“A Man After God’s Own Heart”: Biblical, Hegemonic and Toxic Masculinities in As Meat Loves Salt

Maria McCann paints a dark picture of masculinity and its effects in her novel As Meat Loves Salt (2001). The violent Jacob Cullen struggles with his masculinity as he faces the intricacies of religion, sexuality and politics in the midst of the English Civil War where he falls in love with fellow soldier Christopher Ferris. By using R.W. Connell and James Messerschmidt’s framework for the hierarchy of masculinities, I explore masculinities on local, regional and global levels and emphasized femininity in a close reading of McCann’s novel. My aim is not only to analyse the masculinities of the novel but also to use the framework to redefine toxic masculinity in order to make it a useable concept when analysing masculinities in literature. I redefine toxic masculinity because it lacks a clear definition anchored in an established framework used to study masculinity that does not see masculinity as inherently toxic. I believe that anchoring it to Connell and Messerschmidt’s framework will make it a useable concept. Due to the novel’s relationship to the Bible, I will use masculinity studies done on David and Jesus from the Bible to compare and reveal similarities with the masculinities in the novel, how they appear on the local, regional and global levels in the novel and its effects. I draw parallels between the love story in As Meat Loves Salt to the love story of David and Jonathan in the Bible by using queer readings of David and Jonathan in order to explore how masculinity affects the relationships and how the novel uses these two love stories as a study of toxic masculinity and how it relates it to hegemonic masculinity.

Kvinnligt och manligt på sociala medier : En kvantitativ studie om medieanvändning och negativa känslor

In the present study the use and experience of using social media was examined in men and women in order to evaluate a possible relationship to gender. Particular emphasis was placed upon negative emotions. A questionnaire was constructed and submitted via Facebook by an online survey. There were 61 women and 50 men who completed the questionnaire. It was found that women and men used social media similarly with regard to frequency and the kind of social media they approached. Both genders used social media on a daily basis and both had profiles on the most popular social network sites as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. The main purpose for using social media was to maintain already established friend relationships and to take part of other peoples content. A majority of the women but not the men used blogs, whereas a majority of the men but not the women used Twitter more frequently. The study also indicated a sex difference concerning the contents they took part of in the social media. More women took part of content that was related to a female stereotypic image whereas more men took part of content that was related to a male stereotypic image. There was no gender difference concerning contents such as fashion, entertainment, humour, news or politics. In the women there was a significant relationship between the use of social media and negative emotions. However, in the men, such a relationship was not found. The results indicate that more women tend to experience negative emotions when active on social media. More women experienced life as meaningless and boring, as well as stress after consuming contents in social media. They also did compare their life with others on social media leaving them with negative feelings. Such relationships could not be found in the men. In conclusion the present study indicated that for many aspects the use of social media is similar in women and men. However there seems to be a difference with regard to the experience of negative emotions in relation to the use of social media in women but not in men.