Occupational Cultures and the Embodiment of Masculinity: Hairdressing, Estate Agency and Firefighting

Abstract

Drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project, this article explores the implications of different occupational cultures for men's masculine identity. With a focus on embodiment and individual agency, it explores the argument that it is within 'scenes of constraint' that gendered identities are both 'done' and 'undone'. In this article we examine embodied experience in occupational cultures commonly stereotyped as 'masculine' or 'feminine' (hairdressing, estate agency and firefighting), showing how men conform to, draw upon and resist the gendered stereotypes associated with these occupations. What we argue is that gendered conceptions of 'the body' need to be differentiated from individual men's embodiment. Instead, processes of identification can be shown to emerge via embodied experiences of particular kinds of gendered body, and in the ways in which men negotiate the perception of these bodies in different occupational contexts.

Challenging the field: Bourdieu and men’s health

“…We have further exemplified the relevance of Bourdieu's approach to men's health promotion with reference to football leisure settings, which unlike service employment fields, preserve a space of 'exchange' (De Visser et al, 2009) for a predominantly masculine habitus. We have said less about the central field of family relations, although the examples (above) in Gibson's study (2007) and Hall et al, (2007) remind us that dislocations and tensions within and between the gendered fields of family and work have powerful implications for reshaping dispositions (habitus) and reflexivity. From a health inequalities perspective, it is also important to focus specifically on social exclusion arising from changes in fields, for example decline in manufacturing and labour market trends engendering male unemployment.…”

“…Another study explored men who were constrained to conform to stereotypes of embodied masculinity prevalent within particular occupational fields and cultures understood as either more 'masculine' or 'feminine' (fire-fighting, estate agency, hairdressing,) in order to perform their work (Hall et al, 2007). However, their embodied social practice is influenced by factors such as: a) tensions between gendered fields of family and work (exemplified with a home-handyman hairdresser); b) shifting gendered make up of particular occupations (the estate agent expected to embody authority, masculinity, and business-like demeanour with investors and developers, yet also to perform sympathetically and act gentle, doing emotion work with family clients); and c) bodily changes associated with ageing (the ageing fire-fighter contemplating his embodied masculinity in relation to increasing strains of shift-work and physical recovery).…”

Ways of Seeing: Sexism the Forgotten Prejudice?

“…games of football, volleyball, circuit training). Living together at the station on shift work in such ways results in an intimate knowledge of one another in a bodily way, producing a homo-social culture predicated on banter to overcome the frustration and boredom of waiting (Hall, Hockey, and Robinson 2007). In this context, sexist language and pranks have traditionally been treated part and parcel of normal everyday life with little recognition of the power of language to (re)produce sexual inequalities.…”

“…Firefighting is a traditional class-based occupation associated with a hard, physical and heroic masculinity that has allowed firefighters to distance themselves from women and other men employed in 'feminized' office employment (Hall, Hockey, and Robinson 2007). In this context, teamwork is highly valued, producing a culture predicated on male sociability.…”

Biceps, Bitches and Borgs: Reading Jarhead’s Representation of the Construction of the (Masculine) Military Body

“…There are also empirical studies focusing primarily on male bodies -for example, of bouncers, hairdressers, fire-fighters and estate agents (Monaghan, 2002;Hall, Hockey, & Robinson, 2007). However, the female body is indubitably more common subject matter in such discussions, and so there is more which remains to be said about its male counterpart.…”