“‘No Tough Guys Here?’: Hybrid Masculinity in a Boxing Gym”

Abstract

In this article, I explore manifest and latent discourses about masculinity in a predominantly white, middle class boxing gym. In this gym, the owner and coaches promote a discourse that emphasizes love, bridgework, and sparring with care. This discourse is part of the gym’s white-collar boxing culture. A key part of this discourse is distancing themselves from other gyms, claiming they promote a violent masculinity. While on the surface the gym criticizes certain ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity, it still reproduces discourses, norms, and practices associated with it. Employees use a latent discourse that constructs a hybrid masculinity. I argue that employees and members construct a hybrid masculinity by perpetuating ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity.

Keywords

hybrid masculinities white-collar boxing

Introduction

On a cool fall day, I arrived at Life Gym, a small privately-owned gym in an up-and-coming neighborhood in the Northeast United States. Not knowing what to expect, I entered the tall brown church that houses the gym. I could hear jump ropes hitting the floor, heavy bags shaking, and people talking. In the basement, I entered the room where class was taking place. I saw members wrapping their hands, talking in groups of three or four, stretching, and unpacking their gear—all activities you would expect to find in a predominantly masculine space like a boxing gym.

This gym was an example of the post-industrial white-collar boxing phenomena, where professional-class men sought out boxing training (Berg, Linden, and Schultz 2020; Satterlund 2012; Trimbur 2013). However, I soon learned that instead of promoting a traditional, physical masculinity, they advocated a different view. This perspective, colloquially referred to as “the philosophy,” emphasized love, caring, stoicism, discipline, safety, and personal growth.

There would often be sayings written on large chalk boards as part of the gym’s appeal to a white middle-class clientele. These quotes were meant to remind the clientele of the philosophy. For example, when I entered the gym one night for class, the following quote was written on the chalk board: “Show me your company and I’ll show you who you are.” This blending of Eastern philosophy, stoicism, martial arts, and spirituality come from Peter, the owner of Life Gym. For Peter, the gym is more than a business. In an interview he told me: “I think that this is a discipline; this is a way of life.”

Discipline is central to this white-collar boxing culture, particularly when it comes to managing emotions (Abelson 2019; Dortants and Knoppers 2013; Wacquant 1995, 2004). Boxers and members who subjected themselves to the disciplinary regime of this gym acquired what Wacquant (1995) calls pugilistic capital, “a set of abilities and tendencies liable to produce value in the field of professional boxing in the form of recognition, titles, and income streams” (1995, 67). In Life Gym, this localized pugilistic capital was both philosophical and technical. Proficiency in both areas helped them become insiders and, in some cases, ascend the Life Gym hierarchy.

As I spent time here, I saw the philosophy’s prominence in boxing classes, personal training sessions, sparring sessions, and fights. The owner, coaches, and instructors framed boxing as a moral practice geared towards self-development and criticized those who used it to prove their masculinity or release aggression. They also encouraged fighters to remain stoic in the face of adverse and unpleasant situations, and to be good people inside and outside of the gym (i.e., work, school, and home). Framing difficulty and failures as opportunities for growth are important features of organizations, particularly those that transmit spiritual principles (Johnston 2017). Peter would often say “this stuff has real life applications too,” implying that by embracing the philosophy and boxing in the gym, one could improve their life outside of the gym. For example, one day, after completing a personal training session, Peter said to me:

Life is all about your willingness to get hit and how will you be when you are hit? Will you lose yourself? Will you crumble? Will you be like ‘ooh I got hit I don’t like how that feels’? Or will you just deal with the pain, deal with the shit, and just keep going?

While this discourse seems progressive and inclusionary, it masks the latent discourse that perpetuates the very norms, practices, and discourses that the gym criticized. For example, some coaches felt their boxing style was superior to others in the gym, so they discouraged boxers and members from training with certain coaches. During one of our personal training sessions, one of the trainers, Karl, told one of the younger boxers to “stay away from those boys.” He was referring to a group of boxers and instructors that sparred on Saturday mornings.

The disjunction between these discourses is indicative of a hybrid masculinity. Hybrid masculinities refer to the strategic incorporation and appropriation of marginalized masculinities and femininities into one’s self presentation (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). These masculinities seem progressive on the surface, yet they mask existing inequalities. Despite the use of principles to encourage a more progressive masculinity at Life Gym, overall, the gym constructs a hybrid masculinity by perpetuating ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity such as avoiding female partners, verbal abuse, and competition to be the alpha male in the gym (Matthews 2014, 2016; Sheard and Dunning 1973). For the participants at Life Gym, this results in a disjunction between the contextual masculinity this gym espouses and the ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity. It is important note that hegemonic masculinities are local, regional, and global (Messerschmidt 2018). These levels are interrelated and each exerts influence on the others (Messerschmidt 2018). Messerschmidt (2018, 53) states:

Global hegemonic masculinities pressure regional and local hegemonic masculinities; regional hegemonic masculinities provide cultural materials adopted or reworked in global arenas, and provide models of masculinity that may be important in local gender dynamics.

Borrowing from Bridges and Pascoe (2014) and Wacquant (2004), I unpack how these two conflicting discourses are embedded in Life Gym’s white-collar boxing culture and I demonstrate how it reproduces hierarchies among men and women. I ask, why do discourses that challenge and perpetuate certain practices and ideals associated with hegemonic masculinity in many contexts exist in the same space? Drawing on the case study of Life Gym, I investigate the dynamics that allow two competing discourses to co-exist. I see the manifest discourse as the one that promotes boxing as a moral undertaking and the latent discourse as the one where trainers compete, men avoid female partners, and coaches berate boxers. These manifest and latent discourses create a disjunction between what the gym professes and what it does. Although there were behaviors in keeping with the manifest discourse, they did not exist in isolation from the very behaviors that the gym derided, resulting in the construction of a hybrid masculinity. To be clear, I am referring to a form of hegemonic masculinity associated with the United States that prioritizes self-sufficiency, independence, dominance, and strength.

In this paper, I analyze this disjuncture and I discuss how it influences practices in the gym but fails to disrupt gender norms that reinforce inequality. The owner, coaches, instructors, and members attempt to discursively distance themselves from other gyms. However, this masked the way this gym perpetuated inequalities among men and women and between men (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). Overall, this paper contributes to the growing scholarship on the ways in which seemingly progressive masculinities often reproduce hierarchies among men and between men and women, despite best intentions (Bridges and Pascoe 2014).

In the following sections, I outline the key principles and practices that the gym uses to discursively distance itself from other gyms, specifically sparring with care, bridgework, and love. I then analyze how the gym’s manifest and latent discourses created hierarchies and inequalities between men as well as between men and women. I conclude by discussing how this work expands current research that explores the tenacity of hybrid masculinities. I start with a discussion of masculinity, followed by the male preserve, and combat sports as connection and practice.

