Men at Work: How Are Masculinities Constituted and Performed in Work and Employment Settings?

Abstract

This collection addresses the question: how are masculinities constituted and performed in work and employment settings? Work, Employment and Society has published many studies which show people performing, engaging and resisting constitutions of masculinities in employment settings. This collection brings 11 of these publications together to show how and why masculinities – as culturally constructed constitutions and performances – are reproduced, consolidated and contested in work and employment contexts. Three categories are used to order the selected publications: (1) precariousness, (2) embodiment and (3) symbolic interactions. The collection provides a body of work showing what we know (and do not know) about how masculinities are constituted and performed in employment settings, which contemporary scholars can consult, engage with and build on as the sociological intersection of gender, masculinities and work evolves, especially at the empirical level.

Introduction

This foreword prefaces a themed collection that addresses the question, how are masculinities constituted and performed in work and employment settings? Work, Employment and Society has published many studies which show people performing, engaging and resisting constitutions of masculinities in employment settings. The aim of this themed collection is to bring a number of these – otherwise somewhat disparate – publications together.

The publications that make up this special collection show that masculinities – as culturally constructed constitutions and performances – are enacted, consolidated and contested in work and employment settings in relative, qualitatively complex ways. We should not conceptualise the performance of ‘masculinity at work’ as a singular phenomenon. Rather, we should conceptualise performances of masculinities in work settings pluralistically, thus appreciating the empirical variation, subjectivity and heterogeneity that underpins how people constitute and perform masculinities in work settings. Through the articles selected for this themed collection, some of the ways which masculinities are constituted and performed in work settings are outlined. Further, the wider socio-economic backdrops that performances of masculinity in work settings occur in relation to are outlined. This shows how wider sociological themes (such as the theme of precariousness owing to de-industrialisation and the theme of embodiment) impact how masculinities are expressed and conceptualised by a cohort of people in a particular employment setting, time and place.

It is important to produce this themed collection because doing so means readers can appreciate how masculinities are performed in work settings subjectively: different typologies of people do different things at work in order to perform different constitutions of masculinities, in relation to wider sociological themes and backdrops around them. Reminding ourselves of this – and seeing how and why this is the case in nuanced sociological detail – allows for a more complete empirical understanding of gender, work and society to emerge. Further, the collection is important as it can help scholars conducting future research into how masculinities are constituted and performed in work settings, by giving them an epistemological and ontological conceptual framework and context to build on. Likewise, this themed collection is important as it can diversify understandings of who can and does ‘do’ masculinities within work and employment settings.

The specific focus of this special collection is on men reproducing, consolidating and contesting forms of masculinities in work and employment contexts. However, it is important to recognise that women, non-binary people, etc., can also perform, engage with and resist culturally constructed notions of masculinities in their employment experiences, interactions and enactments. We should be inclusive when thinking about whose behaviour is and can be ‘masculine’, and why masculinity matters as something that underpins work and employment interactions, not just for men. The strict focus on men ‘doing’ masculinity in this special issue is necessary. But this focus on men is not presented to imply that it is only men whose working lives are underpinned by wider, cultural narratives about what masculinity constitutes and who are required to engage with cultural notions of masculinity at a performative level. This point – and its role in future scholarship – is returned to in the ‘final remarks’ section.

To find work published in WES relevant to the themed collection, the terms ‘men and masculinity’ were searched in the WES database. This brought up 825 results. Two objectives then arose. First, select an appropriate number of articles to feature in a themed collection. Second, find studies that are specifically pertinent to this collection’s focus on how masculinities are constituted and performed in work settings. To fulfil these objectives, the abstracts of 825 identified articles were read. During this reading process, articles that were identified as relevant were stored. This resulted in 23 articles being stored. The 23 articles were then read in detail. Eventually, 11 articles were selected to feature in the themed collection. The 11 selected articles were chosen because they are especially rich in portraying and positioning masculinity as a complex, heterogenous socio-cultural and economic construct, which is underpinned by men’s subjective relationships to the work and employment contexts around them. Almost certainly, other articles published in WES exist that are relevant to this themed collection’s question, but which I did not identify via my search in the WES database. For example, had I searched for processes like ‘de-industrialisation’ and ‘redundancy’ or male-dominated sectors like ‘construction’, further articles would have been retrieved. However, because so many articles were found via my initial search – and because a number of relevant articles had to be discounted in order to fit the numerical requirements of the themed collection – there was no point in searching the WES database further, via related terms.

Upon reflecting on the 11 selected articles in more detail, it became clear that the articles could be grouped within one of three categories. These categories are used to structure this themed collection’s format. The categories conceptualise how constitutions and performances of masculinity in work and employment settings occur in relation to more specific wider sociological themes and backdrops (being 1. precariousness, 2. embodiment and 3. symbolic interactions). I now discuss these three categories and summarise the articles that I grouped in each category.

