Gender and Education

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‘The boys’ present… Hegemonic masculinity: a

performance of multiple acts

Leanne Dalley‐Trim

To cite this article: Leanne Dalley‐Trim (2007) ‘The boys’ present… Hegemonic
masculinity: a performance of multiple acts, Gender and Education, 19:2, 199-217, DOI:
10.1080/09540250601166027

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Gender and Education
Vol. 19, No. 2, March 2007, pp. 199–217

‘The boys’ present… Hegemonic

masculinity: a performance of
multiple acts
Leanne Dalley-Trim*
James Cook University, Australia
Gender
10.1080/09540250601166027
CGEE_A_216530.sgm
0954-0253
Original
Taylor
202007
19
Leanne.dalley@jcu.edu.au
LeanneDalley-Trim
00000March
and
&and
Article
Francis
(print)/1360-0516
Francis
Education
2007Ltd (online)

This article explores the performance of masculinity(ies) within the classroom site. Drawing upon
research conducted in two co-educational secondary classrooms, it examines the ways in which two
groups of boys took up positions of dominance within their respective classrooms and, more specif-
ically, focuses upon the ways in which they came to construct themselves, and perform, as embodied
masculine subjects. In doing so, it examines the gendered and sexualized discursive knowledges and
practices mobilized by these boys. Furthermore, it illustrates the ways in which these performances
are constituted by, and constitutive of, versions of hegemonic masculinity while demonstrating the
range of ways of ‘doing’ hegemonic masculinity—the various performance techniques available to
do this ‘work’. The article also examines how these boys’ performances served to position their peers
within the classroom and, furthermore, explores their intra-group interactions and the ways in
which they came to position each other.

Introduction
During the last decade research in the field of boys’ education has burgeoned. An area
emergent within this work has been the examination of ‘masculinity(ies)’ and, more
specifically, the performance of masculinity(ies) as played out within educational
settings. In this article, I examine the ways in which adolescent males (aged 14-years-
old) came to construct themselves, and perform, as embodied masculine subjects
within the classroom site and identify the discursive knowledges and embodied
practices—in particular those of gender and sexuality—employed by the boys. Specif-
ically, I focus upon two groups of boys who occupied positions of dominance within
their respective classrooms as a result of their mobilization of discourses and practices
commonly associated with hegemonic masculinity. I also address the ways in which

*School of Education, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia. Email:
leanne.dalley@jcu.edu.au

ISSN 0954–0253 (print)/ISSN 1360–0516 (online)/07/020199–19

© 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09540250601166027
200 L. Dalley-Trim

the performances of these boys—the dominant boys—came to position their peers

within the classroom and, furthermore, examine their intra-group interactions and
the ways in which they came to position each other.
In doing so, I draw upon a collection of classroom observations and supporting
interview data, and present a number of critical incidents—‘commonplace events that
occur in the everyday life of a classroom’ (Tripp, 1993, p. 24)—drawn from a larger
study (see Dalley, 2001). This study examined among other things the gendered
performativity of year nine English students in a provincial Australian secondary
school over the course of a semester.
In examining these critical incidents, I draw upon theoretical and analytical
frameworks selected from poststructuralist positions, critical discourse theories and
feminism. Further, the conceptualization of gender as an ongoing, socially and
discursively constituted construct underpins my treatment of the data. My analysis
is informed especially by Butler’s (1990, p. 33) claim that gender is ‘the repeated
stylization of the body’, and the view that gender is, in this way, inescapably and
elaborately connected to the body and the notion of performed embodiment. It was
as a researcher positioned in this way that I came to ‘read’ the critical incidents and
the discursive knowledges and practices played out in the classroom context (for
further elaboration see Dalley, 2001. For a more extensive discussion of the
methodological and theoretical paradigms mentioned above see Belsey, 1980;
Weedon, 1987; Davies, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997; Fairclough, 1989,
1992a, 1992b; Butler, 1990, 1993; Grosz, 1990; Lather, 1991, 1992; Braidotti,
1992; Gilbert, 1992, 1994).

Theorizing masculinities
We are still, as Gilbert and Gilbert (1995, p. 1) suggested, situated at ‘a time of
burgeoning theoretical discussion of masculinity/masculinities’. The notion of
masculinity is no longer viewed as unproblematic, and traditional essentialist,
rationalist and constructionist conceptualizations of masculinity have been chal-
lenged and disrupted. Instead, recent work advocates an acknowledgment of the
plurality, multiplicity, heterogeneity and complexity of masculinity(ies) (see Seidler,
1987; Rutherford, 1992; Buchbinder, 1994; Gutterman, 1994; Hearn & Collinson,
1994; Connell, 1995; Frosh, 1995; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1995, 1998a, 1998b; Harris,
1995; Martino, 1995a, 1995b; Prain & Hickey, 1998).
Masculinity ‘lives within a discourse that is extremely complex, containing reverse
and counter discourses’, argues Harris (1995, p. 5). It is from within such discursive
positionings that masculinity is to be viewed as fluid rather than fixed, as uncertain
and unstable. As Hearn and Collinson (1994) argue, it is illusionary to view mascu-
linity as innate and uniform. Rather, there exists a range of masculinities—a range of
ways in which to ‘be’ a masculine subject, a range of ways in which to ‘do’ or
‘perform’ masculinity (see Kessler et al., 1985; Walker, 1988; Brittan, 1989; Connell,
1989, 1995; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997; Gilbert & Gilbert,
1998b; Webb & Singh, 1998; Kenway, 2000). They operate as an ‘ebb and flow’ and
 ‘The boys’ present… 201