Masculinities

Gender is socially constructed and policed (Kane 2006; Messner 2000; Martin 2009; Sabo 1980). Enactments of masculinity and femininity are assessed based on their conformity to hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. Enactments of masculinity can also vary based on context, life events, and space (Abelson 2019). Hegemonic masculinity refers to the “culturally exalted” form of masculinity (Connell 1987), and it is the standard against which all other gendered identities and self-presentations are measured. It perpetuates and sustains masculine domination through the subjugation of other masculinities and femininity (Bourdieu 2001; Connell 1987, 2005). As Connell states “hegemonic masculinity is always constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities as well as in relation to women” (Connell 1987, 183). Some have argued that the concept of hegemonic masculinity has significant limitations (Demetriou 2001; Donaldson 1993 Martin 1998; Moller 2007; Whitehead 1998). For example, Demetriou (2001) argues that hegemonic masculinity is not a monolith, but is a dynamic social construction consisting of aspects from other masculinities. Borrowing from Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, he offers an alternative concept, referred to as the masculine bloc. The masculine bloc consists of a collection of strategies and practices that maintain gendered hierarchies. Moller (2007) argues that the concept of hegemonic masculinity is deterministic and it oversimplifies the range of practices, narratives, and emotions involved in hegemonic masculinity. Given these criticisms, Connell and Messerschmidtt (2005) respond that the concept of hegemonic masculinity should be reformulated to consider the agency of marginalized groups, geographical context, and an expanded conception of embodiment, hierarchy, and privilege. One form of hegemonic white male masculinity in contemporary United States often draws on physical domination and strength in its manifestation.

Organizations, like subcultures, can also shape masculinity (Britton 2000; Britton and Logan 2008), creating contextual masculinities (Britton and Logan 2008; Dellinger 2004; Ely and Meyerson 2013). For example, in her comparison of feminist and pornographic magazine companies, Dellinger (2004) demonstrates that organizational context and culture shape the expressions of masculinity. In her study of male accountants who worked for pornographic and feminist magazines, she finds that men strategically deploy masculinity based on the type of organization they worked for. Those who worked in organizations at feminist magazines distanced themselves from feminism and criticized the magazines coverage of gender inequality. At the pornographic magazine company, men attempted to differentiate themselves from the average readers of the magazine. Similarly, Barber (2008, 2016b) explores how salons are spaces that reproduce gender, racial, and class privilege (Barber 2016a, 2016b). She demonstrates how beauty work is appropriated and incorporated into the gender identities of white professional class men. The brand of these salons requires female workers to perform aesthetic and emotional labor in ways that legitimize gendered hierarchies (Barber 2016b).

Whereas some contexts exacerbated localized hegemonic masculinities, others were a site for the remaking of it by deemphasizing macho behavior. For example, Ely and Meyerson (2013) demonstrated that work practices and norms disrupted conventional masculine practices in their study of two offshore oil platforms. They found that the transformation of workplace habits to address safety concerns outlawed masculine behaviors such as practical jokes, fighting, and horseplay. I draw on this literature to analyze how the gym as a setting constructs a masculine identity.

Scholars note that not all subcultures and contexts construct hegemonic masculinities, and identify the incorporation and appropriation of marginalized masculinities and femininity into self-presentations (Atkinson 2011; Bridges 2013; Bridges and Pascoe 2014). Bridges and Pascoe (2014) refer to this phenomenon as hybrid masculinities.They argue that hybrid masculinities try to distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity, borrow elements of marginalized masculinities, and reproduce symbolic boundaries and hierarchies of power. Other scholars have found that some men sow together elements of marginalized and progressive masculinities with hegemonic masculinities that are neither too aggressive or too passive (Abelson 2019; Matthews 2014). Researchers use this concept to explore the complex, dynamic, and fluid nature of masculinities. However, scholars have differed in their assessment of the consequences, with some predicting the decline of gender inequality and others arguing that gender inequality is perpetuated (Anderson 2009; Brides and Pascoe 2014; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005).

Despite the emergence of these masculinities that appear progressive and egalitarian, they still mask and perpetuate inequalities between men as well as between men and women (Bridges 2013; Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Fefferman and Upadhyay 2018; Schmitz and Haltom 2017). In addition, researchers have found that men’s dress decisions depended on the social context and setting (Barry 2018; Barry and Weiner 2019). For example, some men avoided feminine dress in settings and situations where they would experience discrimination (Barry 2018; Barry and Weiner 2019). In sum, gender scholars conceptualize masculinity as differing based on different contexts, including different subcultural contexts, and accepting of certain practices and ideals associated with hegemonic masculinity to different degrees. Masculinity can at times be reconfigured. The male preserve is one arena where this occurs.

The Male Preserve

Sheard and Dunning (1973) introduced the concept of the male preserve in their study of the British Rugby Football Club. They found that the club was a space where working and middle-class men could engage in behaviors and discourses that reinforced hegemonic conceptions of masculinity and the patriarchal order. A key feature of the male preserve is the exclusion of women and expressions of macho behavior. However, scholars have argued that this concept needed to be modified considering historical and subcultural contexts (Atkinson 2011; de Garris 2000; Downing 2010; Dunning 2008; Mathews 2014). For example, Dunning (1986) discusses how the “decline of macho subculture” and an overall “civilizing process” contributed to a changing of the climate in sports such as rugby (Elias 1978). He situates his analysis of the male preserve in earlier sports where the “violent masculine style” was more unrestrained. He argues these norms have been abandoned for more conventional means of expression.

However, Matthews (2016) illustrated that the male preserve is still a useful concept to understand spaces that symbolically perpetuate and reproduce gender inequality. In his study of a boxing gym in the United Kingdom, he finds that problematic narratives about masculinity and violence embedded in the discourses, narratives, rhetoric, and imagery in the gym. Fulton (2019) also finds that boxing gyms became safe spaces to construct a localized hegemonic masculinity after deindustrialization left many working class men unemployed. Research on hybrid masculinities highlight the significant role that discourse and space play in perpetuating hegemonic masculinity (Matthews 2014, 2016). I draw on this literature to examine how Life Gym’s critique of a localized hegemonic masculinity associated with the United States. This masculinity emphasizes independence, dominance, strength, and self-sufficiency and contrasts with discourses that frame boxing as a method of self-improvement.

