Disrupting Hegemonic Masculinity(ies): Unpicking Urban Men’s Livelihood Survival Strategies in Ghana

Abstract

This paper argues that in many sociological theorizing on gender, work, and employment, relatively little is known about how men who engage in female dominated informal works make sense of their gendered identities. Drawing from qualitative research in a rapidly urbanizing Ghanaian city, we examine the meanings and implications of men’s involvement in gender atypical informal works. An unpacking of the constructions of gendered identity reveals the situative strategies that men may deploy to maintain, embolden, and/or adjust their masculinities congruent with dominant cultural scripts. In the end, we argue that men who engage in traditionally feminine work are accused of failing to herald the mainstreaming of the fulfillment of hegemonic masculinity which is a necessary cultural milestone.

Keywords

masculinities feminized works gender informal economy Ghana

In the past five decades, the urban informal economy has become widespread in global South economies particularly in African cities following Hart’s (1973) seminal work in Accra, Ghana. Hart argued for sociologically oriented theorizing that takes into consideration the increasingly prevalent and diverse micro-economic practices of new urban migrants (Hart, 1973; International Labour Organization, 1972). After several decades, Hart’s work remains a significant resource in sociological theorizing on work and gender as it relates to the formal–informal economy, where he characterized unaccounted employment opportunities in Accra (Hart, 1973). The concept of unaccounted employment has gained profound prominence as an important analytical and conceptual framework in much of sociological theorizing and development planning. The increasing scholarly interest in the informal economy, particularly cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been attributed to the weakness of the formal sector to generate adequate employment opportunities for the rapidly increasing youthful labor force as well as the increased rate of rural–urban migration across the length and breadth of the continent (Thieme, 2018). Presently, there is an increasing acknowledgment of its importance on the smooth functioning of the economies of cities and its implications on how the majority of people deal with poverty and livelihood challenges (Myers, 2016; Williams, 2015). Within the context of SSA, informal work/employment contributes to about 80% of the active labor force. A national occupational structure survey conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) explicitly shows that overall, the informal economy provides the most employment for people in all the regions in the country. In Ghana’s Upper West Region, where this study was conducted, the informal economy employs over 80% of people (GSS, 2016).

Debates continue to ensue amongst scholars regarding the relationship between rapid rates of urbanization, the growth and diversity of the informal sector, and the roles of both the state and formal market economies in enabling informality (Beck et al., 2016; Brown, 1987; Thieme, 2018). Brown (1987) and Beck et al. (2016) argue for a critical investment in understanding the political economy of work, where comparative, transnational analysis is taken seriously. While there is copious literature in this respect, much of the focus tends to emphasize on industrialized Western countries, such as the UK, North America, and Europe broadly. Yet, in SSA, research has anticipated that more than half a million people aged 15 years old are likely to migrate to urban cities between 2015 and 2035 in order to seek for better employment opportunities (Brooks et al., 2014). The African youth are structurally excluded from the realms of economic opportunities, particularly in African cities. Recently, the vocabulary of “hope” and “aspirations” has gained warm reception among feminist political economists and urban geographers. While feminists are concerned with the insecurity and threat that urban youth may cause, urban geographers have pointed to what appeared to be growing desperation and impatience among African youth in their bid to develop better social profiles for themselves in urban cities (Cobbinah et al., 2016; Harris & Little, 2019; Kabiru et al., 2013; Mains, 2012). As this vocabulary of “hope” and “aspirations” gained reception in research in SSA, it has become extremely important (theoretically and methodologically) to analyze “hope” and “aspirations” as gendered and socio-discursive constructs woven into the fiber of urban economy and neoliberal capitalism. For example, most young men migrate to urban cities with high hopes of acquiring material properties, transforming their own lives and the lives of extended families through improved and stable jobs, enhanced social status, networks, and positioning. Yet the socioeconomic and material realities circumscribing life in urban spaces do not allow, in any predictable way, these imaginations to materialize (Finn, 2018; Harris & Little, 2019).

