller 2014; Parent, Batura & Crooks 2014;
Worthen, 2014); while others have sought a more critical analysis of gender politics or other aspects of the social world (Plummer 2014; O’Neill 2015); and yet others have disagreed with the notion that homophobia has decreased at all (de Boise 2015; Simpson 2014). Anderson and McCormack have engaged with these critiques across several publications (Anderson 2018; Anderson and McCormack 2018; McCormack and Anderson 2014a, 2014b), as have others who use the theory (e.g. Magrath 2017; Roberts 2018), and it is the reformulation of the theory on which I base my work (e.g. Anderson and McCormack 2018).
Perhaps the earliest critique of inclusive masculinity theory was that it was located within a group of middle-class, elite young men who were not representative of the lives of men more broadly (e.g. Ingram and Waller, 2014). This was a criticism that was worthy of further study; indeed, Anderson and McCormack (2014b) both acknowledge it as a serious issue and one that they have also addressed. For example, McCormack (2014) has developed an important analysis of how class intersects with decreasing homophobia and the dynamics of masculinity, arguing that being working-class can act as a dampening but not a prohibitive factor on the development of inclusive attitudes. McCormack highlights that rather than this
being the result of “class” as a static or all-encompassing variable, it is instead that class serves as a proxy variable for the extent to which teenage boys can engage with a more “global” youth culture which esteems notions of inclusivity regarding sexuality. McCormack (2014) used Bourdieu’s symbolic economy of class to theorise this perspective. Roberts (2015, 2018) has enhanced this theorisation, using longitudinal data with working-class men in service professions who did not attend university. He focused on the ‘missing middle’ of men who are disengaged from school yet in employment while not attaining the status of ‘high flyers’. Roberts (2018) documents the ordinariness and normalisation of service work for these men, in the context of deindustrialisation, and shows that these men’s practices are also encapsulated by a more inclusive and egalitarian approach to dealing with the social world. His research, alongside McCormack’s (2014; see also Blanchard, McCormack and Peterson 2017), demonstrates that the critique that IMT is limited to middle-class young men is dated and no longer applicable.
Another critique that has circulated since early on the formulation of IMT is that homophobia has not actually decreased but has rather changed in its formulation and that it persists in equally pernicious forms—and even that the new forms of covert homophobia may be more dangerous (see de Boise 2015; Ingram and Waller 2014; Kehler 2014). Yet such arguments tend to be extremely limited, contradicted by empirical evidence or impeded by emotion (see Kehler’s use of exclamation marks throughout his critical review, and even use of the grammatical phraseology “!?” – p. 73). Anderson and McCormack (2018) have powerfully identified the weaknesses of this critique, showing that quantitative data has overwhelmingly shown that homophobia has decreased across a range of measures (see Clements and Field 2014; Gallup 2015; Keleher and Smith 2012; PEW 2013; Smith 2011; Twenge, Sherman & Wells 2017; Twenge, Sherman & Wells 2016). They also emphasize that it is not just attitudinal change that is documented, but profound shifts in laws (Weeks
2007) and the experiences of sexual minorities (Anderson and McCormack 2016; Ghaziani 2014; Savin-Williams 2005, 2016). Anderson and McCormack (2018: 551) put it best when they write:
The contention that homophobia has decreased in the US and UK is strongly
supported by a wide range of empirical evidence, and…this has profoundly affected the expression of gender among males. Still, decreasing homophobia is neither homogenous nor universal, and heterosexism and heteronormativity remain significant social issues. There is important scholarship to be undertaken that examines the damaging consequences of them, but it will best do this when it recognizes the changing social context. It is our contention that this enhances our understanding of the broader trend of decreasing homophobia – recognizing both the improvement related to decreasing homophobia and the continued problems
associated with heterosexism and heteronormativity.
Indeed, Anderson and McCormack’s (2018) reformulation of inclusive masculinity theory is helpful in dealing with concerns that discussions of social change has to be restricted to binaries that either nothing has changed or that homophobia has vanished (as more polemical critics, such as de Boise (2015), have argued). Anderson and McCormack highlight that it is essential to consider how IMT is generalizable to different contexts – be it geographic, demographic or temporal – and also call for closer attention to issues of heteronormativity and sexism in the ways in which the dynamics of men are to be understood in the present context.
The call for further research on sexism by Anderson and McCormack (2018) has also been mirrored by O'Neill's call for a closer consideration of how IMT deals with patriarchy and the production of sexism. This is not an uncontested area – for example, Borkowska (2016, 2018) argues that men's attitudes to women should not discount the broader changes
among men – yet the relational nature of masculinity and femininity has a long history within masculinities research (e.g. Connell 1995). Important within this context is the critique that Deutsch (2007) makes of feminist scholarship that it often fails to account for the ways in which men and women's experiences are dynamic, fluid and have the potential for positive change. The absence of women from the discussion of inclusive masculinity theory is one that I am concerned with addressing in this thesis, particularly regarding how women experience men's homosocial experiences (see Anderson and McCormack 2015).
Thus, it is my consideration that while inclusive masculinity theory has been the subject of critique, it is also the best theoretical framework by which to approach my data. The critiques have mostly been addressed by scholars using the theory already and my research is well-placed to address other components which have not been discussed in as much detail in the academic literature.