Occupations of Masculinity: Producing Gender through What Men Do and Don't Do

Abstract

While gender shapes engagement in occupations, occupations are also means through which we construct gender. Based on qualitative interviews with 11 young men in Newfoundland, Canada, this paper explores the ways they produce masculinity through particular occupations focused on bodies. They strive to construct muscular bodies through cardiovascular exercise, weight‐training, and ‘eating right.’ These occupations hold explicit meanings for them, such as increasing their heterosexual desirability, peer respect and popularity. They also have less obvious meanings that concern displaying and reinforcing masculinity. At the same time, men may engage in much less visible occupations that help produce masculinity: constant (but unacknowledged) bodily comparisons with other men, monitoring their speech to ensure its masculinity, actively hiding the effort required to produce a particular image, and concealing the fact that they care about their appearance at all. Gender is more than an influence on occupation; it is produced through occupation.

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