Being faced by daunting socioeconomic and material conditions, coupled with mounting pressure for young men to prove their worth as masculine subjects, most young men are bereft of the legitimizing imperatives of patriarchal and neoliberal ideologies even in urban areas where hope and aspirations metamorphose into spectacles of profound pain, anxieties, frustrations, and despair (Kabiru et al., 2013; Langevang, 2008). Research has foregrounded how poverty, unemployment, and other forms of structural inequalities in urban spaces in SSA frustrate young men in their bid to lay claims to power, social recognition, honor, and respect; ideals that underpin traditional constructions of masculinities (WHO UN-Habitat, 2010). Feminist geographers have argued that the hopes, desires, and aspirations of African youth in most African cities are embedded in complex forms of neoliberal urbanism where notions of urban politics, governance, and citizenship are deeply entangled (Cobbinah et al., 2016; Rakodi, 2006). These authors have pointed to how forms of neoliberal urbanism privilege and prioritize the interests of urban bourgeoisies while neglecting the demographic realities, aspirations, and everyday struggles of young people. The dreams, hopes, and aspirations of African urban youths in becoming respectable social citizens are increasingly being suffocated by tacit behaviors and actions of their elite colleagues who ensure that everyday power relationships and social hierarchies are profoundly rooted in racial/ethnic affiliations, gender, kinship ties, social class, age hierarchies, and religious networks. These social categories interact and intersect in complex ways that disadvantage women and young people who, by virtue of their precarious socioeconomic and material conditions, may lack the requisite industrial training, resources, social network, political capital and connection, knowledge, and skills to secure stable and dignified jobs (Agadjanian, 2002; Finn, 2018; Harris & Little, 2019; Langevang, 2008). Needless to say, that young men’s problematic behaviors, including violent dispositions, delinquency, crime, alcohol and drug abuse, and other forms of socially unapproved behaviors in urban spaces maybe deployed as tacit forms of resistance and resilience against their frustrated aspirations and dreams.

Young men may deploy these culturally unapproved behaviors to strategically position themselves individually and in relation to others in contest for gender hegemony and cultural legitimacy (Harris & Little, 2019). Young men relentlessly work to challenge and confront the challenges that life in urban spaces throws at them by exploring, reinventing, and finding alternative possibilities which could resuscitate masculine despairs and frustrated aspirations (Fuh, 2012). While urban theorists and feminist scholars have generally focused on understanding the problematic behaviors of young urban male dwellers, especially their morally deficient and violent dispositions and how such behaviors frustrate feminists’ cause for inclusive, safe, and transformative urban regime, less is known about how young men are likely to cope with the temporalities, frustrations, difficulties, ambiguities, and constraining limits of neoliberal urban economy in Ghana. As the world braces to celebrate the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, it is vitally important to develop continental synergies which could enable sharing of culturally grounded insights on the range of strategies, techniques, and psychological maneuverings that young urban male dwellers use to position themselves as men of social essence in both global North and South. This invitation is not entirely new. Beck et al. (2016) have pushed for the currency of engaging with debates and literature from both the global South and North as important starting point in appreciating the complexity of gender and work beyond more traditional approaches.

Drawing on the lived realities and everyday meaning-making among a cohort of young men in Ghana’s Upper West region (one of the poorest regions in Ghana), the main aim of this article is to contribute to re-thinking the socio-spatial significance of gender as it pertains to specific articulations, constructions, and negotiations of masculinities and femininities in urban spaces. The article privileges a critical understanding of gender as it interacts and mediated by a matrix of social categories, such as race/ethnicity, geography, age, history, sexuality, (dis)ability, social class, neoliberal capitalism, and economy. Due to the combining effects of these social axes in reproducing gendered subjectivities, vocabularies, and social hierarchies, we surmise that the difficulties and frustrations experienced by young urban male dwellers vis-a-vis their rural folks may not be significantly dissimilar, especially where both contexts experience high levels of poverty and unemployment.

Theoretical Framework: Gendered Privilege and Masculinized Spaces

This article is situated within two broad, but interrelated strokes of theories, namely, feminist theory of gender privilege and critical masculinity theories on the situatedness and temporality of patriarchal dividend. The article draws on these two strands of theoretical literature because of their complementary capacity to foreground everyday gendered subjectivities as deeply problematic, contingent, and constantly negotiated on ongoing basis across diverse geographies and cultures. Additionally, these strands of theories have the potential to offer nuanced understanding of masculine privilege and how such privileges, enabled by a coercive patriarchal social order, could both be contested and/or reproduced through men’s involvement in traditionally feminine province, such as food vending. In order to push the debate further in understanding the motivations for men’s involvement in gender atypical jobs; a conversation that has been ongoing for the past decade or so, it is important that gender scholars and urban theorists pay close attention to the situational implications of instances in which men’s masculine privilege is perceived to be threatened and the recuperative measures that men may deploy to resurrect such privileges. In view of this, two main questions remain central to the intervention of this article: what happens in situations in which men perceive themselves to be discriminated against by systemic and structural inequalities? How might such men talk about, make sense of, and navigate their gender privilege, when it is apparent to them that such privileges are only temporary, situational, and aspirational? These questions remain insufficiently theorized in much of the scholarly literature on gender, work, and privilege, especially from a global Southern perspective. In an attempt to contribute to conceptual and theoretical sophistication, the article argues for greater understanding of discourses of male privilege and how such discourses could be deconstructed.

