French men account for 83% of annual prosecutions and are three times more likely to die by suicide, yet France has been slow to critically examine how cultural representations of masculinity drive these outcomes. This project tackles that gap by bringing together academics, artists, and cultural programmers to analyse how literature, film, photography, and digital content shape—and could reshape—French attitudes toward manhood. The research addresses a concrete social cost: male aggression and risk-taking cost France’s justice and health systems billions of euros each year, while one in five young French women report having been sexually assaulted. By fostering Franco-British collaborations through workshops, public events, and publications, the project aims to build capacity for studying masculinity as a cultural flashpoint—one that sits at the intersection of postcolonial identity, economic anxiety, and gender equality. If successful, it could inform how cultural institutions and educators challenge patriarchal stereotypes, potentially influencing public discourse and policy around men’s health, educational attainment, and violence prevention. The work is primarily curiosity-driven, rooted in arts and humanities scholarship, but its findings could offer practical tools for cultural programmers and activists working to close the gap between France’s egalitarian ideals and its persistent social imbalances.
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This project investigates how attitudes towards men and masculinity in France are being shaped through contemporary cultural production. In partnership with the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni (IFRU), it promotes how clichéd notions of manhood can be productively questioned and reimagined across a variety of forms, including literature, film, photography, digital content, and live entertainment. By driving collaborative networking between academics from the arts and humanities and non-academics in cultural programming and practice, it builds timely capacity for researching how the representation of masculinity can help to close the gap between France’s egalitarian ideals and its social imbalances. Patriarchal stereotypes of masculinity come at a high price in modern France. Male aggression and risk-taking costs the justice and health systems billions of Euros per year. French men account for 83% of annual prosecutions and are three times as likely to die by suicide (Lucile Peytavin, 2021). They also demonstrate lower levels of educational attainment and are disproportionately targeted by the addictive algorithms of online pornography. Chauvinism has correspondingly been on the rise over the last decade, with one fifth of young French women saying they have been sexually assaulted (Haut Conseil à l’Égalité, 2023). That troubling escalation reflects how France’s ‘booming industry of declinism’ (Rachel Donadio, 2017) has powered nostalgia for past assurances rather than just longing for fresh starts. As the country tries to reinvigorate itself in a globalised and postcolonial world, worries about socio-economic inequality, environmental degradation, and demographic change have made masculinity into a flashpoint for this tension between longstanding outlooks and forward-looking perspectives. France’s ‘one and indivisible’ republic has historically construed citizenship in universal terms while ultimately privileging men’s bodies and behaviours as the norm. Polarised responses to the international #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements have exposed how France still hesitates to acknowledge its predisposition towards male social domination and its associated regulation of class, race, and religion. The project therefore fosters and deepens the understanding of the relationship between masculinity, culture, and society for a range of beneficiaries, including academics, creatives, cultural stakeholders, educators, and activists working towards gender equality and improved men’s health both in France and the UK. It has five objectives: To create a research network that will be a springboard for international creative engagements between academics and non-academics. To facilitate the network’s knowledge exchange and partnership-building through a workshop and a conference. To engage Franco-British audiences in addressing the aesthetic and social questions raised by representations of masculinity through four public events. To determine and assess ways of responding to those questions that will allow the network’s research agenda to be pursued and grown beyond the project. To disseminate the project’s findings through three outputs – one public-facing article; one public-facing website; and one academic book publication. Meeting these objectives will propel the critical study of men and masculinities (CSMM) within France – where interest in this field has traditionally been tentative – while emphasising the value of the arts and humanities for addressing the social challenges posed by patriarchy’s resilience.
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