The EU, men and masculinities

Critical approaches on men and masculinities are relevant whether people are talking about European Union (EU) politics as an amalgam of national and local politics, institutionally or geographically, or the international or transnational politics in or of the EU itself and its various constituent institutions and bodies. The explicitly gendered ʼnaming men as men’ has been made within this critical context, not to essentialise or reify men, but to see men and masculinities as an object of critique and critical interrogation. A lack of gender perspective typically means an implicit perspective of certain (kinds of) men, and an assumed ‘male-as-norm’, whether in politics and/or political analysis. A wide variety of critical research on many different aspects of men and masculinities in most parts of the EU exists. Several research projects addressing men, masculinities and gender relations in EU member states have been funded by the European Commission.