Men and Masculinities

14(1) 31-50
ª The Author(s) 2011
Masculinities, Sexualities, Reprints and permission:
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and the Limits of DOI: 10.1177/1097184X09354857
http://jmm.sagepub.com

Subversion: Being a Man

in Hairdressing

Victoria Robinson,1 Alexandra Hall,2 and Jenny Hockey1

Abstract
Drawing on data from a U.K. study of ‘‘masculinities in transition,’’ this article con-
siders whether hairdressing, a largely feminized working culture, affords men the
space to challenge, reaffirm, and play with dominant understanding of what it is
to be a man. We ask whether ‘‘another masculinity’’ is possible in this sphere and
beyond. Using qualitative interviews and observation in the workplace, men’s feel-
ings about working in ‘‘a woman’s world’’ and the extent to which their intentional
and unintentional ‘‘feminization’’ provides scope for challenging gender norms is
explored. As Brickell’s discussion reminds us, those who subvert the prevailing
values surrounding masculinity are at constant risk of being ‘‘misunderstood.’’ For
hairdressers, the parody of femininity and campness is always at risk of being misin-
terpreted. The data suggest that contextual realignments of ‘‘acceptable’’ gendering
create the possibility for change, but there are limits to subversion; ‘‘feminized’’
men find themselves reaffirming the gender order as well as contributing to its
disorder.

Keywords
masculinities, sexualities, hairdressing, subversion, identity, gender relations

1
University of Sheffield, UK
2
University of Durham, UK

Corresponding Author:
Victoria Robinson, Elmfield, Sheffield, 2TU, UK.
Email: vicki.robinson@shef.ac.uk

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32 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

Introduction
This article draws on a funded U.K. study of men employed as hairdressers and
explores the extent to which men in this profession are afforded possibilities to
express, experience, and play with dominant understanding of what it is to be a man,
and whether ‘‘another masculinity’’ is possible in this sphere and beyond.
In Western societies, it has become common to hear about a ‘‘crisis of
masculinity’’ in academic and popular discourse. According to this view, men are
responding in negative and destructive ways to insecurity about their ‘‘role’’ in soci-
ety (Scourfield and Drakeford 2002). Men’s behavior has increasingly been called
into question in relation to crime, parenting, working with children, sexuality, and
marriage; men are commonly perceived as perpetrators (sources of danger and
disorder) or victims (facing greater disadvantage in society than women; Scourfield
and Drakeford 2002). Arguments that suggest, or refute, the idea that masculinity is
‘‘in crisis’’ have been debated. For example, the diverse spheres of work (Edwards
2006), and health (Watson 2000) have been explored in detail. Edwards’ (2006)
review of historical, psychoanalytic, and poststructuralist arguments for a crisis of
masculinity is critical, and even leaves him wishing for the beneficial aftereffects
of a crisis, which he feels is yet to happen. Furthermore, academic, popular, and
media debates about masculinity have produced an intense examination of emerging
trends in men’s tastes, behavior, feelings, and hopes (Gill 2003). While MacInnes
(2001) has argued that as modernity has eroded patriarchy, men’s privileged
position has come under scrutiny. There has been a problematization of masculine
values; what was formerly considered a virtue, he argues, is now a vice. For exam-
ple, men are seen as being detached from their ‘‘true feelings’’ and should be
encouraged to develop their emotional articulacy (MacInnes 2001), though there
is debate about what forms this emotional articulacy should, or could, take (see
Whitehead 2002).
Kimmel (2001) has argued that masculinity, ‘‘historically and developmentally
. . . [has been] the flight from women’’ (Kimmel 2001, 273). He also states that
masculinity is intrinsically homosocial—men are constantly being scrutinized by
other men—and are driven by fear. This fear often takes the form of homophobia
and anxiety about being associated with femininity. Furthermore, the dread of being
‘‘unmasked’’ as not a real man, argues Kimmel, has been a central organizing
principle of dominant cultural definitions of manhood (Kimmel 2001, 277).
In addition, as Connell (2005) notes, ‘‘The interplay of gender with other structures
such as class and race creates further relationships between masculinities’’ (Connell
2005, 80).
These debates are not restricted to masculinity itself. For example, the work of
Connell (2005), Weeks (1989), and Butler (1990) has, from different perspectives,
exhaustively demonstrated the interrelationship and interdependency of sexuality,
gender, and bodies. Hegemonic masculinity builds on a system of associations that
privileges heterosexuality and perpetuates a model of gender and sexual relations

