The impression of power – memory, affect and ambivalent masculinities in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the ways young urban Vietnamese men remember their imaginings while growing up about cultural scripts of masculinity and femininity, the ways such memories contrast with how they feel about their everyday relationships with women and other men, and how those feelings change. In so doing the article draws attention to the practical role(s) that affectivity and ambivalence play in signifying and mystifying for young Vietnamese men the ideals and practises of a ‘masculine self’. I argue that my informants appeared to believe that long-standing models of masculine advantage such as Confucianism underpinned their identities as men. But when they reflected on how they felt about their actual relationships with young women and other men, informants argued that the power and effect of masculine advantage was always situated in (abstract) cultural ‘traditions’, and not manifest in daily interactions. I argue that the ambivalence my informants expressed about gaps between the ideals and practises of a ‘masculine self’ can be understood not only as the manifestation of emotional expression but also as a strategy of interaction – a way for young men to attempt to satisfy personal desires amid the perceived demise of masculinist cultural traditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Men
• masculinities
• affect
• ambivalence
• Vietnam
• Confucianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Philip Martin is currently a gender adviser for a development Bank. Prior to this, Philip taught at universities in Copenhagen, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City and Melbourne. Philip's academic publications have appeared in Culture, Health and Sexuality, Review of Radical Political Economics and Norwegian Journal of Geography, and his essays and op-eds in Arena Magazine, BBC World Service, and numerous Australian newspapers.