Guardian Feature Gathers 39 Photographs That Reshaped Perceptions of Masculinity

A Guardian feature published on 17 October 2026 assembles 39 images that, according to the paper, overturned assumptions about male behaviour, dress and the display of power. Luke Kennard wrote the introduction, which opens with a personal recollection from 2011: pushing his newborn son through suburban Birmingham in a large red buggy, because the child slept only while moving, he drew glances and remarks ranging from pity to reproach to outsized praise. Kennard wonders why the sight should seem remarkable, and suggests he would have felt less exposed had he followed David Bowie's lead by wearing what resembles a dress, as Bowie does in one of the featured photographs. The selection spans a body-building Arnold Schwarzenegger and a weeping Frenchman, among other subjects. Kennard invokes John Berger's well-known formulation that men act while women appear, noting that art history showed men demonstrating physical strength and readiness for action to assert dominance. Turning that gaze around, he argues, and using the lens to capture masculinity, feels subversive. The feature is framed as a survey of pictures that changed how men are seen, for better and for worse.