Aligning to ambivalence: White petty bourgeois masculinities, leisure and the contemporary cultural politics of gender in the UK

Abstract

Drawing on an ethnography of 12 white, young, petty bourgeois, heterosexual men between the ages of 20–26 from Leicester, UK, and utilising Raymond Williams concept of ‘structure of feeling’, this article will critically explore how their masculinities are performed, constituted and articulated in games of five-a-side football and house parties. This will further understanding of white masculinities, the intersecting gendered, classed and racial identities of the petty bourgeoisie, and the gender politics of the current conjuncture in the United Kingdom in three ways. First, it will make an explicit link between the broader cultural politics of gender in the United Kingdom and petty bourgeois masculinities through leisure. Second, it will critically build upon recent insights into the ‘both ways’ politics of the petty bourgeoisie in the United Kingdom by focussing on how gender and race factor into this. Finally, it will show how ‘aligning’ to this broader politics of gender is enabled by intersecting social locations of advantage, primarily in terms of class, race and sexuality, showing how alignment to ambivalence can articulate and reinforce inequalities between men, while feeding into broader gendered inequalities.