The Male Childlessness the Perspective of Hegemonic Masculinity

Abstract

The share of childless people in contemporary Czech society (and elsewhere) is increasing. Research in the social sciences has mainly focused on explaining female rather than male childlessness. This article tries to at least partially fi ll in the gap in this research by focusing on male childlessness from the perspective of masculinities and more specifi cally hegemonic masculinity. A thematic analysis of problem-oriented interviews conducted repeatedly with 12 heterosexual men (of different ages and educational backgrounds) focuses on explaining these men's life experience of childlessness and their perception of childlessness in relation to the conditions and circumstances of their lives, and it does this in relation to how they construct their masculinities along the main axes of 'values and norms', 'the perception and meaning of close relationships', 'the meaning of work and leisure activities', and 'individuals' experience of their life situation'. Hegemonic masculinity characteristics are then either reproduced or disrupted according to how these different axes combine. The analysis has shown that, even in the case of childlessness, men more often construct their masculinities in a hegemonic than a non-hegemonic mode. However, hegemonic masculinity is also constructed through what is left 'unspoken' and 'concealed', that is, through what men do not explicitly state in interviews, so attention should also be paid to this issue in research on masculinities.