in ‘concert and contest’ (Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997, p. 120). As Gilbert and
Gilbert argue:
Becoming a man is a matter of constructing oneself in and being constructed by the avail-
able ways of being male in a particular society. It is a matter of negotiating the various
discourses of femininity and masculinity available in our culture, those powerful sets of
meanings and practices which we must draw on to participate in our culture and to estab-
lish who we are. (Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998b, pp. 46–47)

Despite this diversity—there is no singular, unified discourse of masculinity—

masculinities are linked to each other and constitute a hierarchical relationship
(Connell, 1995; Webb & Singh, 1998). Subsequently, some masculinities may be
more ‘at risk’ than others, and many are ‘constantly on the offensive and the defensive
and in need of regular maintenance, renewal, repair and adjustment’ (Kenway, 1995;
Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997, p. 120). Nonetheless, each and all discourses of
masculinity bring material consequences for those who take them up.
Positioned powerfully—although tenuously—at the summit of this hierarchy of
discourse are what are commonly referred to as hegemonic versions of masculinity.
These are those ‘dominant and dominating forms of masculinity which claim the
highest status and exercise the greatest influence and authority’ and which represent
‘the standard-bearer of what it means to be a “real” man or boy’ (Kenway &
Fitzclarence, 1997, pp. 119–120; see also Connell, 1995; Kenway, 2000).
Constructed along with, but in contrast to femininity, ‘hegemonic versions of mascu-
linity operate as oppressive regimes within phallogocentric discourses’ (Martino,
1994, p. 42; see also Brod, 1987; Connell, 1987, 1995; Martino, 2000b). These
versions are characterized, furthermore, as inherently heterosexual (Mac An Ghaill,
1994, 1996; Kehily & Nayak, 1997; Holland et al., 1998). Represented as coherent,
rational and obvious, hegemonic masculinity is the form of masculine identity
frequently aspired to by many boys, and that comes to dominate classroom sites (see
Willis, 1977; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Connell, 1995; Haywood & Mac An Ghaill,
1996; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998b; Walker, 1988).

Masculinity(ies), performativity and the classroom context

Research on boys’ performativity in the classroom site has demonstrated that boys—
although not all boys—actively seek to engage with and play out these dominant
versions of masculinity. The research has also shown that boys employ a number of
performance techniques in order to take up these discourses. These techniques, as
styled through and enacted on the body, enable boys to position themselves as clearly
identifiable heterosexual masculine subjects.
A defining feature of this hegemonic masculine performance, with its endorsement
of the heterosexual imperative, are practices of homophobia—a practice intercon-
nected with that of misogyny. Epstein (1997, p. 113) explains this phenomenon:
Misogyny and homophobia are not merely linked but are so closely intertwined as to be
inseparable: misogyny is homophobic and homophobia is misogynistic. The dual Others
202 L. Dalley-Trim

to normative heterosexual masculinities in schools are girls/women and non-macho boys/

