{"title":"Critical Masculinities in Families: Situating the Special Issue","authors":"Samuel H. Allen, Kevin Roy","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70071","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70071","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The term <i>masculinities</i> has garnered immense attention over the past decade in both the social and scholarly arenas. Within family science, however, that attention has been far more limited. Responding to both this gap in our discipline as well as the growing public recognition of and discourse surrounding masculinities, this special issue seeks to bring a necessary focus to how masculinities are conceptualized, operationalized, and theorized within family science. Encompassing a range of trans- and inter-disciplinary perspectives, the 18 articles that comprise this special issue critique, expand, and transform our understanding of masculinities—and of masculinities within <i>families—</i>in a way that is timely, sociopolitically relevant, intersectional, and reflexive. In this introductory article, we situate the need for the special issue, clarify the meaning of <i>critical masculinities in families</i>, provide an overview of the articles included herein, and offer recommendations for the future of theorizing masculinities and of gender more broadly within our field.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"267-272"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70071","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marginalized and Protest Masculinities: Conceptualizing Racism for Black Men in Families","authors":"Brandon Alston","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70072","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Family contexts are sites to analyze the changing expectations associated with masculinity, revealing the multiple expressions of various types of masculinities. However, research in family and gender studies often uses catchall categorizations to understand complex dynamics that influence families who confront race and racism. This article emphasizes theoretical tools that address race, racism, and masculinity, conceptualizing masculinities as intersectional and family-level processes through racial discrimination and racial socialization. The social construction of masculinities is inseparable from racism and shapes family relationships in tandem with structural conditions and institutions controlled by laws and policies. It identifies marginalized and protest masculinities—concepts that scholars have less frequently used but that foreground race and racism and hold the capacity to explain how masculinities emerge in family contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"354-364"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are We Willing to Change? A Feminist Agenda for the Study of Men in Families","authors":"Aran Garnett-Deakin, Caroline Sanner","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70061","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Public concern over the increasingly visible crisis of hegemonic masculinity is growing. Young men are showing a rise in antifeminist rhetoric, worsening mental health, and a loneliness epidemic. Although it is tempting, and not without merit, to frame men's struggles as male fragility and aggrieved entitlement resulting from feeling unseated by a changing social order, these interpretations also work to deepen social divisions and institutionalize feminist disengagement from men's experiences. We contend that a different approach to understanding modern masculinity is needed. We see opportunities for family scientists to adopt more critically compassionate feminist frameworks for understanding men's experiences. In this article, we propose a feminist agenda for the study of men in families. We argue that advancing a feminist agenda of research on men and masculinity involves prioritizing three aims: (a) treating privileged men as gendered subjects, (b) rendering visible men's silenced longings, and (c) translating feminist research with men into actionable change. Collectively, this work calls for more nuanced perspectives of how men are shaped by patriarchal culture. We provide empirical and anecdotal examples of the ways men have been both harmed and privileged by ideals of hegemonic masculinity, advocating for more nuanced understandings of men's experiences in families and society. Ultimately, we argue that studying men <i>can</i> be feminist and serve to advance critical feminist research agendas.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"285-297"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70061","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160770","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Seahorse Dads: Theorizing Gender and Parenting Beyond the Binary","authors":"Pond Ezra, Samuel H. Allen","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70015","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jftr.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper expands existing family theories to better account for the experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people who become parents through pregnancy, often referred to as <i>seahorse dads</i>. Although queer family scholarship has challenged binary understandings of gender within families, existing theories have yet to focus on how TGNC people dynamically engage with gender through parenting across the life course. Drawing from queer, gender, and life course perspectives, we introduce theoretical expansions that center the reciprocal, time-sensitive relationship between gender expression and parenthood. We explore how seahorse dads may navigate caregiving roles, disrupt cisnormative assumptions, and reshape family relationships through complex negotiations of identity, transition, and timing. By integrating these insights, we propose a more inclusive framework for understanding TGNC parenthood, emphasizing the importance of theorizing parenthood beyond binary constructs and recognizing the unique experiences of seahorse dads within family science.