Home > JFS > Iss. 18 (2021)
Abstract
In 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters he chose a gender-balanced cabinet “because it’s 2015,” a sentiment that resonated with Leftists and feminists. Trudeau showed he was a different kind of male politician through his yoga practice. Through candid yoga photographs, Trudeau represented himself as a sensitive new age guy who challenged hegemonic masculinity through wellness, playfulness, and a commitment to multiculturalism. Using discourse analysis, we examine visual, print, and social media texts that feature Trudeau’s connection to yoga, masculinity, and nation-building. We argue that Trudeau’s yoga body projects a “hybrid masculinity” (Bridges 2014; Demetriou 2001) that constructs Trudeau as a benevolent patriarch, which is mapped onto a fantasy of Canada as a multicultural nation with feelings.
Recommended Citation
Musial, Jennifer, and Judith Mintz. 2021. ""Because It’s 2015!": Justin Trudeau’s Yoga Body, Masculinity, and Canadian Nation-Building." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 18 (Spring): 24-42. 10.23860/jfs.2021.18.02.
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Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
