Epistemology, Methodology and Accountability in Researching Men’s Subjectivities and Practices

Abstract

I have been involved in researching, writing, teaching and profeminist activism in relation to men and masculinities for over 20 years. I first engaged with the critical scholarship on men and masculinities because I wanted to theoretically inform my practice as a profeminist activist. I was involved in Men Against Sexism in Tasmania the 1980s; I was a co-founding member of Men Against Sexual Assault, which was formed in Melbourne in 1989; and I was one of the organizers of the first White Ribbon Campaign against men’s violence in Australia. Therefore, for me, the critical interrogation of men and masculinities was always connected to profeminist activism. My PhD was on profeminist masculinity politics: examining the pathways for men who take on profeminist subject positions, and exploring the spaces for men’s involvement in struggles for gender equality (Pease, 1996, 2000).