Masculinity turned inwards: The adoption of a victimized label


Connor MacMillan, York University

Father’s rights groups (FRGs) serve as a men’s centric support group for men/fathers that have gone through, or are currently going through, family law processes related to custody/guardianship. While FRGs poise themselves as support and advocacy groups, scholars have demonstrated how these groups have the capability to engage in socialization, and potentially radicalization, of their members. Many FRGs are centred on perceptions of men’s loss of social and familial power and/or degradation of their previously unquestioned dominance and authority, which has the potential to facilitate an adoption of and/or further enmeshment with gender inequitable beliefs and ideologies. For example, the rhetoric of FRGs tells a story of men’s oppression and victimization resulting from feminism and the empowerment of women. Through this social frame, these groups can create and perpetuate a narrative of women as malicious agents in men’s oppression through, for instance, manipulative tactics and false allegations of abuse in family court proceedings. However, the discursive mechanism of oppression that is harmfully co-opted by FRGs is not a novel concept and, instead, reflects the collective action of historical and contemporary emancipatory and rights-based movements. Yet, within the rhetoric and activism of FRGs, this narrative has the ability to reframe men and their harmful actions, such as domestic violence and acts of patriarchal control, and situate men/fathers as victims of social and legal processes they allege are biased in favour of women/mothers. Through interviews with men/fathers who are part of FRGs within Canada, and the use of thematic analysis and a grounded theory approach, this research examines: 1) the social implications of FRGs adopting and proclaiming a narrative of men’s victimization; 2) how men in FRGs reconcile a label of victim with a traditional/patriarchal masculine identity; and 3) how a victim label intersect with ongoing patriarchal practices of dominance and control.

This paper will be presented at the following session: