Gender politics in conservative men's movements: beyond complexity, ambiguity and pragmatism

The article examines different attempts to analyse the Christian men's movement, Promise Keepers, and the fatherhood responsibility movement. Complexity used as an argument to abandon the search for a gender ideology in the movements is criticized. Despite the presence of complex features, for example, regarding Promise Keepers' view on gender roles in the family, there are common assumptions of gender. These assumptions are found in the very conception of the movement: in the "society-in-a-moral-crisis" argument. Here, men are actors and women are passively dependent on men. Promise Keepers' "soft" pragmatism and use of feminist rhetoric disguise this gender politics within the movement.