Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Family fundamentally is a gendered institution that conserves and embodies gendered norms and structures. This paper discusses how family shapes masculinities among Muslims men in rural Java. It is based on a qualitative study involving sixteen Muslim men living in a rural area in the Southern part of Central Java. The study employed group discussions followed by in-depth interviews with the men participants. The study reveals that marriage and family substantially shape masculinities in two ways. First, family provides a man with institutionalised gendered power that requires a man to play dominant roles in the family, particularly over women. A man’s ability to exercise this power, to observe, evaluate, judge, and control undesirable situations within the relationship constitutes the ideals of manhood. Second, family elevates a man with the status of being the real man which allows him to link himself to other married men outside the family and to participate in the social realm which constitutes as a homosocial practice. This study indicates that religious doctrine combined with Javanese norms of manhood contribute to the conservation of masculinity in the family.