Secondary Source Report on Chelsea Barnett’s Journal Article Man's man: representations of Australian post-war masculinity in Man magazine

 

By Mark Bradley

Complete citation:

Chelsea Barnett (2015) Man's man: representations of Australian post-war masculinity in Man                     magazine, Journal of Australian Studies, 39:2, 151-169, DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2014.1001422

 

 

Women assuming financial control. Man, September 1946, 60.

Image Credit:

Chelsea Barnett (2015) Man's man: representations of Australian post-war masculinity in Man    magazine, Journal of Australian Studies, 39:2, 151-169, DOI: 10.1080/14443058.2014.1001422

Key Words:

post-war Australia; masculinity; conflict; feminism; man

 

Brief Overview:

Examines the masculinity represented in Man magazine in the 1950’s and the way it attempted to relate to its imagined emasculated reader in a changing culture.

 

Summary of key points:

·       * Man magazine aimed to entertain the average male rooted in the problematic routines of a changing       suburban life.

·       * Encouraged the masculine identity while portraying feminism as a threat to it.

·       * Could not compete with magazines of specific areas of interest.

 

Important Quotations:

“Man’s representations of frustration and resentment about male responsibilities were overt, as was the articulation of the desire to be liberated from these burdens. However, the magazine also acknowledged that fulfilling these desires wasvirtually impossible” (166).

“Readers were reminded that “weakness is never desirable, that it is never safe, that it should not exist”; any suggestion of femininity in this space was thus disparaged” (155).

“These years ‘bear a heavy metaphorical weight of contemporary sentiments about gender, intolerance and national identity’; all too frequently, the 1950s are depicted as the period of gender rigidity “before” the transformations of the 1960s and 1970s” (152-153).

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

 This journal article focuses on exploring Man magazines attempts to relate perceived threats to masculinity and disenfranchised men. The article is a good starting point in looking at imagined conflicts between femininity and masculinity, but also how a magazine fails to change and improve in a static culture.