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Men maintain advantages in “women's” professions in large part because masculinity retains higher status than femininity even in feminized jobs mostly filled by women. Thus, men in these jobs tend to perform masculinity in very traditional ways, and are generally rewarded with increased access to higher-status positions, often with the cooperation and approval of their women coworkers. Yet much of the research in this area has neglected to explore how race intersects with gender to shape the ways men perform masculinity when they are employed in professions where they do “women's work.” How do men of color perform masculinity in female-dominated jobs? Are they able to engage in the expressions of masculinity documented among their white counterparts? Based on semi-structured interviews with black men nurses, I argue that these men encounter gendered racism from colleagues, supervisors, and customers that impacts the ways they construct and perform masculinity.

African American student-athletes represent the largest racial minority group of athletes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the majority of male student-athletes in football and basketball. The NCAA has partnered with It’s On Us, an awareness campaign to help end sexual violence on college campuses. Intercollegiate athletics is a viable context, then, to consider transformative Black masculinity and sexual violence prevention. Transformative Black masculinity is when an African American or Black man intentionally employs his identity in the service of social justice and purposefully engages other Black males, as well as others, for that cause. This chapter considers transformative Black masculinity as a conceptual tool for the intentional engagement of Black male student-athletes within institutions of higher education for sexual violence prevention. Recommendations for policy, education and practice, and research are provided.

This paper explores masculinity ideologies which influence family perspectives, and therefore, instigate mental distress among Black and White men between the ages of 18–30.

Using a grounded theory approach, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the social construction of masculinity and investigate the ways in which gender ideologies influence family gender roles.

Black men’s gender ideology was influenced by racial identity and stressed a communal and collaborative identity which can be seen by the reliance on religion and maintaining family financial stability. White employed a pragmatic, individual perspective that emphasized individual behavior in a changing society. They embraced evolving discourses necessary to cope with changing family structure and refocused attention from family of origin conflict.

Though this is a qualitative study, it does provide a starting point for further research on how the family roles of Black and White men affect their mental health.

Few studies have employed a racial comparison research design to investigate mental distress associated with gender ideologies. The paper suggests that moving forward will require, as Black men suggested, adopting a critical racial sociology of gender that emphasizes processes and social structure. Analyzing manhood acts through the lens of social marginality, identity work to claim membership in the male group, and the identification of characteristics to maintain male privileges vis-à-vis women may prove to be useful. Focusing on process allows an exploration of social forces that influence masculinity, gendered household ideologies, and mental health.

bell hooks says in “Reconstructing Black Masculinity” that n[c]ollectively we can break the life threatening choke‐hold patriarchal masculinity imposes on black men and create life sustaining visions of a reconstructed black masculinity that can provide black men ways to save their lives and the lives of their brothers and sisters in struggle. Toward the work of political (re)unification of the genders in black communities today, black men must acknowledge and begin to confront the existence of sexism in black liberation struggle as one of the chief obstacles empeding its advancement. Making womanist space for black men to participate in allied relation to feminist movement to oppose the opression of women means black men going against the grain of the racist and sexist mythology of black manhood and masculinity in the U.S. Its underlying premise rooted in white supremacist patriarchal ideology continues to foster the idea that we pose a racial and sexual threat to American society such that our bodies exist to be feared, brutalized, imprisoned, annihilated‐made invisible.

Purpose – This article examines the relationship between strategic sports metaphors, such as “slam dunk” and “trash talk,” and white middle-class heterosexual masculine embodiment in competitive work environments. Competitive organizations, like sports arenas are contested spaces, and in these environments employees, like athletes, work to “position” themselves to maximize their chances of winning valuable projects and clients from other employees and competing companies.

Value of chapter – Unlike previous research which finds that men's use of sports at work is primarily a feature of male networks and socializing, the argument presented here is that sports tropes are used and enacted by men to structure the production process, including intra- and inter-organizational business meetings, client projects, and committee work. Sports references are also used to construct hegemonic masculinity at work, which results in women, gays and black men being constructed as inferior.

Research implications – The issues raised in this chapter will be useful for empirical studies that examine the relationship between the importance of sports at work, and whether groups such as women, gay men and lesbians, the disabled, older, and overweight business professionals identify with sports and whether this destabilizes assumptions of embodied heterosexual able-bodied male superiority.

Approach – The data used in this analysis draw upon the my background as a Division I collegiate basketball player and 10 years of experience and observations as a marketing professional and business executive in the financial services industry in the United States.

In this chapter, the authors utilize both risk and resilience as conceptual frameworks to discuss the academic and psychosocial development of African American adolescent males. Given the amount of attention placed on the academic underachievement of African American males, they explore popular academic themes, such as academic disidentification and the role of teachers and parents. The authors examine psychosocial themes related to racial and athletic identity, the phenomenon of cool pose and “acting Black,” and the development of alternative masculinities. They conclude the chapter with recommendations for education research, practice and policy.

This chapter explores the complexity of issues surrounding Black males and athletics in higher education. Multiple studies over the past decade and a half have depicted an oppositional relationship between athletics and academic achievement. Research suggests that media imagery, stereotyping, and other non-academic influences on African American males who participate in intercollegiate athletics tend to result in an over-identification with professional athletes, sports, and perceptions of great value associated with physical performance activities and a simultaneous under-identification with academic performance, scholarly identity, and student development. These pressures ultimately limit career options outside of athletics. In an effort to combat these issues, Beyond the Game™ (BTG) Program, a program described in this chapter that was developed in Wisconsin’s Equity and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB) and implemented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, seeks to harness curricular, co-curricular, and on-the-field leadership training to strategically develop and support post-graduation options. This comprehensive, multi-faceted program directly confronts the challenges student-athletes face when they exhaust their eligibility status but have yet to identify viable career alternatives to professional sports. This chapter explores the main tenants of the program, established with a group of Division 1 NCAA-affiliated college athletes as participants.

Intercollegiate athletics is a tremendous part of today’s society and encompasses numerous American lives. Its wide spectrum attracts various people from gender, race, ethnicity, cultures, religion, and sexuality. Black male student-athletes, a target of higher education institutions, are affected by sociological, institutional, and athletic factors. This population is highly sought after by college coaches due to their athletic abilities and ability skills in their specific sport in order to elevate their respective sports team, athletics’ department, and university into the national limelight. Current institutional and intercollegiate athletics’ trends that are incorporated to recruit Black male student-athletes are explored. Specific recruiting techniques utilized by college coaches to persuade this population are examined. The sociological issues in current intercollegiate athletics are analyzed with their direct effect on the college selection choice of Black male student-athletes.