Gendered Selves, Gendered Subjects: Interview Performances and Situational Contexts in Critical Interview Studies of Men and Masculinities

Abstract

The overall aim of this chapter is to discuss and deepen methodological and ethical aspects of gendered interaction in cross-gendered interviews in the field of masculinity studies. Its point of departure is a study of profeminist men in Sweden, where the power relations turned out to be of subtle character and all but one-way authoritarian (Egeberg Holmgren, 2011b). The aim of the study was to understand how young adult men1 come to call themselves feminists2; what it meant for them (somehow being ‘the second sex’ of the feminist movement); how feminism affected their relations at work and at home; and how feminism was ‘done’ in their everyday lives in a Swedish society that embraces gender-equality politics.