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Robinson et al 33

that women’s and men’s bodies and actions must conform to. Moreover, as
Gutterman (2001) puts it, ‘‘discourses of (hetero) sexuality establish the categories
of gender, and these categories enable the perpetuation of that system’’ (2001, 62).
Paradoxically, despite their overwhelmingly privileged position as a group when
compared with women, men can, however, feel powerless as individuals; the ‘‘rules
of manhood’’ described above have been constructed in such a way that only the tin-
iest fraction of men can measure up to them completely (Kimmel 2001, 284). Thus,
many men can feel both ‘‘powerless’’ and, objectively, have little ‘‘real’’ power.
Given this assessment of what has traditionally been understood by the term mas-
culinity, what are we to make of the masculinities that have (apparently) emerged
from the 1990s, masculine forms that lead us to believe that we are now dealing with
a ‘‘new man’’? Gill (2003, 34) argues that representations of ‘‘new man’’ may not
signal profound cultural shifts in masculinity but instead involve ‘‘careful selections,
exclusions’’ to ‘‘create persuasive accounts about new and changing forms of mas-
culinity.’’ For Gill (2003), in a British context, ‘‘new man’’ (and the backlash against
him, ‘‘new lad’’, where men attempt to reclaim some traditionally masculine norms
and values) represent two dominant attempts to account for changing masculinity in
Britain, postfeminism, and both are related to shifts in economics, demographics,
politics, marketing, and consumer society. Gill cites Beynon (2002) to argue that
‘‘new man’’ and ‘‘new lad’’ may be signals that what we are witnessing is the ‘‘emer-
gence of a more fluid, bricolage masculinity’’ (Gill 2003, 39). In other words, these
identities represent coexisting, alternative interpretive repertoires or cultural con-
structions for making sense of contemporary (largely White, British) masculinity
and men, as social agents, can ‘‘‘do’’ ‘‘new man’’ or ‘‘new lad’’’ according to con-
text (39; italics in original).
Despite Gill’s skepticism about the ‘‘reality’’ of ‘‘new man,’’ the possibility of
this masculine form can be seen as part of an optimistic reading of men’s position
over the last decades—a stance that emphasizes the proliferation of challenges to tra-
ditional forms of masculine identity rather than a ‘‘crisis of masculinity.’’ Gutterman
(2001, 61), for example, argues that the ‘‘instability, multiplicity, and contingency,’’
which characterize the postmodern world has opened spaces for new forms of mas-
culine subjectivity, identity, and agency, which act to problematize ‘‘governing cul-
tural values’’ around masculinity. He highlights gay identity and ‘‘profeminist men’’
as two sites of resistance to dominant ‘‘scripts’’ of masculinity (Gutterman 2001). He
further argues that it is the ‘‘fluid, unstable, and contingent’’ nature of gay sexual and
gender identities that can break free of traditional understandings of masculinity
(Gutterman 2001, 65).
Roseneil (2000) has gone so far as to argue that the homo/heterosexual binary is
being destabilized and so is rendering heteronormativity less secure. She suggests
that there is now a ‘‘queering of popular culture’’ in Britain, a ‘‘valorizing of the
sexually ambiguous, and of that which transgresses rigid boundaries of gender’’
(Roseneil 2000, 8). This can be differentiated from previous ‘‘freak show’’ transgres-
sions of the homo-heterosexual binary (e.g., this could be exemplified by popular

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34 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

cultural figures such as David Bowie, Patti Smith, and Boy George). Nowadays, she
argues, dance culture, fashion magazines, and television, all make the reassessment
of queer more participatory and ‘‘closer to everyday life’’ (Roseneil 2000, 9).
Roseneil’s optimistic stance is, however, challenged by Jackson and Scott (2004).
In their discussion of the apparent liberalization in sexuality in late modern societies,
they argue that the impression of a sexually freer, more diverse society, where
gayness is tolerated, for example, is undercut with ‘‘antinomies and associated
anxieties’’ (Jackson and Scott 2004, 233). Queer may have become chic, but it has
simultaneously lost its power in ‘‘unsettling the heteronormative’’ (Jackson and
Scott 2004, 237).
Our data drawn from work among hairdressers allowed us to critically explore the
issues raised in this introduction, around masculinities, the gender order, sexuality,
and the possibilities of subversion as well as add to and extend previous studies on
masculinities and gendered occupational identities in particular. Furthermore, in
focusing on one specific site, we have been able to address in depth one of our cen-
tral research foci. Specifically, this is a concern with the ways in which ‘‘doing’’
masculinity is always a negotiated process, undertaken in relation to men (and
women) with whom an individual interacts both in the public and in the private
spheres. However, we now go on to briefly contextualize this particular site in rela-
tion to our wider study, given that this further detail gives insights into the rationale
for our research aims and methodology.

The Study
Our discussion is based on data from a three-year Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC)1 funded project, ‘‘Masculinities in Transition: Identity, Home and
Workplace,’’ based in the north of England. In broad terms, this project considers
masculine identity not only as it is inflected by class or ethnic backgrounds but also
as a contextual configuration that varies as individual men move between social
environments such as home and work. Masculine identification, from this perspec-
tive, is processual and essentially incomplete, emerging from an individual’s contex-
tual sense of who he is (and who he is not), as well as the ways in which other people
identify and categorize him (see Jenkins 2004). We have explored the domestic and
working lives of men employed in organizational cultures that have traditionally
been stereotyped as more or less ‘‘masculine’’ or ‘‘feminine’’: hairdressing, estate
agency (realtors), and firefighting. We have observed men at work in these different
occupational cultures, participating in everyday conversations and activities, and
have also conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with individual men in each
occupation. In addition, we interviewed women who in some way share these men’s
home lives, whether as partners, friends, or daughters, for example.
Our project explored the different behaviors that might constitute ‘‘being a man’’
at home and at work and the relationship between them. We also investigated men’s
life-course transitions; leaving home, divorce, and retirement. Men in our sample

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Robinson et al 35

were drawn, equally, from among young men starting out in life, men in midlife, and
older men around retirement age. The interviewees came from different class back-
grounds and were mainly, though not exclusively, White. In total, fifty-four men and
fifty-four women were interviewed. Exactly one-third of these interviews (thirty-six)
were carried out with hairdressers, split evenly into male hairdressers and a female
‘‘significant other.’’ That is to say, the female participants comprised female rela-
tives, partners, or friends of male hairdressers who were able to give insights into
a man’s domestic and working lives. This allowed us to conceptualize gender as
relational, and thus, our data emerged out of the interaction between women and
men, including insights gathered from our participant observation data. The hair-
dressers were White and predominantly working class, and most identified as hetero-
sexual, with three of the eighteen men identifying as gay. The male hairdressers also,
mostly, had female clients. Participant observation among hairdressers was con-
ducted at two salons. One of these was in an inner city and multiracial, working class
area with predominantly older and White clients, the other a very ‘‘trendy’’ city
salon, with generally a younger, but still mainly White, customer base.
The choice of participant observation as a method reflected our view of mascu-
linity as embodied and, therefore, as only partly accessible through interviews. To
incorporate into our data the distinctive bodily and vocal performances through
which masculine identity comes into being at particular times and spaces, we there-
fore participated in men’s everyday working lives. In this way, we were able to
observe men ‘‘at work’’ for example, gracefully maneuvering around each other
when they were working in close proximity with their clients, being very careful not
to touch each other as well as the constant texting carried out particularly by the
younger hairdressers who were keeping in touch with friends or female partners
at home, thus providing us with data that revealed the continuity between these
younger men’s social and working lives. Furthermore, by talking to and observing
the (mainly) female clients, we were party to the knowing looks on these clients’
faces when they exchanged secret glances with each other when feigning laughter
at a male hairdresser’s jokes or when laughing to themselves quietly when the joke
fell flat, for instance.
Interviewing female friends and relations also provided an ‘‘external’’ perspec-
tive on what men have told us during interviews and so was an additional method
‘‘fleshing out’’ these data. This included the data from female partners who were
also hairdressers or who had been in the past. A number of these women gleaned
pleasure from sharing salon gossip with their male hairdresser partner when he
returned home from work and so had additional insight into men’s domestic and
working lives. Viewing masculinity as an embodied attribute means taking account
of the ways in which it changes as men grow up and grow older. With this in mind,
we have compared men who are just starting out in their jobs with those who are well
established in midlife and those who are around retirement age. At the core of our
study are questions about how the gendered nature of men’s work environments and
their relationship with domestic space might interact, and how being a man might