Combat Sports as Practice, Discourse, and Connection

Discourses are wide-ranging and central to analyses of boxing and other combat sport gyms (Cooley 2010; Paradis 2012; Matthews 2014; Sacha 2017; Trimbur 2008, 2013). The body is also a significant unit of analysis as it is crafted and disciplined (Dortants and Knoppers 2013; Paradis 2012; Wacquant 1995, 2004). Wacquant (2004, 2005, 442) explores the “bodily craft and its practical logics.” He argues that boxing is more than sport; it is a craft that functions as a way of seeing and interacting with the world. He addresses aspects of boxing such as its ascetic, disciplinary lifestyle, and the exploitative nature of prizefighting (Wacquant 1995, 2001, 2004).

Sociologists have also studied other combat sports including Aikido, Wing Chun (a form of martial arts that emphasizes quick blows and close combat), Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and Capoeira (a form of martial arts that emphasizes dance and acrobatics) addressing the transformation of the body through learning new norms (Delamont and Stephens; Foster 2015; Jennings, Brown, and Sparkes 2010; Spencer 2009). For example, Jennings, Brown, and Sparkes (2010) construct the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun as a “secular religious practice” and suggest that it can take on a specifically “sacralized meaning” for its participants.

Discourses also play a key role in how gyms construct their identity and prepare their patrons for experiences outside of the gym. For example, Delamont and Stephens (2008) examine how Capoeira instructors use contrastive discourses as pedagogical tools in their gyms. They highlight the differences between the way the combat sport is taught and practiced in the United Kingdom compared to Brazil. This contrastive identity construction was a key part of how the owner and trainers differentiated themselves from other gyms and built community within their own gym. Similarly, Dortant and Knoppers (2013) illustrate how discipline shapes how boxers navigate life inside and outside of the gym.

While these discourses can serve as tools for clientele, they are also gendered, racialized, and classed. Some gyms reproduce patriarchal discourses despite their efforts to appear inclusive (Matthews 2014, 2016; Nash 2015; Paradis 2012). In his analysis of Power Gym, Matthews (2014) finds that members often used discourses that invoked “natural differences” to justify sexist beliefs and the exclusionary nature of the gym they patronized. In other cases, boxing as can serve as racialized nostalgia by harnessing white grievances (Cooley 2010). Real and fictional bouts have provided important resources for white men to enact nostalgic racialized masculinity as fictional and real white fighters become embody white racial grievances (Cooley 2010; Rhodes 2011).

Discourses are also central to the mentoring relationships, particularly as they pertain to black men. Sociologists have documented that ways that “old heads” can provide a moral foundation for youth (Anderson 1999; Brooks 2009; Young 2007). The same is true for the relationship between coaches and boxers (Sacha 2017; Trimbur 2011, 2013). Central to these discourses are a tension between the gym, the street, race, and racial inequality. This places coaches in a position where they must navigate these four phenomena as they coach for life inside and outside of the ring. Some coaches deploy a discourse that simultaneously captures a focus on institutional racism and the more damaging individualistic explanations for inequality and outcomes (Trimbur 2011, 2013). Others infuse their training with emotion work to help boxers navigate life inside and outside of the gym (Sacha 2017). While these studies highlight youth mentorship, Life Gym displays a dynamic where youth and adults alike are mentored by coaches and trainers younger, older, and the same age as them.

Scholars have also explored the “extra-pugilistic functions” gyms serve in non-white and working-class neighborhoods. These gyms serve as an alternative and protective barrier to the street and source of mentorship (Beauchez 2018; Sacha 2017; Trimbur 2011; Wacquant 2004). The recent literature has emerged on the phenomenon of white-collar boxing, which became prominent during the 1980s (Trimbur 2011; Wright 2019). These gyms cater to a mostly middle-class clientele as a leisure activity, opportunity to learn self-defense, and status symbol (Berg, Linden, and Schultz 2020; Ribiero 2017; Satterrlund 2012; Trimbur 2013).

In sum, boxing, as a combat sport, can serve as a form of spiritual-like practice, connection and agency, allowing for a more dimensional portrayal beyond violent masculinity. In Life Gym, discourse and the body are central to the training and identity building of the gym. Like the gym I studied, in these combat sport settings, individuals are doing work on their bodies and themselves. It is too simplistic to assume they are just acquiring a skill used to inflict violence. In each of these studies is an example of how the people doing combat sports negotiate these spaces and discourses. Within this boxing gym, discourses that uphold ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity comes into conflict with conceptions of boxing as a source of connection, practice and a different kind of masculinity. In the following sections, I will unpack how Life Gym differentiates itself from other gyms and how the manifest discourse it uses masks the perpetuation of inequalities between men as well as between men and women.

Data and Methods

This research draws on two years of data collected from a boxing gym in a Northeastern city, using participant observation to explore the dynamics of masculinity at play within this boxing subculture. During this research, I participated in every facet of gym life. I took classes, engaged in personal training sessions, sparred, competed, helped coach, and eventually taught my own class. The embodied experience of participating in each facet of gym life helped me to get a sense of this community and its philosophies.

The data collected include interview transcripts and observational field notes. I conducted 22 interviews, each ranging from 35 minures to 60 minutes. During and after each boxing class and training session, I recorded detailed field notes. I jotted down additional field notes in between sessions, during breaks in between rounds, and after the sessions. I transcribed them immediately after training sessions. These notes included quotes from the owner, general manager, coaches, instructors, boxers, and gym members. They also include general observations about the gym, its sessions, and its members. Pseudonyms were used in fieldnotes and interview transcripts to protect the confidentiality and privacy of participants.

I read interview transcripts several times and uploaded them into Atlas ti. Data analysis software where I coded the interview text and organized it into several categories. Overall, 18 themes emerged, for this study; I condensed into these into five relevant codes. Relevant codes emerged when members mentioned using what they learned in the gym outside the gym (application), the gym’s framing of boxing and life (philosophy), the gym’s criticism of other gyms and macho behavior (critique), connection of boxing to love (love), and working with male and female partners (gender). These five codes capture the disjunction in the discourses at Life Gym.

Social position influences interview and field dynamics. The significance of positionality and reflexivity is well documented (Benz 2014; Brown-Saracino 2014; May 2014; Meadow 2013; Reyes 2020; Robertson 2002; Woodward 2008). Recognizing that I occupied a particular identity as a black man, a graduate student, and an outsider, I developed a toolkit (Reyes 2020). That is, I had a collection of strategies that I used to gain access and navigate this setting. I frequently attended community events such as church fundraisers, fights, going away parties, and fight viewings.

I also booked personal training sessions with the owner and longtime trainers. These trainers would use these sessions to discuss their philosophies about boxing and life. I learned key buzz words such as Aequinimitas, Irimi, Connection, Ridgepole, Play, Love, and Pulse. These became important “invisible tools” that I used to navigate the field (Reyes 2020). This helped me to develop philosophically and technically to the point where I was told I resembled Karl and Josh on multiple occasions. In the same way that Wacquant became one of Dee Dee’s boys, I became one of Peter’s boys.