The past three decades have witnessed an exponential growth in texts and scholarship on masculinities studies in ways that have brought to the fore important concerns about gendered dynamics and subjectivities in diverse cultures (Dery & Apusigah, 2020). There is now a rich body of literature to suggest that male bodied people tend to act, behave, represent, and position themselves in specific styles in response to the prevailing social structures, cultural expressions, and the material circumstances that give meanings and legitimacy to versions of what it may mean to be “a man” in a particular social context. Research continues to highlight how a range of intersecting factors shape notions of gender hegemony, power, social control, and dominance among and between social beings. A central idea that continues to influence feminist theorizing and activism is that configurations of masculinity and femininity are not the bona fide rights of men or women, rather these configurations are discursive reflections of the larger gender order prevailing in a specific historical moment and time (Connell, 1995). The debates on what it may mean to be “a man” or “woman” are thoroughly imbued with power relations and hierarchies, where masculinities are normatively afforded greater social status, privilege, and authority compared to femininities. In gender inequitable societies, most men are socialized to believe that to be “a man” is to be an independent heteronormative breadwinner who commands authority and power in the family and broader society. In Africa, much like elsewhere in the world, one route to attain the status of a successful heteronormative breadwinner is to earn plenty of income which may enable young men to get married, buy clothing for their wives, and pay their bride price; practices that cement men’s position as meaningful social adults (Dery, 2019). In contemporary times, to be a respectable young man may also mean being able to acquire and possess modern material properties such as houses, cars, smart phones, etc. These are fast becoming codified as central tenets of respectable manhood in Africa and even across the globe. In the context of Africa, these traits are often taken as important measures for the fulfillment of what Connell (1995) described as hegemonic masculinity.

According to Connell (1995), hegemonic masculinity is the most culturally appealing model of being a man in a particular space and time. Inspired by the privileges associated with hegemonic masculinity, most men do not only aspire to position themselves in line with hegemonic ideals, they desist from investing in ideologies and practices which have the potential to define them as “non-masculine,” or worse still, “feminine.” Burdened by the fear of being (mis)perceived as the “other” of hegemonic masculinity, most men may engage in exaggerated behavioral enactments and practices that may appear to undermine their own health, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. What has remained and will continue to remain true of hegemonic masculinity is its elusive, provisional, and aspirational undertone as most men struggle to acquire dominant milestones necessary for hegemonic masculinity. In Africa, research has revealed that multiple structural inequalities, such as unemployment and poverty may contribute to men’s struggle in becoming men of significant social essence (Dery, 2019), and may remain stuck in progressing to the position of social adults (Sommer, 2012). Unfortunately, the appeal of hegemonic masculine ideals discourages most men from certain spaces, networks, jobs, and relationships. The most visible consequence of hegemonic masculine ideals is that they create blatant hierarchies among men themselves and between men and women. For example, men who display traits of hegemonic masculinity are socially rewarded with privileges, while those who fail to measure up to dominant planks of manhood are socially penalized and shamed as not being “real men.” Consequently, men who may not be able to live up to the normative expectations and ideals believed to be prototypical of hegemonic masculinity may unwittingly engage in specific behavioral enactments, talks, and exaggerated displays in ways that may enable them to benefit from the patriarchal dividend (Connell, 1995). In view of such contradictory experiences, Ratele (2014) has proposed to analyze men located in Africa, where unemployment and poverty are pervasive as being marginal within hegemony—thus contesting Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity. Analyzing men in the context of Ghana as being marginal within a hegemonic and heteropatriarchal-capitalist world order offers us useful possibility to appreciate the everyday internal conflicts, despairs, and tensions that may confront men as they attempt to position themselves as credible social subjects in relation to others.

Method and Materials

Setting

This paper forms part of a larger qualitative research that seeks to gain better understanding of how young men construct, evaluate, and navigate dominant constructions of masculinities in tandem with rapidly changing socioeconomic and material conditions of the Wa Municipality of Ghana’s Upper West Region. Data from the GSS have consistently positioned the UWR as one of the poorest but fast-growing regions among the 16 regions of Ghana. Started initially as patches of villages (Osumanu et al., 2019), the UWR, and in particular, the Wa Municipality has become more cosmopolitan, more urbanized, and ethno-religiously heterogeneous partly due to the inception of the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies and the presence of many international NGOs. Wa, being the regional capital, has become an important commercial hub offering life experiences full of energy, optimism, dynamism, and density all coalescing to produce an urban life experience full of excitement and disappointment. Due to its commercial vibrancy, urban characters such as shoeshine men, “Cambo drivers” (tricycle riders), second-hand cloth dealers, track pushers, street hawkers, and fast-food vendors all compete for space and clients. Despite this growing heterogeneity, patriarchal culture and ideologies which position men as head of families and breadwinners remain dominant features (Dery, 2019). Men’s roles in the family are often limited to providing the material and spiritual needs of their families, while women are predominantly in charge of domestic chores, including cooking, cleaning, and fetching water. Based on gendered division of labor, men and women who cross the gender boundaries become a subject of demeaning and stereotypical comments. In the face of pervasive patriarchal values and ideologies on gender, the urban setting of Wa with its growing cosmopolitan and heterogenizing cultures provides a useful context for examining constructions of masculinities and femininities and the possibility for alternative masculinities to emerge.

