Covid-19 Pandemisinde Erkeklerin Deneyimleri: Ekosistem Yaklaşımı Çerçevesinde Bir Değerlendirme

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to examine men's experiences, based on the conditions caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic, in the context of the Ecosystem Approach. Qualitative method was used in the research. The data in the study was created with the help of interviews with a total of 34 men (18 blue-collar and 16 white-collar) aged 18-65, residing in Ankara or Nevşehir, and analyzed using MAXQDA Analytics Pro software. The most essential result reached in the research is that men's needs, help-seeking and help-receiving behaviors have altered with the help changing individual-environment interaction during the pandemic. In this process, men who try to maximize individual-environment adaptation and develop new skills to solve pandemic-specific problems and meet needs. Although they were able to bring masculine gender roles closer to feminine limits, this process, which could have gone towards gender equality, was limited into the pandemic. According to other results obtained in the research, although men in their microsystems have carried their roles of fatherhood or husbandhood beyond gender stereotypes, the most important problem that becomes evident in this system was that men's adaptation skills regarding home, family or marriage are limited. In their mesosystem, men who were pushed out of the public-sphere remained away from the systems that would evaluate their masculine role performances, and therefore they considered all their experiences within this system in the context of "disempowerment". The biggest impact of the pandemic on men's exosystems was the economic problems caused by loss of income. Chronic problems in the exosystem, which is the system where men's relations with social justice begin, have weakened men on class and social terms at the point of producing a political consciousness. It has been found that the most important role a man should play, according to the hegemonic ideals valid in the macrosystem which is creates basic cultural codes in the construction of masculinity, is to be economically capable. In the context of this system, it has also been concluded that men's risk-taking behaviors might have some cultural foundations and that the hegemonic values valid in society are not always accepted by all men. Men's statements about the chronosystem that provides the socio-historical conditions in which masculinities is produced proved that masculine domination will continue unabated, perhaps even more brutal, after the pandemic. On interpreting the findings and creating conclusions and recommendations; the integrity of the Ecosystem Approach was utilized in order to contribute to working with men in social work practice.