Now and Men

The Voice, Harry Potter, and fatherhood: what's the connection? Hear Dr Martin Robb talk about this and much more on episode 1 of Now and Men. Martin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care at the Open University. His work is based around issues of gender, identity and care, with a particular focus on fatherhood and the development of caring masculinities.

Some of the issues we cover in our conversation include:

• How fatherhood and men’s care are portrayed in popular culture.
• The strengths and weaknesses of different political positions on fatherhood and men caring for children.
• How to understand and promote men’s involvement as fathers and caregivers.
• Debates about the meaning and relevance of ‘male role models’ to men and boys.
• Historical perspectives and how thinking about fatherhood has changed over time.
• How Martin’s own experiences of growing up as a boy and becoming a father have impacted on his work.

Martin has a blog at: https://martinrobb.wordpress.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/MartinRobbOU

In the episode, we mention the following pieces of work:

• Martin is the author of a book which was published by Routledge in 2020, entitled ‘Men, Masculinities and the Care of Children: Images, Ideas and Identities’: https://www.routledge.com/Men-Masculinities-and-the-Care-of-Children-Images-Ideas-and-Identities/Robb/p/book/9781138234550
• He has also edited a book (available for free as an e-book) on ‘Fathers and Forefathers: Men and their Children in Genealogical Perspective’: https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/2628
• Martin, Sandy and others worked on an Open University project called ‘Beyond Male Role Models’: https://wels.open.ac.uk/research/beyond-male-role-models
• Martin, Sandy and David Bartlett have collaborated on a project for Promundo on ‘Young Men, Masculinity and Wellbeing’: https://promundoglobal.org/resources/young-men-masculinity-wellbeing-open-university-research-project-association-promundo/
• At the end of the episode Stephen and Sandy mention our own new book, co-authored with Prof Nicole Westmarland and several international colleagues, which has just been published by Policy Press (including as a free e-book) - ‘Men’s Activism to End Violence Against Women: Voices from Spain, Sweden and the UK’: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/mens-activism-to-end-violence-against-women

This episode was hosted by Stephen Burrell and Sandy Ruxton, and was produced by Vic Turnbull from MIC Media: https://micmedia.co.uk. We are very grateful to Vic from all of the support she has given us in setting up Now and Men.

Now and Men features current conversations about masculinity, men's lives, and gender equality. It was launched in July 2021, and can be found wherever you get your podcasts!