The Endorsement of Traditional Masculine Ideology by South African Navy Men: A Research Report

Abstract

Although the study of masculinity/ies in South Africa has been a point of academic interest, especially since the fall of apartheid; there has been little focus on masculinity/ies peculiar to the South African military establishment. Where there has been, this has focused on the army environment and adopted a smaller-scale qualitative approach. In contrast, this study focuses on the South African Navy. The study provides a brief report of findings from the administration of a traditional masculine ideology scale with 1,185 South African navy men, between 19 and 59 years of age (mean of 25 years). Descriptive statistics, a multiple regression analysis, one-sample t-test, and one-way analysis of variance were run to analyze the data. Results demonstrated that this sample of navy men significantly endorsed constructs of self-sufficiency, physical toughness, and emotional restrictedness, as dimensions of traditional masculine ideology. Avoidance of femininity and risk-taking were not significantly endorsed.