Introduction
According to Melanie Le Tourneau, many of us do not know ourselves
as well as we think, and far from being stable and enduring,
our identities undergo constant reconstruction (Le Tourneau,
2000). Social feedback, comparisons with others and society’s
perception of our behaviour act to challenge us to redefine
ourselves. Our social identity is made up of many characteristics
including gender or our name; but also such things as vocations,
political or religious affiliations. Important to our social
identity is our self-concept, which is an organised set of
beliefs and perceptions about ourselves (Baron & Byrne,
2002). Edwards (1994) spoke of ‘scripts’ that
follow a natural progression – from how the world is,
through how it is perceived, to how it is described. Using
this model Antaki, Condor and Levine (1996) describe social
identity as “a description available for people to invoke
and deploy in mundane interaction” (p474). Using this
model therefore agrees with Tajfel’s emphasis on social
identity being a process and not a ‘thing’ (1981).
So how does this process work? Self-schemas are cognitive
generalisations about the self that form a component of the
self-concept.
These schemas are organised around specific traits or features
we feel, are central and important to our own self-image (Pennington
& Hill, 1999). Schematic traits will be discussed further
in this study when analysing the interview. Self-concepts
do not remain fixed throughout an individual’s life.
They may undergo several changes resulting from such things
as a change of occupation or perhaps less dramatic events.
Changes in self-concept can occur during the most ordinary
interactions (Baron & Byrne, 2002).
Identities inevitably involve concepts of masculinity and
femininity along with perceptions of how men and women should
appear and behave (Whannel, 2002). In questioning how cultural
forces shape identities, David Abbott (2000) argues changes
have occurred in gender relations and identity, in particular,
changing cultural norms regarding masculinity. For Abbott,
changes in male-specific advertisements in the 1980s led to
a wide spread belief that it could be “‘cool’
and acceptable for men to take the same amount of care over
their personal appearance and clothes as women do” (Abbott,
2000 p5). Early studies on the ‘new man’ pointed
to a ‘sexualisation’ of the male body. Through
changes in male identity in contemporary culture, the male
body came to be seen and used in an explicitly sexual way
(Abbott, 2000). Nixon (1996) notes that although there were
several types of ‘new man’, different shop displays
were using more sexualised and narcissistic images of men.
This may indeed be the case as questions put to the participant
in this interview, reflected these changes when asked about
such things as appearance. It is not only advertising that
has contributed to the new male identity as Gary Whannel notes:
“Pictures of David Beckham have both expressed and
challenged some of the dominant assumptions of masculinity
and identity…his experiments with fashion and his posing
with wife Victoria Adams for fashion shoots are taken by some
as an affront to the conventions of masculine behaviour”
(Whannel, 2002 p2)
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