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36 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

involve different kinds of behaviors or performances at home or at work. Spector-

Mersel (2006) points out that the notion of ‘‘multiple masculinities’’ refers to two
different contexts: ‘‘across persons’’ and ‘‘within persons.’’ It is this latter, ‘‘within
persons’’ context with which we are concerned.
As we have stated, the article will consider data from the hairdressing cohort of
our study. It became clear during our research that men of all ages, who work in this
profession must contend with a series of stereotypes about being a man in what is
generally considered a woman’s profession. The ways in which men, whether
straight or gay, deal with these issues became a prominent theme and one that has
led us to consider the possibility of the subversion of gender norms.

Gender Identity and Subversion

The work of Butler (1990) has been influential in outlining the ways in which gender
and sexuality are relationally constituted; that is, how heterosexuality ‘‘makes
sense’’ against its ‘‘other,’’ homosexuality, and how this underpins distinctions
between male and female and masculine and feminine. Influenced by Foucault, But-
ler (1990) suggests that performativity brings gender categories into being; that is,
these categories are fundamentally shaped through discursive practices. Performa-
tivity constructs an illusion of ‘‘natural’’ and heterosexually constituted gendered
subjects and simultaneously limits the forms these take (Brickell 2005). Butler
claims that alternative forms of gendered identity threaten to subvert the stability
of these male and female distinctions. For Butler, subversion of gender norms is pos-
sible through, for example, parody and resignification (Brickell 2005, 33).
However, Brickell (2005) argues that Butler is often ambiguous about the notion
of subversion, beyond vague suggestions about disruptions and realignments. Brick-
ell suggests that at the heart of the problem is Butler’s ambivalence about agency and
subjectivity. He argues that the concept of performativity suggests that the subject is
an illusion, constituted by discourse, but this would seem to rule out agency and sub-
jectivity (Brickell 2005). Furthermore, if subjects are performative effects who do
not do gender but are constituted, how might they ever precipitate subversive action?
For Brickell (2005), the work of Goffman (1959; 1974) can provide a way forward.
In Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical schema, identity—including gender identity—
involves reflexive constructions and performances by selves. These take place with
constant reference to others and to the symbolic resources provided by the surround-
ing culture and social structures. Goffman (1974) argues that ‘‘frames’’ are defini-
tions of a situation ‘‘built up in accordance with principles of organization which
govern events . . . and our subjective involvement in them.’’ (1974, 10-11). Frames
are seen to constrain the meanings and interpretations that can be attributed to social
events and interaction.
Goffman is, therefore, outlining a two-way process that allows for agency within
social interaction, but which takes account of context. Brickell (2005) demonstrates
the relevance of Goffman’s work for masculinity: the masculine self can be

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Robinson et al 37

understood as ‘‘reflexively constructed within performances’’ where ‘‘socially con-

stituted masculine selves act in the social world and are acted on simultaneously’’
(2005, 32-33). Researchers can thus investigate empirically the doing of masculi-
nities, as well as their reception within social interaction, and how ‘‘frames and
specificities of culture and history’’ shape the performance and reception of mascu-
linities (Brickell 2005, 32).
Moreover, Brickell also suggests that Goffman’s concept of the socially situated,
reflexive self adds clarity to Butler’s idea of subversion. According to Goffman’s
scheme, subversion (e.g., parody or the reworking of dominant understanding of
behaviors or situations) would involve ‘‘interpretation and meaning-making . . .
in interactions with others’’ (Brickell 2005, 35), where the interpretation and under-
standings of these ‘‘subversive’’ (i.e., nonconforming) performances can never be
straightforwardly assumed. Brickell also points out that, as Goffman outlines,
attempts at subversion (through parody or play with gender norms, e.g.) may simply
be interpreted in ways that fit in with and confirm dominant social arrangements.
Nevertheless, for Brickell, the constraints that limit and shape ‘‘acceptable’’ gen-
dered presentations of the self may be amenable to reconfiguration, and in this way,
fissures in hegemonic patterns may appear. This discussion of the possibly subver-
sive nature of parody and transgression of masculine norms, as well as the conser-
vatism that underlies the interpretation of these subversions, provides us with
analytical tools for the consideration of male hairdressers, for men working in a
woman’s world.

