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Although men's studies is no longer a novelty on college campuses, it can still raise some bewildered eyebrows and prompt a few explosive reactions. Recently, on a national computer bulletin board used by reference librarians, a request for journals, articles, and books “that analyze drama from a male/masculine perspective” touched off considerable crossfire among respondents. Beneath the hostilities, however, were serious questions and understandable confusions about the topic of men's studies. These concerns suggest that some clarifications concerning the new men's studies might be useful.

This paper aims to investigate the attitude of males toward the consumption and purchase of men's cosmetic products. More specifically, the research intends to clarify the impact of personal variables (i.e. self‐image consciousness, ageing effects, physical attractiveness, state of health), socio‐cultural variables (i.e. beliefs, lifestyle), and marketing variables (i.e. advertising, purchase situation) on the attitude of Canadian and French males toward the purchase and consumption of men's cosmetics.

A questionnaire was distributed to men living in two metropolitan cities: Paris (France) and Montreal (Canada). The total sample consists of 223 respondents of which 53.8 per cent are Canadian and 46.2 per cent French.

French and Canadian men were found to have different motivations and drives when considering the consumption and purchase of men's grooming products.

The convenience sampling technique used in the present research does not indicate a fully representative profile of the population in Canada and France. Also, it is important to extend the research to some “conservative” societies. Men's cosmetic products in both countries are at different stages of the life cycle and accordingly consumers' attitudes and motivations to buy cosmetics are found to vary between the two countries.

Despite the fact that the cosmetic market is traditionally associated with women, the current paper contributes to shedding light on the importance of the men's grooming segment, revealing the major variables that affect men's behavior and attitude toward the consumption of cosmetic products and pointing out that consumers' motivations and attitudes differ among markets when the product is at different stages of the life cycle.

The medicalization thesis derives from a classic theme in the field of medical sociology. It addresses the broader issue of the power of medicine – as a culture and as a profession – to define and regulate social behavior. This issue was introduced into sociology 50 years ago by Talcott Parsons (1951) who suggested that medicine was a social institution that regulated the kind of deviance for which the individual was not held morally responsible and for which a medical diagnosis could be found. The agent of social control was the medical profession, an institutionalized structure in society that had been given the mandate to restore the health of the sick so that they could resume their expected role obligations. Inherent in this view of medicine was the functionalist perspective on the workings of society: the basic function of medicine was to maintain the established division of labor, a state that guaranteed the optimum working of society. For 20 years, the Parsonian interpretation of how medicine worked – including sick-role theory and the theory of the profession of medicine – dominated the bourgeoning field of medical sociology.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of charismatic leadership style and value congruence on the social connectedness of retired men in Australian Men’s Sheds. This study also explores the impact of social connectedness on well-being outcomes, such as employment and training, improved family relationships and access to health and welfare services.

The methodology is a qualitative approach using focus groups (yarning circles) and semi-structured interviews with Shed leaders, men members and healthcare workers.

The findings suggest that a charismatic leader enhances the value congruence between leaders and their members through empowering, envisioning and empathy, which also contributes to the social connectedness of members and enhances well-being of retired men.

The study provides insights into the factors that contribute to successful leadership, participatory and leadership practices in the Groups/Sheds, and addresses a gap in the literature in the area of leadership and Men’s Sheds.

This chapter takes a panoramic view to explore the lives of collegiate Black men. We begin with brief reflections from our own experiences to position ourselves to and alongside Black men's lives and college years. After setting the stage through our own reflections, we explore the literature on Black men's lives during their college years and pay particular attention to their social statuses, campus engagement, and health and well-being. Two critical components in many Black men's collegiate experiences are how they are projected in wider US society through deficit-based perspectives and repositioned away from educational success. We interrogate these realities and advance a discussion on ways to improve the conditions, environment, and understanding of their college journeys and possibilities. We conclude with recommendations for research, practice, and policy.

Men are often considered by the health care system to be a disengaged accessory when it comes to family planning. In reality they act as an equal part in the reproductive equation. Despite qualitative research suggesting some men currently do take primary responsibility for family planning, men are further marginalised being classed as an irrational variable in large national datasets. Reports ignore men in general by failing to record basic demographics, for example, age is not captured and ethnicity has two options: white and non-white. This leaves little ability to analyse men's family planning knowledge, attitudes and beliefs. Technological advancements have resulted in new forms of male contraceptive methods reaching phase III testing (from pills to gels), and the market is moving towards diversified options that will allow even more men to take primary contraceptive responsibility. Other advancements include the sexual enhancement product Viagra becoming available over the counter, and reproductive wellbeing apps have been created to allow men to test their fertility at home. Without research to understand the ever-changing landscape for men we are ill-prepared to understand what these new products and advancements mean for men's role. Using various forms of publicly available online data and previous empirical research, this chapter will review men's response to new contraceptives, sexual enhancement products, and reproductive wellbeing apps. The results will be discussed in relation to updating the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) Theory, the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the integrated developmental and decision-making contraceptive models used by health psychologists.