Setting

Life Gym is a small, privately owned gym located in an up-and-coming middle-class neighborhood. The gym occupies the basement and top floor of an almost 200-year-old church. Its clientele includes approximately 200 members, and its employees include nine trainers, a general manager, and the owner. Gym members are predominantly white and middle-class, aging from 18 years to 70 years. The gym holds nightly and morning boxing classes, MMA classes three times a week, weekly Muay Thai (that uses fists, elbows, chins, and knees) classes, weekly Wrestling classes, weekly specialty classes (i.e., cross fit, kettle bell classes, women’s self-defense, and youth boxing), and daily personal training sessions. Those who attend boxing classes are anywhere from 18 years to 70 years old. Members age 18 years to 30 years usually compete at the amateur level in boxing and MMA tournaments.

Members that actively box take classes, book personal training sessions, attend sparring classes and sessions, and compete in the regional Golden Gloves competition. Boxing classes occur Monday through Friday nights and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. Sparring classes were available Tuesday and Thursday nights, and open sparring occurred on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. The Golden Gloves Competitions take place annually between January and April several miles from the gym.

Gym hierarchy

The hierarchy of Life Gym proceeds as follows: owner, general manager, coaches, instructors, fighters, and members. I use pseudonyms to protect the confidentiality of participants. Key to the hierarchy is Peter, the owner, a six-foot-tall white man with blonde hair who has owned the gym since the early 1990s and has a background in martial arts, including Aikido. He describes the gym as a community and a spiritual place. He is very sociable and has good rapport with most members and workers. He teaches the popular Thursday evening boxing class. Coaches and instructors oftentimes participate in this class also. His class usually ends with a circle where the class does a collective workout. After the workout, Peter will talk about boxing and life and ask members what they want to work on. Peter is the person who provides much of the love and connection philosophy of the gym. The general manager, Martin, is a five-foot four-inch white man with a stocky build. He is a professional power lifter and he trains other members on powerlifting. He occupies the top office, and oversees membership and training. He teaches the morning and evening kettle bell classes and holds several weightlifting and personal training sessions. Along with Martin, there are about three different coaches and four instructors in the gym. Coaches teach classes and hold personal training sessions. Instructors just teach classes, usually once a week. Some coaches and instructors claim they grew up in the gym after spending years there. Karl, a coach, has been in the gym since he was a young boy, He is a five-foot nine-inch Latino man. He confesses that the gym saved him and helped to mold who he is today. He considers Peter a mentor and father figure. He teaches the Tuesday morning and night classes, and Thursday and Saturday morning classes. He also teaches a sparring class and does several personal training sessions with members throughout the day. Jim, a coach, has been at the gym for a decade. He is a six-foot, one-inch thin white man with red hair and beard. He teaches Wednesday and Friday night boxing classes. His class focuses on the technical aspects of boxing, particularly good form. He holds sparring classes on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. He also managed competitive fighting in the gym. He was released from the gym during this project. Nick, a coach, is a five-foot, one-inch white man with blonde hair. He has been at the gym about eight years. He is known for his powerful punches when he spars. He succeeded Jim as the competitive boxing coach. He focuses on inside fighting and technical craft like Jim. They were both close and trained together often. Daniel, an instructor, is a five-foot, five-inch white man with black hair. He was at the gym for about 5 years. He had military experience and used his experience to teach classes. He competitively fought for the gym in the Golden Gloves and was promoted during Karl’s brief hiatus from the gym. Nancy is a five-foot, seven-inch white female instructor. She taught Monday night classes and had a kind demeanor. Like Karl, she grew up in the gym and has been here for several decades. She trained for the Golden Gloves but was not able to fight because she did not have an opponent. One form of hegemonic white male masculinity in contemporary United States often draws on physical domination and strength in its manifestation. Mark is a six-foot, four-inch white male. He is the MMA coach. He has a joking personality and is well liked among the patrons. Sometimes he will participate in boxing class and the owner will have him integrate an MMA lesson into class. He has been a state MMA champion for several years. The structure of the gym hierarchy leads to coaches, instructors, and advanced members mentoring new recruits and helping them develop. It is in this context, that I examine the disjuncture and constructing of masculinity discourses.

Disjuncture and the Construction of Competing Masculinity Discourses

The tension between the manifest and latent discourses was common throughout my observations, field notes, and interviews at the gym, revealing a hybrid masculinity that promoted love and criticized certain practices and ideals associated with American hegemonic masculinity. However, the gym perpetuated the very norms, practices and discourses it criticized.

One is the philosophy emphasized by Peter that sees boxing as a form of connection and practice. This discourse is shaped by three elements promoted in the gym for the boxers: love, sparring with care, and bridgework. This discourse is a way the gym brands itself as distinct from the brutality practiced in other gyms. However, it is also used as a selling point to a middle class clientele As a result, a hybrid masculinity emerged in Life Gym’s white-collar boxing culture. The philosophy of love and connection masks the way certain discourses, norms, and practices perpetuate hierarchies among men as well as between men and women. In the following sections, I will explore the gym’s philosophy and criticism of other gyms. Borrowing from Bridges and Pascoe (2014) and Wacquant (2004), I show how management and members’ attempts to use discursive distancing masks the existence of practices and narratives that contradicted the very norms the gyms tried to promote.

The Manifest Discourse

One of the first things I noticed when I entered the 200-year-old church that housed the gym, were the quotes written on the wall in the stairwell. Peter, the owner, later told me that the quotes came from the Greek philosopher Epictetus. As I entered the basement, I heard gloves hitting mitts and punching bags, jump ropes slapping the floor, and conversations between members. When I entered the room where boxing class took place, I saw members of different ages punching, wrapping their hands, stretching, grabbing gear from their bags, and jumping rope. Peter, the owner, greeted me. He was preparing to teach his Thursday night boxing class and was wearing a red shirt with the gym logo a pair of boxing gloves on it. The back of his shirt read “AMORI VINCIT TIMOREM,” which translates to “love conquers fear.” The owner, coaches, fighters, and members frequently referenced this quote and love when talking about boxing and masculinity. For example, Peter frequently tells his staff and his fighters that he loves them. One of the boxing instructors, Daniel, ends class saying, “I love you all.” The guiding principles of the gym revolve around love, kindness, and civility while deemphasizing macho behavior. These notions are at the center of the gym’s criticism of other gyms and the way the conduct themselves at the annual Golden Gloves competition. For example, Daniel, a white male instructor in his 20s states:

I don’t think we need to be (pause). It’s more about if you want to compete in the Golden Gloves. There’s other places you can go and fight I don’t like the Golden Gloves. It’s good for our gym to show what type of people we are. How we fight, but I think there’s a lot of posing and a lot of machoness and its. . .(pause) not what our gym is about. We can still box and be cool. We still all like each other. You might get your nose broken, two black eyes, you slap that guy up and you’re happy to see him. If you go to the Golden Gloves everybody is walking around like they want to kill each other. It takes the fun away from it. It’s kinda boring to me, I guess.

