Maintaining Masculinity: Men who do ‘Women's Work’

This paper examines the ways in which men manage their gender identity on entry into occupations traditionally undertaken by women. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with men in non‐traditional occupations the paper demonstrates how men who enter “female” occupations face a range of challenges to their sense of ‘masculinity’. It is argued that gender identity and occupational identity become misaligned during this transition. The paper shows how men attempt to realign these two identities, either by a reconstruction or rationalization of the nature of their occupations, or by renegotiation of their own conception of what it means to be a man. The article concludes that the first of these approaches has important implications for the nature of occupations and the way in which work is carried out, while the second may be one of the key processes at work in the desegregation of the labour market.