Participants

A survey was conducted by the authors to map out the location and category of fast-food joints operated by men. Through referrals and personal networks of the researchers, a total of 15 fast-food joints operated by men were identified. All the owners of the 15 food joints were invited to participate in the study. Fortunately, all of them agreed to participate voluntarily without any form of compensation. Participants were between the ages of 20 and 45, with the majority being 30 years. Two participants were indigenes of the region while the rest were migrants from other parts of Ghana. The majority of participants had a first degree in non-catering field, a few had diploma in catering, and few had High School Certificate. At the time of the interviews, most participants were not married but indicated that they were in committed heterosexual relationships. Only one participant was married with two children, while two others had fathered a child each with their former girlfriends. All participants described themselves as the breadwinners of their families.

Data Collection

Data for this paper come from ethnographic interviews conducted with 15 men over a 6-month period (October–December 2018 and January–March 2019). While focus group discussions could have facilitated gaining a quick understanding of collectively held views and understandings of gender identity, individual interviews enable the authors to unpack the complexities and ambivalences of men engaging in gender atypical job. Additionally, interviews have the potential to bring to the fore salient issues without men necessarily feeling compelled to reproduce dominant images of manhood. Interviews were conducted mostly in English with intermittent probes in Wale and Twi (second major languages of participants which both authors are native speakers). Using English, Twi, and Wale enabled the authors to capture the cultural nuances associated with participants’ stories. It also enables the authors to clarify the inconsistencies inherent in what was being articulated by participants. The authors also made observations of the daily activities of participants during their working hours. The interviews focused broadly on understanding how participants make sense of their identities as men engaging in traditionally feminine space, discourses of hopes, hustles, aspirations, and gendering of spaces. The authors probed what motivated men’s participation in fast-food vending, and whether such motivations and aspirations were achieved or not.

Data Analysis

The second author translated and transcribed all the interviews into English. The first author cross-checked and audited the transcripts with the audio recordings to ensure that the integrity and content of the data was not compromised by the translation process. After double-checking to mitigate potential bias in our data, both authors read the transcripts repeatedly to gain a fair sense of the transcripts before initial codes could be developed. The authors manually coded the transcripts independently using a line-by-line coding style. Various codes were developed and clustered into meaningful themes and patterns. Broadly, the themes focused on how men understood dominant constructions of masculinities and how they sought to achieve them through their engagement in fast-food vending. After both authors had agreed on the themes that were representative of the larger data, a thematic analysis was conducted drawing on Attride-Stirling’s (2001) approach of thematic analysis. Data triangulation was carried out by comparing and contrasting interviews and field observations to gain a better perspective on men’s understandings of masculinities and their everyday expressions of gendered subjectivities.

Ethics

Written informed consent was obtained from participants who could read and write while those who could not read and write gave verbal consent. In order to protect the identity of the participants, pseudonyms are used throughout our analysis.

Findings

Reproducing Traditional Masculinity

Throughout the transcripts, participants made reference to dominant discourse which requires men to strive for specific qualities in order to merit the position of respectable men. As a result of this perception, participants suggested that they felt embarrassed, disappointed, and shamed as a result of their engagement in a traditionally feminine job. It emerged that most participants were sensitive to the potential judgments and gossip of other people, including their families and peers. In the UWR, roles and responsibilities are divided along gender lines and any deviation from these roles and responsibilities is frowned on. In view of the gendered demarcation of roles and responsibilities, participants suggested that their families and friends, especially male peers were less proud of their gender atypical career choice. Participants articulated that their choice of job often trigger immediate laughter, ridicule, and disapproval as emphasized by Dauda, a 29-year-old diploma holder:

Where I grew up, it was kind of a big taboo to see a man of my stature cooking let alone selling food. So, when I started this food vending, people, including my friends were always like, ‘Ok, but this is a woman’s stuff. As a young man, I needed to be working in offices, wearing suits and looking smart. Once people know that you sell food down on the street, they immediately perceive you as a failure; a school drop-out. This troubles my sense of manhood.