Men in a Woman’s World

Interest in men who work in female-dominated occupations has grown since the
mid-1980s. Feminist analyses note that men may be advantaged in these circum-
stances by accessing a glass accelerator to promotion, for example (Bradley 1993;
Williams 1995a; Lupton 2000). Williams (1995a) found that many men working
in female sector occupations, such as nursing or elementary school teaching, reveal
an interaction between gendered expectations that are deeply embedded in organiza-
tions and the socially determined ideas that men bring to work. She argues that until
more men embrace more sensitive ‘‘feminine’’ traits, and thus develop alternative
masculinities, such expectations will serve to men’s advantage.
However, men who choose ‘‘nontraditional’’ careers may find their masculinity
and sexuality coming under scrutiny (Lupton 2000; Sargent 2000). Williams
(1995b) has argued that men who work in occupations that are assumed to be female
both upset a traditional gendered division of labor and risk being seen as effeminate
or homosexual. While Lupton (2000) argues that working in a female-dominated
occupation often does not allow men to easily confirm hegemonic masculinity,
either within the workplace or their lives more broadly, and men risk being both fem-
inized and stigmatized as a result. Bradley (1993) suggests that men move across
gendered work boundaries ‘‘only in very special circumstances’’ (cited in Bagilhole

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38 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

and Cross 2006, 39). By contrast, however, feminized occupations can positively
attract men; as the interviews by Bagilhole and Cross (2006) with male care workers
showed, the nurturing dimensions of these jobs can appeal to them directly.
Sargent (2000), in his discussion of U.S. male elementary teachers, cites Allan
(1994) to further outline the contradictory position in which men find themselves
in feminized professions, trying to fit in with the ‘‘the proscriptions and prescriptions
regarding masculinity’’ circulating among men’s relevant others (Sargent 2000,
413). He argues that men and boys who violate dominant definitions of gender-
appropriate behavior (by working in feminized professions, for example, or showing
loving and nurturing behavior) are viewed suspiciously. This acts, according to
Allan, to undermine any association of masculinity with responsibility, caring, and
nurturing. In Sargent’s case, men in elementary teaching must fight to be seen as
‘‘real men’’ in environments that set up a ‘‘dizzying array of options through which
the men must negotiate regularly, yet inconsistently, depending on the immediate
situation’’ (Sargent 2000, 426).
Sargent’s case study has interesting parallels with the male hairdressers in our
study. Hairdressing is an overwhelmingly feminized profession in Britain.2 Our
research methods aimed to investigate what this ongoing feminization of hairdres-
sing means for men in the profession: for example, the extent to which men felt that
they had had to negotiate a distinct ‘‘hairdressing culture’’; how this might have
manifested itself in personal styles of dress and hair, their conversation and their lei-
sure activities, and how becoming a hairdresser might have altered men’s relation-
ship with their natal family and new partners. In the project as a whole, we wanted to
find out who men identified with—and who they saw themselves as different from.
We have investigated changing perceptions (and management) of their bodies as
they grow older. We have also explored how men navigate change, conflict, and
relationships at work and at home as well as how they ‘‘frame’’ and understand their
emotional responses, and how these emotions shape their interactions in turn.
In this way, we draw on studies such as Boyle (2002), which has found that both
multiple masculinities, for example, hegemonic and other ‘‘compensatory’’ more
caring masculinities are in tension in organizations. In particular, the concept of gen-
der identity strain (see, e.g., Alvesson 1998, whose work on men in a Swedish adver-
tising agency, recognizes that the feminization of work puts strain on men’s gender
identity) has been useful in our analysis of a different occupational setting. Further-
more, Simpson (2004) has argued that men employ various strategies to reestablish
masculinity that has been undermined by the ‘‘feminine’’ nature of their work and
our analysis extends this idea by considering how the private sphere of family and
relationships can inform such strategies. In addition, therefore, given our interest
in ‘‘masculinities in transition,’’ we are in agreement with Martin (2001) that we
need a conception of ‘‘mobilizing masculinities’’ in which men’s individual and col-
lective practices bring into play masculinities at work. Yet, as Martin herself asserts,
we do not know the implications of such understandings for masculinities and gen-
der relations at work, for either home/family or recreational/leisure contexts.

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Robinson et al 39

With regard to the specific occupational context of hairdressing, unlike Barber

(2008), we are not fundamentally concerned with men as clients in hairdressing sal-
ons, who were found in this previous study to reproduce race and classed gendered
differences in the salon by resisting feminization while still transgressing gender
boundaries, as our focus is on male hairdressers who have, mostly, a female clien-
tele. As with Ahmed (2006) who carried out work on the life histories of men
employed in ‘‘beauty work’’ in South Asia, our study also revealed that just as
different work situations produce different masculinities, the same work context can
also produce different masculinities. Therefore, our research has been informed by
earlier studies on this specific occupation, yet it is our focus on the public/private
sphere and how men negotiate identities across these, at different points in the life
course, as well as women’s perceptions of men’s working and domestic lives, which
explores such earlier insights in a new and more nuanced fashion.

Being a Man in a ‘‘Woman’s World’’

For many of the men in our study, being a man in a woman’s world was a positive
experience. Many reported that they felt they were a ‘‘novelty,’’ or had a ‘‘special
position’’ in the workplace. As one hairdresser in his forties recalled, ‘Contrary to
what you might think, you were really looked after by women. It was just great, just
a great atmosphere.’
The positive connotations of working as a man among women took several forms.
The same man told us that being a straight man among women had beneficial effects
for his social and love life. He said

Oh, it were fantastic . . . . I used to use it to my advantage then, you’ve got to use . . .
Yeah, use it to your advantage . . . . But at that time I didn’t have that many male
friends, all me friends were female, I’d got a big, there were a big crowd of us and I
used to just knock about with girls.

