Maintenance and changing masculinities as sources of gender conflict in contemporay (sic) Johannesburg.
Date
2008-03-11T13:31:43Z
Authors
Khundu, Grace
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Abstract
This study attempts to understand the nature of the state and its relationship with
its citizens. It explores this question through the study of one of the state’s
institutions – the maintenance system; its conception of gender identities and
relationships is examined. Through a close analysis of this system, and its effects
on men and women, the thesis explores the making of contemporary gender
identities in South Africa. The study also pays particular attention to current
conceptions of what it means to be a man.
The study examines men’s views of maintenance laws as they experience it, with
a focus on the differing conceptions of fatherhood held by a range of men, and
how they relate to hegemonic conceptions of masculinity espoused by the
maintenance system. The study also looks at how these hegemonic understandings
of masculinity limit the chances for men to be ‘successful’ fathers and fulfilled
persons.
The central premise of this thesis is that masculinity exists outside the realms of
the natural and biological. Rather, it asserts that masculinity is embodied in social
relations, which are constantly changing and are context-bound. Naturalised
definitions of masculinity are limiting to fathers in a social, political and economic
context which is shifting. This study is driven by the question: what options and
alternatives are available to men and fathers with regards to role formation,
especially in their interaction with the maintenance system and their relationships
with their children?
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Keywords
gender, money, social security, state, relationships, masculinities