Interviewer:

In what ways do such perceptions trouble your manhood?

Dauda:

In our society, there are specific roles and responsibilities meant for men and women differently like it is kind of believed that men work in offices while women take care of the homes. As a man, I needed to earn income. That makes people respect me in the community. The dream of every young man is to be independent. When there is an issue that involves money, you solve it without depending on others.

In interacting with Sampson, a 35-year-old secondary school graduate, he elaborated on this further:

Men are naturally born to be independent. If you are a young man like me and you do not have money, you have no girlfriend [laugh]. People look down on you as a failure [a useless person]. It is kind of embarrassing [sigh]. Your dignity is crushed into the gutters.

The narratives of participants in this study revealed that young men have aspired for what could be described as traditional masculinity which involves being independent. Young men’s ability to be independent confers them social dominance, respectability, privilege, and social status in the society. This appears to create a kind of hegemonic masculinity which repudiates alternative forms of masculinity. It is interesting that participants such as Dauda and Sampson draw on an essentialist discourse which equates material provision with credible masculinity. Such an essentialized discourse allows Dauda and Sampson to position men and women as having distinctively different natural roles, responsibilities, and abilities related to who society expects them to represent. In their reflections, working hard and being independent were important measures of respectable masculinity; a practice which every young man needed to aspire for. Even though such aspirations emerged to be abstract, participants in this study expressed the feeling that their desire to become better social adults could be materialized when they work in offices thus othering food vending.

Office work, not food vending, was perceived to be an important route to masculine fulfillment, self-esteem, and social status because it could enable young men to become independent and respected people. While men’s involvement in a heavily female dominated job may facilitate, they becoming independent, most participants were worried because their involvement in a gender atypical job is likely to give society the “wrong impression” that they are “failures” or school dropouts. In the context of Ghana’s Upper West Region, to be described as a “school dropout” or a “failure” is highly derogatory as such people are usually perceived to be less academically intelligent and only qualified for low-ranking jobs (Dery, 2019). It is important to recognize that within the overarching gender hierarchies prevalent in the study communities, young men’s lack of access to formal work place them in relatively subordinate position compared with those who wield economic power. Even as such perceptions were evidently articulated throughout the interviews, it remains important to understand how young men make sense of their gendered identities in the context in which their cultural identities are perceived to be threatened. How might young men resuscitate their masculine credentials in ways that may enable them to benefit from the patriarchal dividend?

Fractured Identities and the Struggle for Patriarchal Hegemony

In other interviews, it emerged that young men are likely to receive social benefits when they adhere to traditionally masculine behaviors, practices, and norms while those who behave in ways that resemble traditionally feminine traits are more likely to experience social penalties. Some of these social penalties were illuminated as “backlash,” “labelling,” or “name calling.” Most participants shared their personal frustrations on how they were subjected to derogatory comments because of their gender atypical career choices. It emerged that both parents and close friends of men who engaged in gender atypical career choices were perceived to be the main perpetrators of such derogatory comments. Participants described their experiences as hurtful to their sense of manhood. They alleged that both male and female clients also questioned their embodiment of culturally dominant registers of masculinity. We observed that most participants tend to alter their behaviors in ways that appear to be more appropriate for their career. Despite the differences in educational attainment, age, class, marital status, and cultural backgrounds, all the participants indicated that they had encountered, on multiple occasions, remarks such as “That is a woman’s job. Men don’t engage in this stuff,” “You have a good intention, but this is meant for women,” and “So, you have now become a man-woman.” The narrative of Francis, a 30-year-old university graduate illuminates his frustration with his father when the latter heard about his choice of job. Francis indicated that his father described him as a failure. According to Francis, his father felt deeply hurt because he (Francis) has failed to embody ideals that the latter, as a patriarchal figure, has imagined for him:

After investing so much money to send you to university, there is no better job that you do? Couldn’t you get office work that your colleague graduates are doing than such an embarrassing work [odd job]? ‘I am highly disappointed in your choice of job. While other parents are proud of their children’s achievements, what do I [as a father] also have to show when my colleagues are boastful about their children? You have failed to be the kind of man that I wanted you to become’. These days, people accord you respect based on the kind of work you do and lifestyle you live. When you bring yourself so low by engaging in women’s work, people undermine you. They do not take you seriously.

Interviewer:

Have you ever regretted doing what your father described as an ‘odd job’?

Francis:

Initially, I almost gave up, but being the first son of my family, I knew I had a huge task to do. After university, I could not get my dream job [office work], but life must go on. As I speak today, I remit my parents money. That defines me as the new breadwinner. As a young man, I don’t need to depend on others to feed my family. So, despite the initial frustrations, my happiness comes from being able to provide for my family.

