Men of Faith, Responsibility, and Stress: A Phenomenological Study of White Evangelical College Men and Masculinity

An essential aspect of discerning how men can become effective partners in reaching gender equity in the U.S., is to understand how men perceive their own masculinity. In consensus with Wanger (2011), I believe that promoting men's' healthy masculinity development is a feminist act and an act of social justice. Within the scope of social science research it is of extreme significance to study men as men as they were often "everybody" and effectually "nobody" (Kimmel & Davis, 2011). This study adds to and highlights importance of research on men and masculinities. Selecting an often privileged and significant subculture of men, this case study surveyed 27 White evangelical college-aged men (WECM) of whom five participated in an in-depth semi-structure phenomenological-based interview at a single faith-based university. Based on the Subjective Masculine Experiences model (Wong et al., 2011) the researcher focused on how these men made "sense of their masculinity by connecting their life experiences [to dimensions] of masculine norms and ideology" (Wong et al., 2011, p. 238). The participants were asked to attribute levels of psychological stress to each dimension. Data gathered clustered into seven salient dimensions for this population: Responsibility, Family, Family- Provider, Faith and Religion, Emotional Toughness, Physical Body and Resistance. Analysis revealed that stress was associated with all of the dimensions, especially with Family-Provider. This paper provides the context for this study, its philosophical framework, and discussions on its limitations and implications for practice and future action. Keywords: masculinity; White evangelical, college-aged, men (WECM); phenomenology; critical social constructivism; mindful inquir