"Indenturing the Body": Traditional Masculine Role Norms, Body Image Discrepancy, and Muscularity in a Sample of South African Indian Boys

This paper investigates the relationship between traditional masculine role norms, body image discrepancy, body appearance schemas, and sociocultural attitudes toward appearance in a sample of 495 South African Indian school going boys aged 13 to 18 years. Constructs were measured using the Masculine Role Norms Inventory, Lynch and Zellner’s Body Figure Drawings (1999), Appearance Schemas Inventory, and the Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance Scale-3. Analysis revealed a localized hegemonic masculinity of nonviolence, and a significant association between traditional masculinity norms of status-seeking, heteronormativity, anti-femininity, and restrictive emotionality, with body image discrepancy. Sociocultural attitudes towards appearance favoured athletic muscularity as a body ideal coinciding with heterosexist scripts, perceptions of mesomorph physiques in Bollywood cinema, and steroid use.