Masculinity and Class in the Context of Dirty Work

Abstract

Through an ethnographic study of ‘dirty work’ and drawing on an orientation to gender as an active construction, this article explore show gender and class intersect in two occupations (refuse collection and street cleaning) . Our findings demonstrate how masculinity and class are mutually constitutive, producing attitudes and practices, strengths and vulnerabilities which are shaped by shifting relations of privilege and power and are largely specific to this group . Class and status subordination, in the con text of this study, are resisted by adherence to traditional forms of masculinity , and by taking advantage of social comparison in order to diffuse the negative implications of low status group membership. In addition, as a form of resistance of devaluation, men evoked powerful nostalgic themes - a lament for the loss of jobs and political power ; the passing of the time of closer communities and more traditional values could be read as a response to current experiences of vulnerability and devaluation.