Other men reported preferring the company of women. According to one man,
‘‘Women are, they have a much broader view of life then men, men is all football,
sex, cars and basically that’s, that’s it.’’
Cutting across these positive evaluations was a more ambivalent stance toward
working in a female-dominated environment. One young man told us that, ‘‘If I’m
just working with girls . . . it tends to be a lot more, I don’t know, just a bit more
heightened and, I don’t know, it just seems a little bit more stressed.’’ Many men felt
they had to push themselves harder to make it. Peter, a thirty-two-year-old hairdres-
ser at a fashionable city center salon, told us that, at nineteen, he had been the only
man among his group of trainees. He said, ‘‘I think it kind of made me work a bit
harder. I’ve always got on with women better, but really, as soon as I got into hair-
dressing, I think I realized that yeah, okay, I’ve got to fight a little bit. It’s predomi-
nantly a female environment . . . I think you work a little bit harder.’’ In his current

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40 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

job, there are five male stylists among twenty to thirty staff. He said, even if there
were equal numbers of male and female stylists, ‘‘(t)he women would be just slightly
above us . . . they can be quite strong characters.’’ In this feminized environment,
Peter’s appearance was very important to him, ‘‘When you’re obviously working
with the public and you’re trying to make people look good, you need self-esteem.
Put a hundred percent in yourself.’’ His reflections here reveal a self-
consciousness that was mirrored among other participants.
Therefore, while Peter’s comments seem to suggest a world where women are
powerful, the apparently feminized context hides the play of more traditional gender
stereotyping. David, a hairdresser in his fifties, compared women and men’s reasons
for choosing hairdressing, and their level of ambition once in the profession. When
asked whether he thought that women made better hairdressers than men, he replied

There are, its just funny that all the top hairdressers except for a few, are all men. I
think that’s because a man goes into most jobs, but especially into hairdressing, and
it’s going to be their career. A lot of women go in and they’re going to do it for five,
six years. Then go off and have a baby and it’s a filler and the ones who’ve become very
career minded do very well at it.

Thus, in hairdressing—an arguably feminine profession where women outnumber

men—this male hairdresser reasserts a male hierarchy, where men become the top
hairdressers because of women’s lack of ambition and their privileging of home life
above career and status in the profession. Furthermore, Jack (forty-seven), who
worked in a stylish city center salon, argued that many women preferred a man to
do their hair because they believed they were ‘‘getting something special.’’ This
view was confirmed by his female colleagues who reported many woman clients
wanting a man because they believed men were perhaps more skillful. In addition,
Jack and his colleagues described the importance that many women seemed to place
on receiving flattery and attention from a man.

Playing With Gender

The work of a hairdresser was likened by many men (and women) in our study to a
performance; a feeling exacerbated by the nature of the salon environment where
aesthetic standards are closely scrutinized. Participants were aware that they acted
differently at home and at work; being at work involved adopting a sociable, chatty,
and positive demeanor, whatever their underlying mood. Part of this performance
was to put clients at ease and make them feel nurtured and cared for, a key aspect
of the salon experience. As one man put it, ‘‘You’ve got to perform for them as well.
Part of my kind of character in hairdressing is making a women feel extremely
comfortable.’’
It is the provision of beauty care and bodily nurturing among women and toward
women that throws up some of the ambiguities of gender identity for many of our

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Robinson et al 41

male hairdressers. A number of the male hairdressers reported feeling as if they were
‘‘more feminine’’ because of their work. One man said, ‘‘You spend your life work-
ing with women every day, you take on far more feminine characteristics, because
you can relate to women, if you’re working with women.’’ Another man reflected,
‘‘Because even the straight men are very, very effeminate . . . .’’
For some of the participants, it was also possible for them to both take on what
could be termed traditionally feminine characteristics and remain comfortable with
their male friendships outside of a working environment. One young hairdresser said

I do admit I have a feminine side around certain peers of mine. I do feel quite feminine
but I don’t let that bother me. They obviously don’t mind the way I am with them. I’m
not saying I go into, you know, camp mode but they do make me feel quite feminine.

When asked to define what he meant by his having ‘‘a feminine side,’’ he replied

I don’t do football. I’ve never done football so I don’t know the first thing about foot-
ball. I’ve got loads of friends who know about football and they all sit together chatting
about football and this, that and the other and I think ‘What!’ You know, I do cleaning
at home they don’t know what the meaning of the word is. So, yeah, so it’s, it’s quite a
weird sensation but I don’t let it bother me. I think it did to start off with, I thought ‘Is it
me? What am I doing?’

Another interviewee spoke about the need for him to juxtapose feminine and more
traditionally masculine elements of his identity.

I’ve got friends who are very friendly, who are probably more friendly than me and I’m
not frightened of flirting with them. You know, male friends. It’s fine, they’re comfor-
table with it, I’m comfortable with it. I suppose . . . I’ve never really been frightened
about my feminine side, I suppose you can’t go into hairdressing in the first place if
you are, you can’t be a butch hairdresser, it’s impossible. If you saw me doing shampoo
and set, giving all this, you just can’t do it, you can’t be a butch hairdresser, there’s no
such thing. You can drink and womanise as much as you want but at the end of the day
basically, when you’re working, you are feminine.

As these interview data show, being feminine, that is, adopting feminine attributes,
is seen by the men as something that inevitably comes from spending time among
women and fitting in with a feminized environment. In this way, they can be seen
to demonstrate a fluid, ‘‘constructed’’ understanding of gendered identity as contin-
gent performance. Conversely, it could be argued from the data that men’s gender
identity conforms more to what is defined as traditionally ‘‘feminine’’ behavior in
a way, which allows them to ‘‘fit’’ the work culture rather than the fact they are fem-
inized from just working with women. However, becoming more ‘‘feminized’’ is
largely seen as a positive thing in these men’s discussions; the ability to relate to
women, as both clients and colleagues, enables men to be better hairdressers.

