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The CW’s long-running horror-drama series Supernatural (2005–) has been accused of undoing progressive advances for women made by Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996–2003). While it’s hard to deny the truth in that claim, Supernatural also problematizes conventional gender roles from a very different approach, one that plays with perceptions of masculinity and social class.

Buffy Summers may initially seem to have more in common with Supernatural’s Sam Winchester, a chosen one with special powers who wants a normal life away from the supernatural. However, Buffy shares more in common with Dean Winchester. Embodying popular gendered stereotypes in their introductions, it’s gradually revealed that there is more complexity to each. Both form alliances with Others; both recognize elements of the Other in themselves. Both transgress conventional gender boundaries, complicating the notion of a binary gender system. Both series introduce the seemingly familiar only to alter it into the uncanny. See the little cute blonde virginal cheerleader? She can kick your ass. See the stupid cocky womanizing jock? All he wants is family and a home. This chapter explores the increasingly gender-blended, social-class-crossing behaviours of Supernatural’s Dean Winchester as an heir to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This autoethnography takes up the matter of toxic masculinity in university settings. We introduce the term “status silencing” as a way to make visible the normalization of toxic masculinity in everyday talk and interaction in university settings among and around colleagues. Status silencing is the process in which the status of a dominant individual becomes a context which renders the story of an individual with a subordinated status untellable or untold. Using strange accounting, we explore active and passive types of status silencing to show how talk and interactions involving toxic masculinity are both internalized and externalized expressions of power and dominance. We argue that while most scholars view toxic masculinity as blatant acts of violence (mass shootings, rape and sexual assault, etc.), it is also a normalized occurrence for feminized others and that toxic masculinity in academic settings is part of an ongoing institutional norm of silence.

Purpose – This research is an analysis of expressions of masculinity among members of two social movements. The focus of the study is how racialized constructions of masculinity shape similar discourses of victimization in the mythopoetic men's movement and the Militia of Montana.

Method – Content analysis of the movement members’ written work available to the general public is analyzed. A theoretical overview of masculinity and victimization is also utilized to illustrate essentialist narratives in masculinity.

Findings – This research raises questions about the lived experience of the racialization of masculinity in movements, the complexity of identity formation of movement members, and challenges assumptions about the limitations of essentialism in these types of social movements. Both movements employ language that explicitly and implicitly illustrate a perception of white male victimization. Attention to essentialism in each movement shows the contradictions of each movement, with attention to how movement members choose to construct their own identities.

Research limitations – This research is limited to the written words of some movement members from material generated by each movement, and therefore, this research does not contain interview narratives of the movement members.

Originality/value of chapter – Previous research has faulted each movement for essentialist notions of self and group. This work argues that group cohesion and success of these types of movements depends on the ability of members to create essentialist categories of masculinity to support their claims and interests.

Employee involvement (EI) is a major part of high-performance work systems (HPWS) that have successfully transformed a large number of organizations and have become standard practice in many new organizations. Despite the proven benefits of EI, however, it is still not as widely utilized as it could be even when accounting for industry and organization differences in its applicability. We suggest that EI implementation is limited in part by the change management challenges it presents. We review the recent research on EI and HPWS, and suggest ways in which change research and theory can inform our understanding of why EI practices have fallen short of their potential and how they can be effectively implemented.

Purpose – This chapter analyzes the ways that gender expectations shape the process of ethnic Jewish identity construction.

Methodology – I spent approximately 18 months conducting participant-observation with Shalom, an independent social group comprised of young adult (primarily secular) Jews, whose mission was to facilitate a “cohesive Jewish community.” I then conducted 25 in-depth interviews with group members.

Findings – My data suggest that Shalom's negotiation of Jewish identity was actually a negotiation of Jewish male identity and Jewish female identity, with the assumption of heterosexuality in both constructs. Often using language reflecting gender-coded anti-Semitic stereotypes, members of Shalom constructed Jewish identity in ways intimately intertwined with their perceptions of “typical” Jewish men and “typical” Jewish women.

Research limitations/implications – Further empirical studies of the gendered construction of ethnic identity in the United States (particularly among more recent “white” immigrant groups like Greeks, Eastern Europeans, and Middle Easterners) could help illuminate the ways gender concerns influence efforts to move to the cultural center by those situated at the cultural margins.

Originality/value of chapter – Published accounts of the intersectionality of identities have been either largely theoretical in nature or comprised of personal identity narratives. However, there has been little systematic, empirical study of the interactional processes that shape the identities produced through the simultaneous doing of both gender and race/ethnicity.

Decades after feminist scholars first applied the lens of patriarchy to explain gender inequalities, and wrestled with the consequences of the patriarchal order, masculinity studies have moved from an emphasis on hegemonic masculinities to more nuanced constructions of men’s gendered performances. However, many analyses about men’s social interactions still focus on a limited set of behaviors, and men’s relations with women are often presented as problematic. Many accounts pay insufficient attention to changing contexts and men’s own explanations or perspectives, so we do not see men’s struggles or fully understand why and how some men resist patriarchal norms and perform less conventional masculinities, and what the costs and benefits of contesting dominant constructions are. One of the abiding ideologies of manhood is related to the role of the provider. In this chapter, we propose that the persistence of the social expectation that men should be the (main) family providers, despite changing economic circumstances and historical evidence to the contrary, is profoundly implicated in the tenacity of social expectations for men to perform dominant roles. We explore this contention through conversations with young African men in six cities on the continent and in the diaspora, namely Accra, Kampala, London, Nairobi, Philadelphia and Pretoria.