Here, Daniel criticizes how other gyms display macho tendencies and highlights how Life Gym fighters conduct themselves with dignity. Criticisms like this were a frequent way that members and management engaged in discursive distancing. They used the manifest discourse (the philosophy of love and connection) to not only frame the gym but also judge other gyms for focusing on the wrong things. The philosophy of love and connection and the style of boxing are bridged by drawing on a boxing style that incorporates martial arts. This incorporates sparring with care and showing consideration for the development and safety of your partner. The management and members would often discursively distance Life Gym by highlighting the disregard for safety other gyms showed. For example, later in our interview, Daniel says:

These philosophies, these Eastern Philosophies, stoic philosophies, were developed to create or train a better caliber of man, of human of people. And so (pause) with that better caliber, it’s to build and foster this community of people. And it’s the same thing with the gym. We have a very tight knit community because people love each other. You get there, people know your name and they’re not going to make too big a deal about the name. They know you more personally than your name. They know how you connect with them when you’re holding focus mitts when you’re hitting, the few people that you spar with. So, through that interaction we’ve created this very tight knit community of good people because so many of the people that live at Life Gym are good people. So, it just makes a much stronger community.

This idea of fostering a better caliber of man addresses the notion of self-development and self-improvement. This process leads to the accumulation of what Wacquant (2004) calls pugilistic capital, which is cultivated through the training process. This capital is used to ascend the hierarchy of Life Gym. Some members and boxers who displayed technical and philosophical proficiency became instructors, trainers, and managers. In fact, Daniel participated in boxing classes as a student, participated in sparring to prepare for the golden gloves and eventually fought. Two years after his fight, he became an instructor, taught his own sparring class, and became a member of gym management.

Love

As noted, Peter is key to spreading that philosophy. In an interview he stated, “You know, I always say whoever loves the most, wins. Some people think that’s nice and touchy-feely granola, you know, whoever loves the most wins. . .but I think that it is true whoever loves the most wins.” Nancy, a boxing instructor in her 30s, echoes Peter’s sentiment. She remarked, “I think one of the things that Peter has said is ‘whoever loves the most, wins’. . . . So he teaches us to love people. . .so even if we’re defending ourselves and practicing our boxing, we’re not doing it in a malicious way.” Like BGC, Life Gym has males and females box recreationally and at the competitive level (Dortants and Knoppers 2013). The discourses associated with masculinity in this gym shaped how women perceived and navigated the world, much as they did with men.

Daniel, confirmed that philosophy:

At Life Gym when you’re taught to operate out of this place of love, compassion, and being prepared, and not operating with an aggressive intent, you really are having—a in-depth level. You get to know them [the other boxer] on a very personal level, on a spiritual level, because there’s nowhere to run. . .you don’t have malicious intent for each other, so you don’t. . . . You’re just getting to know each other in a physical way.

Here Daniel identifies a key assumption of the gym: when you fight from a place of love, you and your partner benefit. It also implies that at other gyms there is too much emphasis on the violent masculine style (Dunning 1986). This is one example of how gym instructors, coaches and owners do a different masculinity by distinguishing Life Gym from other gyms. The instructors and Peter believe that teaching will be ineffective in an environment where boxers feel they must be the toughest person in the gym. Instead of the ring being a proving ground, Peter and the coaches attempt to create a safe space for learning.

Coaches and the owner encourage and police these norms. For example, one night before training for the Golden Gloves began, the head coach, Josh, a white male coach in his 30s, told five prospective fighters “No Tough Guys Here!” He handed out papers to each of them at the end of the first training session, which outlined how he expected them to conduct themselves. He said:

If we win, I don’t want to see any posing or shouting or throwing your hands in the air. Just go over to the other corner, shake your opponent’s and coach’s hand and get out of the ring. During training no teeing off or posturing. If I see that, you’re out. No tough guys here.

Overall, gym members are encouraged to resist macho presentations of self. Idealized masculinity in this context is not associated with bragging, posturing, or excessive violence. Instead, masculinity in the gym is associated with love, nonviolence, and safety.

Sparring with Care

When boxers place more emphasis on helping their partners rather than physically beating them, they are sparring with care. Trainers and advanced members use this practice when they spar with less experienced members and beginners. This is not to say that boxers do not hit hard or always go easy on members, but they do not intentionally try to harm their partner or use them to better their boxing at the expense of safety. As Hoffman (2013, 340) argues, “sparring is at best a collaborative simulation where human agents maintain a perceived realism to help each other prepare for difficult tasks such as a competition.”

Sparring with care assumes that the boxers are self-monitoring as they work with their partners. Throughout the gym, there are numerous reminders to self-monitor. The gym was known for its disciplinary regimes designed to engage boxers on a technical and philosophical level. Like the disciplinary regime, Wacquant (1995, 2004) describes, there are routines, rules, and expectations. Where this gym differs is that there is emphasis on spiritual development as well as physical development. For example, in multiple spots in the gym, there are ying/yang signs and signs that say “Love > Fear.” At the top of the stairs, a long quote reads:

Watch your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, watch your words, your words become your actions, watch your actions your actions become your habits, watch your habits your habits become your character, watch your character, your character becomes your destiny.

Related to sparring with care is the concept of Aequinimitas, which the instructors and the owner use when promoting self-monitoring. Aequinimitas, which comes from the title of an essay by Sir William Osler to new doctors in 1889, refers to maintaining a sense of balance or calm in an adverse situation. If a member takes a hard hit and does not become overly aggressive, this can also translate into everyday practice when dealing with adverse situations. Peter will often advise boxers in one-on-one sessions to think about “How do you maintain your sense of Aequinimitas when you are faced with situations that are unpleasant in life?” Boxers are also expected to conduct themselves this way outside the gym as well.

