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Displaced Masculinity: Gender and Ethnicity among Iranian men in Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Shahram Khosravi
Shahram Khosravi*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University
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Abstract

Masculinity, like other kinds of social identity, is an ongoing construction in a dialogue between one's self-image and others' perceptions of one. The interplay between ethnicity and masculinity is a main theme in this article. Due to geographical displacement, the Iranian man's masculine identity has been challenged and renegotiated on the one hand by Iranian women's struggle for emancipation and on the other hand by the Swedish mediawork. Iranian men are displaced from the position of having a powerful gaze, which fixed and controlled women into a position of being an object of the gaze of others. The dominant gaze in Sweden makes them (in)visible in the same way their gaze makes women (in)visible in Iran.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , September 2009 , pp. 591 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2009

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Fataneh Farahani, Don Kulick, Lena Gerholm and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on early drafts.

References

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