MEN, MASCULINITIES AND DIABETES. A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ON THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF MEN WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS

National and international epidemiological data show a general male disadvantage in health, and the dominant explanation for men’s poorer health status usually points to men’s belief and behaviours in relation to health and illness: men, it is suggested, disregard health and mismanage illness in order to fulfil social expectations around masculinity. The present research responds to a call for empirical studies that explore men’s health and illness practices not through biomedical or behavioural explanations, which tend to homogenize and oversimplify men’s experiences, rather with a critical approach that would allow to go beyond the idea that “masculinity is dangerous to men’s health.” Masculinity is here intended not as a fixed, universal, biological trait, but rather as a configuration of practices that are accomplished in social action and, therefore, can differ according to the specific gender relations existing in different social settings. This critical perspective allowed studying men’s experiences of health and illness by taking into account also its complex relation with gender construction, but also with structural differences and relational contexts. This research explored, through the conduction of 40 in-depth interviews, the experiences of men living with an intrusive chronic illness, autoimmune diabetes. This condition requires a series of self- management practices in everyday life that could be considered as emasculating (e.g. eating healthy, body discipline and self-monitoring) and that may pose specific challenges to dominant assumptions of masculinity such as bodily strength, control of the body and of emotions, independence and resistance to pain, and for this reason it has been considered as particularly appropriate for exploring the complex intertwining of chronic illness and gender. More specifically, the analysis focused on three areas: namely, the impact of chronic illness in the everyday life; the multiple ways of “doing” masculinity in the context of the “doing” of autoimmune diabetes; and, lastly, the impact of diabetes and of the medicalization of male sexual health on sexuality and intimacy practices. Overall, the empirical material allowed for great insight into men’s experiences of illness and depicted a complex picture, very different from the monolithic description offered by the majority of studies previously conducted on this issue.