Despite years of research into consumer socialization, little research examines men’s roles in consumer socialization processes. The purpose of this paper is to attend to this gap and to investigate consumer socialization processes in single-father households.

To study consumer socialization processes, this paper develops its insights using grounded theory, deploying qualitative data to develop theory. The data include long interviews with both fathers and their children used to understand the processes of consumer socialization.

This paper finds six socialization processes: entrustment, entrainment, education, emprise, estrangement and elevation. These processes emerge based on different types of household resource gaps or aspects of men’s gender identity.

The main implications are to study the roles played by cultural context and family type in socialization processes. Studies could examine whether the processes uncovered here occur in other family settings, as well as whether they vary based on children’s age and gender.

Household brands, products and services could target resource-scarce households using appeals that portray offerings as a means to develop children’s responsibilities, independence and involvement in household management. Marketers could also use advertising appeals that depict playful product usage and learning situations or more broadly position brands as identity brands making them more appealing to men who are striving to be better fathers.

This paper uniquely identifies a number of previously uncovered consumer socialization processes, as well as factors that influence them.

Based on Kansei Engineering, this study obtained consumers' emotional preferences aiming to enhance the emotional connection between consumers and clothing to extend the service life of clothing and realize sustainable clothing design.

Six Kansei word pairs that are the most important to consumers were identified through literature reviews, magazines, websites, card sorting of consumers and cluster analysis. Finally, the consumers scored the 32 product specimens through a 5-level rating semantic differential scale questionnaire of six Kansei word pairs. The researchers verified the consumers' emotional preferences through principal component analysis and established the relationship between Kansei words and design elements of color through partial least squares.

The study found consumers' emotional preferences: elegant, minimalist, formal, casual, mature, practical and distinctive style. Besides white, black, gray, blue, consumers will also like red and yellow-red in the future. The crucial findings of this study are to get recommended guidelines that consumers' emotional preferences match the corresponding design elements.

The study's findings can be used to style the design of men's plain-color shirts and guide online marketers and designers to design apparel that meets consumers' emotional needs to develop consumers' sustainability reliance on clothing. This study also explains the overall process and methodology for integrating consumer preferences and product design elements.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the gendered social bonds and the everyday organisational practices and discourses of peacekeepers.

The paper is based on preliminary analysis of empirical material gathered through a seven‐month ethnography among Finnish peacekeeping officers in training and service.

In contrast to studies on homosociality, men's bonding and cohesion as a basis of optimal combat performance in military organisations, I suggest looking at the militarized social encounters, masculinities and collectives from the perspective of hybridity tensions and management. Peacekeepers' everyday practices and social structures can be interpreted as management of context‐specific power tensions.

Offers a view to everyday life of peacekeeping and builds a basis for analysing men's social relations in organisations.

This study aims to explore the perceptions and reactions of men, who participate in a female-dominated online consumption space. It looked at the process of men, (re)negotiating their digital gendered identity on Pinterest.

A grounded theory-light approach was taken. Data were collected through 21 one-on-one semi-structured interviews with male Pinterest users. Subsequently, data were extensively coded and analyzed for the key themes and patterns.

Three core categories emerged, which speak to the ways men account for their practices on Pinterest as autonomous online agents. These categories were: awareness of Pinterest as a feminized digital space; limited sociality due to the solitary use of Pinterest (the exception being when collaborating with an intimate partner); and performed identities (k = 4) serving to justify the men’s activities on a female-dominated social networking site.

The findings establish a firm theoretical basis for understanding male Pinterest users as autonomous online agents. However, reflective of this relatively small, exploratory qualitative project, the process-based interview questions did not render, particularly, long or rich narratives. Future qualitative research might endeavor to ask deeper, more open-ended questions.

This is an original study of men’s use of Pinterest. Research on the identity projects of men entering fields traditionally occupied by women and coded as feminine is established, there is a lack of understanding of how gender identity is (re)constructed digitally, especially on social media.