Conclusion—Adjusting Gender and (Re)Constructing Hegemonic Masculinity

Abstract

The conclusion summarizes the findings of the magazine analysis and creates stereotypical images of the men constructed by the magazines, which it discusses in relation to Japan’s hegemonic masculinity. It concludes that lifestyle magazines for young men, while consciously altering the male habitus and, as such, generating alternative masculinities, unconsciously reproduce patterns of hegemonic masculinity. Even though both CHOKi CHOKi and men’s egg partially renegotiate hegemonic masculinity and contribute to the development of new masculinities, they never do away with it altogether. Consequently, they are indications and vessels of communication in a society and its conceptions of masculinities in flux, but not a sign of fundamental social change. I call this double-edged quality of their discursive gender constructions the “(un-)conscious reconstruction of hegemonic masculinity.”