Men and social suffering in contemporary Lithuania

• Žurnalo archyvas: straipsnio tekstas

ENA great number of men in Eastern Europe affected by rapid social, economic and political developments suffer severe marginalization due to their age, disability, ethnicity, sexuality, class, etc. This article focuses on Lithuanian working-class men. Analyzing 20 semi-structured interviews with working class men, it asks how these men attempt to create their personal and group identities and to articulate their lives. Why are some of them unable to construct satisfactory life narratives and succumb to the feelings of depression, anxiety, insecurity and despair? I argue that the re-creation of an independent Lithuanian state in 1990 went along with the political project of normalization of the Lithuanian masculinity and even more intensive pathologization of socially marginalized male bodies. Interviews with the working class men reveal that they accept their inferior status in the world of “successful” manhood. However, the pressures of normative subjectivities imbue the corporeal ident it ies of working-class men with depression, exclusion, anxiety and insecurity. Public marginalization of working-class men makes their attempts at hegemonic normative masculinity look like some kind of a cul-de-sac. They cope with it by adopting self-destructive practices (drinking, violence, etc.). The article concludes that the violent forms of normalization, male norms and powerlessness in Lithuanian society not only create complicit marginalized men but also produce silent inequalities, social isolation and the lack of public access.