Nobody wants a pathetic man: on men's non-participation in epistemic health communities online

In Denmark almost as many men as women are living with chronic illnesses, still, very<br/>few men choose to engage in online communities to share their illness narratives and<br/>seek care and information. This paper investigates the dynamics behind the choice of<br/>non-participation in online health communities and discusses the potential<br/>consequences of gendered epistemic health communities.<br/>Through a critical lens of feminist STS and masculinity studies – and drawing from 20<br/>semi-structured interviews with men living with chronic illness – this paper finds that<br/>the answer to why men choose not to participate in health communities on social<br/>media is grounded in a profound ontological insecurity. Challenging the notion of stable male and female ontologies the paper suggests that this ontological insecurity is caused by hegemonic masculine beliefs and norms fueling a performativity of illness that leaves little room for showing vulnerability, sharing illness narratives, and seeking care and support from peers. The paper eventually discusses how the non-participating men still both critique and shape the online epistemic health communities in their absence and thus reconsiders feminist questions regarding knowledge production: whose knowledge counts and who can know?