The proliferation of men’s sheds in Australia: the problematization of masculinity in a neoliberal regime

ABSTRACT

Men’s sheds emerged in Australia with a promise to restore men to health and happiness through the provision of a gender-exclusive communal space and access to ‘traditional’ masculine activities. This article traces their emergence in order to examine how anti-feminist claims about the rights and needs of men have been yoked together with ideas about health and wellbeing in late modernity. Deploying Foucault’s concept of governmentality, moreover, reveals how community men’s sheds have both responded and contributed to the problematization of the ‘older man’ in a neoliberal regime. The history of their emergence and widespread support reveals how masculinity can function as a site of neoliberal intervention, responsibilization and privilege, particularly when viewed in contrast to the decline in funding and support for women’s services.

KEYWORDS:

• Men’s sheds
• masculinity
• governmentality
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Sophie Robinson and Morwenna MacGillivray for research assistance on this project. The article was much improved by feedback from Clare Monagle, Robert Reynolds, Kate Fullagar and Michelle Arrow as well as the anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The precise number of ‘shedders’ in Australia is difficult to pin down. In 2013, Ted Donnelly, then chair of AMSA placed the number at 125,000 (Power 2013, SMH). Doctoral work from Luckman Hlambelo in 2015 suggested there are at least 150,000 regular users of sheds in Australia. In the years between 2015 and 2021, 250 new sheds opened their doors. It is safe to assume that there are somewhere between 150,000 and 200,0000 shed ‘users’. AMSA confirmed there are at least 1250 sheds in operation in Australia (White, M., personal communication, 20 August 2021).

2 The only exception here is a very short discussion by Michael Salter (2016) who suggests sheds are an example of the ways in which men’s rights claims have been reworked into health claims.

3 Following Foucault (2009, p. 151), I take governmentality here to delineate an ‘ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power’.

4 There was, and remains, some contestations between national and state associations over the authority to ‘speak for’ the movement, and a rival national body initially competed with AMSA. However, government support has been directed to AMSA and this rival national body speaks for far fewer sheds.

5 Much like the framing of the movement as ‘grass roots’ manifestation to solve questions of male isolation, Golding does not claim credit for this phrase, suggesting instead he heard it from the mouth of a ‘shedder’ the night before (AMSA n.d.-a, p. 7). This origin story nicely captures the dynamics of the shed movement: while it has clearly been at least partly propelled by community health workers and academic researchers, there is a constant denial of the importance of these agents of government and knowledge professionals and, instead, a celebration of community men’s sheds and their philosophy as emerging from the shedders themselves.

6 See, for example, (The Gloucester Advocate 2017, p. 2, Haynes 2017, p. 3; Singleton Argus 2017, p. 1, Eyre’s Peninsula Tribune 2017, Gorton 2017, p. 3, Grey 2017).

7 The NSW ‘community building partnerships’ grants program has provided this kind of support to local men’s sheds for infrastructure and equipment. In 2011, $950,000 was awarded to forty-three men’s sheds across NSW, in 2015, $590,000 was awarded to twenty-seven men’s sheds and in 2019, $790,000 was awarded to forty-two men’s sheds (NSW Government 2015, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DP170100502].