In a highly neoliberal context such as Ghana, formal employment is increasingly scarce. Much like many other African countries, Ghana has fallen prey to capitalist-veiled programs, such as those regulated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Through the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), Ghana, over the years, has been characterized by severe public sector restructuring policies and restrictions imposed by the World Bank and IMF. The country continues to witness blatant neoliberal attacks such as restrictive public sector employment. One thing that has become evident over the years of implementing SAPs is that these programs intensified gender norms, roles, and practices, especially when unemployment has become notoriously widespread (Overå, 2007). Consequently, for many university graduates who insist on obtaining formal employment, constant job search and personal frustration have become their daily experience. Throughout the interviews, such frustrations were evidently articulated. Like many participants, the narrative of Francis above illuminates what seemed to be a mismatch between societal expectations of the kind of employment that university graduates should aspire for and the reality that such employment avenues are non-existent or at best limited. In a patriarchal society such as the UWR, this situation can be a real disappointment for fathers who take keen interest in demonstrating respectable fatherhood in the presence of their colleagues. In the UWR, there is a huge social capital associated with fatherhood. Fathers whose children are able to secure “office work” are often heaped with praises to further embolden their masculine credibility.

In view of the social currency associated with formal employment, engaging in food vending was largely described as an embarrassing, odd, and unmasculine job. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty levels are high and unemployment a daily norm, evidence suggests that there is a widening gap between a largely youthful population and limited employment opportunities (e.g., Kabiru et al., 2013; Langevang, 2008; Sommers, 2012). The precarious nature of formal employment, particularly in urban areas casts significant doubt on the seemingly complex aspirations and dreams of men in becoming respectable social subjects (Fuh, 2012). In attempting to piece together the challenges of urban life, this mismatch creates a significant threat for young men in their bid to sustain a viable sense of social respectability and masculine credentials through their engagement in traditionally feminine milieu.

Hopes, Struggles, Resilience, and Emergent Masculinities

Participants spoke about learning how to become respectable men in the eyes of society. As participants have been socialized to embrace culturally sanctioned masculine norms and ideals, most participants articulated a sense of failure when society perceives them to be below such norms and ideals. For example, participants spoke highly of normative heteropatriarchal masculine responsibility as family providers and breadwinners. Even as most participants pointed to the aspirational nature of such a hegemonic ideal, they expressed a sense that failing to fulfill familial responsibilities such as taking care of their aged parents and meeting the educational needs of younger siblings is a significant indictment on their masculine status. For example, Kofi is a 30-year-old food vendor. Kofi was forced by social circumstances to relocate to the city, where his initial dream was to secure, what he described as a “befitting job.” As much as Kofi’s energy and resources could afford him, he applied for several jobs. While Kofi believed that he has what it takes to be hired in a well-paying job as a university graduate, he was never invited for a job selection interview. Burdened by his growing frustrations in securing a “befitting job” and the shame that this situation may cause him, Kofi decided to start a fast-food business. As at the time of interviewing him, he has three food joints located at different places in Wa town. Kofi reflects on the precarity of manhood in a context of limited employment opportunities:

Back in the village, I spent all my life thinking about how to make my family feel proud of me. As the first child of my parents, I struggled to become the breadwinner because I had no job. I struggled to pay the school fees of my younger siblings. In the night, all I dream of was how to avoid the shame of being seen as a failure. I needed to have courage and endurance and not give up because everyone in the family looked up to me. I needed to work harder and not disappoint my family.

Even as the picture about young men’s desires for better social profile does not appear to be too good, it is important to recognize that young men’s aspirations and hope for greater social capital and economic mobility in the context of limited opportunities should not be taken for granted. Young men may be described as failing to embody traditionally hegemonic masculine credentials as demonstrated earlier, but their engagement in gender atypical job remains central in attempting to reclaim their patriarchal privilege as heteronormative breadwinners. For example, Fatawu, a 29-year-old university graduate, complained that he has received negative remarks on multiple occasions about being “obaa barima” (a man who embodies feminine traits) because of his choice of job and style of dressing as a food vendor. In order to entice many customers to his food joint, Fatawu usually dresses and behaves like a woman. He devotes so much time and attention for his customers and speaks softly to his clients. From our observation, it was realized that Fatawu rarely becomes angry with any customer. He comes in quickly to resolve any form of disagreement between his employees and prospective clients. Fatawu confided in us that he does not like to quarrel with potential clients or his employees having problems with anyone at his food joint. As a result of Fatawu’s unusual behaviors, he was tagged as “obaa barima.” He openly spoke about his frustration of being described as “obaa barima.” In his reflections, the description of “obaa barima” hurts his manhood; of being perceived as less of a man per societal descriptions. Despite his disappointment, Fatawu expressed other ideas and aspirations which he interpreted to mean situative strategies in mitigating a sense of deflated masculinity. He explained further:

Growing up as kids, men needed to provide for their family while women cooked and took care of the house. Because of such perception, people will call you all manner of names if you don’t conform to this norm. When I started food vending, most of my friends called me “obaa barima”, but I persisted.

