Becoming a ‘proper man’: young people’s attitudes about interpersonal violence and perceptions of gender

Abstract

Whilst public awareness campaigns, interventions and legal reforms have done much to challenge gendered interpersonal violence, the incidence and prevalence of this violence is not decreasing. Furthermore, research with young people reveals significant acceptance and tolerance of interpersonal violence if perpetrated by men within the parameters of an intimate heterosexual relationship. Empirical data from a study with young people in Glasgow will be used in this article to explore young people’s attitudes about gendered interpersonal abuse and violence and young people’s perceptions of gender roles and specifically ‘masculinity’. It is argued that in order to understand the continued tolerance of male abuse/violence, it is necessary to appreciate how young people conceptualise the role of women and men within intimate heterosexual relationships.

Keywords:

• young people
• gender
• masculinity
• interpersonal violence
• intimate relationships

Notes

1. Most of these studies have been conducted with an (ostensibly) heterosexual sample or focus on interpersonal violence within heterosexual relationships. Consequently, even less is known about same‐sex relationships.

2. As Connell argues, masculinity is an inherently relational concept because masculinity cannot be conceptualised without reference to femininity: ‘Masculinities do not first exist and then come into contact with femininities. Masculinities and femininities are produced together in the process that constitutes a gender order’ (Connell 1995, 72).