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42 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

Furthermore, such feminization of subjectivity can be experienced as a pleasurable

(and enjoyable) experience. It also, of course, makes good business sense. It would
seem, therefore, that for these men, the ‘‘becoming’’ feminine that their job involves
is not viewed as a threat to their self-identity as a man, suggesting that hairdressing
does, indeed, seem to open spaces where reworking the rules of what it means to be a
man is possible.
One of the founding premises of our study has been to take seriously the embodi-
ment of gendered identity. For this reason, we have (as outlined above) complemen-
ted our interviews with men with observation work and interviews with female
colleagues, friends, and family, which has shed valuable light on the doing of mas-
culinity. Thus, while many male hairdressers are aware of their workplace ‘‘femin-
ization’’ and are able to talk about it, observation data have proved invaluable for
getting at the bodily practices that constitute this feminization. One striking theme
emerging from our data is the playful, ironic campness, which several straight men
have adopted in their working lives.
Participant observation in the salon owned and run by Raymond, a middle-
aged man operating in a rundown, working class and racially mixed inner city
area catering for older (White) women, revealed his capacity for complex, con-
tradictory, performances of masculinity at work (reference removed so authors
of paper cannot be identified). A colorful character, he holds court among his
long-term clientele, for whom he ‘‘does’’ a self-parodying camp masculinity.
This performance involves exaggerated gestures, hand flourishes, and rolling
of his eyes and forms a focus for knowing banter between Raymond and his
clients, even as he sustains it. Conversation between Raymond and his female
clients is ‘‘feminized,’’ and topics include food, body shape, diets, and local
gossip. Raymond plays an important role for many of his clients, not only as
a hairdresser but also through his ‘‘care work.’’ This involves traditionally mas-
culine electrical and do-it-yourself (DIY) skills that he carries out in the private,
domestic space of his clients’ homes. However, it also has feminized
dimensions; in the salon, Raymond removes clients’ coats, helps them into
chairs, buys their lottery tickets and cigarettes, and makes their coffee. This
daily enactment of care allows Raymond to attain self-worth and local status,
but it could be argued that his ironically feminized performances remove him
from any subservient position. His older female clients indulge him, emphasiz-
ing his importance by admitting their own reliance upon his care.
It is not only in the salons for older women that this ‘‘campness’’ is at play. Jack
(aged forty-seven) worked in a more upmarket city salon. He was able to articulate
the shift he made between the ‘‘acts’’ he maintained for different clients, ‘‘(i)f I’d got
a right tasty twenty one year old blonde in, I’d be completely, I’d be completely dif-
ferent to how I would be if I got a seventy year old biddy with no teeth in.’’ In addi-
tion, when the interviewer asked whether his colleagues notice these changes in his
behavior, depending on which client he is dealing with, he replied, ‘‘Oh yeah,
because they can see my face change, body language is completely different.’’

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Robinson et al 43

Observation at Jack’s salon showed him to adopt a stylized set of movements and
conversational tone when at work: his hand movements were flourishes, his body
held in a camp style, his voice full of gossip, innuendo, and laughter. Female col-
leagues reported him being very feminine in terms of his choice of conversation:
a friend/colleague told us, ‘‘(t)he way he talks, he’s like a woman in some ways, you
know? I don’t mean the way he speaks as in his voice. I mean he likes a good gossip
and a chat about everything and not a lot of men do that, they’re not very open.’’
It is in the parodying performances of Raymond and Jack—which seem to fall on
the border between being deliberate and unintentional—that the issue of gender sub-
version, and its limits, can be seen. As Brickell (2005) argues, Goffman’s model of
social actors reflexively constructing a gendered self under both contextual con-
straints and (under) the scrutiny of others allows for the possibility that parody,
irony, and nonconforming masculine performances might act to subtly readjust the
‘‘frames’’ and scripts that limit appropriate gendered action. The men we have dis-
cussed, who engage in camp banter, flirt with male friends, gossip about sex in
‘‘feminized ways,’’ and are comfortable with becoming ‘‘feminine,’’ would seem
to be engaged in deliberately and genuine subversive attacks on the norms of hege-
monic masculinity. Apparently comfortable in their sense of themselves as straight
men, their actions suggest that hairdressing, indeed, is a space where the rules of
masculinity can be played with, and where subversion might take place to produce
new understandings and associations of masculinity. Brickell (2005, 35), however,
argues that nonconforming individuals who subvert through parody or resignifica-
tion may be understood and (may) be subject to a ‘‘frame trap’’ (Goffman 1974,
480), where ‘‘incorrect views . . . are confirmed by each bit of new evidence or each
effort to correct matters.’’ In the ongoing negotiation of meaning between action,
performance, and reception, the extent to which meaning is agreed upon can never
be taken for granted, and it is the conservatism (i.e., the endurance of accepted and
dominant understanding of certain situations and actions) that threatens the multiple,
complex nature of these men’s identities, as we now go on to discuss.

The Limits of Subversion

One of the ‘‘problems’’ for heterosexual men working in a ‘‘feminized’’ industry is
the constant possibility of being mistaken for being gay. As one man described it,
‘‘You become gay by working with women, that kind of belief, you know? Or, you’d
be typecast, ‘Oh, you must be like that because you work [in that industry].’’’ The
association of hairdressing with gayness (through everyday assumptions and cultural
representations) reveals the tenacity of the ‘‘homosexual other’’ against which men
must create a masculine sense of self, even among hairdressers who might feel com-
fortable with being, or becoming, feminized. David, in his fifties, for example,
bemoaned the stereotyping of hairdressing and the fact that gay men entered the pro-
fession, in his opinion, because they thought they would be more accepted there than

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44 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