Interviewer:

Does this description of “obaa barima” make you feel less of a man?

Fatawu:

Absolutely! In our culture, “obaa barima” means you’re less of a man. You’re almost seen to be equivalent to a woman. When there are important discussions in the community, you’re not consulted. You are only consulted once you have money.

Interviewer:

So, how did you manage with such allegations of being “obaa barima”?

Fatawu:

Initially, I was worried that people perceived me with a different lens. With time, I just ignored them and continued with my life. In my mind, I always wanted to prove others wrong. Through food vending, I have been able to take care of my girlfriend and provide for my family. I have also started building a house in the village. Some of my friends who bad-mouth me are struggling to feed their families. They go around borrowing money from friends to feed their families. For me, to be a man is not to be seen as a burden on anyone.

The narratives of participants revealed profound pressure that young men always need to navigate in trying to earn a decent income to support their families. Young men struggle to sustain a viable sense of masculinities despite its precariousness. Besides its elitist and middle-class connotation, being able to earn an income enables young men to transition from youth to social adulthood. Being faced by increasingly limited job opportunities, the participation of young men in traditionally classified female occupations enhanced their masculine prospects rather than delegitimized them. In the midst of multiple masculinities, the narratives of participants can be understood as attempting to position themselves both individually and publicly in relation to broader gender hierarchies in which specific identities and practices appear to be normatively subordinated. Participants were aware of how other people are likely to position them within normative gender hierarchies and how the public gaze may evaluate them as failing to achieve dominant socio-cultural scripts on masculinity.

All the men in this study emphasized that hegemonic masculine status was equated with material wealth and stable income. A man without material wealth was likened to an empty vessel which has no weight but makes the most noise. Such men were perceived to be of low social profile. Such men are not usually consulted on issues that bother community development. Consequently, they are being placed at a lower hierarchical ranking relative to men with more capital and wealth. Based on their reflections, a successful masculine personality was associated with courage, endurance, and a never-giving up spirit irrespective of the situation. Even as food vending was widely perceived to be a “soft,” “odd,” and “less socially lucrative” job, these qualities were strategically deployed to shed off potential shame and feeling being emasculated. Through their engagement in traditionally feminine jobs, men are able to pay the school fees of younger siblings and provide for their families. In the context of UWR and Ghana at large, being able to provide for one’s family enables a man to acquire an adult heteropatriarchal masculine status and its attendant privileges (Dery, 2019).

Discussion and Conclusion

The main focus of this article is to interrogate how young men who engage in traditionally feminine jobs construct, evaluate, and circumnavigate their masculinities. Due to poverty and growing unemployment, most young men in Ghana are encouraged to migrate to urban cities to eke out a living. Young men migrate to the cities with high hopes of transforming their own lives and the lives of extended families through stable jobs and income. As young men aspire for better social credentials through their migratory sojourns in the cities, this study examines what they have hoped for, what ensues in their lives in the cities, and how they make sense of what may seems to be dislocated masculinities. Additionally, the article examines how young men are likely to respond to potential disruption of masculinities by engaging in a traditionally female-concentrated urban jobs, such as fast-food vending in Ghana.

The findings from this study offer important insights on the complex interplay between configuration of multiple masculinities and the possibility to recognize the agency and privilege of men engaging in traditionally feminine milieu such as food vending. Young men who engage in a traditionally classified job such as food vending may be considered to be a marginalized group, yet they draw on their tokenized positionality to claim power, agency, privilege, and respectable subjectivity. Even as food vending was widely described as an “odd” enterprise, it may become an enterprisingly important space in reclaiming masculine agency and respectability. Through food vending, participants in this study attempted to reclaim respectable subjectivity amidst marginalization and precariousness in Ghana’s informal sector. Despite cultural stereotyping, participants articulated a sense of prioritizing the extrinsic rewards associated with their engagement in traditionally feminine job such as being able to provide for their families and not being perceived to be dependent on others.

