DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

Mark’s adaptation to this was a masculinised persona. When I asked Mark to describe
the façade he spoke of at work, he used a resoundingly masculine metaphor:
“Um…well I suppose a good description is the big swinging dick. That image of the
city clone who comes in, sounds impressive, seems to know what they are doing,
competent.” (p.15)
So Mark’s façade is an image of masculine potency and virility. Mark reflects on the
inauthenticity of this persona:
“It has taken me all this period, and we are getting on for a decade, to accept that the
status of being a big swinging dick in the city is not what I am about.” (p.9)
Rob said that the management-level of the industry he was in was male-dominated,
and the macho work ethic manifest in “work hard, play hard. Long hours, lots of
flirting, and after work drink and drugs.” (p.21). Both Mark and Rob describe their
masculinised workplace as having a lack of opportunity to be caring, a value which
they later associate with an emerging femininity:
“Just attitudinally – it’s about caring. For some reason I connect with caring, I don’t
know why I am saying that now, but it’s almost like there is a compassion in me that I
didn’t see in others and certainly within that industry.” (Rob, p.12)
“I think that was the part of the problem, that the caring was there but there was no
outlet for it.” (Mark, p.16)
Lilly’s work environment was very male-dominated. There was only one
other woman in the whole sales force, and the rest were men. She found herself with
mostly male friends, doing things that are typically male such as watching rugby and
drinking beer. She had been a tomboy as a teenager, and found it comfortable to hang
around with boys, but this required becoming more masculine in the way she
socialised. Lilly described how she adopted a male style of behaving. She described
how she and her male friends would “slag each other off” and so she would “get a bit
thick skinned”. She found herself “drinking lots of beer, just generally acting a bit
like a bloke, laddish sort of person…I used to go and watch cricket at Lords with the
guys. I still go and watch the rugby.” (p.13). She stated that this was to fit in with her
sales mates, she also said that her masculinisation may have been due to emulating her
father after her parent’s divorce:
“I think it was more to do with the fact that I hero-worshipped my dad. My dad got
the easy end of the whole divorce and stuff, because it seemed not to be hard for him,
but it was hard for mum. So probably I spent time trying to be more like my dad.”
(p.17)
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