University youths: disputed masculinities

Abstract

This article aims to problematize how young university students understand the concept of masculinities and how their performance occurs in that environment. How these young people base what it is to be a “man” and their conflicts regarding the possibilities of experiencing the genders. For such purpose, this article works with a clipping: students, mostly eighteen years old, from the University of São Paulo, campus Butantã, more specifically from the School of Communications and Arts. The analysis is based on several extracurricular meetings held in the second semester of 2019 both inside and outside the university space. From this panorama, it is possible to reflect how men and women are in dispute on their way to (re)signify “being a man”. While men are still in the first stage of awareness about normalizing action, women are already able to identify, classify and act around the norm, especially because they are the main victims.