Premium
‘I Can't Put a Smiley Face On’: Working‐Class Masculinity, Emotional Labour and Service Work in the ‘New Economy’
Author(s) -
Nixon Darren
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
gender, work and organization
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.159
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1468-0432
pISSN - 0968-6673
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2009.00446.x
Subject(s) - masculinity , antipathy , emotional labor , smiley , service (business) , work (physics) , labour economics , face (sociological concept) , tertiary sector of the economy , service economy , habitus , class (philosophy) , psychology , sociology , social psychology , economics , gender studies , political science , economy , cultural capital , engineering , social science , law , politics , mechanical engineering , artificial intelligence , operating system , computer science
The growth of the ‘service economy’ has coincided with the large‐scale detachment from the labour market of low‐skilled men. Yet little research has explored exactly what it is about service work that is leading such men to drop out of the labour market during periods of sustained service sector employment growth. Based on interviews with 35 unemployed low‐skilled men, this article explores the men's attitudes to entry‐level service work and suggests that such work requires skills, dispositions and demeanours that are antithetical to the masculine working‐class habitus. This antipathy is manifest in a reluctance to engage in emotional labour and appear deferential in the service encounter and in the rejection of many forms of low‐skilled service work as a future source of employment.