‘Like in every other facet of life, I am privileged to be a man’: political subjectivities of young men working in the Australian health care and social assistance sector

This article analyses young men’s political subjectivities through a prism of everyday alignments and disassociations with historically, socially and spatially produced masculinities. Drawing on qualitative data from a wider project on men and care work, we analyse insights from interview and focus group data pertaining to young-adult men (19–37 years old) working in the Australian Health Care and Social Assistance sector to document how they disassociate and align themselves with certain elements of hegemonic masculinity. We discuss how these young men understand care as gender-neutral, redefine masculine strength, develop analyses of men’s privilege and violence and reject domination, while simultaneously navigating the cultural continuity of the breadwinner ideal. Maintaining that these are alignments with caring masculinities—and are not to be confused with hybrid masculinities—we argue that our participants’ political subjectivities are geared towards positive social change.