men. It is against these that many, perhaps most, boys seek to define their identities.
This practice is, furthermore, an example of the punishment inflicted upon those
who deviate from heterosexual norms and disrupt the heterosexual imperative.
Additionally, this complex and insidious practice can take on many guises. Epstein
(1996, p. 209) argues that ‘there is not one, univocal form of hetero/sexist harassment
but, rather, that the forms of harassment experienced shape and are shaped by the
particular social locations of those who are harassed and, indeed, their harassers’.
Furthermore, within the highly sexualized sites of the school and the classroom, these
practices—in their various guises—have material consequences for both the boys and
girls upon whom they are enacted.
In relation to girls, these heterosexist language practices are frequently used as a
‘weapon’ of abuse (see Skeggs, 1991; Ohrn, 1993; Gilbert, 1996; Kehily & Nayak,
1997; Kenway & Willis, 1998; Renold, 2000). As evidenced in numerous research
undertakings, such practices—as employed by many boys—are commonplace in
classrooms (see C. Jones, 1985; Mahony, 1985, 1989; Lees, 1986, 1993; Herbert,
1989; National Committee on Violence Against Women, 1991; Shilling, 1991;
Skeggs, 1991; Australian Education Council, 1992; Yates, 1993; Gilbert et al., 1994;
Larkin, 1994; Gilbert, 1996; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997). As Kenway and
Fitzclarence (1997, p. 123) state, ‘teasing and taunting relating to sexuality or gender
against girls and women is rife in schools’ and ‘most boys either engage in this or
comply with it’. Essentially, boys, in employing these language practices, assert male
power over girls. Girls are ridiculed, put down, humiliated and objectified (Lees,
1986, 1997; Kelly, 1989, 1992; Bird, 1992; Gilbert et al., 1994; Larkin, 1994; Mac
An Ghaill, 1994; Gilbert, 1996; Renold, 2000).
These practices, when used against boys, take on a different purpose. While they
are used as a weapon against girls, they are employed as (hetero)masculinist ‘policing
tools’ when used against boys. As Kenway and Willis (1998, p. 103) argue, ‘when
girls are harassed, it is very often because they are girls, when boys are harassed it is
not because they are boys but because they are the wrong sort of boys’ (also see
Mahony, 1989). The boys subjected to verbal harassment are those who are seen by
others to be ‘unmanly’, ‘non-macho’ or ‘feminine’. They do not ‘conform to domi-
nant heterosexual codes of masculinity’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 70), nor are they
perceived as ‘belonging to the ethos of “top dog” masculinity’ (Salisbury & Jackson,
1996, p. 167).
The homophobia expressed towards boys who do not ‘measure up’ to dominant
forms of masculinity is frequently related to their similarity to girls, and commonly in
terms derogatory to females (Epstein, 1997; Lees, 1997; Kenway & Willis, 1998).
Drawing upon what Lees (1993) identifies as a ‘vocabulary of abuse’, these boys are,
for example, commonly labeled and referred to as ‘sissies’, ‘girls’, ‘poofs’, ‘poofters’,
‘faggots’, ‘fags’, ‘bumboys’ and ‘Nancyboys’.
Engagement with these homophobic practices—along with other normalizing
techniques of surveillance—are clearly used by boys to enhance their heterosexual
masculine reputation, and to police the boundaries of acceptable male behaviour and
 ‘The boys’ present… 203

identity as well as homosexual behaviour (see Walker, 1988; Stanworth, 1983;

Kessler et al., 1985; Stanley, 1986; Kelly, 1989; Mahony, 1989; Skeggs, 1991; Mac
An Ghaill, 1994; Jordan, 1995; Martino, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 2000a; Nayak &
Kehily, 1996, 1997; Redman & Mac An Ghaill, 1996). Homophobic practices are,
when physically manifested and enacted, used as ‘a means of consolidating sexuality
and gender through the traducing of femininity, and its association with homosexu-
ality’ (Nayak & Kehily, 1996, p. 214).
Clearly, to resist dominant codes of masculinity within the school site, and more
specifically within the classroom, is a precarious business—it is to risk being labeled
‘gay’. Given this, boys are, as Nayak and Kehily (1996) suggest, encouraged to
‘perform their gendered identities in particular ways to survive the prospect of
homophobic abuse’ (p. 216) and to cultivate a ‘hyper-heterosexual identity’ (p. 212).
As indicated here, the use of heterosexist language practices serves as a tool in the
achievement of this masculinist identity.
In addition to these verbal language practices, boys engage their bodies—body
language—in order to enact or perform hegemonic versions of masculinities. They
engage in an outward encoding of masculinity beyond the level of spoken language—
a ‘macho posturing’ (Measor & Woods, 1984). It is through body styling, performa-
tive and repeated acts, that boys ensure that heterosexual masculinities are naturalized
and consolidated. Essentially, the body is, and operates as, ‘a communicative site for
the construction of masculinity’ (Nayak & Kehily, 1996, p. 221).
Research on boys’ stylized embodied performativity demonstrates that boys’ use
of the body is both considerable and complex. A key feature of this bodywork is the
exuding of ‘a hyper-masculinity through a range of exaggerated dramatizations and
body styling forms’ (Nayak & Kehily, 1996, p. 225). Common practices played out
on and through the body include: shouting and being loud, call out and interrup-
tive behaviours, laughing, joking, misbehaving, acting tough, acting cool, play fight-
ing and refusing to affirm the teacher’s authority (see Willis, 1977; Walker, 1988;
Jones, 1993; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Gilbert et al., 1995; Nayak & Kehily, 1996;
Kehily & Nayak, 1997; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997; Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998b;
Martino, 2000b). Such bodywork serves to position boys as troublemakers and thus
reinforce hegemonic discourses of masculinity. As Jordan (1995, p. 77), comment-
ing on this phenomenon asserts, ‘getting into trouble’ at school is a ‘touchstone for
masculinity’. Similarly, Connell (1996, p. 220) argues that this type of perfor-
mance—as constituted by rule-breaking practices—becomes ‘central to the making
of masculinity’. boys’ employment of these various techniques, while serving multi-
ple purposes, contributes ultimately to the construction of self as identifiable
masculine subject.
In addition, these practices (or range of performance techniques) serve to reinforce
hegemonic discourses of masculinity that are powerful, and indeed, desirable to
adolescent boys. Through the mobilization of these discursive knowledges and prac-
tices boys are able to cultivate for themselves a hyper-heterosexual identity, and to
correspondingly disassociate themselves from the feminine, the ‘Other’. These prac-
tices allow an individual to reiterate his own heterosexuality through display and male
204 L. Dalley-Trim

bravado—allowing him to ‘look big’. Evidently, these acts are ‘as much about self as
audience’ (Nayak & Kehily, 1996, p. 218).

