Muscularity, mateship and malevolent masculinities: experiences of young men with hearing disabilities in secondary schools

Abstract

Across the analysis of interview fragments from two young men with hearing disabilities who attended secondary schools in Australia, this paper will demonstrate that masculinity in the schoolyard frequently emerges within and as a collective form of violence and malevolence against the disabled body. Yet while certain individuals or groups may constitute them as ‘Other’, the young men themselves do not believe that because they have a hearing disability, they are ‘abnormal’ or should tolerate acts of violence against their being. The young men's emphasis on the antagonistic nature of subjectivity in the context of dynamics of the schoolyard points to the uncertainty of settlements of what constitutes dominant masculinity in a given person between and within other groups. Their stories demonstrate the identities of masculinity and disability as fragile, antagonistic and mediated productions, contingent upon approximate performances grounded in what different male peer cultures deem ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’.

Keywords:

• young men with hearing disabilities
• masculinities
• secondary schooling
• subjectivity
• violence