in a more ‘‘masculine’’ occupation. For him, it would seem that feminization might
be a powerful resource and also one that constantly threatens to disrupt masculinity.
Simpson (2006) identifies the ‘‘role strain’’ involved in maintaining a sense of
oneself as a man in a feminized milieu, a result of mismatches between men’s sense
of their masculine identity, and the identifications associated with their work.
Where a lack of fit is externally derived, men are likely to manage strain by giving
out selective representations of what their work entails. In the case of the hairdres-
sers we interviewed, many engaged in careful self-presentations that highlighted
hairdressing’s masculinized elements (their manual dexterity and skill, the
technological, and scientific aspects of coloring, for example) and maximized their
day-to-day involvement with less feminized aspects of the work.
Goffman’s points about the possible misunderstanding of ‘‘dissident’’
performances (1959 cited in Brickell 2005, 35) have real relevance for men such
as Raymond and Jack. Their ease in negotiating feminized environments and their
ability and willingness to take on feminized characteristics is potentially undercut
by misgivings about the reception of such performances. While in the salon, among
those who know them well, the enjoyment and pleasure of camp parodies, or playing
with expectations and norms about masculinity and femininity, would seem to offer
genuine scope for the emergence of a ‘‘new man’’ and a ‘‘new masculinity,’’ one
which is at ease with emotional articulacy and with spending time with women and
engaging in nurturing care. Yet, these men feel that the interpretations and associa-
tions of their actions are never clear cut. In short, there are limits to parody and play
as exemplified in the interview with John Brown, a hairdresser near retirement age,
and his female partner. When the interviewer raised the issue of male hairdressers
having to be ‘‘up close and personal’’ with their clients of both sexes, including
touching clients when doing their hair, he replied ‘‘Yeah, just don’t do it too gentle
that’s all.’’ This retort was met with laughter by his wife who was present at the end
of the interview and who therefore acknowledged and also collaborated with his
playful but still emphatic emphasis on the importance of such physical contact not
being misinterpreted.
Furthermore, Raymond, despite his developed and practiced camp performance,
often bemoaned his mother’s choice of his name, saying it made people think he was
a ‘‘pouf’’—and taking care to emphasize that ‘‘nothing could be further from the
truth.’’ Furthermore, when the male chiropodist who rented a room at the back of
his salon came through to chat with him, the conversation between these two men
was all about the upkeep of the salon as well as DIY and the repair of cars in the
home environment. Raymond thus contextually adopted ‘‘manly’’ talk, including
bringing in mention of his activities in the private/domestic sphere, to demonstrate
conformity with gendered expectations, and to compensate for any misunderstand-
ings that others may have of him: a ‘‘corrective account’’ as Goffman (1974) puts it.
In addition, in an interview with Karen Ross (forty-five), a female partner of another
male hairdresser interviewed and a hairdresser herself, she put forward the view that
male hairdressers are always seen as ‘‘gay or sex mad’’ and described how her

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Robinson et al 45

partner ‘‘always makes a point with a new client at some of talking about his wife . . .
think they get it over some way or another . . . just subtly in case they are wonder-
ing.’’ However, this careful and deliberate performance of heterosexuality some-
times ‘‘slipped’’ as was evident with Raymond at times, as he shifted into his
former camp mode, albeit unintentionally.
This slippage between identities was also evident in what Jack said about going
‘‘the other way’’:

But when I worked in the salon I started getting guys coming in and asking me out. And
then I’d go out and if I went out with a couple of mates, I’d have guys coming up and
asking, blokes coming up and talking to me because they’d found out I was in hairdres-
sing and because I’d got blonde hair. And yeah, it did, it perturbed me a bit and I
thought, ‘No, I’m not doing it, that’s not me’ and I’ve never done it since. In fact
I’ll go the other way.

When asked by the interviewer what he meant when he said ‘‘I’ll go the other way,’’
he explained

I’ll be more, not necessarily in the salon, but I act more rough or macho and even when
I go out now, my friends know that if anybody comes up to me or a girl comes up who
I’ve never been introduced to, I never tell them what I do . . . You get fed up with them
saying, ‘Well what should I do with my hair?’

Interestingly, it was in the research encounter itself that the ambiguities that men felt
about their self-presentation and their gendered identity came to the fore. In two
interview appointments, the project researchers turned up to meet ‘‘off duty’’ hair-
dressers to find them dressed in dirty work clothes and engaged in ‘‘typically’’ mas-
culine endeavors; one man was working on his car and the other (Jack) made a great
deal of his busy schedule of DIY and house maintenance. He was clad in paint-
spattered clothes, implied it was a great favor to take time out of his day, pointed
out how much work he had done around his own home, and stated in the interview
that he was ‘‘the least gayest person you’d ever meet,’’ something his wife empha-
sizes in her interview, when he was present. There is no way of knowing whether the
‘‘presentation of self’’ (Goffman 1959) involved in these men’s choices of clothes
and activity was a deliberate ploy, a coincidence, or unintentional, but in the selec-
tive self-representation that characterizes all social interaction—and which takes on
heightened significance in the research encounter (on both sides)—it may be argued
that nothing is ever left to chance. Moreover, this evidence contradicts earlier find-
ings by Smith and Winchester (1998) that outside of men’s working environments
that were seen to enforce hegemonic masculinity, in the private spaces of home men
were able to negotiate more alternative forms of masculine identity. With the hair-
dressers in our sample, certainly when viewed in a ‘‘performance’’ context by the
researcher, the private sphere was utilized to, indeed, establish and confirm their het-
erosexual identity.

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46 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

