Another theme that emerged within the data was that specific recreational activities and job vocations belong to the socially pre-established realms of the masculine or the feminine. Via the discussed link between femininity and gay men, the respondents’ verbal practices suggested that heterosexual men often perceive sexuality to be closely related to a man’s choice of masculine or feminine occupations and recreational activities. In other words, a man working in a garage or factory might be more likely to be viewed as heterosexual, whereas a man working as a hair dresser or secretary might be more likely to be viewed as being gay. This theme will now be discussed in more detail.
Regardless of their social class, a majority of the respondents associated activities requiring physical strength or a transcendence of pain and fear with the socially pre- established realm of the masculine. For instance, Andrew referred to ‘a… workplace like a garage… or engineering, or the armed forces’ as ‘a masculine environment’. Alternatively, the respondents often associated occupations and recreations not requiring these attributes with the socially pre-established realm of the feminine. Both Andrew and Graham, during their one to one interviews, suggested viewing their office-oriented work as a ‘feminine environment’. Therefore, like the working-class men in service sector employment, as documented by McDowell (2002), Andrew and Graham might view their careers as being separate from the masculine identity they demonstrate during relations between men. According to Johnston et al. (2000), men working in ‘feminine-typical’ environments often demonstrate their masculinity through leisure activities. This might be the case with Andrew, who kept referring to the five-a-side football team of which he is a member. This is consistent with the notion that men’s varied identities do not all constitute demonstrations of masculinity – as discussed within the Dominant Masculine Norm chapter – (Maccoby, 2000; McHale et al., 2003; Vogel et al., 2003; Whitehead, 2005).
Many of the working and middle-class respondents spoke of perceiving a link between being gay and men participating in activities they viewed as feminine:
NIK: They go in a different direction… Out of two sixteen year olds, a lad’s lad would go off to be a mechanic or… what’s considered to be a man’s role… whereas I think you would find that a gay person, or in my experience, would go off into a more… woman associated role, because I think that they feel more comfortable in that environment (Working-Class Interview)
RICHARD: I always remember a friend who wanted to be a nurse… a man; well, young man… and at that time he wanted to be a nurse, and it was like, ‘Hey up, he’s coming out…I always thought there was something going on there’ [Everyone laughs]… But it was just a genuine wish for that vocation because he
wanted to do that kind of work…whereas if he’d have gone to be a doctor… it would be different… So I think there are some occupations that are masculine or feminine oriented (Middle-Class Focus Group 2)
Just as connections emerged between being gay and those men perceived to work in feminine vocations, similar patterns emerged regarding women perceived to work in masculine vocations. Grant provided an example of this when discussing his notion of what kind of woman might work in foundry: ‘She’d have to be some pretty weird, sort of like… strong type of… I don’t know… lesbian… something with some danglers ’. In this instance, Grant’s use of the word ‘lesbian’ suggests that he perceives there to be a link between a woman choosing to work in a masculine-typical vocation and her sexuality.
It is worth mentioning that the working-class respondents demonstrated a more negative view of women who work in traditionally male manual occupations than the middle-class respondents. Arguably, this might have related to the fact that, unlike the middle-class respondents, they held such positions and derived a sense of masculinity from them. When demonstrating their masculinity in this way, connections were made between physical labour and physical invulnerability. Hence, it was strength and not the identity of ‘breadwinner’ that emerged as important. Therefore, women holding manual positions might be perceived as a threat to their masculine status via similar demonstrations of physical invulnerability:
TED: In banks, and stuff like that… it’s a bit different because they’re all office staff… shuffling paper all day is different… they’re [women] not showing their brawn, not showing their power… They’re [women] showing what they’ve got upstairs… it’s a different kettle of fish altogether […] When they start trying with physical strength… they can’t do it (Working-Class Interview)
In nearly every focus group and one to one interview, the respondents suggested viewing rugby, football and boxing as masculine oriented sports. Again, women’s participation in these sports sometimes led to the respondents making assumptions about their sexuality.
For instance, when talking about women rugby players, Nik seemed to view this link as inevitable: ‘I mean, there used to be a load of lesbians come in the Craven… and they used to come in on a Sunday with their shin pads hanging out and covered in mud… and they were like trying to be men’. Alternatively, the respondents from Nik’s focus group suggested it would compromise a man’s heterosexuality if, for instance, he won an Olympic gold meddle for baton twirling, rather than a masculine-oriented sport like boxing:
TOM: You would think that he hasn’t come out of the closet yet, but you’d think that it’s –
MEL: It’s on the way, it’s on the way STAN: There’s still a skeleton in there
NIK: ‘If you didn’t know about his baton twirling, you’d think he was normal… But because you knew that he was a baton twirler, I think you’d approach him differently (Working-Class Focus Group 2)
The fact that everyone present, myself included, found the notion of a man winning gold for baton twirling funny might suggest that we shared a common representation of it constituting a feminine-typical pastime. Therefore, some of our amusement is likely to have emerged from the socially influenced representation we harboured regarding a connection between men participating in feminine-typical activities and their sexuality. This interpretation is consistent with the fact that discussions of men participating in feminine-typical activities always led to the respondents verbalising assumptions about those men’s sexuality.
Nevertheless, a by-product of white, heterosexual men policing one another’s demonstrations of masculinity in this way is the fact that such talk also trivialises women’s sporting involvement. In reality, women participate in the same Olympic activities as men. Regardless of our knowledge of this, it seems that, during relations between men, we still ‘other’ women and gay men as physically and emotionally vulnerable and therefore unable to participate in the dangerous and strenuous activities of
‘invulnerable’ heterosexual men. This might suggest that the subordination of women and non-heterosexual men is to some degree rooted within relations between heterosexual men, and their individual interests to maintain masculine status within the group.
During the focus groups men’s homophobic humour was always close to the surface, particularly in relation to one another’s individual interests and recreational activities. When referring to Ben’s passion for cycling during the first middle-class focus group, Jed quipped ‘You didn’t look so manly wearing your spandex trousers and your Gucci sunglasses’. This and similar comments were innuendos regarding Ben’s sexuality, and a further example of the verbal sparring discussed within the ‘Affectivity’ chapter. Hence, the men deliberately invoked one another’s emotions via insinuations regarding recreational pursuits viewed to compromise their heterosexuality. Likewise, when working-class respondent Ross revealed that, in addition to MotoGP, he liked Tour De France, Les joked, ‘So you like men in fucking pink lycra suits’. This was followed by Grant’s comment: ‘If he ever goes to Scarborough he’s getting bummed’. The men’s policing of one another’s behaviours in this way again suggested that such respondents harbour and perpetuate a common notion that a man’s sexuality is inextricably linked to his preferred pastimes.
As these common patterns emerged across the data, it might suggest that the respondents and I harbour similar, relatively stable representations of what occupations, recreations, and gender performances constitute the realms of the masculine and feminine. Moreover, that these representations ‘existed’ as transitive structures prior to, and independent of, the interviews. In this sense, each of us would be able to identify when these norms have been breached by men and women in one another’s absence. This would explain why the respondents and I found the same scenarios of men breaching masculine boundaries humorous. It is unlikely that the same common patterns would have emerged if versions of reality are negotiated and are specific to the contexts in which they were constructed, as implied by authors adopting relativist influenced discursive approaches (see Speer, 2001; Moita-Lopes, 2003; Wetherell & Edley, 2003; Allen, 2005; Paechter, 2006).