Real men, real husbands: Caregiving and masculinities in later life

Abstract

Drawing on data from in-depth personal interviews with a sample of fifty-three older men caring for their impaired wives, authors report findings on these men's caregiving experience, specifically on the way they see themselves as men within such role. Through analytic methods based upon content analysis and open coding, authors found that when describing their gendered understanding of themselves participants evidenced several negotiations with the dominant masculine ideology in order to maintain their sense of masculinity and legitimate their presence in a feminine role. This was accomplished by reframing their definition of a man and reinforcing that of a husband and by retaining varying degrees of power over the caregiving relationship. The social visibility of the role within particular gendered community-based social networks was found to be important in shaping these older men's masculinities.