Bridgework

Aequinimitas relates to the third element—bridgework—which involves being able to translate the gym’s philosophy and fighting style into everyday life. In other words, one must be able to display nonviolence and morality both inside and outside of the ring. Emotional control and stoicism are expected of boxers in the face of trying situations. Like Abelson’s (2019) study, boxers were expected to adjust their enactments based on the situation. In other words, they were supposed to fight yet also be loving and compassionate. Training, specific drills, and sparring are preparation for boxing and non-boxing situations. Trainers and coaches expect boxers to apply the mechanics and principles learned in the gym in their everyday lives. For example, in high-pressure situations inside and outside of the ring, boxers are expected to remain calm. Instructors and coaches will often compare a punch to bad news or failure. The appropriate response would be to parry, slip, weave, bob, etc. Trainers argue that the same savoir-faire that leads to success in the ring can lead to success outside of the ring. Instead of responding angrily to a frustrating situation, you remain calm by applying the philosophical training learned in the gym to other situations. Bridgework is evident in how the work in the gym is encouraged to transition to everyday practice, linking the gym with home and work. These elements of the discourse are essential in how the gym encourages a different masculinity. In an interview, Nancy explains how she uses the philosophy in her everyday life. She said:

So, I actually took a lot of what I learned from Peter and applied it to my life. You know breaking down technique in boxing is very similar to helping someone who’s working with a family and the therapy technique they have to use. And how to walk them step by step how to do it and kind of learn from their mistakes but at the same time trying to be there for them too. You show them let them practice you give them some feedback and then see how they’re able to take it on.

In an interview, Amy, a white female member in her 20s, talked about how she applied the philosophy:

like whenever I’m having a hard time with school, particularly around finals time. Or when I’m like “oh god, I’m so overwhelmed. I just have so much to do.’ The place where my head goes is Aequinimitas. . .whatever Karl says. That applies to everything in your life. I think that’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned at the gym. Because I. . . . I like channel that like I (pause). . . . I channel that all the time with school with boxing kind of training. When you think you’re down and out and you can’t go any farther you gotta reach for it and it always works out in the end.

In the gym, bridgework played out in the following ways: (a) as a pedagogical tool, (b) as narratives of personal use, and (c) as narratives of past students. When bridgework is used as a pedagogical tool, instructors argue that there is a link between boxing and everyday life. Narratives of personal use were used to illustrate examples where boxers applied the principles of Life Gym in their everyday lives. Narratives of past students were used to illustrate how the techniques and principles of the gym have been applied outside the ring successfully. For example, one day during a training session with me, Karl talked about evading an attack and compared it to adverse circumstances in life. He had a sword, walked towards me with it, and told me to pivot out of the way. He then said: “Do you see how you were able to move off of the line of attack here? In life there are always going to be things coming at you, so you need to move off of the line of attack and still maintain your sense of calm.” Here Karl frames appropriate conduct in gym principles rather than toughness. Boxers use narratives to illustrate how they see situations in the ring and in everyday life with the same set of eyes and respond accordingly. This type of bridgework was mentioned frequently in interviews with the boxers.

Another type of bridgework that takes place is the use of narratives of past members to illustrate and their growth over time. Oftentimes, Peter, instructors, and longtime members reference past members who changed after spending time training. They usually reference stories with lessons, and they use these stories whether about a past member, current member, or their lives as a pedagogical tool. These stories are like parables with a lesson at the end. For example, Peter told the following story after our personal training session:

I had one guy who said I used to do kickboxing as a kid up until college and was always rather aggressive. And he became pretty successful when he did boxing with me. He was always trying to tear my head off. He [the guy] goes, “When I first came in here when I was sparring with you, I was trying to hurt you.” And he said I couldn’t put a hand on you and when you invited me to put my feet on you it was very difficult to hit you and the harder I tried the more sloppy I got, and your face always looked pretty gentle. It was very unsettling to me and after every sparring session you’d say ‘Thank you very much I appreciate it. I appreciate you coming’.” And one day I thought you were fucking with me. I was like “why do you thank me?” and I was like everyone who comes in here and does sessions with me, this is almost sort of a sacred process for me. And I learn something different from each person who interacts with me whether they’re highly skilled or not skilled at all. And they’re like “But I’ve been trying to kick your ass.” So, since you’re a good person I see that goodness in you and I have no right to inflict justice upon you. And he told me “Thank you, because my secretaries, my people around me have told me in the office in the past several months I’ve been a much nicer person. I’ve been a much kinder person. I’m not so cutthroat. I don’t always have to win all the time. I couldn’t figure out what it was and it suddenly just hit me while I was having a cup of coffee one morning—it was all the stuff I hear you talk about.”

In this story, Peter illustrates that a person who displayed this macho behavior learned other principles and applied them in his life. Peter and the trainers who had previous experience at boxing gyms noted that emphasis on personal growth was a key feature that distinguished Life Gym from other gyms. They expressed the desire to train in a place where they were free to develop without having to prove their toughness. For example, Daniel stated,

At different boxing gyms you’re taught to operate out of a place of fear, so they cover up and be careful and very scared of what’s coming after you, you know? And that affects that social interaction. In that way you’re sparring at that person at a different gym, you’re very much. . .you have an aggressive attitude towards each other and it’s just an awful interaction. It’s not worthwhile. You’re trying to intimidate the other person. It’s just evil.

Trainers and new members emphasize how sparring partners are “fresh meat” at other gyms. They argue that in other gyms fighters are measured based on how tough they are. In this vein, trainers are differentiating themselves from other gyms who they claim employ problematic training practices. Josh, one of the coaches, reiterated that idea. He said, “Yeah man, I’ve been to other gyms where if you’re new they stick you in there with one of the best guys and let you take a beating, just to see if you come back.”

Peter and the coaches at Life Gym claimed that boxing and sparring should take place in an environment where fighters do not have to worry about saving face, confirming Josh’s statement. In other gyms, they related how a newcomer would be intimidated, demoralized for their mistakes, or beaten up on the first day. Daniel also confirmed this sentiment when he talked about the Golden Gloves, the annual regional boxing competition. He said, “Every guy there is trying to show you how ghetto they are or how hard they are. Whatever, and it’s just a bunch of bullshit.” Peter also expressed his disdain for such behaviors. He stated:

Boxing is just an opportunity to experience yourself. And a lot that goes on, not in the ring so much, there’s a lot that transpires outside of boxing that I don’t care for. I don’t care for the posturing. I don’t care for the trash talk. You know, I think Muhammad Ali kinda ushered all of that in and he’s sort of a controversial figure. He was noble and great in some ways, but I think he was cutthroat and not a nice person in some other ways.

