Mocking Masculinities: The use of humour to engage boys in gender equality

Abstract

This thesis explores the ways humour is used in a workshop aimed at challenging normative gendered assumptions and dominant masculine discourses among a group of adolescent boys in a London school. Using examples from the field, it will show how humour is used by both the workshop participants and the volunteers running the workshop in the negotiation of status in a contested space of hierarchical masculinities. As the context is one in which norms of masculinity and gender are themselves the themes of discussion, the role of humour is examined as a discursive strategy that can be both constitutive and subversive of those norms. The analysis shows that humour can be an invaluable tool to initiate discussions that challenge dominant masculine discourses, elucidate the social pressures on which they are founded and present alternative performances of masculinity. However, humour is a risky, context-sensitive strategy that can have conflicting or ambiguous effects, while non-humorous discourse can be an equally purposeful strategy, particularly when used tactfully in combination with humour.