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Why does masculinity need its own field of study? For much of the twentieth century, masculinity was treated as an unmarked norm—the default human experience against which femininity was measured as different. The very invisibility of masculinity as a category made it difficult to analyze. The emergence of Masculinity Studies as a distinct subfield within Gender & Sexuality Studies was driven by a single, persistent question: if gender is a social structure, how do we study the dominant position without either naturalizing it or reducing it to a simple stereotype? The answer has unfolded through a series of frameworks, each reworking the tools of its predecessors to capture masculinity as a system of power, a set of identities, and a site of change.
The earliest systematic approach to masculinity in the social sciences was Sex Role Theory, dominant from the 1950s through the 1970s. Rooted in functionalist sociology, it treated masculinity as a set of socially prescribed behaviors—a "male sex role" that boys internalized through socialization. This framework had the virtue of making masculinity visible as a social product rather than a biological given. But it also had a crippling limitation: it portrayed the male role as a uniform, stable script, and it offered no way to explain why men might resist, vary, or benefit from that role. Sex Role Theory described norms without analyzing power.
Social Constructionism, which took hold in the 1970s and remains a foundational orientation today, replaced the role concept with a more dynamic picture. Drawing on symbolic interactionism and the growing influence of feminist theory, constructionists argued that masculinity is not a role one passively occupies but an ongoing accomplishment—something men "do" in interaction. This shift opened the door to studying how masculinity varies across contexts and how it is maintained through everyday practices. Social Constructionism did not simply update Sex Role Theory; it changed the object of study from a fixed norm to a fluid, contested process. This new infrastructure made it possible to ask questions about power, inequality, and change that role theory had foreclosed.
If Social Constructionism provided the methodological foundation, Hegemonic Masculinity supplied the theoretical engine that drove the field for decades. Introduced by R.W. Connell in the mid-1980s, this framework drew on Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony to argue that masculinity is not just a set of norms but a system of power. Hegemonic Masculinity names the culturally exalted form of manhood—aggressive, competitive, emotionally restrained, and heterosexual—that subordinates not only women but also other, less powerful masculinities. Unlike Sex Role Theory, which treated the male role as a burden, Hegemonic Masculinity insisted that the dominant form of masculinity is a resource: it legitimizes patriarchy and rewards men who approximate it, even as it damages them.
At the same time, Connell and others developed Multiple Masculinities as a necessary complement. If Hegemonic Masculinity explained the top of the hierarchy, Multiple Masculinities mapped the rest. This framework insisted that there is no single masculinity but many, organized in relations of dominance, subordination, and marginalization. Working-class masculinities, gay masculinities, and racialized masculinities are not deviations from a norm but distinct configurations shaped by class, sexuality, and race. Multiple Masculinities absorbed the intersectional insight that gender operates alongside other axes of inequality, and it coexisted with Hegemonic Masculinity as its descriptive partner: one framework named the ideal, the other documented the diversity beneath it. Together, they replaced the flat landscape of Sex Role Theory with a stratified, contested field.
By the turn of the millennium, the field faced a new pressure. If Hegemonic Masculinity was so powerful, how could masculinity change? And if Multiple Masculinities captured diversity, how should scholars understand the cultural borrowing and softening of masculine styles that seemed to be happening in Western societies? Three frameworks emerged in the 2000s, each offering a different answer.
Inclusive Masculinity Theory, developed by Eric Anderson, argued that in contexts where homophobia has declined—particularly among younger generations in Western countries—masculinity is becoming less rigid. Anderson proposed that a new, "inclusive" form of masculinity is replacing the old hegemonic ideal, one that permits emotional intimacy, physical affection between straight men, and the rejection of anti-gay attitudes. This framework narrowed the focus of Hegemonic Masculinity by arguing that the theory's claims about the persistence of a single dominant ideal no longer hold in certain social settings. Inclusive Masculinity Theory remains in living disagreement with the older framework: it does not deny that hegemonic forms exist, but it insists that they are being displaced in significant pockets of social life.
Hybrid Masculinities, by contrast, offered a more skeptical reading of the same cultural changes. Scholars such as Tristan Bridges and C.J. Pascoe argued that when straight men adopt elements of gay or racialized masculine styles—wearing skinny jeans, expressing vulnerability, or claiming feminist sympathies—they are not necessarily becoming more inclusive. Instead, they may be "borrowing" marginalized practices while preserving their structural advantages. Hybrid Masculinities does not replace Hegemonic Masculinity; it coexists with it as a refinement, showing how hegemonic power can be reproduced through the very performance of change. The tension between Inclusive Masculinity Theory and Hybrid Masculinities is one of the field's sharpest current debates: one sees genuine transformation, the other sees strategic adaptation.
Transnational Masculinities responded to a different limitation: the Western-centrism of the entire field. Emerging in the 2000s alongside postcolonial and decolonial critiques within Gender & Sexuality Studies, this framework argued that masculinity cannot be understood within the borders of a single nation-state. Colonial histories, global economic restructuring, migration, and transnational media flows shape masculine identities in ways that the earlier frameworks, built on Western case studies, had largely ignored. Transnational Masculinities does not reject Hegemonic Masculinity or Multiple Masculinities but insists that they must be rescaled: what counts as hegemonic in one global context may look very different in another, and the circulation of masculine ideals across borders creates hybrid forms that resist easy categorization. This framework transformed the field's geography, pushing scholars to ask how masculinity is produced not just in local interactions but in global hierarchies.
Today, no single framework dominates Masculinity Studies. Social Constructionism remains the taken-for-granted infrastructure: virtually all scholars agree that masculinity is made, not born. Hegemonic Masculinity and Multiple Masculinities continue to be widely used, especially in research on institutions, violence, and structural inequality. Inclusive Masculinity Theory and Hybrid Masculinities divide the terrain of cultural change, with the former more influential in studies of youth, sport, and sexuality, and the latter more common in critical sociological work on privilege. Transnational Masculinities has become essential for scholars working on globalization, postcolonial contexts, and migration.
The major agreement across these frameworks is that masculinity is relational: it takes shape in contrast to femininity and to other masculinities, and it is always entangled with power. The major disagreement concerns the direction and depth of change. Is the hegemonic ideal crumbling, or is it simply mutating? Are younger men becoming genuinely more egalitarian, or are they developing more subtle ways of maintaining dominance? These questions remain open, and the field's vitality depends on keeping them in play. Masculinity Studies has moved from asking "What is masculinity?" to asking "How does masculinity change, and who benefits from that change?"—a shift that the sequence of frameworks, from Sex Role Theory to Transnational Masculinities, has made possible.