As feminist historians and theorists of ‘men's studies’ have argued, masculinity is a relational construct which can only be understood in the context of gender relations (Scott 1988; Roper and Tosh 1991). More important, however, the relationship of masculinity to femininity is one of power: the changing forms of masculinity are always represented as more valuable, and generally as more powerful than those of femininity. As Roper and Tosh (1991: 2–4) argue, masculinity is crucially shaped in relation to men's social power. Consequently, representations of masculine identity not only reflect men's social power over women, but are also integral to power struggles between men. The feminist historian Joan Scott (1988: 6) has argued that the meanings of sexual difference are invoked and contested across a range of power struggles. Similarly, other theorists have stressed the importance of power relations between men in understanding gender relations and constructions of masculinity (Saunders and Evans 1992: xix; Carrigan et al. 1985). Some of the most interesting theoretical work on gender focuses on the role of gender as an organising principle for social structures, exploring the ways in which the meanings of class and race are partly established through contested understandings of gender identity and sexual difference (Scott 1988; Roper and Tosh 1991; Grimshaw 1993).

Conceptions of masculine identity have only recently been recognised as important themes in Australian cultural history. In her pioneering article on the topic, Marilyn Lake (1986a: 116) argued that men in Australian history have been treated as ‘sex-less’ universal subjects, rather than as pursuing particular ‘masculinist’ gender interests, along with the divergent concerns of class and race.