Text, Body, and Tools

Abstract

This article explores processes by which masculinities change, using examples from the Norwegian forestry industry. Forestry has traditionally been one of the most masculine rural work activities and an arena where hegemonic rural masculinity is expressed. The study is based on mediations of masculinity in a forestry magazine covering a period of twenty years. Using text, body, and tools as an analytic scheme, pictures of temporal variations of, and relations between, "traditional" and "new" types of masculinity are described. Even though practical, physical work in the forest is a basis for rural hegemonic masculinity, other types of work with new cultural influences (organizational and expert work) lead to "dialogical" masculinities, which open up for more flexible boundaries and cultural borrowing. This might be important to secure the future viability of rural industries and communities, especially if the recruitment of women is desirable.

Performing female masculinities and negotiating femininities: challenging gender hegemonies in Swedish forestry through women’s networks

“…Networks for women were initially formed as a response to exclusionary practices in Swedish forestry, and they should be understood as a strategy by which to resist the subordination of hegemonic femininity in forestry. The interviewees clearly articulated their experience of Swedish forestry as a male space in which (hegemonic) masculinity is normative, which is in line with the findings from other studies on forestry (e.g., Lidestav 2016, Brandth andHaugen 2005;Johansson et al 2019a;Johansson, Johansson, and Andersson et al 2018;Lidestav and Egan Sj€ olander 2007;Reed 2003). Many interviewees brought up examples of exclusion in both symbolic and material forest spaces, i.e., exclusion from the idea of the forest as a male space, as well as exclusion in forest courses and activities, representation in forest owner associations, and from the use of material items such as forest gear and protective clothing (because of the sizes and designs being based on the male body).…”

“…the urban powerful organizational masculinity does not influence the rural tough masculinity. In contrast to Stenbacka's (2011) finding that rural masculinities are subordinated to urban masculinities Brandth and Haugen (2005) argued that the rural tough forestry worker represents hegemonic masculinity in relation to the urban powerful organizational man, as they found that in the rural setting of their study, practical experiencebased knowledge was valued higher than white-collar managerial expertise. This result is in line with the findings of Lidestav and Egan Sj€ olander (2007), who, based on a discourse analysis of forestry profession advertisements, argued that the ideal forester is continually reproduced 'as a hard-working and nature-mastering man' (351).…”

“…Although the masculinities attached to rural men may be dominant in their specific context, they are not hegemonic from a wider perspective; rather, they are subordinate and constructed as 'the other' in relation to an urban masculinity (Stenbacka 2011). Forestry work has been described as one of the most masculine-coded rural activities (Brandth and Haugen 2005); and in an analysis of the discursive constructions of masculinities in the forestry press, Brandth and Haugen (2000) identified two embodied positions of masculinities within forestry, which the they refer to as the 'tough' and the 'powerful', similar to the discursive constructions of masculinity identified by Liepins (1998) in an Australian and New Zealand agricultural context. In Haugen's work (2000, 2005), the tough masculinity is mainly performed in physical work, such as logging activities and the use of machinery (e.g., chainsaws), and can be understood as a blue-collar working-class masculinity for which heavy machines and working clothes constitute the material base for the embodied display of masculinity.…”

“…The powerful organizational man is associated with urbanity, whereas the tough forestry worker is associated with rurality. Despite the urban norm and the hierarchical relationship between rural and urban symbolic space, Brandth and Haugen (2005) argued that it appears to be an advantage for the organizational man to prove himself with practical forest knowledge, or, in other words, to incorporate the rural into the urban powerful organizational masculinity. Moreover, they do not find this type of spillover the other way around, i.e.…”

The ‘Feminine Revolution in Mining’: a critique

“…The changing nature of discourses of work and gender is revealed in a study of the Norwegian Forest Owner's Federation newsletter, The Forest Owner undertaken by Brandth and Haugen (1998;2005a;2005b). The authors undertake an exploration of gendered representations of farming at four historical moments from the 1970s to the present.…”