“Real Men Do the Work!”: How Life Coaches Perform Masculinity in Online and Offline Settings

Abstract

Life coaches claim to offer men pathways to “authentic” masculinity through self-development. Despite their growing popularity, scholars have paid little attention to how these coaches negotiate and perform masculinity. In addressing this gap, we examine how male-oriented life coaches understand, construct, and perform masculinity—both online and offline. Drawing on a hybrid ethnographic approach—analyzing Instagram content from 15 life coaches and field observations from three men’s circles—we unveil how life coaches promote a dominant vision of masculinity that appears to challenge restrictive norms—for instance by encouraging emotional expression—yet consistently reframes such practices within defensive narratives that reinforce hegemonic ideals of masculinity. The findings show how life coaching functions as a site of negotiation, where gendered anxieties are addressed through commercially mediated forms of masculine belonging, reproducing normative gender hierarchies under the guise of self-improvement.