In an interview, Karl was also critical of settings that place more emphasis on bragging and posturing than mentoring and teaching. He described his experience at another gym in the following way:

These environments are full of ego, name calling, I’m better than you, trash talking, saying things about mothers and sisters. It’s like hyenas versus lions. At this gym I sparred with a new kid. He was inexperienced, not there long enough to see what he’s doing. The coach told me “Don’t worry about these kids’ safety. Their safety is of no concern to us.” And I thought how selfish? You threw this kid into the fire and believe that’s how you learn. “I want you to hurt this kid.” He told me. I fought to play and protect the kid. The kid became confused and frustrated. I would tap him and move then the coach would yell at him. “You gotta hit him stop being so nice!” On top of being confused and frustrated, the coach is also doing this. I just threw hooks. Everyone stops training and watches like a school fight, and they start talking shit. When someone gets hit, they start saying “oooooooooo”. The kid, he drops his hands and looks at the trainer. He doesn’t know that when someone is throwing an overhand right that’s not best time to look behind you. Most people would knock his lights out. The Peter in me decided to throw right hand and end the strike a half of an inch from his face. I pulled back and came out. Then the coach says, “you’re lucky he’s a nice guy.” I was pissed he put this kid up to it. Now he’s probably gonna go back home and criticize himself. Do I wanna be a guy who knocks out some kid? The next day I met the kid in the hallway. I asked him what was his name and what was he studying? He told me he had a fight in six weeks and had no idea what he was doing. I told him “I wasn’t hitting you hard, I was hitting with love.” I offered him a new start. I wanted to let him know I was connecting with him. Not that you’re worthless, you’re not a fighter. I walked with God.

Karl notes the precarious position he was in when not being at Life Gym yet having to apply its principles. The norms in this gym are antithetical to the philosophy Life Gym teaches. He applied the philosophy by using the moment as a teaching moment for the less experienced fighter. In this instance, he applied the philosophy outside of the gym at another gym by drawing on the discourse of love, connection, and practice. While drawing on this discourse appears to be very progressive in the construction of a masculine identity, there were inconsistencies with how it was practiced. The Life Gym narratives could lead one to conclude that the philosophy of the gym and its critique of behaviors and attitudes associated with American hegemonic masculinity are evidence of a progressive transformation of masculinity. The important notion is that the distance is primarily “discursive” (Bridges and Pascoe 2014). However, these narratives masked the ways the gym perpetuated practices and ideals associated with hegemonic masculinity. Despite a manifest discourse that critiques hypermasculinity, there are still latent discourses that perpetuate and maintain inequality between men but also between men and women (Doan 2010; Matthews 2016). As scholars have noted, there are many hegemonic masculinities that both are relational and differ based on context (Messerschmidt 2019). As I will demonstrate in the following section, alpha status, treatment of female partners, and aggressiveness are just aomw of many practices associated with American hegemonic masculinities that played out this gym (Messerschmidt 2019). I unpack this in the next section.

The Latent Discourse

Much has been written in critical diversity studies about the ways in which manifest discourses mask deeper inequalities and problematic norms (Aptekar 2019; Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Bonilla-Silva 2018; Burke 2011; Embrick 2011; Mayorga-Gallo 2014). As Abelson (2019, 5) states, “[i]nequalities persist under hybrid masculinities because they represent superficial rather than deep changes to contemporary dominating masculinities.” Thus far this paper has highlighted the gym’s manifest discourse about masculinity, boxing, and life. Specifically, how members and managers use the philosophy to distance themselves from other gyms that perpetuate ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity. Fighters and members are encouraged to avoid aggressive behavior and toughness and to embrace love, kindness, and safety. However, this gym is not free from the very norms that critiques. Despite the sincerity of the philosophy, it coexisted with ideals and practices that contradicted it. Members of the gym, overall, constructed a hybrid masculinity that upheld many ideals and practices associated with hegemonic masculinity in the United States. I now examine how the latent discourse, narratives, and practices perpetuate ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity.

Peter and the coaches, trainers, and instructors claimed that Life Gym was distinct from other gyms because boxers are not castigated and mocked for mistakes. However, during a training session for the Golden Gloves regional competition, one of the assistant coaches began to yell and deride fighters. During a one-hour training session on a Saturday morning, he berated fighters yelling “Get your head in the game!,” “What are you doing?!!,” “You’re not gonna win looking like that!,” and “Let’s go!” This behavior was discouraged and criticized by Peter and other coaches, yet it still took place in the gym, while training fighters who were public ambassadors of the philosophy.

Some female boxers also had problematic experiences when partnering with men during sparring or regular boxing class. One common experience was that men assumed the women lacked skill. For example, in an interview, Nancy, noted, “I think as a female I hate when guys feel. . .of course I don’t want them to knock me out, but I don’t want them to hit me like I’m gonna break.”

Jennifer, a white, female gym member in her 20s, echoed this sentiment. She said,

It’s usually men that come in like treat the women like they’re nothing, like they can’t do it. I’m a pretty tough chick, so I always get. . .I always take it very personally when men come in and they’re like you’re a girl you must be bad at boxing.

Jennifer is noting how these assumptions still occur within a space that is supposed to be free from such norms. Jennifer continued:

People like you [refers to me] are never like “you’re girls, you can never do it”. . . . But when the new guys. . .men, come in, I mean I guess I kinda get it. It’s like a social stigma “Oh you’re a woman, you’re weaker. . . . So I feel like. . . . I think of that often when new men come and they’re like “Oh you’re a girl like I don’t wanna spar.”

This hesitance to spar with women was also echoed by one of the male trainers, Josh. He noted, “I don’t like hitting girls, so if I’m working with a girl, I’m letting them hit me. I’m barely touching them.” Jennifer and Josh’s statements illustrate that although the gym seeks to disrupt and challenge conceptions about masculinity, in this space there are still embedded norms that perpetuate gender stereotypes and all their problematic assumptions. In this discourse, women are “girls” who cannot be hit and are not equals in the boxing ring.

In other instances, the focus on Aequinimitas can disappear when there is a competition to win or to be perceived better than someone else. For example, some trainers and instructors competed to be the alpha male in the gym. They tried to lure some members and boxers away from each other. They also used criticism in open class forums. Finally, they gossiped with other gym members about perceived weaknesses of the other’s style. The same trainers who emphasized the importance of a community free from the norms associated with American hegemonic masculinity were competing for who was the best boxer.

The primary front where these conflicts emerged was style. Some trainers felt the way they boxed made them the best in a gym where being the best was not supposed to be a priority. For example, one of the trainers told me that Karl told one of the female boxers in the gym that if she held her hands up to cover her face, she was a coward. Karl then began to mock how she covered and presented a caricature of the traditional boxing cover up stance. This was a slight to Nick and Josh who were more traditional boxers and more actively participated in sparring. However, this was also an embarrassing moment for this boxer. Often Karl would tell me that he did not agree with the way they practiced boxing and encouraged me not to train with them.

In addition, to criticizing Nick and Josh, Karl was also critical of the MMA classes. During an interview he stated:

The way that people are teaching is tedious and sad. Training should be the same. It should be about how you create greatness. There is a split with the MMA fighters. There is no rhythm to their steps. There’s too much planning in MMA. Not enough creative spirit. There are too many forms of self-judgment when a step is missed. They scream out “fuck”! That is a form of aggression that should not be living.