An important contribution of this study to the sociology of work is that participants employed a variety of linguistic strategies and vocabularies that discursively enabled them to position themselves as respectable men (McDowell, 2015a), despite their marginality within the larger gender hierarchy. Participants draw on linguistic indices as recuperative measures to mitigate appearing as failures in the eyes of society. Most of these men had hoped to take on what appears to be emergent masculinity, which on face value, challenges gendered spaces. However, a close analysis of participants’ narratives and politics revealed that, in many cases, they reproduce traditional ideas of masculinity which discursively afford men privileges of patriarchal breadwinners. The perceptions that men needed to be independent economic providers became salient articulation and motivation for men’s participation in food vending. Men’s ability to fulfill their cultural mandate as breadwinners was deployed as a strategy to mitigate and reconcile any possible sense of failure that may arise from their involvement in female dominated occupations. Eventually, participants reproduce hierarchies between different masculinities and femininities. Such hierarchies were usually measured against femininities. They measured their masculinities against dominant norms of femininity circulating within the larger society. Participants may appear to embrace alternative, less dominant masculinity as food vendors, yet they indirectly benefit from the overarching patriarchal dividend as they do not challenge their own privileges in any significant ways (Wetherell & Edley, 1999). Men continue to uphold the patriarchal status quo which equates economic provisions with respectable masculinity. Their involvement in female dominated occupation did not necessarily challenge male privilege in society as evidence in this study.

While Connell’s theorization on hegemonic masculinity continues to attract widespread reception, our findings contradict Connell’s work. Connell argues that hegemonic masculinity is the most popular social currency which most men aspire for. Connell sees this social currency as a position in the hierarchy of masculinities which is fixed. Our findings, much like the work of Kopano Ratele, suggest that the patriarchal privilege of men is contextually fluid and much more nuanced than what Connell imagines, particularly in a postcolonial global Southern context like Ghana. Based on our findings, we would argue that men may affirm masculine hegemony in one situation simply because of their gender, but have to consistently work their way up the ladder of masculinity on a daily basis. Such endeavor is not entirely effortless, but involves some kind of long-term sacrifices, resilience, and endurance. Men’s involvement in food vending may form an alternative masculinity which, on the surface, challenges hegemonic masculine credentials. However, men who engage in food vending do not forfeit the patriarchal privilege that men receive simply because they are men (Schwiter et al., 2021). Our analysis suggests that these men remain deeply complicit with the hegemonic gender order as they assume leadership roles in their respective occupations and families.

Close analysis of our findings provides important insights in understanding the contextual, temporary, and culturally dynamic nature of masculine privilege and social status. That said, men in gender atypical job such as food vending are likely to experience an identity struggle or masculine crisis. These men are confronted with a sense of identity struggles because their engagement in food vending is perceived to be at odd with dominant notions of respectable masculinity. Food vending was associated with femininity and any man who ventures into this femininized milieu risks being perceived as a failure. Our findings are consistent with Simpson (2004; 2005), Nentwich et al. (2013), Williams (2015), and McDowell (2015b). Despite different geographies and cultural contexts, these scholars highlight men’s difficulty in making sense of their masculine identities in occupations where they face role strain. Much like these scholars, our findings demonstrate that men who engage in gender atypical occupations tend to engage in what seems to be a careful balancing between traditionally hegemonic masculinity and alternative masculine norms. Depending on situation, men associate themselves with various norms of hegemonic masculinity (of being a leader, hardworking, breadwinner, independent, daring, etc.) and alternative masculinities (speaking softly, being less aggressive, being patient, client-oriented, etc.). While young men’s everyday gendered subjectivities were thoroughly shaped by material and structural constraints, they are aware that their masculinities were publicly policed and evaluated in line with societal standards. Even as poverty and unemployment continue to hit hard at these young men, society expected them to function as the economic breadwinners and providers of their families. Consequently, young men needed to constantly navigate their extremely precarious situations as people who operate within the informal sector, while simultaneously attempting to position themselves within the larger gender hierarchy.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Isaac Dery

Authors Biographies

Isaac Dery is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of African and General Studies at the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Ghana. Isaac holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research interest focuses on constructions of masculinity and femininity, gender-based violence, peacebuilding, and African feminism(s). Isaac’s publications have appeared in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Gender, Place and Culture, NORMA, etc.

Samuel T. Amoah is a Lecturer at the Department of Geography at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies − Ghana. He is an urban and human geographer with focus on cities through his theoretical and primary research. He holds Bachelor of Arts degree in Integrated Development Studies and a Master of Science degree in Human Geography from the University for Development Studies, Ghana and Lund University, Sweden, respectively. His research and teaching interests are grounded in empirical and epistemological issues on urban informal livelihoods and governance as well as environmental management aimed at exploring practices, geographies and analyzing associated challenges.

Email: stamoah@ubids.edu.gh

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