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“‘Real Men’ Support Their Wives”: Reconstructing Masculinity Among Men in Rural Northwestern Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2020

Isaac Dery Open the ORCID record for Isaac Dery [Opens in a new window]  and
Constance Awinpoka Akurugu
Isaac Dery*
Affiliation:
SD Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Department of African and General Studies, Wa, Ghana
Constance Awinpoka Akurugu*
Affiliation:
Department of Community Development, Faculty of Planning and Land Management, University for Development Studies UPW 3, Wa Campus, Ghana
*
Corresponding authors. Email: idery38@gmail.com and Email: cakurugu@uds.edu.gh
Corresponding authors. Email: idery38@gmail.com and Email: cakurugu@uds.edu.gh
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Abstract

Although there is growing debate among feminist scholars on how fathers often socialize their male children to aspire to embody specific values and behaviors, there is limited academic research on how fathers themselves construct and represent masculinity in Ghana. This article draws on data from six focus group discussions held with forty men to foreground men's negotiations, expressions, and representations of masculinity among the Dagaaba in northwestern Ghana. Our findings suggest that men in rural northwestern Ghana are likely to embody hybrid masculinities where traditionally hegemonic masculine ideals—such as men being seen as independent breadwinners—and contemporary gender-conscious norms—such as men as supportive partners—interact in complex ways. Yet the hybridization of masculinity both challenges and reinforces patriarchal gender arrangements in subtle ways. By maintaining a keen interest in their heteronormative breadwinning role as a model of masculinity, educated and gainfully employed men are critical of patriarchal norms that may be destructive to feminist discourses, yet their representations of masculinity indirectly embolden male hegemony in marriage relationships. Our findings further reveal considerable ambiguity in how men define themselves as supportive allies of feminist discourses by endorsing gender egalitarianism, yet none of them visibly challenges why women cannot also be breadwinners.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Winter 2021 , pp. 172 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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