A Battle for Supremacy? Masculinities in Students’ Profane Language Use

Abstract

This article investigates what students from University of Ghana’s Commonwealth Hall consider as marks of masculinity, through how they represent themselves and other males in their use of profanity. Data are sourced from songs, observations, and interviews. Drawing from hegemonic and nonhegemonic masculinities and theory of ideologies, findings indicate how these students portray themselves as embodying true masculinity, as they represent themselves as superpowers, virile, and assertive. They however marginalize other males by representing them as weaklings, “uncircumcised”, and vagina police. It is their attempt to keep these binary categories in place, which sometimes leads to confrontations between them and other male students. When they believe and articulate that they embody true masculinity, similar practices can only be interpreted as threats. The article, therefore, recommends a bigger study that includes other public universities and assesses the link between these students’ language use and their “radical” behavior.