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"273-284"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145289183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Five Generations, One Household: An African American Autoethnography of Family Systems, Identity, and Intergenerational Resilience","authors":"Austin S. Ferrell","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70055","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jftr.70055","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This autoethnographic study explores how intergenerational living within a five-generation African American household shaped my identity, resilience, and understanding of family. Grounded in the principles of family systems and intersectionality, this work examines the interconnected relationships, roles, and cultural practices that sustained our rural family in Fulton, Kentucky. As both researcher and participant, I trace how age, race, and familial roles intersected to influence care, discipline, and belonging across generations of women who nurtured, guided, and inspired me. In doing so, I critically reflect on the tensions between discipline, emotional restraint, and relational care that shaped my understanding of identity and Black masculinity across generations. Through narrative reflection, I highlight how storytelling, shared labor, and collective responsibility served as mechanisms of emotional balance and intergenerational resilience within the context of structural inequality. I reframe African American family life as a site of strength and interdependence, challenging deficit-oriented discourses while celebrating the resilience, wisdom, and enduring legacy of multigenerational households.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"452-460"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147586569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discovering Legacies: Fathers, Sons, Masculinities, and Equity Within Families","authors":"Kevin Roy","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70052","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jftr.70052","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, I examine how personal experiences within my family and my homeplace communities have shaped 20 years of basic and applied research, as well as theorizing, on fathering and masculinities. I focus on how my practice of reflexive research has led me to discover legacies of masculinities across generations of my own family, including negotiation of racialized power and privilege. I review key concepts, such as kinscription, ghosting, situated fathering, and critical masculinities in families—and link them to political, personal, and interpersonal considerations that led to commitment within the field of family science.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"441-451"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70052","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147695410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Erin K. Andrea, Emma M. Desens Gochanour, Lizee Nuñez Love
{"title":"Adolescence: A Critical Media Review","authors":"Erin K. Andrea, Emma M. Desens Gochanour, Lizee Nuñez Love","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70059","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"461-468"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bringing Critical Femininities Into Conversation With Critical Masculinities in Family Science: Extending the Case for Using Femme Theory","authors":"Elizabeth A. Sharp, Jocelyne Bartram Scott","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70070","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, a feminist family scholar and a critical femininities scholar bring critical femininities into conversation with critical masculinities within Family Science. Using theoretical frameworks from critical femininities scholarship, we developed a diagnostic tool to help scholars engage with critical femininities while reading critical masculinities scholarship. In so doing, we ask if the feminine is valued, obscured, and/or underexplored. We encourage the reader to contemplate the benefits of critical femininities informing critical masculinities.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"298-304"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70070","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reconstructing Masculinity: The Role of Hands-On Dads in Modern Chinese Families","authors":"Qingqing Wang, Lijuan Deng","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.70058","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article examines the rise of the hands-on dad phenomenon on contemporary Chinese short-video platforms. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates gender studies, masculinity research, semiotics, and media studies, we analyze how hands-on dads are constructed and how their parenting practices are performed within digital media contexts. Focusing on behavioral patterns, multidimensional meanings, and social-structural conditions, we explore transformations in contemporary Chinese masculinity and the mechanisms through which they are socially produced. On social media, hands-on dads appear as multifaceted paternal figures who combine economic provision with emotional caregiving, weakening traditional gendered divisions of family roles. By extending paternal responsibility beyond breadwinning to include emotional expression, relational care, and everyday involvement in childrearing, this form of fatherhood challenges conventional assumptions about gender and family life. The analysis deepens understanding of fatherhood redefinition and contributes a theoretically grounded, China-centered perspective to scholarship on masculinity in contemporary Chinese cultural contexts.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"378-393"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148160828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Balancing and Exploring the Personal, Professional, and Political: Finding Space and Place in the Academy Through Reflexive and Intersecting Masculinities","authors":"Allen B. Mallory","doi":"10.1111/jftr.70053","DOIUrl":"10.1111/jftr.70053","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Using critical intersectional feminist theorizing, I engage in praxis around reflexive masculinities. I discuss my positionality through my personal lived experiences, professional career in academia, and my political engagement. I start by discussing my positionality related to my race, gender, sexual orientation, and family background, and then turn to how the intersections of privilege and disadvantage played a role in my professional development, research, and politics. Through my reflection, I aim to address sources of knowledge that have been marginalized or made invisible in standard family theorizing regarding masculinity, specifically around queer and Black identities and couples' relationship dynamics.</p>","PeriodicalId":47446,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Family Theory & Review","volume":"18 2","pages":"432-440"},"PeriodicalIF":4.5,"publicationDate":"2026-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jftr.70053","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147536314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}