Masculine Discourses and Dissonances: Strutting ‘Lads’,Protest Masculinity,and Domestic Respectability

Abstract

In this paper I explore the social construction of masculinities among white working-class youth in contemporary Britain. The literatures of urban sociology, cultural studies, and education have been remarkably ambivalent about ‘lads’, both celebrating and criticising the anti-authority young men who have strutted across the pages of numerous books, papers, and reports. Policymakers, on the other hand, have feared rather than envied this group, representing them as a danger to respectable society. First, through an analysis of these discourses and, second, through an empirical study of two groups of young men, one in a northern English city, the other in a southern city, over a twelve-month period, I explore contemporary versions of masculinity, assessing the extent to which the attitudes and behaviour of the young men whom I interviewed reflect hegemonic notions of working-class masculinity. I suggest that this version of masculinity is itself complex and variable, combining not only protest and resistance but also respectability and domestic aspirations. These latter attributes have generally been ignored in studies of lads'.