Being a man: justice and care.

This paper will consider ways in which masculinities are theorised. We suggest that discourses of justice and care are intimately bound with the notion and construction of new and contemporary masculinities. In his theory of moral
development, Lawrence Kohlberg (1975) identified the highest level of attainment as one which makes use of universal principles of justice and human rights. In response Carole Gilligan (1982) has argued that most women primarily operate by an ethic of ‘care’. Whilst we would not want to subscribe to either of these psychological presentations, we would like to argue that these discourses, underpinned by their apparent standing in the psychological establishment and their resonances with everyday talk, have become prevalent within constructions of fatherhood in a number of arenas. In this paper we will focus specifically on three of these arenas, i.e. fathers’ rights organisations, the military, and the prison system.

Psychology of Women Section Annual Conference 2005.
University of Huddersfield, 6–8 July 2005.