The constitution and performance of masculinities in work settings against a backdrop of precariousness

Articles in the first category reveal men having precariousness relationships with work and employment settings. The thematic basis of these studies is that a deeply rooted, historical relationship between doing types of work and masculinity existed in the locales studied. Men’s relationship with work has fundamentally changed in the locales, most obviously via a shift to post-industrialism. This has impacted men’s ability to perform ‘traditional’, physical work and, relatedly, affirm, constitute and perform their masculinity – as a cultural and economic construct – through work (see Willis, 1979). There is a particular social-class dimension at play: it is not just masculinity that is impacted because of post-industrialism and the precariousness relationship with work post-industrialism has created for men. More specifically, it is the ability to perform a constitution of working-class masculinity via work that has been impacted.

Charles and James (2005) consider men’s insecure relationship with work in South Wales, UK, where the loss of coalmining has intrinsically altered local men’s relationship with work. Chester (2023) – with reference to the impact post-industrialism has had on Germany – explores how men’s sense of masculinity is impacted by a lack of available ‘masculine work’. In both these geographical contexts, men are no longer able to perform the traditional role of ‘male breadwinner’ because the jobs men need to do so (e.g. mining) do not exist. With the loss of industrial jobs, symbiotically comes an inability for men to perform a constitution of masculinity rooted in the ability to do ‘hard work’ and economically provide for others, especially family members. This renders men from working-class backgrounds with a sense of shame and obsoleteness because of their relationship with the world of post-industrial work around them. One cannot perform a constitution of working-class masculinity when working-class jobs and labour settings are not available.

Simpson (2004) looks at male workers’ experiences when employed in female-dominated occupations (as librarians, cabin crew, nurses and primary school teachers). In a post-industrial context, ‘female’ jobs like these are a potential source of employment for men. However, as one would expect – given the desire men have to perform ‘masculine work’, as depicted in the studies discussed above – these types of jobs are not desired by or fulfilling to men, especially men from working-class backgrounds. Perhaps this should not be the case, as men appear privileged in these work settings: compared with women, men are assumed to be good leaders, they are assumed to personify a careerist attitude, they feel comfortable working with mainly female colleagues and they are given deferential treatment. Despite this, men employed in ‘female’ jobs feel their masculinity is undermined because of the feminised nature of their work. In turn, men participate in a variety of coping strategies – such as ‘distancing from the feminine’ and ‘status enhancement’ – to (re)establish a sense of masculinity while working in feminised settings and decrease a sense of emasculation as a result of their work.

Lindsay and McQuaid (2004) look at service work that is low skilled, poorly paid and that epitomises the ‘McJobs’ which are increasingly a defining feature of western labour markets and economies. The authors found a reluctance among jobseekers to participate in service work. This reluctance was especially pronounced and substantive among older men from working-class communities. This is because older men see low wages and the feminised connotations of service work as especially incongruent with what they expect from work: namely economic reward and a sense that their work affirms the classed configuration of masculinity they constitute as idealised and desire to perform. There is, seemingly, a generational element at play in how precariousness expresses itself in men’s working lives today, in an economy underpinned by post-industrialism and service work.

McDowell et al. (2014) focus on the context of Luton in the UK where racial tensions and divisions run high between communities and where, in the wake of post-industrialism, service work has replaced industrial work as the form of labour readily available to local men. Service work demands servitude to customers. But young working-class men – especially when from minority communities – are unwilling to show servitude. There is, after all, little chance of affirming ‘working-class masculinity’ – the performance of which is built on toughness, a lack of compromise and rebellion – when one is forced to show deference to customers. In turn, men participate in ‘protest masculinity’ as they come to terms with the fact that their occupational identities do not ‘fit’ gendered, cultural norms underpinned by machismo. (Coincidentally, this sentiment was also found in my own doctoral thesis looking at how the loss of coalmining in a Northumbrian town has impacted men’s relationship with work, with bodybuilding and steroid use being used by local men in ‘protest masculinity’ performances; see Giazitzoglu, 2018.)

Choi (2018) shows how state regulation and changing market organisation means migrant male taxi drivers in China have lost control over their working conditions and experience financial insecurity. Like men in Luton, migrant men in China feel marginalised because their work is unable to affirm their status as men who are culturally respected and economically able to provide. In the same way that the generational differences discussed in Lindsay and McQuaid’s study impact how masculinities are performed and constituted, ethnonational origin also plays a part in how masculinities are empirically constituted and performed by men in and through localised work and employment settings.

To better understand how precarious and alienated men – especially working-class men – feel because of their relationship to post-industrial labour and the absence of industrial work, it is helpful to see the extent to which working-class men have been conditioned to see types of labour as ‘manly’, and the ability to perform ‘manly labour’ as integral in performing working-class masculinity. For this, Altreiter and Flecker’s (2020) work is useful. They apply a Bourdieusian framework – specifically the theory of social reproduction – to examine how one’s class background and family-of-origin impact one’s commitment to work and sense of what constitutes ‘manly work’. Focusing on young blue-collar workers raised in Australia, they show how growing up in a working-class habitus socialises men to seek manual, physical work. Finding such work is integral in allowing men from working-class backgrounds to symbolically perform a configuration of working-class masculinity that has been idealised to them from a young age. When men – like those in the post-industrial contexts discussed above – have been conditioned to see work in this way, only to exist in a labour market where access to such work is denied, the precariousness, emasculation and associated psychosocial and economic shame men feel in the contemporary context can be understood.

