Psychology

Silence and (in)visibility in men’s accounts of coping with stressful life events

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The present study investigates the importance of emotional disclosure and vulnerability in the production of hegemonic masculinities. Of particular interest is the role that silence and invisibility play in how men talk about recent stressful life events. One-on-one interviews with men who experienced a stressful life event in the past year illustrate how men often talk about these events in simultaneously visible and invisible ways. We use the term “cloudy visibility” to describe this engagement, identified both in terms of what men articulate in relation to their past stressful experiences and how they articulate these experiences within the present moment of the interview. The conversational consequences of these linguistic devices are analyzed to illustrate how men obscure their inner emotional lives, thus reproducing hegemonic masculine ideals of staying strong and stoic in the face of adversity, while they also seek to make aspects of their inner lives seen and heard to an interviewer.

Publication Title

Gender and Society

Publication Date

2016

Volume

30

Issue

2

First Page

289

Last Page

311

ISSN

0891-2432

DOI

10.1177/0891243215602923

Keywords

disclosure, invisibility, masculinities, silence, vulnerability

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