Critical incidents: examining the performance(s) of hegemonic masculinity

in two secondary classroom sites
Classrooms are complex, dynamic and discursively constituted sites, open to the
potential for ‘play’. More than simply a physical space, the classroom is a socially
produced context. It is a site of discursive production and reception and of competing
discourses in which relations of power are produced and circulated (McLaren, 1995;
McLaren with Giroux, 1995). Furthermore, these discursively constituted relations
of power ‘impinge upon what is sayable and doable’ with a specific context (Orner,
1992, p. 81; see also Grant, 1997; Selden, 1989), construct human subjects, and
position ‘individuals [as] powerless or powerful depending upon which discursive
practice they enter as subject’ (Walkerdine, 1981, p. 20; see also Davies, 1989; Luke,
1995/1996; Weedon, 1987).
It is within this context—one pervaded by discourses of gender and sexuality—that
students grapple with, negotiate, and take up these discourses in an endeavour to find
a way of ‘being’ in the world. Here, they perform as embodied gendered subjects and,
in doing so, position themselves and others as particular kinds of gendered subjects.
As such, the classroom becomes a specific site—‘surface of emergence’—in which
certain versions of masculinity and femininity are produced and reproduced
(Martino, 1995b, p. 207).
I turn now to two particular sites—two year-nine English classrooms—in order to
focus on the ways in which two groups of adolescent boys, who came to dominate
their respective classrooms, constructed themselves and performed as embodied
masculine subjects. More specifically, I examine the gendered and sexualized
discursive knowledges and practices that they took up in doing so, and pay particular
attention to those constituted by, and constitutive of, hegemonic masculinity. I also
focus on how the performances of these boys came to position others within their
respective dominant groups, and those peers who did not belong to such groups—the
other members of their classes.
I present a number of critical incidents which, as conceptualized by Tripp (1993,
p. 24), are representative of ‘commonplace events that occur in the everyday life of a
classroom’. I also draw upon a collection of additional classroom observations or
fieldnotes—in addition to those observations or fieldnotes elaborated upon and
presented here as detailed critical incidents—and supporting interview data. The
data presented here, as collected over the course of a school semester, is representa-
tive of the typical masculine performances played out by those boys who took up
positions of dominance within their respective classroom and the voices of the
other(ed) students in these sites. Further, I employ theoretical and analytical frame-
works selected from poststructuralist positions, critical discourse theories and femi-
nism in examining the data. These frameworks offer useful ways in which to
construct ‘readings’—as offered here—of the complex workings of the classroom site
 ‘The boys’ present… 205

and, more specifically, the students’ engagement with discourses of gender and of
sexuality.

Class 9-1: the bad lads

Three boys—Jerry, Matthew and Daniel—actively took up positions of dominance
within their classroom. They achieved this, primarily, by drawing upon and playing
out discourses of gender and sexuality. More specifically, their performances were
marked out by their mobilization of (hetero)sexualized discourses, their desire to
construct themselves as hegemonic masculinist subjects and by their endeavours to
be read as ‘bad lads’. To this effect, they employed a range of techniques or tools by
which to construct themselves as ‘lads’ and to cultivate a hyper-heterosexual identity
(Nayak & Kehily, 1996). And while their individual performances were at times
different, they were nonetheless constituted by and within these same discursive
networks—networks that were inextricably interwoven.
The boys’ performances, as evident in the critical incidents detailed here,
illuminate the potency of these gendered and sexualized discursive knowledges and
practices. These knowledges and practices, which were given a space to operate
within this particular classroom site, proved pervasive, and had a significant impact
upon the classroom context and the social—and gendered—relations operating
within it. Essentially, the performances of the three boys enabled them to take up
subject positions that they desired while simultaneously serving to regulate, subjugate
and marginalize the other students of the class.

Homophobia: a (hetero)sexist tool of surveillance

The bad lads, in drawing upon the discourses of (hetero)sexuality and hegemonic
masculinity were able to construct themselves as ‘real’ boys, as boys who occupied a
‘proper’ form of masculinity—one constitutive of, and constituted by, an implied
heterosexuality (see Redman & Mac An Ghaill, 1996; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997).
Furthermore, the performances of the bad lads provided clear demonstrations of the
ways that homophobia is used to ‘police the boundaries of acceptable heterosexual
male behaviour and identity’ (Redman & Mac An Ghaill, 1996, p. 247). In particular,
their language practices which were imbued with homophobic references and conno-
tations, provide distinct examples.
While these boys frequently employed homophobic language practices in their
interactions with each other, their key target was Kyle—(an)other boy in the class.
Kyle was often referred to as a ‘poofter’ and a ‘faggot’ and subjected to threats of
physical violence and acts of aggression—as evident in the following examples. The
boys’ performances, and subsequent positioning of Kyle, illustrate the ways in which
‘the performativity of heterosexual masculinities’ is ‘structured through the display of
homophobia’ (Nayak & Kehily, 1996, p. 213; see also Kessler et al., 1985; Kelly,
1989; Lees, 1993; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Martino, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c, 2000a;
Redman & Mac An Ghaill, 1996; Kehily & Nayak, 1997). The bad lads’ homophobic
206 L. Dalley-Trim