During my time in the gym, I also participated in MMA classes, but did not witness such behavior. This was one of the first references I heard of criticizing another trainer’s fight styles and teaching methods. Many members stated that one of the things that brought them back to the gym was a sense of feeling at home and being part of a community, yet these comments reflect deeper divisions. In the last class Karl taught before his hiatus, he announced that Peter had promoted Daniel. At the end of his class, he stated “He [pointing to Daniel] is the only one other person besides Nancy and I who truly understand what this place is about.” Mark was in the back of the room getting ready for his MMA class and seemed offended by this statement. These comments reflect deeper tensions rooted in possessiveness over students and the right way to practice Life Gym’s principles and fighting in general.

When Karl left on his hiatus, I had the opportunity to spend some more time with Nick and Josh who were also critical of him. When I began to train to fight, I sparred with Nick, who trained me for my fight. My form resembled Karl’s, who was very light on his feet and kept his hands closer to his chest than his head. He was known for having good footwork and dancing around his opponents. During our first session, Nick stopped and said “What the fuck is that?” Keep your hands up.” Being that this was my primary style of fighting at the time, I continuously lowered my hands. He stopped again and told me “I mean it, knock that shit off, hands up.”

Karl returned to the gym shortly after Nick was fired. At this time, I was fairly good at both styles. Josh told me during a training session after my fight “you can’t do both.” During one of his classes, Josh also stated, “I know some people like to fight with their hands down and pulse around but that does not work for everyone. You can get hurt.” This was a criticism of Karl’s style. In an interview Josh, the boxing coach, stated:

Karl was very set on keeping your hands down. . .whereas me and Nick, when we started learning to fight close, you have to keep your hands up. And you can’t always fight from a distance. You have to get close just like in wrestling. You might end up on your back. So. . . . Daniel learned that it’s okay to keep your hands up sometimes. Whereas Karl didn’t believe in it. It just wasn’t his philosophy.

Josh later told me about an incident that happened in his sparring class when one day an up-and-coming fighter in the gym sparred with Karl. According to Josh, after the fighter landed a few good punches, Karl responded with a hard cross to his face which left a bruise. This violates the sparing with care norm. Daniel was also critical of his fellow instructors and coaches. In an interview, Daniel addressed what he felt was a lapse in training in terms of the philosophy.

Same thing happens at Life Gym with instructors if you’re not continually training, if you’re not retraining, believing in the philosophy, training in the philosophy. If you’re not continually doing it, you’re gonna get lackadaisical. You’re gonna get complacent and that stuff is infectious. Once that stuff starts happening its gonna go downhill. Once you stop caring you’re not. . .you’re no longer invested in your classes, you’re no longer invested in your community. And then your members are less invested in the gym especially if you’re the only person they’ve seen.

Daniel’s comments refer to some complacency amongst other instructors, who he felt were moving away from the philosophy and taking on practices antithetical to the gym’s norms. Again, these claims about not living the philosophy were tied to differences in style. Daniel himself was known to take off his headgear and slam it when he became frustrated during sparring.

In each case, these trainers are doing the discursive work of framing themselves as the best and most knowledgeable. Differences across style led to disagreements and led others to train in factions in some cases. This competitive behavior was something gym management criticized and claimed did not happen in the gym. However, in the excerpts given earlier, we see that although there is an effort to disrupt and challenge conceptions about masculinity, there are still masculinity norms embedded in this space. The manifest discourse of love and care obscures these deeper dynamics of sexism, competition, possessiveness, and machismo characteristic of American hegemonic masculinity. Despite attempts to distance the gym, its management, and clientele from ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity, it produced a hybrid masculinity. This hybrid masculinity creates contradictions in the gym’s claim that there are “No tough guys here.”

Conclusion

The analysis presented in this paper demonstrates how two contrasting discourses about masculinity exist in the same space and are part of the fabric of Life Gym’s white-collar boxing culture. Despite the good intentions behind the philosophy, it shared space with ideals and practices that contradicted it. Members of the gym, overall, constructed a hybrid masculinity that reproduced many ideals and practices associated with American hegemonic masculinity. This article adds to the literature on masculinity by illustrating how conflicting discourses about masculinity exist within a setting that brands itself as critical of certain behaviors and attitudes associated with American hegemonic masculinity.

In an ethnography over two years, I examined how boxers, members, coaches, and the owner make sense of the gym’s philosophy and use it to navigate the ring and their everyday lives. Respondents claimed that the philosophy made them feel at home. At Life Gym, premium is placed on love and self-monitoring rather than on machismo and toughness. In classes, personal training sessions, and fight training sessions, coaches would emphasize the relationship between love and boxing while deriding the toughness and machismo present in other gyms. The owner, coaches, and members share this criticism of other gyms and venues that they felt were proving grounds where you were measured by how tough you were. Many felt that training under these circumstances undermined any technical or personal growth.

However, despite these criticisms, Life Gym itself was not immune to the very practices they criticized. Although this criticism is used to differentiate itself from other gyms, it still has practices that promote inequalities between men and women as well as between men. Trainers competed for status, men would not work or spar adequately with female partners, and some trainers berated their fighters. This research confirms what other scholars have noted as the continued existence of hierarches between men as well as between men and women in male preserves through the exclusion of mothers from coaching positions, gender segregation in sport, earnings disparities between professional athletes, and exclusion of women from sports coverage (Cooky and Messner 2018; Cooky, Messner, and Musto 2018; Matthews 2014, 2016; Messner 2000; Musto, Cooky, and Messner 2017)

This paper contributes to the research on masculinity and illustrates how new ways of thinking about masculinity can change lives through love, bridgework, and care. Many members and coaches shared stories of the transformative these principles had on their lives. However, further research is needed to examine the immediate ways philosophies promoted in the gym can affect (and did affect) members’ work lives.

Finally, I demonstrate that boxing and boxing spaces are more than just places to promote masculinity. They can also be sites of conflict where tension exists between a criticism of actions and ideologies associated with American hegemonic masculinity and with perpetuating it. This paper also illustrates that boxing does more than promote a violent form of masculinity; it is in fact a site of symbolic conflict between manifest and latent discourses. I argue that despite the gym’s attempt to distance itself from these problematic behaviors and values, it produces a hybrid masculinity (Bridges and Pascoe 2014; Matthews 2016). The disjunction between what the gym professes and what it does highlights the degree to which gendered norms that reinforce inequality are embedded even in settings that seek to disrupt them. Overall, this paper contributes to the growing scholarship on hybrid masculinities in seemingly progressive spaces (Bridges and Pascoe 2014).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Watoii Rabii

Author Biography

Watoii Rabii is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Oakland University. His current interests are masculinity, urban sociology, race, immigration, and criminology. His research agenda focuses on hybrid masculinities, colorblindness, and criminalization of immigrants and minorities.

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