The Center for Demographic and Social Analysis presents

“The Globalization of White Western Masculinity”
with Allen Kim, Sociology Doctoral Student, UC Irvine

Tuesday, April 30, 2013
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Social Science Plaza B, Room 4250

Researchers point out that globalization is changing family and gender relations around the globe. Kim takes up this subject in an analysis of the South Korean evangelical Father School Movement (FS), an organization similar to the once popular Promise Keeper movement in the U.S. His analysis of participants’ letters to their wives, children, and fathers, as well as FS literature and presentations, suggest FS is reconstructing Korean masculinity in conformity to Western ideals of the “new man,” particularly around fatherhood. Their simulation of the “new man” relies on the ritual disparagement and rejection of Korean masculinity, indicating the internalization of gendered racial oppression. Ironically, their embrace of an expressive, gender progressive “new man” appears to be more literal than that of the U.S. men’s movement. Kim suggests their replication of the hegemonic “new man” ideology is a local response to the destabilizing effects of globalization, including the hegemony of Western masculinity, economic recession, and a changing gender order, and an attempt to elevate the status and influence of Korean masculinity on the world stage.

This talk is part of the Population, Society and Inequality Colloquium Series.

For further information, please contact Jayne Lee Yang, jayne.lee@uci.edu or 949-824-2566.