Men's studies

Men's studies, often called men and masculinities in academic settings, is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning men, masculinity, feminism, gender, and politics. It is informed by feminist theory and its goal is to unpack ideologies that surround masculinity, and through that unpacking examine how there are multiple masculinities. Men's studies also academically pursues what it means to be a man in the world that we live in today.

As a relatively new field of study, men's studies was formed largely in response to, and as a critique of, an emerging men's rights movement, and as such, has been taught in academic settings only since the 1970s. In many universities, men's studies is a correlation to women's studies or part of a larger gender studies program, and as such its faculty tends to be sympathetic to, or engaged in, advocacy of feminist politics. Men's studies works with feminist studies to question the relationship that men have with patriarchal power throughout different temporal and historical times. The concept of plural masculinities was proposed by R.W. Connell in her influential book Masculinities (1995); thus the academic field is today often known as men and masculinities.

In contrast to the discipline of masculine psychology, men's studies programs and courses often include contemporary discussions of men's rights, feminist theory, queer theory, matriarchy, patriarchy, and more generally, what proponents describe as the social, historical, and cultural constructions of men. They often discuss the issues surrounding male privilege, seen as evolving into more subtle forms rather than disappearing in the modern era.

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