PhD Graduate Elise Maiolino published an article in the Canadian Review of Sociology that examines media coverage of a boxing match between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Senator Patrick Brazeau. The article explores how politicians "restore" gender identity. Maiolino introduces the concept of "recuperative gender strategies" to demonstrate how Trudeau worked to reaffirm his masculine identity in the public eye.
Elise Maiolino obtained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 2017. Her research combines analyses of power and authority with feminist analyses of identity to understand the role of identity in Canadian politics.
We have posted the citation and the abstract of the article below. The full text is available through the University of Toronto Library Portal here.
Maiolino, Elise. 2015. "Political Pugilists: Recuperative Gender Strategies in Canadian Electoral Politics." Canadian Review of Sociology, 52(2):115-133.
This paper offers the concept recuperative gender strategies to describe how political leaders work to restore their public gender identities. The author examines a charity‐boxing match between two Canadian politicians, Justin Trudeau and Patrick Brazeau. Trudeau is the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and son of former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. Brazeau was a Conservative Senator. Through a discourse analysis of 222 national newspaper articles published on the match, this paper chronicles Justin Trudeau's transition from “precariously masculine” to “sufficiently masculine” and discusses the significance of this transformation for Trudeau's suitability for Liberal Party leadership.
Read the full article here.