performances operated as a technique for the styling and enactment of a hyper-

heterosexual masculinity. Their marking of Kyle as a homosexual allowed them to
reiterate their own heterosexuality (Nayak & Kehily, 1996). Furthermore, while Kyle
was the primary target of the dominant boys, their performances nonetheless served
to regulate the performance of all the boys in the class; served as a warning of the
punishment that could be inflicted upon all of them.
The following critical incidents—or commonplace events occurring in the everyday
life of this classroom—exemplify the bad lads’ treatment of, and interactions with,
Kyle. More generally, the incidents typify the bad lads’ embodied masculine perfor-
mances as played out within this site.
Critical incident:
Jerry to Kyle: I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.
Jerry to David: Kyle’s a faggot.
Jerry to Tom: Kyle’s a faggot. [Jerry clenches his fist to Kyle.]
Jerry to Daniel: Hey, I’m gonna punch him in the head.
Daniel: Who? [Jerry nods to identify Kyle.]

Critical incident:
Kyle is trying to get on with, and be ‘in’ with the bad lads’ by speaking to them. Daniel
comments to Kyle: ‘You better watch what you say, you’re mouth’ll get punched in’.
Kyle attempts to speak to Matthew, who responds: ‘Don’t talk to me… you better watch
yourself. You’re a faggot… I’ll hit you’.

Sexualized intra-group vocabularies and body stylizations

The interactions between the bad lads themselves—Daniel and Matthew in particu-
lar—were marked by the ‘vocabulary of masculinity’ (Mac An Ghaill, 1994, p. 56),
and by sexualized stylizations of the body. The following critical incidents exemplify
Nayak and Kehily’s (1996, p. 220) claim that ‘sex talk is only one style through which
young men perform their masculinity’ and that ‘the role of bodily practices as a
signifier of a person’s sexuality is significant [as they] provide a visual grammar of
understanding’.
On one occasion, as illustrated in the following critical incident, Daniel and
Matthew played out and contested their masculinity through sexualized and embod-
ied practices pertaining to masturbation.
Critical incident:
Daniel to Matthew: [Stylizing his bodily movements to indicate the act of masturba-
tion] I think you’re pullin’ it. Stop pullin’ it.
Matthew: Fuck you, cunt.
Daniel: Least I’m not shootin’ blanks.

In this instance, Daniel seeks to reaffirm his own virility, while questioning and
diminishing Matthew’s.
On another occasion, as detailed in the following extract, Matthew and Daniel are
discussing motorbikes—a typically masculinist topic of conversation. Daniel seizes
 ‘The boys’ present… 207

upon the opportunity, and manipulates this conversation to once again question and
diminish Matthew’s masculinity.
Critical incident:
Daniel to Matthew: I know why you want a motorbike. To stick your dick in the
muffler. [Daniel gestures towards his penis, and begins to gyrate
his pelvis.] That’s the only blow job you’d get, you stick your dick
in the muffler. You stick your dick in the muffler.

Silencing, sexualizing and subjugating the girls

The girls in 9-1 were under constant bombardment from Matthew, Daniel and Jerry.
These boys exhibited a ‘predatory attitude’ (Connell et al., 1982, p. 114) and were
frequently and openly disparaging towards the girls in this class (see Swann, 1992).
The embodied practices of the bad lads served to ridicule, silence, and exclude the
girls. Furthermore, the girls were positioned as sexual objects—the foci and subjects
of the boys’ gaze and harassment. The sexualized and misogynistic language practices
used by these boys enabled them to objectify and humiliate the girls in 9-1, and ‘to
assert male power and control over [the] girls’ (Kelly, 1992, p. 30).
Within this classroom, the girls were constantly interrupted, ‘shouted down’ and
rendered silent by the bad lads. These three boys set and policed the rules of class-
room interaction (Spender, 1982)—what was made possible and validated within this
site. The girls’ talk was clearly unwelcome and read as unworthy, trivial and open to
mockery. They were to ‘shut up’ and be silent, as evident in Daniel’s command to a
group of girls: ‘Shut up loud mouth women… Youse are real stupid you girls… Youse
suck’. On another occasion, Daniel commented to the girls ‘Little girlies’ talk’, thus
trivializing their input and disparaging the girls.
Sexual harassment, too, was a prominent and disturbing feature in the lives of the
girls in this class (Mahony, 1985; Herbert, 1989; Lees, 1993; Larkin, 1994; Skelton,
1997). Matthew, Jerry and Daniel frequently drew upon sexualized discursive
knowledges and practices to position the girls as sexual objects, and to subsequently
cultivate and maintain their own hyper-heterosexual (Kehily & Nayak, 1997) and
dominant masculinist subjectivities. Their employment of sexualized language
practices, and the potency with which such practices are invested, allowed them to
exercise power over the girls (Lees, 1986, 1997; Walkerdine, 1990; Kehily & Nayak,
1997). Positioned, and referred to as ‘sheilas’ and ‘sluts’, the girls were subjected to
verbal harassment, taunting and teasing, and wolf-whistles. Furthermore, these
boys, felt free to comment on the girls’ bodies, and thus police their feminine
sexuality.
Two particularly illuminating incidents, involving the taking up and playing out of
sexualized discursive practices by these boys, are outlined below. While these particular
examples pertain to the sexual harassment of Tiffany, she was by no means the only
girl subjected to these practices. Furthermore, just as the bad lads’ treatment of Kyle
served as a warning to all boys, so to did their treatment of Tiffany signal such to all
girls. Essentially, the discourses of sexuality and the practice of sexual harassment were
208 L. Dalley-Trim