Conclusion
This article began by asking whether a new masculinity is possible and whether the
‘‘new man’’—in touch with his femininity, emotionally articulate, secure in female
company—can be said to exist beyond media representations. Our data have shown
that the feminized arena of hairdressing offers some men scope to play with domi-
nant hegemonic understandings of masculinity. ‘‘Feminine’’ bodily and conversa-
tional styles are adopted and enable men to act out parodies of camp masculinity.
As a strategy for getting on with women, and becoming a better hairdresser, this
adoption is also pleasurable for many straight men who reported to us their enjoy-
ment in being in touch with their ‘‘feminine side’’ and working with women. Far
from taking ‘‘ . . . flight from women’’ (Kimmel 2001, 273) to achieve acceptable
masculinity, these men seem to embrace femininity on some levels, conforming with
the ‘‘fluid, unstable, and contingent’’ gender identities that postmodern analyses sug-
gest (Gutterman 2001, 65). In Goffman’s terms, and as Brickell (2005) suggests,
their ongoing creation of a masculine sense of self—in interaction with others who
scrutinize their actions and where meaning is constantly negotiated—allows the pos-
sibility for a realignment of appropriate masculine scripts and frames to include
behavior formerly associated with femininity. This may be on a local scale, but such
realignments may, over time, have the potential to have greater significance
(Brickell 2005). In many ways, our data, therefore, demonstrate the destabilization
of the norms of heterosexuality and gender identity through a reevaluation of the
ambiguous and transgressive behaviors that Roseneil (2000) describes.
This, however, is only part of the story. As our discussion has shown, there exist
limits to the subversive intentions and performances that the male hairdressers we
researched are willing to engage with. Thus, these limits suggest the tenacity of
associations between hairdressing, femininity, and homosexuality and their ‘‘pro-
blematic’’ place in the schemes generated by hegemonic masculinity. The litera-
ture concerning men in feminized occupations points to a general ambivalence
in negotiating a masculine identity in a ‘‘woman’s world,’’ where ‘‘men’s reason-
ing about female-dominated work is multifaceted and at times contradictory’’
(Bagilhole and Cross 2006, 46). Our data suggest that, despite the subversive
potential of their identifications, men working as hairdressers (must) still negotiate
sets of gendered expectations to create what they envisage as a ‘‘viable’’ masculine
identity, whether by emphasizing their professionalism, skill, and prowess or enga-
ging in ‘‘typically’’ masculine behavior in the gym or on social occasions. For
Raymond, ‘‘being a man’’ and a hairdresser for his clients involves a performance
that is knowingly feminized and self-parodying, while ‘‘being a man’’ for his
chiropodist colleague involves drawing on different sets of references. For Jack,
the declarations of his straightness, the sexually explicit gossip about his love life,
and his ostentatious ‘‘going the other way’’ are all strategies to ensure that there
can be no ‘‘misunderstanding.’’ As well as ‘‘undoing’’ the gender rules, Jack feels
he must also re-do them (see Butler 2004, 1).

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Robinson et al 47

Interestingly, men made reports to us about female demands within the salon,
which contributed to a continued ambivalence about what can pass for ‘‘acceptable’’
or ‘‘desirable’’ masculinity. It is worth noting that some women, as referred to above,
do seem to prefer a man to do their hair, and expect to get ‘‘something special’’ and
‘‘a bit of flattery’’ from him. The extent to which some women clients reaffirm
traditional masculine hierarchies through their preference of men seen as more skil-
ful, more expert, and with whom they can engage in sexually charged banter,
demonstrates the ambiguous expectations surrounding masculinity in the hairdres-
sing industry and in general. A young hairdresser outlined for us what he saw as the
problem facing other young men today. For him, the clear-cut gender boundaries
that (he assumed) once existed have been ‘‘broken down,’’ throwing everybody
‘‘into a bit of a kind of chaos really.’’ He reported that he has overheard conversa-
tions where ‘‘(w)omen will stand in the shop to their sons and go, ‘You don’t do that,
that’s what girls do,’ or, ‘That’s a girl’s thing, that’s a girl’s toy.’’ He finished by
stating at some length:

I find in my job that women actually are the main creators of bad men . . . I really
hear that a lot from women I work with—that’s a real positive of being a
hairdresser and being able to get into women’s lives—and so I find that women
are their worst enemies. Because they create their children to be masculine in the
old-fashioned sense of what is it to be a man, but then when they become lovers
and stuff, they expect the complete opposite of ‘em. That is one of the major things
what I find hard with women is that you want your child to be a boy, and, and
grow up to be a man, but then when they’re pushed onto another woman . . . that
woman then wants them to be caring and sensitive . . . [That is] the real hardship
for men at the moment. Because one thing I always say is, that’s why 90% of the
men in bars look gay when you go out . . . because they don’t know where they are,
they’re emulating gay friends of women, who women get on with so well. . . . So
then, obviously, the lads, straight lads pick up on that.

As we outlined earlier, Jackson and Scott (2004, 233) have argued that the
apparent liberalization in sexuality in late modern societies is undercut with
‘‘antinomies and associated anxieties.’’ The fashionableness of queer, they
argue, and its increased visibility in mainstream popular culture and everyday
life tell us nothing about the obstinate intolerance (of gayness and sexual diver-
sity) that persists in everyday life. We would argue from our research that a sim-
ilar case can be made about ‘‘new’’ forms of masculinity that incorporate
features formerly associated with the ‘‘feminine.’’ While men may be engaged
in local, contextual subversion of the ‘‘rules of masculinity,’’ such reformula-
tions are also interwoven with enduring conformity to traditional sets of gen-
dered expectations. Men, therefore, find their masculine identities under
scrutiny not only in a homosocial environment but also from women with whom
they come into contact within their working and personal lives.3,4

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48 Men and Masculinities 14(1)

Notes
1. Economic and Social Research Council—a major U.K. funding body.
2. Between 2002 and 2003, the U.K. Modern Apprenticeships scheme recruited approxi-
mately equal numbers of boys and girls overall. In the case of hairdressing, however, boys
made up only 7 percent of those undertaking apprenticeships (EOC 2004).
3. An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Sociological Association
Conference: ‘‘Is another world possible?’’ (New York 2007).
4. All participants’ names have been changed.

Declaration of Conflicting Interest

The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
2003 ESRC: ‘Masculinities in Transition: Identity, Home and Workplace’. £164,000
awarded.

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Bios
Victoria Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield and author
of Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport: Male Identity and Rock Cimbing (Berg 2008)
and, with Jenny Hockey and Angela Meah, Mundane Heterosexualites: From Theory to
Practices (Palgrave 2007). With Diane Richardson she has co-edited the 3rd edition of
Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies, (Palgrave 2008). Also with Richardson, she is
co-editor for the Palgrave book series on gender and sexualities in the social sciences and
currently writing, with Hockey, Masculinities in Transition, 2010, Palgrave.

Alexandra Hall is Research Associate at the Department of Geography, Durham University.

Her research interests include borders, gender, security and the politics of mobility and she
has published widely in these areas. She is currently preparing a monograph entitled ‘The
Everyday Life of Immigration Detention’, an ethnographic investigation of the micropolitics
of mobility, identity and detention to be published by Pluto Press.
Jenny Hockey trained as an anthropologist and is now Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the
University of Sheffield. Her research interests include heterosexuality, masculinity, ageing
and the life course and she has published widely in all these areas.

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