Men’s Health and Well-Being: The Case Against a Separate Field

This article begins with an examination of the development of the academic and policy field of men’s health and well-being. This includes the form and shape of the field, its ideological positivity, and the different, sometimes contradictory, interests that construct the field. This prompts the question: why study men’s health? Diverse possible answers to this question are outlined, in terms of different personal, policy and theoretical political contexts of men’s relations to feminism, gender and gender equality. These differing contexts are further elaborated through attention to the importance of transnational political contexts. The article concludes with discussion of the special journal issue to which this article relates, with a coda on ageing and the body.