ubiquitous features of this classroom site. Clearly, the girls of 9-1 were ‘not allowed
to forget their sexual functions vis-a-vis men’ (Skeggs, 1991, p. 130).
Critical incident:
Daniel and Matthew are discussing motorbikes, when Daniel comments to Matthew:
‘Tiffany wants to be a motorbike so Matthew can ride it’. Matthew responds to this
comment: ‘You’re a fucking dickhead’. The teacher then sends Matthew from the class-
room. Tiffany, who is sitting at their table, remains silent.

Critical incident:
A mixed-sex group of students—two girls and three boys—are discussing and joking about
the frequency of Matthew’s swearing. Tiffany, joining in this discussion, jokes that:
‘Matthew can’t even finish a sentence without swearing’. Matthew, in response to this
comment, replies: ‘Hey Tiffany, do you want to suck my penis?’ He then turned to the
other girl in the group and comments: ‘See, I didn’t swear then’. [Tiffany turned with a
‘knowing look’ at me.]

Here, Tiffany seemingly has no weapon of resistance against this sexualized

harassment or sexualized positioning of her. Rather, she is silenced. In the first
instance, Daniel targets and uses Tiffany as a means of asserting his own masculinity.
In the second incident, she is subject to Matthew’s sexualized display—one in which
he actively constructs himself as a masculine, and sexual, subject—and is again
positioned as powerless.
Essentially, verbal harassment abound in this classroom site, and ‘put-downs’ were
an integral part of the girls’ everyday school life (Larkin, 1994; Lees, 1997). They
were ridiculed, insulted, laughed at, and referred to as ‘pigs’, ‘clowns’, ‘sheilas’ and
‘sluts’. As a result, the girls, in seeking to avoid harassing behaviour, limited their
participation in class discussions and demonstrated a reluctance to do presentations
in class (Larkin, 1994).
The following comments, made by Jessica but indicative of the comments made by
many girls in 9-1, illustrate the ways in which she was positioned by the practices of
the bad lads, and the impact these practices had upon her performance:
I’m usually, um, not that embarrassed to go up there and talk, but like when there’s people
who, um, put you down and stuff like Daniel and Matthew and that, it makes you, makes
me feel embarrassed and that… They’ll laugh or they’ll make, say something about you or
comment out loud about you… It, it really puts you down to know that they’ve said some-
thing about you and you’re standing up there. You’re like, you look like an idiot ‘cause
they’re making a fool of you.

Clearly, the performance of the bad lads brought with it material consequences for
the girls of 9-1. They were to ‘know their place’—to be silent, or fear ridicule, sexual
objectification and humiliation.

Class 9-2: roguish lads and larrikins

As was the case in 9-1, three boys—Nathan, Jonathon and Sam—came to dominate
this classroom and the interactions played out within it. Unlike their counterparts in
 ‘The boys’ present… 209

