Over the last few decades in Portuguese society profound changes have been shown to underpin massive transformations at the core of the gender order (Am&acirc;ncio, 1994; Aboim, 2008; Vasconcelos, 2004). Women's emancipation, either through paid work or the conquest of sexual freedom, the relative decline of the male-breadwinner model, and, broadly, the dismantling of gender differences as naturalised legal categories have raised new demands on traditional gender segregation. Whether by reason of the power of symbolic change, whereby a strong expectation of equality became established as a legitimate norm (Vasconcelos, 1998; Aboim, 2006), or by reason of the changes in women's social position, it is certain that the traditional model of masculinity began to change. As recent research as highlighted, the pluralisation of the &quot;ways of being a man&quot; constitutes a key development in the reshaping of gender divisions, pointing to renewed tensions between traditional masculinity and new ideals of manhood (Aboim, Vasconcelos & Neves, 2009; Wall, Aboim& Marinho, 2007; Wall & Aboim, 2009). However, this is a subject about which little is as yet known in Portugal. As such, the overall purpose of this project is to examine how the equation between dominant and marginal models of masculinity has been transformed and how it affects men in less powerful positions. Furthermore, it is important to evaluate how this remaking of masculinity influences women's position in society and even contributes to transform femininity and the ideal gender contract. To understand contemporary gender relations, and the obstacles blocking gender equality, we argue, it is imperative to see how hegemonic masculinity operates in culture and in real practices (Connell, 2003). <p>The concept of hegemony, as applied by Connell (1995) to masculinity(ies) in an inspiring tying up of Gramsci's (1988) approach to power with a theory of practice (Bourdieu, 1998), is a powerful but complex notion meant to capture the underlying structures of domination in gender relations, which result in the subordination of women and also in unequal relations between different forms of masculinity (Donaldson, 1993; Pease& Pringle, 2001). In this view, one dominant form of masculinity gains ascendancy over others, subordinated and marginalised, masculinities, thus creating hierarchical relations amongst men and groups of men. Although hegemonic masculinity is directed to the domination of women, thereby nourishing a traditionally dichotomised gender system that cuts across social class, it most often discriminates men from lower classes and even more the gay and the non-white. Hegemonic masculinity is, however, a complex notion, as it integrates different levels of analysis of power relations, whether cultural patterns, institutional settings or real practices are examined (Hearn, 1996; Whitehead, 2002; Demetriou, 2001; Howson, 2006). It refers both to crystallized ideologies, which are historically and socially variable (Kimmel, 1995), and to the institutional organisation of the gender system, which is translated into different welfare policies, for instance (Pfau-Effinger, 2004). The concept has also been fruitfully applied to the study of men's practices. In Portugal, Vale de Almeida (1995) stressed the gap between practices and ideologies by putting forward that the symbolically dominant model of masculinity - the hegemonic male - applied only to a small group of men. In this line of reasoning, empirical studies focusing on the plurality of masculinities and the tensions generated in the process of building up masculine identities have been considered of great importance (Hearn and Pringle, 2006; Pringle et al., 2006). Previous research carried out by the applicant team suggested that in Portuguese society, the rapid pace of changes in gender relations, led men to recreate hybrid identities, between old and new codes of masculinity. Many men are expressing dilemmas and even conflict when describing their life trajectories by comparison to the values and the examples they inherited from their fathers and grandfathers (Aboim, Vasconcelos& Neves, 2009). Some important tensions arise from uncertainty regarding the proper meaning of manhood in a context where women's empowerment has become legitimate in both public and private domains. The rise of a dual breadwinner model, which diminishes men's supremacy as main providers for their families, and the transformation of patterns of sexual behaviour based on a difficult negotiation of equality with the codes of male virility constitute key dimensions where conflict is emerging. On the other hand, among subordinated or marginal masculinities there are permanent struggles for supremacy, as it happens with gay men or immigrants and non-Europeans (Aboim, 2008b). Therefore, the distinction between hegemony, as a static photo of what in a given moment in time is at the centre of the ideological field, and domination, as a social process existing in practices, is central to comprehend plurality in the lives of men, who may combine contradictory references when relating themselves to models of masculinity. In the reconstruction of masculinity, domination is taking place, altering, through a compound of multiple actions, the balance between equality and inequality. Thus, the starting point of our theoretical argument is to propose a heuristic distinction between ideological hegemony and domination in everyday interaction. Men in less powerful positions, either because their sexuality is antithetic with the heterosexual norm or because they are deprived of social capitals (whether economic, symbolic of physical), mobilise power in complex ways. When facing discrimination and exclusion they may be recreating and transforming the own structure of hegemony, that is to say, the forms of masculinity, and the way they interconnect, and also the relations between masculinities/men and femininities/women.