Hierarchical Femininities and Masculinities in Australia Based on Parenting and Employment: A Multidimensional, Multilevel, Relational and Intersectional Perspective
Hierarchical Femininities and Masculinities in Australia Based on Parenting and Employment: A Multidimensional, Multilevel, Relational and Intersectional Perspective

Summary/Abstract: Despite the relevance of emotional and psychological distress related to COVID-19 isolation, quarantine, and physical distancing, only limited research has been conducted on this topic. Using and replicating data from Chapman University, Harvard Medical School, Holmes et al. (2020), Ipsos MORI, MQ, Nursing Times, Rek et al. (2020), Rethink Mental Illness, UNC School of Medicine, and VMIAC, I performed analyses and made estimates regarding exposure to COVID‐19 pandemic stress, depression, and anxiety. The results of a study based on data collected from 5,400 respondents provide support for my research model. Using the structural equation modeling, I gathered and analyzed data through a self-administrated questionnaire.Parenting and working are central to constructions of adulthood in Australia, although the value attached to different qualities, characteristics and practices of parenting and working vary for women and men. This theoretical paper firstly explores and integrates existing theories of gender hegemony into a multidimensional,multilevel, relational and intersectional perspective for exploring internal and external relations within and between hierarchical configurations of femininities and masculinities. It then explores existing multidimensional evidence on Australian regional-level hierarchies of femininities and masculinities based on parenting and employment, focusing on patriarchal-capitalist power relations, but including examplesof other intersections. The extant research suggests hegemonic femininities are configured around intensive mothering and part-time working, hegemonic masculinities are configured around bread winning and involved fathering, and nuancednon-hegemonic femininities and masculinities are configured around complicit, compliant,non-compliant, pariah, precluded and marginalised qualities, characteristics and practices, depending upon the nature and degree of non-conformance to hegemonic configurations and the challenges they present to capitalist-patriarchal power relations, in the context of intersections with other power relations.

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