9-1, these boys positioned themselves as the ‘funny boys’ of the class. Nonetheless, in
doing so, they also positioned themselves as troublemakers—and in this way marked
themselves out in ways similar to the boys in class 9-1. Essentially, these boys, in
taking up the positions of ‘class clowns’ and ‘troublemakers’, became the centres of
attention (Adler et al., 1992, p. 173).
Their performance as the funny boys—and subsequently the troublemakers—of
the class were constituted by, constitutive of, discourses typically associated with
hegemonic masculinity. And these boys clearly desired to be, and to be read as being,
the ‘right’ type of male. To this affect, they engaged hyper-masculinist performance
technologies: joking, laughing, misbehaving and acting cool. As Nathan, drawing
upon discourses of dominant masculinity, suggested during the course of an inter-
view: ‘We just play up too much. But that’s a male thing ‘ey, we gotta do it’. Similarly,
Jonathon stated, ‘I’m a cool dude, I’m in trouble all the time’.
The performances of these boys were characterized by their engagement in bouts
of verbal sparring and their employment of humour as tools for consolidating their
masculine—and heterosexual—identities. Serving them in this way, their perfor-
mances came to have a significant effect upon the other students in the class. Their
’humorous’ and disruptive performances allowed them to monopolize the linguistic
space of this classroom. As a result, the girls in this class were marginalized and
silenced, as were many of the males in the class. Additionally, those boys who did not
belong to the dominant group were marked out as other and their masculinity
challenged. Essentially, humour and the performance of masculine jocularity,
enabled the dominant boys of 9-2 to engage in what Lyman (1987, p. 150) calls a
‘theatre of domination’ and served to ‘promote… solidarity and shared male identity
through “othering” teachers, girls, women and those who fail to cultivate a hyper-
masculinity’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 80).
The critical incidents detailed here illustrate the dominant boys’ use of humour, as
constituted by and within the discourses of sexuality and gender, and demonstrates
the ways in which their use of humour served as a tool to validate and amplify their
heterosexual masculinity. They also demonstrate the ways in which it was used as a
means of policing and undermining the masculinity of the other(ed) boys in the class.
Further, an interview with a group of girls in the class highlights how the
performances of the funny boys served to marginalize them.

Verbal sparring: a masculinist enterprise

A key feature of the funny boys’ performance, and their interactions with the other
boys in the class, was their engagement in verbal sparring—their use of verbal
assaults. This performance technique—one not employed during the funny boys’
interactions with the girls of 9-2 and as evidenced in the following example—provided
them with avenues through which they could assert their dominance over one
another, and enabled them to validate, amplify, and display their heterosexual mascu-
linities and reputations (Kehily & Nayak, 1997).
Critical incident:
210 L. Dalley-Trim

I [as researcher positioned as co-teacher by the classroom teacher] had assisted a group of
boys, including Corey, in the previous lesson. Given this, Nathan and Sam asked me to
assist them during this lesson.
Nathan: Miss, come and have a look at ours.
Researcher: OK, I won’t be a minute.
Sam: Yeah, you can’t hang around with the nerds all the time.

Corey, upon hearing this comment, responds to Nathan, who is using crutches due
to an injured ankle: ‘Yeah, I’ll snap your crutches.’
Nathan: And I’ll snap yours.
Corey: I don’t have a crutch.
Nathan to Sam: Did you hear what he said, ‘I don’t have a crutch’?
Sam [to both]: He doesn’t have a penis either.

The link between verbal sparring and masculinity is clearly evident in this example.
Corey is positioned as ‘other’ to the masculine—as not having a penis. It also illus-
trates the ways in which the funny boys positioned the other male students as subor-
dinate, as ‘uncool’ and as ‘nerds’. Furthermore, this example shows the ways in which
male students are able, in a ‘discursive manoeuvre’, to mobilize sexualized ‘discourses
of power against other males through a verbal attack’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 73).
The other(ed) boys in 9-2 demonstrated an awareness of the ways in which the
dominant boys positioned them as subordinate masculine subjects. However, they
felt powerless to challenge the positions made available to them by the dominant
boys. Identifying Nathan as the ‘ringleader’ of the dominant group, they discussed
this group’s performance in the following ways and, in doing so, flag the performance
techniques or stylizations commonly associated with hegemonic masculinity:
Graham: Nathan disrupts the whole class.
Corey: He’s the one who aggravates her (i.e., the teacher). He always comes late.
He comes in, just stuffs around as though he’s a smarty… He yells out, runs
‘round.
Steven: He answers back, throws things.
Graham: He’s try’na knock ya.
Corey: He tries to put you down, and he’s no better himself.
[…]
Researcher: How do they put you down?
Steven: Big mouth words, big he-man sort of words. It makes you feel like shit.
Corey: Yeah. You can’t say nothing back, otherwise… you get in trouble for it, so
it’s not worth it.

Sexualizing humour: masculinity and the ‘bonds’ of mateship

Discourses of sexuality permeated the performances of the funny boys, who used it as
a tool or resource for the playing out of humour (Nayak & Kehily, 1996). Sexuality
was a code of practice through which they both disparaged the other boys in the class
(as documented above), and generated humour within their own friendship group.
Within their own group, sexual insults and references were ‘bandied around between
mates… under the guise of “play”’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 74). Sexualized
 ‘The boys’ present… 211

discursive practices provided opportunities through which the ‘competitive jockeying

for status within male peer groups’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 75) could be, and was,
played out. Such jockeying and engagement with sexualized discourses was—as
exemplified in the following incident—a prominent and indeed typical feature of the
intra-group interactions of the funny boys.
Critical incident:

Nathan, Jonathon and Sam are examining a cartoon. They begin discussing what the
cartoon figure is doing with his hands.
Nathan: [In reference to ejaculation] He’s making mayonnaise.
Sam: Shut up dickhead.
Jonathon: [In reference to scrotum] Shut up scrot.

