Hidden in the household: Now it’s men in mid-life

摘要

Both gender and ageing are being reconceptualized as contingent and more complex than previously thought. The architecture of gender as we age is transforming too, as the twin forces of globalization (leading simultaneously to homogeneity and diversity) and postmodern identity formation collide and intersect. Lives, relationships, and senses of self are textured by socioeconomic restructuring, by the uncertainties and insecurities of the global economy and global politics, and by enhanced social and social policy meanings given to cohort, generation, and age as gendered. This paper examines these changes as they impact on white-collar men in midlife who have experienced involuntary job loss long before expectable retirement age. Through the self-reported experiences and reflections of a group of suddenly unemployed, not yet pensionable Canadian men, insights are afforded on masculinity in flux. Interviews with the men took place both in groups and individually. Analysis of the in-depth interview data is set in the context of shifting patterns of work and life course contingencies by gender and age as rapid socioeconomic restructuring occurs. Themes that emerge are profound shifts in self-identities as men, in the concept of masculinity itself and as self-defining, a deep uncertainty about masculinity as sculpted by age in this new age, and a clear preference to hide from the new realities, often, paradoxically, at home. When I first saw the unemployed men at close quarters, the thing that horrified and amazed me was to find that many of them were ashamed of being unemployed. They simply could not understand what was happening to them. —George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) There are two things I’ll never forget about 2001: one is where I was standing when I earned that two planes had plunged into New York’s World Trade Center; the other was what I was wearing when I lost my job … It seems odd, you might think, that I mention these two events in the same sentence … Well, I’ll surprise you a little further: I felt worse when I lost my job. —L. Hertel, The Globe and Mail (2002)