The constitution and performance of masculinities in work settings in relation to embodiment

Work grouped in the second theme considers the relationship between how masculinity is constituted and performed in work settings in relation to embodiment. These studies show how the body functions as a resource that allows men to perform masculinity through their work.

Ajslev et al. (2017) show how physically demanding and painful work is used to maintain positive social, occupational and masculine identities for Danish construction workers. In this context, the body is a tool that is physically sacrificed by working-class men, in exchange for financial security. The ability and willingness to sacrifice the body in labour processes bestows a sense of masculinity on construction workers. The body is a key resource in the way work and masculinity intersect, as economic and socio-cultural, mutually informing constructs. Thinking about studies grouped in theme one, it is an inability to use the body in specific, physically demanding ways that seems to emasculate men. When construction workers use their bodies in processes that are physically demanding and thus, in their view, ‘masculine’, the ability for work to affirm not just a constitution of masculinity but working-class masculinity is retained.

Riach and Cutcher (2014) study the role of the masculine body in the highly demanding and lucrative hedge fund industry. How masculinity, class and ageing are ‘mapped’ onto traders’ bodies over time is explored. Riach and Cutcher demonstrate how middleclass men’s bodies are used to constitute and perform masculinity via work. The study also shows how the ageing male body causes a threat to masculinity. The focus on middle-class work – and middle-class male bodies within this work – is important ontologically. Extant literature looking at the performance of masculinity via work with a focus on embodiment has predominantly studied working-class men’s bodies. However, this study extends discussions, by showing how middle-class men must also use, engage and ‘manage’ their bodies if they are to affirm their masculinity – as a cultural construct and economic resource – while performing (primarily cerebral not physical) work.

The constitution and performance of masculinities in work settings through symbolic interactions

Work grouped in the third theme consists of studies which show how masculinity is constituted and performed via men’s symbolic interactions at work. These studies show men doing things in employment settings – typically at the micro-sociological level – in symbolically meaningful ways in order to align the ways they perform masculinity and conceptualise masculinity within labour processes.

Sang et al. (2014) show how a constitution of corporate, professional masculinity is understood and performed by men in architecture firms. Performing a constitution of professional masculinity is important for male architects because doing so helps them to develop a sense of belonging in competitive employment settings. It also helps secure employment development, such as promotions. Examples of symbolic practices that allow a constitution of professional masculinity to be performed by architects include the men working long hours (a symbolic act that female architects also felt obliged to symbolically perform) and being immersed in networks composed of other males. Performing a constitution of professional masculinity also occurs via demonstrations of technical expertise and creativity. As with Riach and Cutcher’s work, the focus on a corporate, middle-class work setting in Sang et al.’s study is important. The focus on middle-class masculinity complements the majority of work in the field, which focuses on working-class men and working-class employment settings (or their absence).

Simpson et al. (2014) consider ‘dirty work’ – specifically dirty work in the butcher trade. Many see dirty work as undesirable, stigmatised employment. However, working-class men can perform a configuration of masculinity they have been conditioned to want to reproduce by reproducing symbolic actions inherent in dirty work. Contact with blood and meat and the routine use of sharp blades and grinders allow a symbolic relationship between ‘dirty’ work and masculinity to emerge. Butchering allows an authentic working-class masculine identity – rooted in risk, physicality and the willingness to ‘do’ dirty work – to be affirmed, in a post-industrial labour market.

Final remarks

This themed collection is published at a time when the sociological relationship between masculinities and work is in constant flux. Sociologists of work, employment and gender are challenged with understanding this flux and what it means in terms of how masculinities are constituted and performed in work settings and how these performances relate to wider socio-economic themes. In turn, sociologists must look to the past to establish what we know (and don’t know) about how masculinities have been constituted and performed in distinct ways, in particular employment settings and against sociological backdrops. To help with this ongoing project, relevant articles published in WES, which I identified in the ways described earlier, are now presented.

As noted earlier, masculinities are not just performed by men and do not only matter to the work and employment experiences of males. Instead, masculinity is something that underpins the working lives of women, non-binary people and others, who also perform, consolidate and contest culturally constructed notions of masculinities, in subjective ways, as part of their work and employment experiences. How and why masculinity matters to these actors and shapes these actors’ experiences of work and employment is an area of analysis that requires further detailed empirical exploration. Likewise, the related question of whose behaviour – in addition to men’s – is and can be masculine represents a germane area for qualitative analysis. Scholars exploring these questions and areas in the future can use work in this special collection to give context to their ongoing analysis, as they widen and broaden how scholars conceptualise and methodologically identify how masculinities are performed and conceptualised in work and employment contexts for non-male actors.