Girls on the periphery

While the girls in 9-2 were spared the misogynistic verbal barrage experienced by their
female counterparts, the performances of the funny boys—and many of the other
boys in the class who became complicit participants in such performances—had a
significant impact upon these girls. In effect, the boys restricted the girls’ access to the
linguistic space of the site and their participation in the events of the classroom. The
girls were marginalized, and existed ‘on the periphery of classroom life’ (Stanworth,
1983, p. 54). In this way, they were afforded positions alike those of their counter-
parts.
The invisible performances of the girls were highlighted in two particular incidents.
In the first instance, I was sitting with the funny boys, collecting data pertaining to
student talk and turn-taking. One of the boys, having observed the data collected,
commented: ‘Look at the girls, nothin’’. And he was right in his observations. The
second incident saw three boys returning completed work to the students in the class.
Upon attempting to do so, all three boys needed to ask the teacher to identify whom
the girls were, but had no such problem in identifying the boys. Seemingly, the girls
were positioned and read as the nameless, faceless bunch of the class (Stanworth,
1983).
The girls in 9-2 were well aware of the marginalized positions afforded them within
the classroom, and commented in interview on the ways in which the funny boys’
performances served to occupy the lion’s share of the teacher’s time and attention.

Samantha: She’s always with them, the boys. If they’re naughty she goes over to ‘em…
Christine: And like, she’s always with them.
[…]
Kate: It’s not really fair.
Christine: Yeah. The way she pays more attention to the boys than the girls, ‘cause it’s
like the girls are gonna be perfect, ‘cause we’re girls. It’s the same nearly with
every class. You get used to it after a while.

Alarmingly, as evident in Christine’s final comment, these inequities seem

commonplace, and the invisibility of girls an insidious feature of the classroom site
212 L. Dalley-Trim

(Spender, 1982; Swann, 1992). Girls, in taking up the position of ‘good girl’ are, and
in this case were, subsequently penalized and ignored—rendered invisible.

Conclusions
This paper demonstrates the complexities of gendered performativity and, more
specifically, the complexities inherent in the performance of hegemonic masculinity.
As the critical incidents illustrate, there is a range of techniques or resources available
to subjects in their endeavours to construct for themselves an identifiable—in this
case hegemonic masculine—gender identity. Furthermore, they exemplify the inter-
connectedness between displays of hegemonic masculinity and the subject positions
afforded to students, both boys and girls, within the classroom site. Specifically, they
illustrate the ways in which boys who engage in performances typically associated
with hegemonic masculinity, and marked by the mobilization of discourses of gender
and (hetero)sexuality, are subsequently able to gain positions of dominance—
dominance of the physical and linguistic space of the classroom and of the student
interactions and performances played out and legitimated within it. In demonstrating
the material consequences hegemonic masculinity affords to those males who achieve
it, and to those who fail to achieve it or who are subverted in their efforts to do so, the
data presented here also provides insight into what is understandably the potent
appeal that this particular version of masculinity holds for adolescent male students.
In 9-1, the three boys who occupied positions of dominance constructed them-
selves, and performed as, the ‘bad lads’ of the class. Their dominance within the class-
room was achieved primarily through their successful cultivation, and playing out, of
a hyper-heterosexual masculine identity. They frequently employed homophobic and
misogynistic language practices, threatened physical violence and engaged in acts of
aggression in their interactions with the other students in the class. Similarly, the
intra-group interactions of these boys were marked by a masculinist vocabulary and
sexualized body stylizations.
The three boys, the ‘funny boys,’ who came to dominate 9-2, took up the positions
of class clowns and, by their own admission, trouble-makers. Enveloped in humour
and operating under the guise of playfulness among mates—unlike the performances
of their counterparts—the performances of these boys nonetheless shared similarities
to those of the bad lads in 9-1: verbal sparring and (hetero)sexist language practices
for example. While at times they employed different, and I would argue less overtly
aggressive, techniques than their counterparts in 9-1, these boys also performed in
ways that enabled them to display and validate their masculinity.
Essentially, the performances of both groups of boys—as constituted by the multi-
ple discursive and embodied practices they employed—enabled them to affirm their
masculine identities and to position themselves as subjects who met the demands of
hegemonic masculinity. Further, in meeting these demands or ‘prerequisites’, they
were afforded positions of dominance within their respective classrooms. Clearly, the
‘doing’ of hegemonic masculinity, the ‘right’ type of masculinity, provided these boys
with power—however tenuous and questionable – in the context of the two classroom
 ‘The boys’ present… 213

sites examined. Their ‘power,’ in terms of the dominance assumed by and afforded
to them, was blatantly obvious in their interactions with other members of their
respective class: interactions that saw them police their fellow class members, specif-
ically the masculinity of their male peers, and saw all others rendered silent and
marginal. Evidently, the dominant boys’ performances, and more specifically their
mobilization of discourses of (hetero)sexuality and gender, brought with them
depressingly real, punitive and disenfranchising consequences for others.

Note
To protect anonymity, pseudonyms have been used.

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