Masculinity Challenged: Emotional Responses to State Support for Women’s Employment in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Building on the theory that negative emotions lead to backlash, this study examines how men manage their feelings about progressive gender change. For decades, the United Arab Emirates has engaged in what I call state-building feminism, significantly expanding Emirati women’s employment as a means of national development and establishing a modern reputation globally, while adopting neoliberal reforms that challenge men’s legally mandated breadwinning. Through interviews with 33 Emirati men impacted by state-led gender change, I analyze how they reframe initially negative emotional reactions by following feeling rules from institutionally enforced masculinity schemas. As good providers, Emirati men must assume breadwinning responsibility, rendering shared provision emasculating; they manage that feeling through rationalization and deflection. Moreover, as modern men, Emirati men’s frustration with state-building feminism feels culturally inappropriate. This leads them to supplant frustration, through rearticulation and displacement, with unaffected pride—a gendered form of everyday nationalism that supports the UAE’s reputation-building efforts. Their emotional ambivalence, a process of emotional transformation provoked by shifting cultural expectations, provides a framework for understanding how negative emotions need not lead to backlash. These findings underscore the importance of cultural schemas and emotion management in determining how those who feel threatened by progressive social change respond.