Representations of masculinity

"Images of masculinity are variously and, on occasion, contradictorily interpreted, yet one factor which remains constant is the assertion that these representations construct masculinity as a part of a dynamic process of interpretation and implication. Masculinity is not seen as a fixed essence reflected in representation; rather the representations create the sense of masculinity as essence. Significantly, it is also argued that there is no one masculinity constructed or represented, rather a series of masculinities that are hierarchically ordered according to colour, class and sexual orientation. Images of white, middle-class and heterosexual masculinity are therefore hegemonic whilst those of black, working-class or homosexual masculinity are subordinate. In addition, the hegemonic and subordinate are mutually reinforcing each other. Therefore, what we are often considering when looking at images or representations of masculinity are not solely the overt images or representations themselves, but the complex and overt conceptions of masculinity upon which they are premised."

(Men in the Mirror, Tim Edwards, 1997)

image from here

Changing conventions of men's fashion have entailed re-worked attributes of masculinity that have transformed male bodies into objects of gaze, of display and decoration. This radically undercuts the Victorian and post-Victorian idea of masculinity as the display of restraint in a disciplined body. 

(Craik, 1994, p.203)